Ronald Croen, entrepreneur and founder of Nuance Communications,
is Tufts’ newest Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR). His work with The Gordon Institute’s
Entrepreneurial Leadership Program begins in the first week of August, 2009.
As entrepreneur-in-residence, Mr. Croen will use his experiences from the software
industry to assist the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program (ELP) as it expands and progresses.
As the founder of Nuance Communications, Mr. Croen has extensive knowledge of exactly
what it takes to grow a successful business from innovation to enterprise.
Nuance Communications was first formed in 1994, after research conducted by SRI,
International proved that a commercial opportunity existed to bring speech recognition
technology to the general public. Mr. Croen, who graduated law school at the same time as
personal computers were being introduced, had taken the opportunity to make an early career
switch from lawyer to entrepreneur. He was introduced to the speech recognition opportunity
as a facilitator, one who had the business skills and perspective needed to draft a
business plan, assemble a team, and bring the initial idea to fruition.
Under Mr. Croen’s direction, Nuance became the market leader in over-the-telephone
speech recognition by successfully delivering the best performing applications,
used by real customers on a daily basis.
Nuance was eventually acquired by ScanSoft and the company’s well-known name was
maintained, effectively consolidating the speech recognition market and solidifying
Nuance as the market leader. Following the sale of his first entrepreneurial venture,
Mr. Croen has gone on to coach CEOs, sit on the advisory boards of companies in the
Internet industry (along with the ELP Advisory Board), and take part in angel investing.
By working as Tufts’ EIR, Mr. Croen recognizes that he can “touch a lot more than the
Internet industry.” As he puts it, the entrepreneur-in-residence position will allow
for "spending more time with start-up ventures and revisiting the entrepreneurial
world on a broader basis."
The entrepreneur-in-residence position has been updated since it was first created
last year with Mara Aspinall as EIR, now requiring a 50 percent time commitment during
the course of an academic year. A portion of Mr. Croen’s time both at Tufts and outside
the university will be spent mentoring entrepreneurs, conducting research, writing on
entrepreneurial topics, and speaking both internally and externally to Tufts audiences.
The position also calls for Mr. Croen to teach one of the ELP’s classes, and he chose ELS107,
or Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Mr. Croen considers his experience as a CEO as allowing him to "major"
in leadership, giving him the first-hand experience that he believes will help to
effectively teach students about entrepreneurship and the necessary leadership skills.
While first-hand experience is always useful, Mr. Croen looks forward to the
opportunity to think about and further assess his own leadership styles while
teaching ELS107, which he believes is another way to improve one’s leadership qualities.
As entrepreneur-in-residence, Mr. Croen will focus on bringing real-world experience
and knowledge to Tufts entrepreneurs and students alike. A firm believer in the idea that
"opportunity is a function of change," Mr. Croen will help students and the
Entrepreneurial Leadership Program to adapt to the changing entrepreneurial
environment and capitalize on new opportunities for leadership.
