Mountain View, CA (February 7, 2012) — Singularity University (SU) has announced the appointment of Gabriel Baldinucci, an experienced entrepreneur, investor, and former Virgin Group executive, as Vice President of Strategy and New Venture Development.
Mr. Baldinucci will be responsible for the development and leadership of a new venture, SU Labs, while also working closely with CEO Rob Nail to direct overall strategy for Singularity University. SU Labs will be the center for SU’s work “after the classroom” and will encompass faculty and alumni research, new company generation and incubation, and innovation services for larger companies around the world.
“We are very excited to have Gabriel as a senior member of the Singularity University team. His experience developing new ventures is a perfect fit for SU as we expand our offerings beyond education and into the realm of catalyzing and mentoring projects and companies around the globe to tackle the grand challenges that face humanity,” said Singularity University CEO Rob Nail. “Gabriel also brings a passionate, entrepreneurial spirit that is great to addition to the SU community.”
“Creating, incubating and financing companies able to positively affect the lives of a billion people is an central element of SU’s vision. We call this 10^9+ impact,” Said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder. “This will be Gabriel’s key focus at SU Labs. His previous experience at Virgin is perfect to expand our successes during the past three years and help take this University to scale.”
“This is not going to be a typical incubator”, said Baldinucci. “We are building an innovative platform that will put our new SU companies alongside leading R&D teams from around the world, along with our incredible faculty. We will work across a company’s full life cycle in a way that helps people at different stages bring unique value to each other.” Baldinucci was most recently a Managing Director at Palm Ventures in Greenwich, CT, where he focused on a broad range of industries with an emphasis on consumer services.
Previously, Mr. Baldinucci was a Vice President of Corporate Development at Sir Richard Branson’s’ Virgin Group, where new Virgin companies are developed and launched. During his five years with Virgin, Baldinucci often worked directly with Mr. Branson and conceived and developed new business opportunities in health & wellness, travel, retail, IT services, and media. Prior to joining Virgin, Mr. Baldinucci consulted for several startup companies and also spent two years with Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management Division in New York.
Baldinucci started his entrepreneurial career in high school by founding and successfully selling a local pizza restaurant chain. He has been quoted in Forbes Magazine and his work on entrepreneurship has been published by the Family Office Association. He is personally an investor or advisor for several startup companies and he holds a BA in Economics from Duke University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
About Singularity University
Singularity University’s mission is to assemble, educate, and inspire a new generation of leaders in business, science, finance, and government who strive to understand and utilize exponentially advancing technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges. Founding Partners include Autodesk, Cisco, Google, the Kauffman Foundation, Nokia, and ePlanet Ventures. Since its founding in 2009, SU has hosted students and industry leaders from over 60 countries at its campus at NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, CA.
SU offers both graduate studies and executive programs focused on the impact and incubation of exponentially growing technologies in six key areas: medicine and neuroscience, networks and computing systems, artificial intelligence and robotics, biotechnology and bioinformatics, nanotechnology, and energy and environmental systems.
For more information and participation in SU programs, visit www.singularityu.org