Howard A. Tullman is an American serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, educator, writer, lecturer, and art collector. He is the former executive director of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship at Illinois Tech in Chicago and the first University Professor appointed at IIT. He is the former CEO of 1871, the current General Managing Partner of G2T3V, LLC, and the current General Managing Partner of Chicago High Tech Investment Partners LLC, both early stage venture capital funds based in Chicago.
Early life
Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1945, Tullman was raised in a family of eight. He is the son of an apparel salesman and a stay-at-home mother (who later ran for public office in New Jersey) and the eldest of six siblings.
By age 10, Tullman built a candy racket and a magic performance business in his free time. Tullman and his family moved to Highland Park, Illinois in 1955. Tullman graduated from Highland Park High School in 1963.
Education
Tullman attended Northwestern University for his undergraduate degree, graduating cum laude in 1967 with a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics. He went on to receive his J.D. from Northwestern's School of Law where he graduated with Honors in 1970. During his time at Northwestern, Tullman was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as the Chairman of the Editors of the Law Review. He was selected as a Ford Foundation Fellow and developed, along with James R. Thompson, former Governor of Illinois, a national Ford Foundation program for the study of criminal law. Tullman practiced law from the time he was admitted to the Bar in 1970 until 1980, specializing in large-scale class action cases and Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases. In 1974, he was admitted on special petition to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. He retired from law to found CCC Information Services.
Entrepreneurial career
As of May 2011, Tullman has started 12 companies, including Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, CCC Information Services, Tunes.com, the Rolling Stone Network, Imagination Pilots, Experiencia, and others. Tullman has held senior executive positions at Coin Inc., Worldwide Xceed and Kendall College, where he helped save the school from going into bankruptcy in 2003.
Positions held
Executive Director, Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Illinois Tech CEO, 1871, the Number 1 ranked University-Affiliated Tech Incubator in the World President and CEO, Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy Chairman and CEO, Experiencia President, Kendall College CEO, Worldwide Xceed Group, Inc., a public Chicago-based provider of digital strategy and Internet design services CEO, Tunes.com, an early provider of online digital music and other resources and the developer under his guidance and direction of Rollingstone.com, DownbeatJazz.com and The Source.com CEO, Imagination Pilots, Inc., a multimedia software developer specializing in CD-ROM games and entertainment products for the PC and Macintosh CEO, Eager Enterprises, Inc., a privately held information industry venture capital firm which he founded in Chicago Chairman, Financial Protection Services, a privately held corporation providing computerized information to businesses and consumers Founder and CEO, CCC Information Services Inc. a Software as a Service provider to the automotive, insurance, and collision repair industries, owed by PE firm, Advent International CEO, Information Kinetics, Inc. and Career Network, which developed and marketed a national computerized database of job candidates CEO, COIN, Inc., a provider of automotive information, communication channels, and information management systems to the automotive industry and to related credit and financial industries Co-founder, Monumental Art and Events, Inc., an event marketing organization CEO, Original Research II, a customer satisfaction measurement and management company Chairman of the Board and Lead Director of The Cobalt Group in Seattle and The Princeton Review in New York
1871 Chicago
In January 2014, Tullman became CEO of 1871, a non-profit startup hub located in The Merchandise Mart in Chicago and of its parent, the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC). 1871 was founded in May 2012 and is home to over 495 digital startups.
Tullman helped establish The Bunker, a veteran-run startup incubator.