Paul Benedict is a seasoned seed-stage investor, executive and entrepreneur bringing almost two decades experience and measurable results to the classroom. For ten of those years, Paul was at Adena Ventures – the nation’s first New Markets Venture Capital company. At Adena, Paul built and ran a $5.5 million operational assistance program that provided professional consulting services to 75 companies. Adena invested in 10 of those companies, including ListHub.com (a deal that Paul led) which Realtor.com bought for $13 million. For the last four years, Paul has taught a variety of management and entrepreneurship courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels at Ohio University. Paul earned his BA in political science from the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University. He earned his MBA from the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. He lives in Athens, Ohio with his wife, 2 young kids and 2 dogs. The Benedicts are a high energy, competitive bunch. The family motto is: If you didn’t keep score, it didn’t happen. In his spare time, Paul likes to work out, cook and play guitar.

Paul Mass is “Entrepreneur-in-Residence” at the College of Business, Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio.  He also serves as Director of the University’s Center for Entrepreneurship where he will help build the entrepreneurial ecosystem supporting student and faculty entrepreneurs, as well as individuals and businesses throughout the southeast Ohio region. Paul has benefited from a diverse career beginning as a corporate attorney and continuing on as a successful entrepreneur and business executive helping to create, fund, manage and lead companies in the cable television, radio, information service, biotech and e-commerce industries.  Paul has served as a Partner, General Counsel, Chief Operating Officer, and President and CEO, respectively, at various times throughout his more than 35 year professional career.   Two of the ventures Paul helped build are still owned and operated out of San Diego, CA: ClosingCorp, Inc. is a proprietary data base of residential real estate information providing consumers and mortgage lenders with critical data needed for home purchases covering every address in the United States.  GovX, Inc. is the country’s largest online e-commerce website exclusively serving members of the U.S. military, first responders, and certain government service employees. Paul received his B.A. degree in Political Science from Duke University, magna cum laude, and his J.D. degree from the Emory University School of Law, Order of the Coif and Member of the Board, Emory Law Journal.