“Without THE networks I’VE BUILTTHROUGH UNC’S entrepreneurship programs,
THIS BUSINESS WOULD
not be possible.”
HAJO ENGELKE
Founder, Custom Choice Cereal
Hajo Engelke is a numbers guy.
That and a degree in finance landed
him in mergers and acquisitions at
Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt.
That’s where Engelke discovered he
was also an entrepreneur. Surrounded
by high-powered CEOs who’d risked
a lot and made it big, Engelke says,
“I knew then that’s what I wanted to
do. I wanted to be the decision-maker,
the one who makes it happen.”
Engelke enrolled in the MBA
program at UNC-Chapel
Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business
School, where he found “lots
of professors who are successful entrepreneurs, who know
what to do from experience,
not just from their research.”
Thanks to the Carolina
Entrepreneurial Initiative
(CEI), Engelke also found
cross-campus venture-
creation programs and a network of
people engaged in helping aspiring
entrepreneurs hone their ideas for
new businesses and nonprofits.
Two of them, Launching the Venture
and Carolina Challenge, took Engelke
step-by-step through the process of
defining his niche (gluten-free custom
cereal blends) and developing his
business plan.
“This is what I want to do,” says
Engelke, smiling, from the Research
Triangle Park office of his new venture,
Custom Choice Cereal. “Without the
networks I’ve built through UNC’s
entrepreneurship programs, this
business would not be possible.”
GIVE TO CEI.
