Podcast/Video Interviews by Stephen Ibaraki

A Chat with Ben duPont: Co-founder and Managing Director at Chartline Capital Partners, a Venture Capital Fund and Rohit Bhargava: Entrepreneur; Best-selling Author; Speaker; Founder of the Non-Obvious Company and Ideapress Publishing

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Ben duPont and Rohit Bhargava.

Ben duPont, is co-founder and managing director at Chartline Capital Partners, a Venture Capital Fund. Chartline makes investments in enterprise and industrial technology companies working to make core industries more efficient, reliable, and safe. Our aim is to enter after a strategic inflection point and help founders and management teams realize the full potential of their business.

Prior to Chartline Capital Partners, Ben co-founded yet2.com, an open innovation, technology scouting and patent pooling firm, holding the position as president from 1999 to 2016. In 2000, yet2.com was funded by Siemens, Bayer, Caterpillar, P&G, Honeywell, DuPont and NTT.

For several years, Ben worked for DuPont, a global materials science, chemical and agriculture company, and held various management positions across business units including automotive, fibers, specialty chemicals and engineering.

Board Appointments

• Board of Directors, Ecrio
• Board of Directors, GigSky
• Board of Trustees, Longwood Gardens
• Board of Directors, Vorbeck
• Board of Trustees, Tower Hill School
• Co-founder and Board of Directors, Yet2.com
• Co-founder & Vice President, Zip Code Wilmington
• Advisory Board, Leadership Delaware
• Advisory Board, IP Group

Ben got his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University.

Rohit Bhargava is on a mission to inspire more non-obvious thinking in the world. He is the 3-time Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author often books and is widely considered one of the most entertaining and original speakers on trends, innovation and marketing in the world. Rohit has been invited to deliver "non-boring" keynotes and workshops in 32 countries around the world to change the way teams and leaders think at the World Bank, NASA, Intel, LinkedIn, MetLife, Under Armour, Univision,Disney and hundreds of other well-known organizations.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur and founding the Non-Obvious Company and Ideapress Publishing, he spent 15 years leading marketing/strategy at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett where he advised global brands on human behavior, marketing and storytelling. Outside his speaking and consulting, Rohit has taught persuasive speaking and global marketing as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, is frequently quoted in the global media.

Rohit lives in the Washington DC area with his wife and is a proud dad of two boys. He loves the Olympics (he's been to five!) and actively hates cauliflower.