Donny Deutsch, host of CNBC's "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch" and chair of Deutsch Inc., will speak from Friday, Feb. 3, at Shemin Auditorium in the Shaffer Art Building at Syracuse University. Deutsch is speaking as part of the Newhouse Advertising Leadership Series at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
Deutsch will speak about his experiences in growing an ad agency, motivating people and reaching for and attaining personal success, which he details in his new book, "Often Wrong, Never in Doubt: Unleash the Business Rebel Within" (Harper Collins, 2005), written with Peter Knobler.
Brash, colorful and borderline outrageous, Deutsch's memoir explains how he went from a kid from Queens with a high I.Q. and undiagnosed attention deficit disorder to the head of a top-10 U.S. ad agency. Along the way, he made it off the waiting list and into the University of Pennsylvania and then transferred to the Wharton School of Business at Penn. After graduation, he quit his first job in advertising after nine months and got fired from his second-by his own father.
Deutsch eventually rejoined the small, family-owned agency and built it into a $2.7 billion marketing communications company serving such blue-chip clients as Mitsubishi Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Revlon, Novartis, Monster and Old Navy. A creative, cutting-edge shop, Deutsch was the world's largest privately held advertising company before becoming part of Interpublic (IPG) in 2000. Deutsch sold his agency to IPG for $280 million.
As host of "The Big Idea," Deutsch takes on the hot trends in pop culture, business, politics, the arts and sports. He is often a guest on CNN, CBS, NBC,
ABC and CNBC, commenting on trends and sharing marketing insights. He also appears frequently on the reality television series "The Apprentice."
He was a lead member of the Clinton-Gore communications team in 1992.
Deutsch will speak just before the biggest advertising event of the year-the Super Bowl, which is on Sunday, Feb. 5. His lecture is open to the public. Seating is limited and is first-come, first-served. Paid parking is available in the Comstock Lot or Irving Garage. For more information, contact Amy Falkner, chair of the advertising department at Newhouse at 443-4518,
or apfalkne@syr.edu; or Ed Russell, assistant professor, at 443-4045,
or edrussel@syr.edu.
