Pioneers
Book

Pioneers

8 Principles of Business Longevity from Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Neri Karra Sillaman
Wiley, 2025
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Editorial Rating

9

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Recommendation

Immigrant entrepreneurs are among the most successful businesspeople in the United States. They open new lines of commerce for everyone else, and demonstrate that businesses can make a positive difference as well as a profit. For example, take author Neri Karra Sillaman, a recognized business management and entrepreneurial expert, who founded Neri Karra, a global brand. She discusses the history of US immigrant entrepreneurship, and spotlights the stories of founders who began with limited resources and earned great success.

Summary

Many immigrant entrepreneurs make money and a big difference.

As a penniless refugee from a poverty-stricken family, author Neri Karra – now Neri Karra Sillaman – earned a college scholarship and became fascinated with personal computers and the World Wide Web. When she learned that entrepreneur and former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, like her, had been an immigrant to the United States, she was even more inspired.

Once an uneducated student who barely understood English, Sillaman is now a university professor, successful business owner, and expert on other successful immigrant entrepreneurs – or, as she calls them, “pioneers.” Immigrants constitute only 13% of the United States population, yet they represent 28% of American entrepreneurs. Immigrants founded nearly half of today’s Fortune 500 firms.

Immigrant entrepreneurs almost always begin with little money, but their businesses tend to grow more quickly and last longer than other start-ups. They often introduce disruptive innovations. Immigrant founders often explain that they set out to establish a legacy that extends beyond profits and helps improve the world.

Successful immigrant entrepreneurs follow...

About the Author

Neri Karra Sillaman realized as an 11-year-old immigrant that she had to get a good education, and now holds a PhD in management studies from the University of Cambridge. The founder of Neri Karra, a global luxury leather-goods brand, she is an entrepreneurship expert at the Saïd Business School at Oxford and an adjunct professor at ESCP Paris. She is also the author of Fashion Entrepreneurship: Creation of the Global Fashion Business.

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