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The area chapter of Entrepreneurs' Organization, recently named one of a dozen organizations entrepreneurs need to join by Entrepreneur magazine, has dream-large plans for the Gulf Coast in 2015.
The Central Florida chapter, which covers Orlando and the entire Gulf Coast, seeks to grow its membership base by at least 50% in 2015, says EO Central Florida President Jane Bolin. The group doubled its membership count last year, and now has 25 people in the chapter. The chapter was founded in 2008 and expanded to Orlando in 2012. “We are looking for entrepreneur leaders,” Bolin tells Coffee Talk. “We are looking for people who are willing to push it.”
Entrepreneurs' Organization is similar, in some ways, to groups like the Gulf Coast CEO Forum in the Sarasota-Bradenton market and the CEO Council of Tampa Bay. EO holds meetings and seminars where it brings in national leadership speakers. The chapter also has confidential executive roundtable sessions, called Forum, where members chat about business issues with their peers. EO meetings and sessions, like some other organizations, aren't for sales and lead generation.
Founded in 1987, Entrepreneurs' Organization has more than 10,000 members spread through 142 chapters in 46 countries. “This isn't a networking group,” says Bolin, an attorney and co-founder of PeytonBolin, a real estate law firm with offices in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa. “It's a people-who-want-to-be-better-entrepreneurs group.”
While the Central Florida chapter total membership is on the small side, the group has clout: The 25 members oversee firms with 788 employees and average annual sales of $6.71 million, according to the EO Central Florida chapter website. Industries represented range from advertising to waste management and architecture to manufacturing.
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