Gary Lim, M.A.
ESF Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship
Gary Lim is ESF Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship. He brings an experienced background in both functional and general management, the first 20 years of which were spent in the high technology sector of Silicon Valley, California. He currently is President of Aurarius LLC, a consulting firm he founded in 1991 while still in California, with expertise in the areas of corporate strategy, organizational excellence, marketing/competitive strategies, and new product development. Mr. Lim’s first book, The Road to Gumption: Using Your Inner Courage to Balance Your Work and Personal Life (Dorato Press, 2007) was recently an Amazon #1 Bestseller in its category.
Before returning to Aurarius full time in late 2003, Mr. Lim held positions at Syracuse University. During the 1997-98 academic year Mr. Lim was recruited as the inaugural Managing Director of the Entrepreneurship Program at SU’s School of Management. In that role, he created a number of initiatives that encouraged entrepreneurship, including a $40,000 campus-wide student business plan competition, and a sponsored internship program that assisted local-area firms. During his last year at SU in 2003, Mr. Lim joined the College of Engineering and Computer Science, where he was Founding Director of the Center for Engineering Ventures, an initiative specifically focused on the creation and launch of high technology firms.
While at SU, Mr. Lim served as a member of the Advisory Board to the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Computer Applications and Software Engineering (The CASE Center). The CASE Center also included a technology incubator, and he chaired the Admissions Committee which reviewed the business plans of firms seeking to become incubator tenants.
Prior to joining Syracuse University in early 1998, Mr. Lim spent 20 years in Northern California’s high-technology Silicon Valley, at Aurarius as well as other firms. In his career, Mr. Lim has been personally involved with four start-up or turnaround companies. Among his other corporate executive posts, Mr. Lim was director of channel marketing at Novell Inc., and director of marketing and sales at XEROX Information Systems. He has also held product line management and marketing positions at Hewlett-Packard Company, ROLM/IBM, and NCA Corporation.
Mr. Lim has served on the Board of Directors for Leadership Greater Syracuse and for the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Onondaga County, as well as with the Advisory Board to the Lean Institute at Onondaga Community College. He served on the Executive Committees of the first two organizations. Mr. Lim was a 4-time member of the judging panel for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Upstate New York regional competition. For 4 years he was a guest columnist for the Central New York Business Journal, writing a monthly business column called In the Trenches.
Mr. Lim has been a past instructor of national seminars in corporate strategy, marketing, and product management topics offered by the American Management Association. His recent consulting projects have been in these functional areas as well.
Originally from Garden City, New York, Mr. Lim earned a B.S.E. degree cum laude, in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University. He also holds a M.A. degree in organizational management, from the University of Phoenix.
