When John Sibley Butler speaks about innovation, Presidents listen.

Butler, director of the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship and the IC² Institute and professor of management, has been invited to appear at the second convening of CGI America, an annual event hosted by President Bill Clinton that aims to find solutions for encouraging economic recovery in the United States. CGI America, put on by the Clinton Global Initiative, brings together leaders from the business, foundation, NGO, and government sectors — and, of course, from right here among the McCombs faculty.

At the event, taking place on June 7-8 in Chicago, Butler will appear on a panel entitled, “Place-Based Innovation: Creating Centers of Prosperity,” alongside fellow entrepreneurship experts from Colorado, New York and California. (Not on CGI America’s guest list? Don’t worry. You can watch Butler's panel online.)

“It’s such a pleasure to be invited by a former President to represent McCombs on the program,” Butler said. “McCombs has been at the center of the effort to create new structures at The University of Texas at Austin that apply the knowledge and know-how of the business disciplines to new technologies from engineering, the sciences and even music, resulting in the creation of jobs and wealth for Austin and Texas.”

Ahead of CGI America, Butler gave McCombs Today a sneak preview of what he plans to discuss in Chicago: