Prominent British entrepreneur and venture capitalist to speak

Pizza may have originated in Italy, but the notion of mass marketing and franchising pizzerias is purely American. David Dutton, the businessman who introduced that concept to the British market, will be the Farmer School’s first Executive Speaker for fall semester 2009. His talk takes place at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20 in the David R. Taylor Auditorium, Farmer School of Business.

When Dutton was pursuing his master’s of business administration degree at Harvard University, he also mastered the concept of pizza franchising and took it back to the United Kingdom where, in 1970, he launched a chain of pizza restaurants based on the U.S. model.

After selling the successful company to a specialty food manufacturer eight years later, Dutton founded a real estate holding company, building it into a thriving enterprise and selling it in 1989.

Dutton’s current business activities include serving as executive director of Daily Mail & General Trust PLC (DMGT), and chairman of DMG Information, a unit of DMGT that provides business-to-business electronic information through numerous subsidiaries. He is also a board executive for more than 20 companies.

As a business “angel,” Dutton has been involved with a number of business startups. He is also active as a lecturer on entrepreneurship and related topics and is a visiting fellow of England’s Cranfield Institute of Technology.

Dutton’s talk, “How I took pizza from the U.S. to the U.K.,” is free of charge and open to the public. Information: 513-529-6114 or email coopermt@muohio.edu.

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