Dr. Carl Schramm, speaking to an audience of over 100 at the Roundtable’s annual membership meeting, said, “Entrepreneurial capital is the biggest contributor in shaping the present economy.”

As president and chief executive officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri, he heads America’s largest foundation dedicated to advancing entrepreneurial success.

“Entrepreneurial activity is what drives the economy and it’s not the economy which shrinks or expands in bad and good times, it is the firms that shrink or grow.  It’s the high growth firms which contribute to the prosperity of the economy,” he said.

The fundamental American drive is innovation,” he said.

“It is imperative that we see entrepreneurship as central to our economic life, because it is the only way to maintain the leverage we need to remain an economic superpower — and to continue to enjoy our standard of living.”

Entrepreneurship is the process in which one or more people take economic risk to create a new organization that will exploit a new technology or innovative process that generates value to others.

Schramm cited Oklahoma’s success – in referencing a recent CNN/Fortune study which ranked Oklahoma City and Tulsa high as a favorable location for small business start-ups.

“Entrepreneurial firms start in places, economic activity is in places.  The winning locations will be places that have a cultural and policy climate supporting the growth of entrepreneurial companies,” Schramm said.

Schramm said 40% of all GDP in the US is from firms that did not exist in 1980 and most net new jobs created in the US come from firms less than 5 years old.

He added, “The fastest growing firms in the United States are started by people who are 39 years old – on average.”