Neil Tarallo

Biography

Neil C. Tarallo has spent more than twenty-five years helping organizations and individuals learn to think differently about growth, uncertainty, and opportunity. As a Senior Lecturer of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration, he brings a rare blend of academic rigor and lived entrepreneurial experience to the classroom. Neil teaches courses that help students and executives develop an innovation mindset by applying creativity, resilience, adaptability, and effectual reasoning to real-world challenges.

His current work applies artificial intelligence to enhance how entrepreneurs, organizations, and students create opportunity by discovering market problems, generating insights, and designing solutions. Drawing on his experience at the intersection of education and enterprise, Neil integrates AI into both the classroom and the practice of innovation by using it to expand creative capacity, strengthen decision-making under uncertainty, and accelerate the transformation of ideas into tangible opportunities. Within Cornell’s Executive Education programs, he helps leaders and learners alike apply AI tools responsibly and effectively, embedding them into innovation, strategy, and learning processes while maintaining the human judgment and ethical awareness essential to sustainable growth.

Neil is the founder of multiple businesses in the retail, service, and investment sectors. In collaboration with Cornell Executive Education, he has worked with executives, managers, and entrepreneurs across five continents and more than twenty-five countries, including Fortune 100 and 500 companies in industries ranging from hospitality and retail to automotive and manufacturing. In this role, he helps organizations cultivate environments that encourage innovation, integrate emerging technologies such as AI, and translate ideas into action.

Neil’s approach to teaching reflects his deep belief that opportunity is something we create, not something we find. His frameworks including the Multi-Dimensional Compass, the NOVA-U Framework, and the Purposeful Growth Model, equip people to navigate complexity with clarity, balancing the human, strategic, and operational dimensions of growth. His most recent book, The Purposeful Leader: How multi-dimensional thinking shapes leadership in a world that won't sit still, , became an Amazon bestseller and has been adopted by educators and executives worldwide for its practical, human-centered approach to innovation and decision-making.

At his core, Neil is an educator and entrepreneur who believes in possibility. Whether in the classroom, on a factory floor, or in a boardroom, he brings the same curiosity, humility, and sense of purpose that have guided his own journey, and he invites others to do the same.

Awards and Honors

• Boots to Business Instructor of the Year (2016) U.S. Small Business Administration
• NYS Venture Connect Campus Connector Award (nomination) (2015) New York State Venture Connect
• Syracuse University Meredith Teaching Award Nomination (2010) Syracuse University

Recent Courses

• HADM 4144/HADM 6144 - Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset
• HADM 4130/HADM 6130 - Entrepreneurial Management
• HADM 6911 - Hospitality Immersion II
• HADM 7410 - Hospitality Strategic Management
• HADM 4140/HADM 6140 - Innovation and Corporate Renewal

Academic Degrees

• MBA Syracuse University, 1994
• BS Ithaca College, 1982

In the News

• August 01, 2016 Entrepreneurship and The U.S. Military