Gamestop Co-Founder Gary Kusin to Headline DEC Network Mentorship Awards at Dallas Startup Week

The Dallas-based serial entrepreneur and business exec will share his take on the impact of mentorship at the awards event in September. His storied career, which includes a successful turnaround of Kinkos and its sale to FedEx, spans retail and gaming to cosmetics and private equity.

Nominations for mentors opened on August 20.

If you’ve had a mentor who has had an impact on your entrepreneurial life, here’s a way to have them recognized. The DEC Network is accepting nominations for its Mentorship Awards.

Mentors will be honored at an event to be held on Sept. 13 at 11 a.m. during Dallas Startup Week in the theater at the UNT Frisco campus.

The event will celebrate the exceptional contributions of mentors within the DEC Network, SCORE, and the DFW entrepreneurial ecosystem, organizers said.

Featured speaker: Gamestop co-founder Gary Kusin

Dallas-based business executive, entrepreneur, and Gamestop co-founder Gary Kusin will share his take on the impact of mentorship on entrepreneurship at the September event.

Kusin’s storied career serves as a source of wisdom for anyone looking to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the business world.

In the early 1980s, Kusin co-founded Babbage’s, a software retail store, which eventually pivoted to selling video games for platforms like Atari and Nintendo. With financial support from Ross Perot, Kusin built the company into a notable entity in the retail space. He exited the company in 1995, which was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 1999 and renamed GameStop, going public in 2002.

Kusin’s career continued to diversify, serving on the board of Electronic Arts and starting a cosmetics company, Kusin Gurwitch Cosmetics, that was later bought by Neiman Marcus. In the early 2000s, he took on the role of CEO at Kinko’s, where he engineered a turnaround and ultimately sold the business to FedEx, staying on to help integrate it into FedEx’s operations.

Following this, Kusin spent nearly more than a decade as a senior advisor at TPG Capital Management, where he oversaw a range of consumer and retail investments globally. As of 2019, he’s been a consultant at his own firm, Kusin & Kusin Ltd., providing expertise in various sectors.

Registration for the event is available here. You can nominate a mentor here.

Quincy Preston contributed to this report.