Board of Directors
Augmenting the experience of our full-time professionals is the wisdom and leadership derived from a collective of accomplished, highly-respected industry veterans. They make up GuideStar’s Board of Directors. Their combined knowledge offers our team valuable perspectives on the latest in clinical research, helping us anticipate and identify market changes and industry trends.
John B. Elstrott, Ph.D.
Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship
Tulane University
John B. Elstrott, Ph.D. is a well known authority on entrepreneurship in the U.S. He is currently Executive Director of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship (which he founded in 1991) through the A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. He periodically serves as an economic development and strategic planning consultant for state and municipal governments and the U.S. Department of Energy.
John is a renowned author and presenter as well as the recipient of more than 50 grants and funded research projects on topics related to entrepreneurship and economics. He has been awarded numerous awards from organizations including Entrepreneur Magazine, The Princeton Review, Tulane University, New Orleans City Business and Ernst & Young. In addition to GuideStar, John also serves on the boards of Bioregen, PreSonus, Sambazon, Traditional Medicinals and several others companies. John serves as Chairman of the Board of Whole Foods Market (WFMI-NASQAQ) and Resource Environmental Solutions. Earlier in his career, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Celestial Seasonings, Inc.
He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Colorado Boulder, and his Masters and Bachelors both in Economics from Louisiana State University. His service to the community is long standing and includes founding the TABA Community Service Program at the Freeman School, and the Tulane Family Business Center (FBC) also at the Freeman School. John assisted with founding the Tulane Entrepreneurs Association and Tulane Business Plan Competition. He was a founding Board member of Second Harvesters of Greater New Orleans.
