GoForth Institute was founded by Dr. Leslie Roberts, a leader in entrepreneurship education and research - and a veteran entrepreneur. From breakthrough roles in academia, government, private sector and community-based projects, and now with GoForth Institute, Dr. Roberts uses her unique insights to train small business owners across the country.

An entrepreneur herself, Dr. Roberts was also founder of Mercatus Research Ltd., a market research consulting firm serving the needs of small and emerging businesses. Her success in these fields has made her a sought-after consultant to government and industry, especially relating to home-based business and micro-enterprise development; and as a lecturer at both Mount Royal University's Bissett School of Business and the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business. Here, she spent 14 years instructing and mentoring students on entrepreneurship, marketing and marketing research.

Dr. Roberts' own entrepreneurial success owes much to an education singularly focused on small business. She earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree in marketing (1984), a Master of Business Administration degree in entrepreneurship and new venture development (1994), where she won the Julius Schulich Award for Entrepreneurship for her master's thesis on the contributions of home-based businesses to the City of Calgary. Her PhD in Management, specializing in entrepreneurship and corporate strategy (1999), from the University of Calgary was the first PhD in entrepreneurship to be awarded in Canada. Her doctoral research received The University of Calgary's Stew Fairbanks Memorial Award for Scholarship in Entrepreneurship. Dr. Roberts' research has been published in scholarly publications in Canada and the United States. Her latest research involving entrepreneurial psychology will be published in the Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (JSBE) in Fall, 2010.