Dartmouth’s Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame to Honor Two Alumni

The Hollywood producer responsible for the most successful animated film series ever and the code-writing executive who created one of the world’s leading platforms for monitoring and enhancing web and mobile software are being honored as the newest members of Dartmouth’s Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame.

Chris Meledandri ’81, founder and CEO of Illumination, and Lew Cirne ’93, founder of New Relic, will be inducted into the hall at a dinner on September 5 in San Francisco, and both will participate as speakers the following day, September 6, as part of this fall’s Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum. The events, organized by the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, provide hundreds of Dartmouth alumni, students, faculty, and staff with opportunities to gain immeasurable insights into the entrepreneurial ecosystem and to network with one another.

The Magnuson Center established the Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame, now in its second year, to celebrate the Dartmouth tradition of graduating venture-minded individuals while recognizing alums who have founded successful enterprises and who are inspiring future generations to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

Meledandri and Cirne, selected by a committee of the Magnuson Center Board of Advisors, will be the fifth and sixth alumni inducted into the hall.

“We are thrilled to recognize Chris and Lew for the leadership and innovative thinking they have brought to their fields,” says Andrea Johnson ’91, chair of the Magnuson Center Board of Advisors. “Dartmouth has a proud history of graduating entrepreneurial thinkers and doers across the spectrum of professions. Nothing provides a better foundation for future entrepreneurs than the critical thinking skills that are at the heart of a Dartmouth education.”

Both Meledandri and Cirne will participate in fireside chats during the Entrepreneurs Forum in addition to delivering more formal remarks during the Hall of Fame ceremony.

“Lew and Chris reflect our exceptionally talented, diverse, and powerful entrepreneurial network,” says Jamie Coughlin, the Magnuson Center’s founding executive director. “Aspiring entrepreneurs of all kinds will learn so much when they hear from Lew, Chris, and dozens of other Dartmouth alumni at the forum who have launched and navigated successful ventures. The insights and wisdom shared by our speakers will not only inform but will inspire.”

Upon graduation from Dartmouth, Meledandri headed west to 20th Century Fox to work as an assistant to producer Daniel Melnick. Working first in live-action movies, he soon made his mark as president of 20th Century Fox Animation, where he oversaw the production of movies such as Anastasia and Ice Age.
 

Cirne has been fascinated with software since his parents gave him a Commodore VIC-20 computer when he was 12 years old. A computer science major at Dartmouth, he joined Apple as an engineer, followed by a stint at Hummingbird Communications. Eager to take on the challenge of optimizing software performance in real time, in 1998 Cirne founded Wily Technology, a company dedicated to automating the process of measuring the integrity of software code. He sold the company to CA Technologies, Inc., eight years later for $375 million. 

In 2008, Cirne established New Relic, an anagram of his name, soon recognized as a leading provider of web application performance management. The company provides businesses with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that monitors, analyzes, and enhances their web and mobile software as customers are using it. New Relic went public in 2014 and was acquired by Francisco Partners and TPG in 2023. The company today serves more than 16,000 customers, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

Unlike most of his tech CEO peers, Cirne remains a builder. “Building software remains an incredibly joyful creative process for me, as is company-building. I am incredibly honored to be recognized and included in the Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame, and to showcase that technically minded individuals can build companies of scale and impact,” Cirne says.