With only a huge slide of the French phrase Raison d’Etre on the screen behind him, Ward Fitzgerald spoke to a packed house in the Meagher Theatre on November 11.

The CEO of ExCorde Capital, Fitzgerald delivered the 10th annual Abessinio Lecture on Management and Entrepreneurship, urging the hundreds of students in the audience to find their calling.

He defined an entrepreneur as someone who is willing to take risks, be innovative, and develop useful skills. To illustrate his points, the Northeast Philadelphia native reached back to his days as a youngster, working summer jobs in Wildwood at the Jersey shore.

He told tales of placing risky orders for excessive copies of the Philadelphia Daily News so he could get the papers before his rivals and sell them at the beach, finding an innovative way to clean fudge from copper kettles in just 17 minutes to escape a hot kitchen, and learning to solve math problems in his head.

A polished speaker, Fitzgerald moved comfortably across the stage, spoke for more than 40 minutes without notes, and invited audience questions after concluding his remarks with a genuine embrace of his Catholic faith.

“Everybody’s not called to be an entrepreneur,” he said. “Find your calling. Find your raison d’etre, and lean into what you’re good at … You’ll find it by being self-reflective about your gifts and by spending time with the Lord.”

He confessed that “we all have different faith journeys” and that one day in 2006, in church, the Lord spoke to him through John 15: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

He described the second part of that metaphor (without me you can do nothing) as “a shot in the jaw.” He shared his epiphany with the students: “You’ll do nothing if you don’t consecrate and be intentional.”

Fitzgerald is overtly intentional about his faith through his professional choices -- guided by Gospel values -- and through leadership roles with the Papal Foundation, the National Centre for Padre Pio, the Catholic Leadership Institute, and the Catholic University of America.