13 Sep 2010

HBS welcomes nine Entrepreneurs-in-Residence

Accomplished investors and company founders will advise MBA students
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LtoR going from top to bottom: Jeff Bussgang, Jeff Glass, Chris Michel, Gary Mueller, Eric Ries, Gary Rogers, Jeff Walker, Gwill York, Royce Yudkoff


BOSTON— Nine entrepreneurs will join the Harvard Business School (HBS) community during the 2010-2011 academic year as Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EiR). Sponsored by the School's Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, now in its fifth year, invites accomplished entrepreneurs to HBS to advise MBA students interested in starting companies and work with faculty on research and course development.

The nine entrepreneurs, eight of whom are HBS alumni, come from a variety of backgrounds, including venture capital, private equity, and start-ups across industries ranging from dotcoms to media.

"We are delighted to welcome this accomplished group of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence to HBS," said Michael Roberts, Senior Lecturer and Executive Director of the Arthur Rock Center. "They bring extraordinary experience, knowledge, and insights to our campus and provide inspiration to the large number of entrepreneurially-inclined HBS students who wish to follow in their footsteps."



The 2010-2011 HBS Entrepreneurs-in-Residence are:

  • Jeffrey Bussgang (MBA '95), general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm, and cofounder of UPromise, a college savings service that relies on the purchasing power of parents, family, and students at thousands of participating retailers. He also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence last year.
  • Jeffrey Glass (MBA '94), managing director at Bain Capital Ventures and cofounder and former president and CEO of m-Qube, Inc., a provider of mobile messaging services for entertainment, retail, telecommunications, and consumer packaged goods companies. m-Qube was acquired by VeriSign Inc. in 2006.
  • Christopher P. Michel (MBA '98), founder of Military.com and Affinity Labs, both of which were recently acquired by Monster.com. He is currently managing director of Nautilus Ventures. His own entrepreneurial activities are chronicled in the forthcoming book The Intelligent Entrepreneur (Henry Holt).
  • Gary G. Mueller (MBA '94), chairman and CEO of Institutional Investor and founder and former chairman of ISI Emerging Markets, which provides online financial and business information services for emerging markets.
  • Eric Ries, creator of the Lean Startup methodology, author of the entrepreneurship blog "Startup Lessons Learned," and cofounder of virtual world IMVU.
  • T. Gary Rogers (MBA '68), retired chairman and CEO of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, which he and his partners bought in 1977 and eventually merged with Nestlé in 2006. He is also the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and former chairman of Levi Strauss & Co.
  • Jeffrey C. Walker (MBA '81), chairman of Millennium Promise, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending poverty, and former chairman and CEO of CCMP Capital, the successor to JPMorgan Partners, the bank's private equity arm. He returns to HBS as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the second consecutive year.
  • Gwill E. York (MBA '84), cofounder of Lighthouse Funds, where she directs the firm's east coast and life science investments and oversees other operational activities.
  • Royce Yudkoff (MBA '80), cofounder and managing partner of the private equity firm ABRY Partners, LLC.

All nine entrepreneurs will serve for the entire academic year in a part-time capacity, meeting with students in group and one-on-one sessions and collaborating with various faculty members on cases, courses, and other activities.

Beyond their interaction with the EiR, Harvard MBA students interested in entrepreneurship also have the opportunity to work closely with HBS faculty through field studies, independent research projects, a Silicon Valley Immersion Experience Program, and participation in the HBS Business Plan Contest, now entering its 15th year. In addition, all first-year HBS students take the required course The Entrepreneurial Manager, while second-year students can choose from more than two dozen entrepreneurship-related elective courses.

An estimated 50 percent of HBS alumni describe themselves as entrepreneurs 10 to 15 years after they graduate. Among the many alumni who have founded successful business ventures are Michael Bloomberg (MBA 1963), founder of Bloomberg L.P; Marc C. Cenedella, ( MBA 1998), founder, president and CEO of TheLadders.com Inc; Scott Cook (MBA 1976), chairman and cofounder of Intuit; Rajil Kapoor (MBA 1996), cofounder and former chairman and CEO of Snapfish; Mark Pincus (MBA 1993), founder and CEO of Zynga; Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilson, (both MBA 2004), cofounders of Gilt Groupe Inc; Marla Malcolm Beck (MBA 1998), founder of bluemercury; Tom Stemberg (MBA 1973), founder of Staples; and Jeremy Stoppelman (MBA 2005), CEO and cofounder of Yelp.

About The Rock Center
The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship was created through the generosity of prominent venture capitalist Arthur Rock (MBA '51), who donated $25 million to Harvard Business School to support the entrepreneurship faculty and their research, fellowships for MBA and doctoral students, symposia and conferences, and outreach efforts to extend the impact of the School's extensive work in this field. HBS offered the country's first business school course in entrepreneurship in 1947 and, today, entrepreneurship is one of the largest faculty units at the School, with over 30 faculty members conducting entrepreneurship research and teaching. The Rock Center works closely with the HBS California Research Center in Silicon Valley on entrepreneurship-related research and course development efforts.

At-A-Glance: Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship (PDF)

About Harvard Business School

Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 250 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and PhD degrees, as well as more than 175 Executive Education programs, and Harvard Business School Online, the School’s digital learning platform. For more than a century, faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching, to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. The School and its curriculum attract the boldest thinkers and the most collaborative learners who will go on to shape the practice of business and entrepreneurship around the globe.