Stig Leschly

Stig is currently a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School where he teaches entrepreneurship.  Stig was also a lecturer on entrepreneurship at HBS from 2000-2004, between phases in the private sector as an entrepreneur

Stig began his career as a high-tech entrepreneur.  

• In the late 1990s and early 2000s, after graduating from Harvard's business and law schools, Stig was the founder and CEO of Exchange.com, an early competitor to eBay.com. Exchange.com primarily operated web-sites for buyers and sellers of hard-to-find books and music titles.  

• In 1999, Amazon.com purchased Exchange.com to help launch its move into intermediated business-to-consumer commerce.  After the acquisition, Stig went on to work at Amazon.com in various general management and strategic planning capacities and to report directly to Jeff Bezos.

After his work at Exchange.com and Amazon.com, Stig worked extensively as a social entrepreneur on K-16 education reform in the US.  

• From 2011 to 2018, he was the CEO of Match Education, an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that operates high-performing K-12 charter schools, an innovative graduate school of education that trains and grants Master’s degrees to teachers, and several nationally prominent web-sites that share curriculum and teaching practices for free with US school teachers and school leaders.  

• While at Match Education, Stig and his colleagues founded -- and eventually spun out of Match -- Duet.org. Duet.org is an innovative college and jobs non-profit organization that helps young adults from low-income households earn high-quality, affordable college degrees and qualify for career-track jobs.  Duet provides academic and life coaching to students working towards degrees via an SNHU online degree platform.  Stig remains the board chair of Duet.org.

• Prior to running Match Education, Stig was the founder and CEO for four years of the Newark Charter School Fund, an operating foundation dedicated to public school reform and improvement in Newark, NJ.  

Stig holds a BA in Comparative Literature (summa cum laude, Phi beta Kappa) from Princeton University (1992) and a combined JD-MBA degree from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School (1998). Stig lives in Brookline, MA with his wife, Sherry Riva, and their three teenage daughters. 

Cases and Teaching Materials

• Leschly, Stig. "The Choice to Cofound and Initial Control and Ownership Splits in Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-095, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "The Choice to Cofound and Initial Control and Ownership Splits in Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-095, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig, and Benjamin Henkes. "Business Model Ideation." Harvard Business School Technical Note 821-071, January 2021. View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "The Choice to Cofound and Initial Control and Ownership Splits in Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-095, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "The Cash Flow Curve in Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-091, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Unit Economics in Startup Settings." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-092, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Hypothesis-Driven Entrepreneurial Management." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-090, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "The Cash Flow Curve in Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-091, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Business Model Analysis of Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-089, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Hypothesis-Driven Entrepreneurial Management." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-090, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Business Model Analysis of Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 820-089, January 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "KIPP National (A) (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 805-068, November 2004. (Revised August 2008.) View Details
• Childress, Stacey M., Stig Leschly, and John J-H Kim. "Note on Student Outcomes in U.S. Public Education." Harvard Business School Background Note 307-068, October 2006. (Revised January 2019.) View Details
• Childress, Stacey M., and Stig Leschly. "Note on U.S. Public Education Finance (A): Revenues." Harvard Business School Background Note 307-069, October 2006. (Revised December 2012.) View Details
• Childress, Stacey M., and Stig Leschly. "Note on U.S. Public Education Finance (B): Expenditures." Harvard Business School Background Note 307-070, November 2006. (Revised December 2012.) View Details
• Childress, Stacey M., Stig Leschly, and Purnima Kochikar. "Finding a CEO for the School District of Philadelphia: Searching for a Savior?" Harvard Business School Case 803-072, January 2003. (Revised July 2005.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Excel Academy Charter Middle School, The." Harvard Business School Case 804-113, January 2004. (Revised April 2004.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Aspire Public Schools." Harvard Business School Case 804-114, February 2004. View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Note on School Choice in U.S. Public Education." Harvard Business School Background Note 804-091, November 2003. (Revised December 2003.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Note on Organized Labor in U.S. Public Education." Harvard Business School Background Note 804-018, July 2003. (Revised January 2013.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "KIPP National, 2002 (B): Managing a School Network." Harvard Business School Case 804-049, August 2003. (Revised September 2003.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "KIPP National, 1999 (A): Designing a School Network." Harvard Business School Case 803-124, January 2003. (Revised April 2003.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Gates Foundation and Small High Schools, The." Harvard Business School Case 803-110, December 2002. (Revised March 2003.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig, Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman, and Todd H Thedinga. "Amazon.com-2002." Harvard Business School Case 803-098, November 2002. (Revised February 2003.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "New Leaders for New Schools." Harvard Business School Case 803-073, October 2002. View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002 (A): The Freedom Agenda." Harvard Business School Case 803-037, September 2002. View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002 (B): The Performance Agenda." Harvard Business School Case 803-038, September 2002. View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002 (C1): Race, Class, and School Choice." Harvard Business School Case 803-039, September 2002. View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002 (C2): Race, Class, and School Choice." Harvard Business School Case 803-040, September 2002. View Details
• Leschly, Stig. "Transformation of Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002." Harvard Business School Case 802-197, April 2002. (Revised September 2002.) View Details

Areas of Interest

• control systems
• education
• law
• managerial incentives
• resource allocation
Additional Topics
• agency theory
• compensation
• contracts
• entrepreneurship
• general management
• human resource management
• industry structure
• knowledge management
• leadership
• nonprofit
• organizational learning
• organizational structure
• performance management
• performance measurement
• scaling-up
• social enterprise
• social entrepreneurship
• strategic human resources management
Industries
• education industry
Geographies
• North America