Insights

Andrew Zacharakis is The John H. Muller, Jr. Chair in Entrepreneurship at Babson College, Wellesley, MA. He is the Director of the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference and past president of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. He is also a past chair of the Entrepreneurship Department at Babson College and a past Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson. His writings and research focus on two major areas of entrepreneurship: the venture capital decision-making process, and entrepreneurial growth strategies. Professor Zacharakis has been interviewed in newspapers nationwide, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times, and by several magazines, including Inc., Entrepreneur, and Kiplinger's. He has also appeared on television in the Bloomberg Small Business Report, and radio on NPR Morning Edition. Professor Zacharakis has taught seminars at leading companies, including Dassault, Merck, Intel, and Met Life. He has also taught executives, students, and professors worldwide in such countries as Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Germany, Mexico, Norway, Spain, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. Prior to his work at Babson, he held investment banking/venture capital positions with The Cambridge Companies, a Los Angeles firm that invested in retail concepts and movie partnerships. Today, Zacharakis is an active angel investor in seed stage deals. He also previously held positions at IBM and Leisure Technologies.

Dr. Drover teaches and researches high-growth entrepreneurship at the University of Oklahoma. His research primarily focuses on new venture financing, including angel investing, venture capital and crowdfunding. His work also explores the intersection of neuroscience and entrepreneurship. Drover’s work has been published in several leading peer-reviewed journals, receiving best paper recognition on four occasions. His research has received attention by the press, including an article featuring his findings in Forbes. Professor Drover has delivered several invited talks on the topic of entrepreneurship that include the keynote address to one of the world's largest angel investor symposiums at Microsoft in Silicon Valley. In addition, Drover has collaborated with the U.S. Department of State on three occasions through the Diplomacy Lab, and is also an instructor in the SBA/Department of Defense's Boots to Business program, where he teaches entrepreneurship courses on military bases around the world. Drover remains active in startup investment and advisory roles. Professor Drover earned his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University in 2014. Prior to OU, Drover was a Visiting Scholar at Babson College in Boston.

Dan Isenberg (@danisen) is founding executive director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project, Associate at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School. From 1981-7 and 2005-9 Dan was a professor at the Harvard Business School, and in the interim (1987-2005) was an entrepreneur and venture capitalist in Israel. Dan authored Worthless Impossible and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value (Harvard Business Review Press 2013), published over 30 online and print articles on entrepreneurship in the Harvard Business Review, and has been featured in the Economist, Forbes, NPR, Bloomberg, Quartz, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, etc. Dan has been a pioneer in the concept and development of entrepreneurship ecosystems, and he launched and directs Manizales-Mas and Scale Up Milwaukee. Between 2009-2013 Dan was active in the World Economic Forum and conducted Forum events in Davos, Africa, Europe, and China. In 2012 Mikhail Gorbachev awarded Dan the Pio Manzu Award for "Innovations in Economic Development." At Babson Executive Education, Dan created and directs the 3-day program, Driving Economic Growth Through Entrepreneurship Ecosystems. He holds the Ph.D. degree in social psychology from Harvard University, received under the mentorship of Robert Freed Bales.

Dr. Rao teaches extensively in the Babson Executive Education programs. His executive teaching and consulting is in the areas of innovation, implementation of innovation initiatives within firms, corporate entrepreneurship and customer experience innovation. Dr. Rao also teaches 2 elective courses in the Babson MBA programs – (1) Leading Innovation: Gorillas, Chimps & Monkeys and (2) #CX #UX #DX Innovation. His research has appeared in The Sloan Management Review, Journal of Innovative Management, The European Business Review, The European Financial Review, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly and others. He is the author of the book “The Discipline and Culture of Innovation.” He has written several business cases on a range of topics: Innovation Strategy, Innovation Culture, Leading Innovation, Customer Service, and Strategy Execution.

Dr. Weintraub is an Organizational Psychologist who focuses in the areas of individual and organizational effectiveness. He teaches and consults in the areas of leadership development, coaching, team effectiveness, human resources, and performance management. Dr. Weintraub is the Founder and Faculty Director of the Babson Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program. His work on coaching has received several awards including the “Management Development Paper of the Year” from the Academy of Management and recognition for innovative practices in business education from the Carnegie Foundation. He is the co-author of the books The Coaching Manager: Developing Top Talent in Business (Sage Publications, 3rd Edition, 2016) and The Coaching Organization: A Strategy for Developing Leaders (Sage Publications, 2007). Dr. Weintraub has served as Faculty Director at Babson Executive Education working with companies around the world in developing leadership development and coaching programs. In addition to his work at Babson, Dr. Weintraub is also president of Organizational Dimensions, a management consulting and assessment firm based in Wellesley. His clients have included General Electric, Bose, Fidelity Investments, Serono, Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Doug Hardy is an award-winning writer, editor, and content strategist focused on management, innovation, entrepreneurship, and human capital topics as well as narrative nonfiction. He is the author or co-author of nine books and scores of online and offline articles. After years in book and magazine publishing, Hardy moved online in 1993, leading online editorial groups at The New York Times Magazine Company, Monster.com, and ATT New Media. He is a veteran speaker to business and consumer gatherings, and a content marketing consultant as well as a certified career coach.

Peter Cohan, Associate Professor of Management Practice, teaches strategy and entrepreneurship to undergraduate and Master of Science in Entrepreneurial Leadership students, including courses such as Strategic Problem Solving. Scaling Strategy, Strategic Decision Making, and Global Entrepreneurship Experience – Sweden. He is also a faculty advisor for undergraduate student teams in their consulting work with companies through the Management Consulting Field Experience (MCFE) program. He created and led the Hong Kong/Singapore Start-up Strategy Offshore elective for MBA students. For undergraduates, he created and ran the Paris, Israel and Portugal/Spain Start-up Strategy Offshore electives. He also served as a visiting professor at Barcelona’s EADA and Tel Aviv University. Cohan started a consulting and venture capital firm in 1994, and he has completed over 150 consulting projects aimed at boosting the growth of high-tech companies and has invested in seven startups. Three of these failed, three were sold for over $2 billion, and one went public in July 2021 at an $18 billion valuation. He is a senior contributor at Forbes and writes a column for Inc. Cohan has authored 17 books and contributed to six management compendiums. His most recent book is Brain Rush: How to Invest and Compete in the Real World of Generative AI (Apress: forthcoming 2024). He also wrote Goliath Strikes Back: How Traditional Retailers Are Winning Back Customers from Ecommerce Startups (Apress, November 2020), Scaling Your Startup: Mastering the Four Stages From Idea to $10 Billion (Apress: 2019), Startup Cities: Why Only a Few Cities Dominate the Global Startup Scene and What the Rest Should Do About It (Apress, February 2018). Prior to that he authored Disciplined Growth Strategies: Insights from the Growth Trajectories of Successful and Unsuccessful Companies (Apress, February 2017) and Hungry Start-Up Strategy: Creating New Ventures with Limited Resources and Unlimited Vision (Berrett-Koehler, November 2012). Cohan is a frequent commentator on developments in economics, technology, and finance. He has been a guest on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” CNN, CNBC, PBS’s “Wall $treet Week,” and New England Cable News (NECN). He has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Barron’s, Red Herring, Time, Business Week, Fortune, and Newsweek International.

Doug Hardy is an award-winning writer, editor, and content strategist focused on management, innovation, entrepreneurship, and human capital topics as well as narrative nonfiction. He is the author or co-author of nine books and scores of online and offline articles. After years in book and magazine publishing, Hardy moved online in 1993, leading online editorial groups at The New York Times Magazine Company, Monster.com, and ATT New Media. He is a veteran speaker to business and consumer gatherings, and a content marketing consultant as well as a certified career coach.

Mr. Santinelli is an experienced leader and innovator in creating business strategy, marketing and delivering results. His more than 20 years of business experience covers a broad range of disciplines and responsibilities: including business development, strategic planning, M&A, IPO, private equity financing, customer service, all aspects of marketing and international operations. He has been a Senior Lecturer at MIT, Sloan School of Management, where he taught Entrepreneurship. He received a BS from Fordham University in 1984, and an MBA from Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration in 1989.

Doug Hardy is an award-winning writer, editor, and content strategist focused on management, innovation, entrepreneurship, and human capital topics as well as narrative nonfiction. He is the author or co-author of nine books and scores of online and offline articles. After years in book and magazine publishing, Hardy moved online in 1993, leading online editorial groups at The New York Times Magazine Company, Monster.com, and ATT New Media. He is a veteran speaker to business and consumer gatherings, and a content marketing consultant as well as a certified career coach.

Doug Hardy is an award-winning writer, editor, and content strategist focused on management, innovation, entrepreneurship, and human capital topics as well as narrative nonfiction. He is the author or co-author of nine books and scores of online and offline articles. After years in book and magazine publishing, Hardy moved online in 1993, leading online editorial groups at The New York Times Magazine Company, Monster.com, and ATT New Media. He is a veteran speaker to business and consumer gatherings, and a content marketing consultant as well as a certified career coach.

Doug Hardy is an award-winning writer, editor, and content strategist focused on management, innovation, entrepreneurship, and human capital topics as well as narrative nonfiction. He is the author or co-author of nine books and scores of online and offline articles. After years in book and magazine publishing, Hardy moved online in 1993, leading online editorial groups at The New York Times Magazine Company, Monster.com, and ATT New Media. He is a veteran speaker to business and consumer gatherings, and a content marketing consultant as well as a certified career coach.