As part of its Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EiR) program, Harvard Business School (HBS) invites accomplished entrepreneurs among the HBS alumni to spend a semester or full academic year on campus as counselors to current MBA students who hope to pursue careers in the entrepreneurial field. This year, four such residents have joined the HBS community, bringing a range of valuable entrepreneurial experience to the school.
This year’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence are Jeffrey Bussgang (MBA ’95), general partner at early-stage venture capital firm Flybridge Capital Partners; Susan Decker (MBA ‘86), former president of Yahoo!; Jim Sharpe (MBA ’76), former president of aluminum extrusion fabricator Extrusion Technology; and Jeffrey Walker (MBA ’81), chairman of Millennium Promise and former CEO of CCMP, the successor to JPMorgan’s private equity arm.
In addition to working directly with students, each EiR will collaborate with HBS faculty on courses and other special projects and programs. Bussgang will work with Associate Professor Noam Wasserman on a second-year elective course called “Founders’ Dilemmas: Money and Power in Entrepreneurial Ventures.” Decker will work with Professor Tom Eisenmann and Senior Lecturer Michael Roberts on the entrepreneurship-focused portions of HBS’s Immersion Experience Program (IXP), in which students conduct career-related field work between the first and second terms. Sharpe will assist Professor Paul Marshall on his elective, “Entrepreneurial Management in a Turnaround Environment.” And Walker will work alongside faculty as part of HBS’s Social Enterprise Initiative.
The EiR program is sponsored by the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, established in 2003 to provide resources and programming for students pursuing entrepreneurial careers. In the 60 years since HBS offered the country’s first graduate course in entrepreneurship, the field has grown to include more than 30 faculty members, and 50 percent of alumni describe themselves as entrepreneurs within 10 to 15 years of graduation.
To learn more about HBS’s EiR program or about this year’s individual participants, click here.
