Jennifer Walske

Jennifer Walske is an Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco. She was previously the Faculty Director of the Global Social Venture Competition, a worldwide program that develops next generation social entrepreneurs, and still remains a member of its advisory board. Dr. Walske was also the Director of Social Entrepreneurship within the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, Haas School of Business, U.C. Berkeley. Dr. Walske publishes and presents her research on emergent social venture firms, with an emphasis on how human capital, social capital, and strategy aids new firm success. Dr. Walske was the 2011 recipient of the Earl F. Cheit Award for Teaching Excellence. She also received "Best Paper" at the NYU-Stern Conference in Social Entrepreneurship in 2011, researching firm formation and performance within venture philanthropy.

In 2000, Dr. Walske founded Myriad Investments, LLC, an NVCA registered venture capital firm, where she remains a partner. Myriad Investments participates in the Hub incubator program, located in the Bay Area, and has had exits in the for-profit sector including Bladelogic and Endeca. She continues to serve on the boards of both non-profit and for-profit enterprises, including the National Net Impact Board and is a trustee of the San Francisco Ballet. Dr. Walske is trustee emeriti for Boston Ballet, and was an overseer at large for WGBH, one of the largest independent producers of content for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), including Emmy award winning programs such as Frontline and Nova. Prior to her career in academia, Dr. Walske was a nationally ranked equities analyst by Institutional All-American, and was a regular guest commentator on CNN and CNBC. Previously, she held marketing and sales positions within the high tech industry, based in Silicon Valley.