Faculty

John Coughlan has held executive leadership positions in Asia, Europe, and North America in finance, tech, government, nonprofit, education, and real estate. Most of John's career has been internationally focused, including stints as vice president at Lingang Group in Shanghai and deputy director of BusinessEurope (ESF) in Brussels. Upon returning to the U.S. in 2017, John was recruited to serve as founding Director of the workforce development program at Cristo Rey in Oakland.

John began his...

Professor J.P. Allen is a pioneering researcher and educator in the field of online/internet business, specializing in open technologies and the digital transformation of organizations and society. He is the author of Digital Entrepreneurship and Technology and Inequality: Concentrated Wealth in a Digital World.

As founding chair of the Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Department, Dr. Allen pioneered the development of internet business classes, which guide non-technical...

Professor Mark V. Cannice is an internationally recognized scholar, teacher, and speaker on entrepreneurship and venture capital. He is a Professor with the University of San Francisco, School of Management.

Cannice writes the widely-followed quarterly Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index Report® which is published by ProQuest and EBSCO, indexed globally on Bloomberg Professional Services in 170 countries (Bloomberg ticker symbol: SVVCCI), and has been referenced in the...

Roger Chen brings to USF forward-thinking expertise in the fields of corporate innovation and growth, competition and global strategy - areas he views as entirely interdependent. By developing a balanced approach to his research endeavors - devoting equal time and effort between pure quantitative/academic research and case research methods - Dr. Chen embodies academic rigor, benefiting his students, fellow academics, global corporations and communities with his egalitarian work philosophy.

Pr...

Associate Professor Johnathan Cromwell's research focuses on how people collaborate with each other as they define, solve, and change problems while working on creativity and innovation projects in organizations. This work helps advance a nascent theoretical framework called "dynamic problem solving," which aims to explain when, why, and how people can fluidly shift between different models of problem-solving as they work within various constraints in organizations.

Cromwell's teaching...

Associate Professor June Y. Lee specializes in entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging economies.  More specifically, she researches how firms learn and innovate under different institutional environments. Her research and teaching agenda has been sharpened by her industry experiences in entrepreneurship, business, and technology.

Lee earned her PhD from Stanford University. Her dissertation, titled Business Groups and Internationalization, explored how business groups from emerging...

Vijay Mehrotra is a Professor of Business Analytics at the USF, where he leads USF’s MBA Customer Success Management (the first such academic program in the world). He also directs the Business Analytics curriculum within USF's MBA program and teaches courses in Business Analytics, Predictive Modeling, and Data Mining.  Prior to becoming a professor, Vijay spent more than a decade working full-time in Silicon Valley as an analytics consultant, entrepreneur, and executive.  Since 2010, his column...

Dr. Liang Wang’s cross-disciplinary research encompasses entrepreneurship, innovation, and global strategy, with a focus on emerging markets. His work appears in leading academic outlets such as the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Journal of World Business, among others. He has co-edited the Journal of Business Ethics special issue “Co-evolution of Strategy, Innovation and Ethics,” Multinational Business Review special issue...

Professor Burd has worked in the medical device industry for the last 16 years, leading software engineering and data science teams. He's developed automated robotic surgery and diagnostic systems, and created machine learning models for computer vision and real-time analytics. 

Professor Burd brings scenarios and examples from industry into the classroom, and applies a mix of theory and hands-on learning to solve real-world problems.

Reginald Chatman is an advisor to Venture Capital firms, an active Angel Investor, Entrepreneur, and DBA candidate. When not teaching, he spends most of his time mountain biking, traveling with family, and collecting vinyl records.

Stephen Cognetta is a tech entrepreneur, coach, facilitator, and lecturer. Most recently, he is the founder and CEO of Exponent, an online interview preparation platform for tech professionals. Previously, he was a product manager at Google and the founder of the world's largest mental health hackathon. Stephen spends his time split between teaching, coaching, facilitating intergroup communication work, and entrepreneurship. In his free time, he is a hospice volunteer, meditator, and avid film...

Shomit Ghose has spent more than 20 years as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Prior to his VC career, Ghose was a start-up entrepreneur for 19 years, participating in three IPOs. He was also CEO and board member at Truviso, leading to its acquisition by Cisco Systems.

Ghose has held a Lecturer appointment at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering since 2018, teaching data strategy, and sits on multiple corporate boards, both public and private, and multiple scientific advisory boards.

Kurt Keilhacker is a General Partner at Elementum Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital fund. Mr. Keilhacker has served as a co-founder, CEO, CFO, or Board Director at several technology companies. Prior to Elementum, he invested in more than 50 companies across the U.S. and Europe as a Managing Partner at TechFund Capital and TechFund Europe. Previously, Mr. Keilhacker advised companies in New York, London, Paris, and Frankfurt on international mergers & acquisitions. He currently serves...