Moderator: Daniel Isenberg

Professor of Entrepreneurship Practice, Babson Global

Daniel Isenberg joined Babson Global as Professor of Entrepreneurship Practice in July 2009 where he established and heads the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project to help leaders around the world create the policies, structures, programs and cultures that foster entrepreneurship. In June 2010 Harvard Business Review (HBR) published his “How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution,” as the “Big Idea” feature article, following his seminal HBR piece, “The Global Entrepreneur” (2008), and followed by “Entrepreneurs and the Cult of Failure” (April, 2011). His HBR blog on entrepreneurship has attracted over 100,000 readers, and he is a blogger for the Economist, Huffington Post, and Forbes. Dan has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Insead, Reykjavik, Theseus, and the Technion. He has been an entrepreneur and venture capitalist and is an active angel investor. Dan has addressed or advised senior policy groups in Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Israel, Colombia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Puerto Rico, Argentina, China, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Chile. Dan has worked on entrepreneurship policy with the G20 YES, World Economic Forum (Davos), and has advised the White House on StartUp America. Dan teaches in the Harvard Kennedy School executive program on Innovation for Economic Development. In 2012 he will be awarded the Gold Medal of the Pio Manzu Center for “pioneering and innovative work in economic development” (previous Gold Medal awardees include Henry Kissinger and Lady Diana).
Prior to joining Babson in July 2009, Dan served for eleven years on the Harvard Business School faculty: From 2005-2009 he taught in the Entrepreneurial Management unit, where he developed the popular course, International Entrepreneurship, publishing 27 cases on global entrepreneurs. Dan also taught in the required first year course, The Entrepreneurial Manager, and designed and led HBS’s new India and Israel International Immersion Programs on entrepreneurship. From 1981-1987, Dan taught Organizational Behavior and Managing Organizational Effectiveness at HBS, when he conducted research programs on human interaction in small groups and managerial cognition, resulting in his first feature HBR article, How Senior Managers Think,” (1984), and “The Tactics of Strategic Opportunism.” (1987), as well as scientific publications in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology etc. Dan has consulted to multinationals around the world and is on the advisory board of Fundacion Chile.
Between 1972-1976, and 1987-2004, Dan lived in Israel where he was founding CEO of Triangle Technologies, which executes cross-border transactions between Japanese companies and non-Japanese technology companies, concluding over 100 transactions. Dan helped establish two Israeli venture capital funds and was general partner in one of them. From 1987-1989 he created a course at the Technion called Technology-Based Entrepreneurship, directed the Tefen Entrepreneurs Program with Stef Wertheimer, and also directed the Technion Entrepreneurial Associates with MIT Professor Ed Roberts. Dan has served as director of several private and NASDAQ-listed companies. Dan speaks and consults frequently on global entrepreneurship and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Financial Times, and Business Week, and was interviewed on Bloomberg TV, Sky360, and the BBC.
In 1981 Dan received the Ph.D. degree in Social Psychology from Harvard University under the mentorship of Robert Freed Bales. Dan maintains homes in Boston and in his home town of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is divorced with 4 grown children. Dan enjoys salsa dancing (On2), jazz, cooking, collecting wine, and not-catching-fish (at which he excels); nevertheless, he is most passionate about spending time with his kids (one of whom is an entrepreneur) and being surprised by what entrepreneurs around the world can accomplish.