The University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business has appointed Jen Brown as the new chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship & Strategy. Brown, the H. Brent Beesley Professor of Entrepreneurship & Strategy, officially began her three-year term on July 1. She is enthusiastic about leading the department, which holds a prestigious ranking among the top 5 in the nation for entrepreneurship education.
Expressing her aspirations for the department, Brown stated, "I hope to continue the great work of the previous chairs and continue to push the department forward. I want to be a strong advocate for our department's growth. We have real opportunities to hire some of the top-ranked strategy scholars and continue to build our reputation as one of the premier strategy departments in the country."
Brown brings a wealth of experience to her new role, having been a professor at the Eccles School since 2017. Prior to this, she taught at esteemed institutions such as the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. Her educational background includes a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley, a master of science from the University of Guelph, and a bachelor of science from the University of Manitoba.
Her research interests encompass a range of topics, from analyzing competitors' incentives and strategies to studying job seekers' behavior during the Great Recession. Currently, Brown is involved in projects examining the implications of consumer protection laws, gender-based variations in higher education choices, information gathering in risky decision-making, and safety investments in different types of firms. Furthermore, she teaches courses in managerial economics and competitive strategy at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Brown takes over from the previous chair, Matthew Higgins, who served in the role from July 2020 to June 2023. Elevating the department's reputation as a thought leader will be one of Brown's top priorities. She believes the department's status as a premier strategy department positions it well to attract some of the world's best strategy thinkers to the academic community. Leveraging this intellectual capital, Brown aims to create innovative academic programming that adds value to students at the University of Utah. Brown also plans to focus on developing an academic program that emphasizes value creation for students in Utah. And last but not least, she aims to support the department's various centers, institutes, and initiatives while fostering the success of junior faculty members in both research and teaching.
