We are pleased to welcome Martin Ganco as the new Academic Director for the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship. Martin is an Associate Professor in the Management and Human Resources department with a focus around entrepreneurship, innovation and technology, business strategy, and complexity theory.
“I’m excited to join such an engaged community within the Wisconsin School of Business,” says Martin. “The amazing team of faculty, staff, board members, alumni, mentors, and donors are incredibly dedicated to the Weinert Center and I look forward to working together to expand the impact of entrepreneurship.”
In Martin’s first few months he’s focused on understanding processes, learning how the center works within the School of Business and campus ecosystems, and meeting stakeholders. Moving forward he’s looking to expanding the way people think about entrepreneurship to include broader applications. Martin sees the demand for entrepreneurial practices—like agile thinking and bootstrapping—expanding to larger enterprises. Working with the Weinert Center, Martin looks forward to the challenge of elevating entrepreneurship to an integral role on campus.
Martin’s current research interests center on entrepreneurship but continues to diversify. Some topics include gender differences in entrepreneurs, innovation ecosystem, business strategy, and intellectual property. Martin’s primary focus is studying the relationship between established companies and people that leave to start their own venture. He works to understand what makes these employees better entrepreneurs, where their knowledge gaps lie, and how this transition impacts the employers. This research helps identify tools for employers to foster entrepreneurial environments within the company.
Martin earned his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Illinois and worked at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota prior to joining the UW-Madison faculty in 2015. Growing up in Slovakia, Martin said he’s from a family of educators. He was drawn to academia because it allows you to ask interesting questions and then identify creative solutions.
Martin succeeds Jon Eckhardt as academic director of the Weinert Center. Jon stepped down this summer and is a Discovery Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
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