Start Me Up

This was good news for Dean Paul Danos and Senior Associate Dean Robert Hansen, but not a surprise. They’ve known for a while that many Tuck alumni have started companies, and they’ve seen student interest about entrepreneurship grow dramatically. Yet the two wondered what more Tuck could do to help students get their business ideas off the ground.

The answer came after months of research, benchmarking, focus groups, and interviews with students, faculty, and alumni. The conclusion was that interest in entrepreneurship on campus has grown so much that it needs some dedicated attention. The result? Tuck’s new Entrepreneurship Initiative, a sort of clearinghouse for entrepreneurship resources at Tuck and beyond.

 “The idea,” says Joaquin Villarreal T’08, who is managing the initiative’s launch, “is to be a very student-facing office where people can just walk in and ask all kinds of questions.” The office will then point students to the courses, faculty, programs, and alumni who can provide guidance and mentorship. “We want to provide a road map and a sense of timing,” Villarreal says, “so students can extract the most entrepreneurship value out of their Tuck education, and at the same time grow and improve Tuck’s entrepreneurship offerings to students.”

Villarreal welcomes inquiries from alumni willing to mentor students who are looking to start businesses.