Faculty

 For contact information, see The Entrepreneurship Team.

David Simpson – Executive Director, Business Families Centre; Lecturer

David Simpson is a London based financier with a broad range of business experiences and a passion for Entrepreneurship. He has financed and operated a diverse range of businesses including restaurants, golf courses, aircraft leasing, oil field serves and retail. He completed an undergraduate degree (Political Science) by part time study while he played professional hockey. Upon retirement from hockey, he completed an MBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business in 1988. Upon graduation, he began his career as an entrepreneur engaging in all aspects of corporate finance in the small business sector.

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Ron Close – Executive Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Ron Close is a seasoned entrepreneur, executive and board member with a solid track record of leadership and achievement.

Ron is an Executive Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, where he teaches and mentors undergraduate and graduate business students. He is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at MaRS Discovery District where he helps science, technology and social entrepreneurs commercialize their new ventures. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of MaRS Innovation and is a Board member and Audit Committee Chairman of CTVglobemedia, Canada’s premier multimedia company with leading properties in television, newspapers, radio and online.

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Simon Parker – Associate Professor, Entrepreneurship; Director of the Driving Growth Through Entrepreneurship & Innovation Cross-Enterprise Leadership Research Centre

Professor Parker is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Richard Ivey School of Business. He is a Research Professor at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany; a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labour, IZA, in Bonn, Germany; and a Fellow of the Amsterdam Center for Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Small Business Economics, a Co-editor of the Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, and is a member of the editorial boards of the International Small Business Journal and Foundations & Trends in Entrepreneurship. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in economics, entrepreneurship and management journals and has edited several books on the Economics of Entrepreneurship.

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Stewart Thornhill – Associate Professor; ERA Fellow in Entrepreneurship; Executive Director, Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship

Stewart Thornhill is Associate Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship and Executive Director, Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Richard Ivey School of Business. Prior to joining Ivey, he belonged to the faculty in Entrepreneurial Studies at York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto. He received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia and also holds a B.Sc. (Eng.) in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA with a concentration in Finance. Before beginning his graduate studies in business, he worked as a production engineer in the manufacturing sector and as a radio journalist.

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