Accolades

Steven Kaplan, the Neubauer Family Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance in the Graduate School of Business, has been chosen to receive the Richard J. Daley Medal from the Illinois Venture Capital Association.

The award, in honor of the late Chicago mayor, “recognizes a single individual who has given direct and extraordinary support to the Illinois economy through private equity funding.”

Kaplan’s research includes “Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence and Capital Flows” (written with Antoinette Schoar), published in the Journal of Finance, and “Financial Contracting Theory Meets the Real World: Evidence from Venture Capital Contracts” (written with Per Stromberg), published in The Review of Economic Studies.

Kaplan teaches M.B.A. courses in entrepreneurial finance and private equity, and a course on how to develop a new venture. He also is faculty director of the GSB’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship.

With his students, Kaplan helped start the GSB’s business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge. Now in its 12th year, the New Venture Challenge has helped launch more than 40 companies that raised more than $100 million in funding. In addition, former students of Kaplan are working in many of Chicago’s top private equity firms.

Kaplan is also the academic co-dean of the Kauffman Fellows program, which educates and trains emerging leaders in venture capital and high-growth companies. Each year, 20 to 30 venture capitalists from around the world enter the two-year program.