William R. Kerr

William Kerr is the D’Arbeloff Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Bill is the co-director of Harvard’s Managing the Future of Work initiative and the faculty chair of the Launching New Ventures program for executive education. Bill is a recipient of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship and Harvard's Distinction in Teaching award.

Bill's research focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation. One research strand examines the role of immigrant scientists and entrepreneurs in US technology development and commercialization, as well as the subsequent diffusion of new innovations to the immigrants’ home countries. A second research strand considers agglomeration and entrepreneurship, with special interest in how government policies aid or hinder the entry of new firms, cluster formation, and growth. A final interest area is entrepreneurial finance and angel investments.

Kerr is a Research Fellow of the NBER and Bank of Finland, has received several awards for his research papers, and serves on the editorial boards of multiple academic journals. Bill has worked extensively with the World Bank, Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, and the National Science Foundation.

He has worked with firms worldwide. Past projects include business plan development for start-up ventures in Hong Kong, establishing a corporate entrepreneurship and CVC unit within a Korean chaebol, and evaluating the acquisition of early-stage communications companies for a US multinational entering the Asian market. He also advised the governments of South Africa and Singapore on the economic benefits from telecom market deregulation.

Bill received his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT and his B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.