PATRICIA SÁNCHEZ ABRIL is an assistant professor of business law at the University of Miami School of Business Administration.  She is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School.  Before entering academe, Abril was in the law practice focusing on corporate and intellectual property matters.  She spent several years at Univisión Network, the largest Spanish-language television network in the United States, where she specialized in international business transactions, specifically intellectual property rights, talent, and other entertainment-related contracts.  Professor Abril's teaching interests include intellectual property and contract law, and the international aspects of each of these areas of business law. Abril has published primarily in the areas of intellectual property and privacy law, with her most recent work focusing on privacy and its relation to social media, health, securities, and tort law. 

KEN COLWELL is the director of entrepreneurship programs for the University of Miami School of Business Administration. He holds a PhD from the University of Oregon. His research interests revolve around university technology transfer and the strategic factors that lead to success for startup firms. His current research focuses on regional economic clusters and other network structures that form due to the commercialization of radical new technologies, and the role of individual action in the emergence and evolution of organizational fields and the development of firm capabilities. He teaches entrepreneurship and new venture planning at the graduate and undergraduate level, and has extensive experience consulting with student teams writing business plans seeking to commercialize university-invented technologies.

JOSEPH GANITSKY is a research professor in management at the University of Miami School of Business Administration. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration degree from Harvard University. He studies competitive strategies of multinational and local firms in Latin America, global startups and entrepreneurship worldwide, and strategies for the bottom of the pyramid. He teaches entrepreneurship, strategy and international business at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He has been involved in starting several ventures, and has extensive experience consulting with student teams writing business plans, and with business schools in Europe and Latin America in setting up and moving forward with their entrepreneurship programs.

MARC JUNKUNC is an assistant professor of management at the University of Miami School of Business Administration. He holds a PhD from the UCLA Anderson School where he also received an MBA. In the private sector he has been involved in all stages of various entrepreneurial firms from conception and financing to the sale of the business, including as founder, CEO, team member, investor, advisor and director. Presently, his academic research centers on innovation and entrepreneurship. In past research he has examined venture capital, initial public offerings, patents, science-based technology industries, entrepreneurial founders and entrepreneurship in emerging market economies. He teaches courses in entrepreneurial management at the graduate and undergraduate level.

ERIC KRISS is an entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of Miami School of Business Administration.  His varied background spans government, private equity, consulting, health care, music, and entrepreneurship. He co-founded Bain Capital, one of the world's leading private investment firms, and was the founding CEO of MediVision (#35 on the 1989 INC 500), an eye surgery network.  He has led various turnarounds, including MediQual, a health care information firm, and the financial rehabilitation of two Massachusetts cities -- Chelsea and Springfield.  As the chief secretary in Governor Mitt Romney's cabinet, Kriss pioneered the adoption of open standards in government IT and led an entreprenurial approach that sucessfully balanced the $25 billion Massachusetts state budget during a steep recession.  Kriss also plays the piano and builds cars; his latest effort is a 1965 AC Cobra roadster replica.

MARIANNA MAKRI is an assistant professor in strategic management at the University of Miami School of Business Administration. She received her PhD from Arizona State University and she is interested in the effects of corporate governance and science-based research on strategy formulation. Her continued interest in these questions has led to publications in two main streams of research. The first stream examines why family firms approach strategic decisions differently than their non-family counterparts. The second stream, examines the role of science in the innovation process. She teaches Strategic Management at the undergraduate and graduate.

SANTIAGO MINGO is an assistant professor of management at the University of Miami School of Business Administration. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration degree from Harvard University. Santiago's research mixes elements from the fields of business policy and strategy, entrepreneurship, and international business. He explores the interactions among entrepreneurial activity, corporate strategy, and the surrounding institutional and business environment. More specifically, he is concerned about how new ventures in emerging markets create and capture value from science and technology. Recently, his research has been focused on Latin America. His teaching interests include entrepreneurship, business policy and strategy, and innovation and technology strategy. Currently, he teaches entrepreneurship at the undergraduate level.

ROBERT PLANT is associate professor of computer information systems at the University of Miami School of Business Administration and director of the Intelligent Systems Research Institute. He holds a PhD in artificial intelligence and computer science from the University of Liverpool, England. His research interests are centered on technology and innovation, venture capital networks and technology-sustainability. He teaches IT Strategy, and the graduate level class Entrepreneurship: Launching High-Tech Ventures.