About Us

The Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program targets students interested in:

• learning about entrepreneurship,
• starting a company,
• working on venture capital careers, or
• integrating entrepreneurial thinking into corporate environments.

In addition to a wide range of courses, many featuring the Lean Launchpad methodology, the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program offers opportunities to get exposure, acquire skills and gain real-world experience in startups. We offer multidisciplinary hackathons and pitch-a-thons, mentoring from industry experts, startup seed funding, competitions, accelerators, internships and events with Berkeley’s extensive entrepreneurial network.

Our courses and offerings guide or immerse Haas and Berkeley students through the three phases of the entrepreneurial journey:

• ideation and team formation,
• customer discovery and validation, and
• startup acceleration

On the curricular side, Haas’ experienced faculty provide the theoretical framework, empirical evidence, and experiential opportunities to the diverse student body participating in the Bay Area’s innovation ecosystem. On the co-curricular side, the Program integrates and extends entrepreneurship services provided by Berkeley-Haas. Specifically, the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program brings its deep programmatic experience, extensive alumni network, and connections to the Berkeley campus to mentor hours, competitions, accelerators and multidisciplinary events; the Dean’s Startup Seed Fund provides seed funding for select student startups; and Berkeley-Haas offices connect students to careers in startups and innovative companies.

Program Leadership

Faculty Director: Toby Stuart
email: tstuart@haas.berkeley.edu

Toby E. Stuart is the Helzel Chair in Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation and Faculty Director of the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Previously, he has been: The Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; the Arthur J. Samberg Professor and Faculty Director of the Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School; and the Fred G. Steingraber-A.T. Kearney Professor of Leadership & Strategy at University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. He received his first chaired, full professorship at the University of Chicago at the age of 32. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He holds an A.B., summa cum laude, in economics from Carleton College. See more 

Executive Director: Rhonda Shrader
email: rhonda_shrader@berkeley.edu

Rhonda is Executive Director of the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program as well as the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program for the Bay Area Node. She has founded or was an early stage team member of start-ups in biotech, behavioral health, retail, non-profit and AI. She served as a long-time mentor for UCSF’s Idea to IPO course, is an active advisor for NASA spinoff BrainAid, and recently lead the winning teams for both the Health Tech Forum Codeathon and the San Francisco MedHack 2.0 Hackathon.  She graduated from Harvard with a degree in neuropsychology and holds an MBA in strategy and operations from Berkeley-Haas.

Sr. Program Manager
Adeeba Fazil
email: adeeba@berkeley.edu

Adeeba Fazil is the Program Manager at the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program. In this capacity, she manages the mentoring program, Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), the University of California LAUNCH startup accelerator, and much more. She is active in her community and volunteers during her spare time in underserved communities across the Bay Area.