Steven Kaplan

Professor Kaplan is the Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he joined the faculty in 1988. Professor Kaplan is also the faculty director of Chicago Booth’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. Professor Kaplan is one of the world’s foremost researchers on private equity, venture capital and corporate governance. His papers on LBOs and private equity are the standard references in the field. He has testified to U.S. Senate and U.S. House Committees about his research. His findings and opinions regularly appear in prominent business media. Professor Kaplan is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Kaplan teaches advanced MBA and executive courses in entrepreneurial finance and private equity, corporate financial management, corporate governance, and wealth management. His course in entrepreneurial finance and private equity is consistently among the most popular in the school. BusinessWeek named him one of the top twelve business school teachers in the country. Kaplan co-founded the entrepreneurship program at Booth. With his students, he helped start Booth’s business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge, which has spawned over one hundred companies that have raised over $250 million including GrubHub, Braintree and Bump. Professor Kaplan serves on the board of Accretive Health, Columbia Acorn Funds, and Morningstar. He serves on the advisory board of Correlation Ventures and Sandbox Industries. He also serves on the board of the Kauffman Fellows Program (an educational program that trains emerging leaders in venture capital and high-growth companies), the Illinois Venture Capital Association and the Chicago National Association of Corporate Directors. Professor Kaplan earned his PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University. He received his AB, summa cum laude, in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College. Professor Kaplan and his wife, Carol Rubin, live in Chicago with their two sons.