10th Effectuation Conference - 

Effectual Impact: The Entrepreneurial Role in Connecting Society

Keynote Speaker Biographies

William B. Gartner holds the Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professorship of Family Entrepreneurship at Babson College and is the Director of Research at the Bertarelli Institute for Family Entrepreneurship. His research focuses on topics that revolve around entrepreneurial behavior at the individual and family levels.  Recognized as a pioneer in entrepreneurship scholarship, he has received the 2005 Swedish Entrepreneurship Foundation International Award, the 2013 Academy of Management Foundational Paper Award, the 2016 Dedication to Entrepreneurship Award, and the 2022 Justin G. Longnecker Fellow Award by USASBE. Before Babson, he held positions at the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, the University of Southern California, San Francisco State University, Clemson University, California Lutheran University, and the Copenhagen Business School.   

CV Link: https://facultyprofilefiles.babson.edu/MirroredFiles/wgartner/pci/GARTNER%20CV%201%20JANUARY%202025-1.pdf

Professor Saras D. Sarasvathy is a member of the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Ethics area. In addition to MBA and doctoral courses in entrepreneurship at Darden, she teaches in doctoral programs in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.  

Sarasvathy came into academia after cofounding and running five ventures spanning three countries. Currently, she serves on the board of Lending Tree (Nasdaq TREE), Upekkha,  a SaaS accelerator in Bangalore, India, as well as on advisory boards for academic institutions in Europe and Asia. 

In 2022, the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum (Entreprenörskapsforum) and the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) awarded Sarasvathy the highest recognition for research in the field of entrepreneurship: 2022 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research.  

Other recognitions for her contributions to teaching and practice include: 
1. Fortune Small Business magazine’s top 18 entrepreneurship professors  
2. Legacy Impact Award from the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers  
3. Schumpeter EU SME Honored Lecture

In addition to Babson College in the US, universities around the world (India, China, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Greece) have also recognized Sarasvathy’s contributions to entrepreneurship research and education by awarding her three professorships and four honorary doctorates. 

A leading scholar on the cognitive basis for high-performance entrepreneurship, Sarasvathy has served on the editorial boards of top management and entrepreneurship journals. Her scholarly work has won several awards from the American Marketing Association and the Academy of Management in 2017. Her book Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise was nominated for the 2009 Terry Book Award by the Academy of Management. 

The research program based on effectuation involves over a hundred scholars from around the world whose published and working papers can be found at www.effectuation.org. Sarasvathy has also developed several cases and other instructional materials to teach effectuation. The best-seller textbook she co-authored, Effectual Entrepreneurship won the Gold Medal in the 2012 Axiom Business Book Awards. 

In addition to a master's degree in industrial administration, Sarasvathy received her Ph.D. in information systems from Carnegie Mellon University. Her thesis on entrepreneurial expertise was supervised by Herbert Simon, 1978 Nobel Laureate in Economics. Here are links to her SSRN Author Page, her TEDx talk, a video interview with Big Think, a webinar from the World Bank and one from the Academy of Management. 

CV Link: https://www.darden.virginia.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Sarasvathy%2002_2024%20Full%20cv.pdf