Maura O’Neill, BCEMBA 04/05, Lecturer, Berkeley-Haas

Thought about starting your own company, but wondered whether it was too late for you? Just want to put your finger on the pulse of this critical part of a U.S. and global economy? Join award-winning Distinguished Teaching Fellow and Berkeley-Haas alumna, Maura O’Neill in discussing trends in starting and financing start-ups. Learn about the ways Berkeley-Haas is supporting entrepreneurship for students and alumni. And have fun hearing the latest, “Entrepreneurship in the News” and what it all means.

Maura O’Neill is a lecturer at the Haas School of Business and was appointed by President Obama to be the first Chief Innovation Officer of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Serving until summer 2013 she had responsibility for inspiring and leading breakthrough innovations in foreign assistance and development worldwide. Maura is most well known for adapting venture capital and drug discovery methods to development by co-creating the Development Innovation Venture Fund. Maura served as a member of the White House Innovation Cohort assisting in innovation across federal government. Prior to joining the Administration she served as a Chief of Staff in the U.S. Senate. A serial entrepreneur, O’Neill founded four companies in the fields of electricity efficiency, smart grid and customer info systems/billing, e-commerce and digital education. In 1989, she was named the Greater Seattle Business Person of the Year. Maura has MBAs from Columbia University and University of California at Berkeley. She has a PhD from University of Washington, where her research focused on narrow-mindedness and errors it leads to in science, medicine, business and political decision-making. Currently, she is also teaching at Stanford and Columbia; advising the World Bank’s Infrastructure Development Corporation on women’s employment and remains active in early stage companies.