Team
Zoltan J. Acs
Zoltan J. Acs, The Godfather of
Entrepreneurship - author, scholar, teacher, social entrepreneur - is the
leading advocate for the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation in
economic growth and social development. He is University Professor in the Schar School
of Policy and Government and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and
Philanthropy (CEP) at George Mason University. He is also visiting professor at Imperial College
Business School in London, and affiliated with the College of Business and
Economics at the University of Pecs, Hungary.
Previously he was Professor of Management at The London School of Economics and Political Science, and Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Economics in Jena, Germany. He has served as Chief Economist at the U.S. Small Business Administration under two U.S. Presidents, was Research Fellow at the U. S. Bureau of the Census, Associate Director of the Center for International Business Education and Research at the University of Maryland, Professor at the University of Baltimore, Research Fellow at the Science Center, Berlin, Research Associate at the Institute on Western Europe at Columbia University, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Kauffman Foundation.
With Dr. Laszlo Szerb, he is the creator of the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI), a roadmap and compass to track the gearing-up of the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. The GEI is jointly promoted with the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) and the White House in 130 countries.
A recent book, Why Philanthropy Matters: How the wealthy give, and what it means for our economic well-being (Princeton University Press, 2013) was finalist for the Academy of Management Baker Prize for the best book in management, 2014.
Zoltan is the founder and editor-in-chief of Small Business Economics, a leading academic journal. Collaborating with faculty and Ph.D. students, he has published more than 200 articles, 45 books, scores of reports and raised over five million dollars in grants. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
