Press Release

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Contact: Allan Friedman
Phone: 773.702.9232
Email: allan.friedman@ChicagoGSB.edu

Contact: Barbara Backe
Phone: 773.702.4282
Email: barbara.backe@ChicagoGSB.edu

Chicago GSB Professor Steven Kaplan to Receive Private Equity Award

 

Steven Kaplan, the Neubauer Family Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, has been chosen to receive the Richard J. Daley Medal from the Illinois Venture Capital Association.
The award, in honor of the late Chicago mayor, “recognizes a single individual who has given direct and extraordinary support to the Illinois economy through private equity funding,” according to the association.

“Steve’s research into venture capital and private equity has focused attention on Illinois as an important center of VC and PE activity,” said Maura O’Hara, executive director of the Illinois Venture Capital Association.

Kaplan will receive the award December 3 during a dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago. John Willis, a managing partner with Willis Stein & Partners, will receive the 2007 Fellows Medal at the dinner, and Samuel Guren of Guren Capital will receive the Stanley C. Golder Medal.

Previous winners of the Richard J. Daley Medal include Donald Phillips, founder and chief executive of WP Global Partners, Norman Bobins, former chairman of LaSalle Bank, and James Tyree, chairman and chief executive of Mesirow Financial.

Kaplan’s research include “Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence and Capital Flows,” Journal of Finance (with Antoinette Schoar), and “Financial Contracting Theory Meets the Real World: Evidence from Venture Capital Contracts,” Review of Economics Studies (with Per Stromberg.)

Kaplan teaches MBA courses in entrepreneurial finance and private equity, and developing a new venture. He is faculty director of the school’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. 

With his students, Kaplan helped start the GSB’s business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge. Now in its 12th year, the New Venture Challenge helped launch more than 35 companies that have raised more than $100 million in funding. In addition, former students of Kaplan are working in many of Chicago’s top private equity firms.
Kaplan is also academic co-dean of the Kauffman Fellows Program, which educates and trains emerging leaders in venture capital and high-growth companies.  Each year, 20 to 30 venture capitalists from around the world enter the two-year program.

Chicago GSB is one of the leading business schools in the world. The school’s faculty includes many renowned scholars and its graduates include many business leaders across the United States and worldwide. It is consistently ranked as one of the top business schools in the world. The Chicago Approach to Management Education is distinguished by how it leverages fundamental knowledge, its rigor, and its practical application to business challenges. 

Chicago GSB offers a full-time MBA program, an evening MBA program, a weekend MBA program, an executive MBA program, a PhD program, open enrollment executive education, and custom corporate education.

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