Three Appointed to Endowed Professorships
Paul A. Gompers, Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business
Administration
Paul Gompers specializes in research on financial issues
related to start-up, high growth, and newly public companies. A member of both
the Finance and the Entrepreneurial Management units, his course development
efforts center on issues affecting entrepreneurial firms and their investors.
Gompers studies the structure, governance, and performance of private equity
funds; the sources of financing, incentive design, and performance of private
firms; and long-run performance evaluation for newly public companies. His work
on private equity funds has examined the relationship between general partners
and their portfolio companies. Gompers recently coauthored two books:
Entrepreneurial Finance and The Money of Invention. His Harvard degrees include
an AB in biology and a Ph.D. (1993) in business economics.
Forest L. Reinhardt, John D. Black Professor of Business
Administration
Forest Reinhardt, an authority on the use of natural
resources, serves as course head for the required Strategy course and also
teaches the MBA elective Business and the Environment. His research focuses on
the relationships between market and nonmarket strategy, particularly in the
energy industry and in the food and agribusiness sector. He is interested in the
relations between government regulation and corporate strategy, the behavior of
private and public organizations that manage natural resources, and the economics
of environmental protection. Reinhardt’s most recent book is Down to Earth:
Applying Business Principles to Environmental Management. A native of Missoula,
Montana, he holds three Harvard degrees: an AB, an MBA (1987), and a Ph.D. (1990)
in business economics.
Debora L. Spar, Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration
An expert in business-government relations and the politics of international
commerce, Debora Spar joined the HBS faculty in 1991 and presently chairs the
Business, Government and International Economy (BGIE) unit. Her research focuses
on issues of foreign trade and investment — examining how firms compete in
foreign markets and how government policies shape and constrain their options.
Having spent several years examining information-based industries, such as media
and entertainment, her latest research project looks at the politics of life
science and at the particular politics that surround the commercialization of
reproductive technologies. Her recent publications include a book of cases on
managing international trade and investment and Ruling the Waves: Cycles of
Discovery, Chaos, and Wealth from the Compass to the Internet. She received her
MA and Ph.D. (1990) in government from Harvard.
