McCance First to Serve as Entrepreneur in Residence
McCance: A veteran of venture capital shares his expertise with HBS faculty and students.
Courtesy Greylock
When Henry McCance (MBA ’66) joined Boston-based Greylock Management Corporation in 1969, venture capital was a cottage industry. Thirty-five years and a revolution later, McCance, now chairman of the firm, shared the breadth and depth of his expertise with faculty and students as the first HBS entrepreneur in residence. The newly created posting builds on efforts to involve alumni who can bring a heightened sense of relevance and immediacy to the study of entrepreneurship at HBS, says Senior Lecturer Mike Roberts, executive director of the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.
“We want to be in even closer contact with the outside world and learn about issues being faced right now,” notes Roberts. Students are the obvious beneficiaries of the Entrepreneur in Residence Program; in addition to sitting in on a number of classroom discussions, McCance spoke at student club gatherings, served as an adviser on several field study projects, and left his door open to anyone who wanted to talk about the ups and downs of launching a company or a career in venture capital.
While at HBS, McCance also worked with HBS assistant professor Noam Wasserman on issues relating to founder-CEO succession in entrepreneurial start-ups. Their research resulted in a new case, “Founder-CEO Succession at Wily Technology,” which will debut this month in the lifelong learning program The Entrepreneur’s Tool Kit.
McCance’s stint as entrepreneur in residence is the latest installment of a long-standing relationship with HBS. In addition to maintaining close ties with faculty as the School’s curriculum on entrepreneurial studies took shape in the 1970s and 1980s, McCance was head judge for the first three years of the HBS Business Plan Contest, serving from 1997 to 1999. “HBS has had a tremendously positive effect on my career and my life,” he says. “The Entrepreneur in Residence Program was described to me as a kind of experiment; I was very flattered to be selected as the first guinea pig.”
