Speaker

Dana Barsky, MBA 1995

The Growth for Good Acquisition Corporation

Dana Barsky recently joined Growth for Good, a sustainability-focused SPAC. She previously served as Global Head of Sustainable Finance at Credit Suisse, where she worked with sustainable companies to finance their growth, as well as with multinationals looking to transition to a lower carbon-intensive model. In this role, she created the Credit Suisse sustainable activities framework that shaped the firm’s view on sustainability, and focused on bespoke capital markets transactions such as blue bonds and wildlife conservation.

Previously Dana served as Chief Operating Officer and Head of Sustainable Products and Partnerships for Credit Suisse’s Sustainability Strategy, Advisory and Finance Department, overseeing the group’s initiatives to develop sustainable investment products, while promoting and financing projects that sought to close the funding gaps in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Speaker

Professor Josh Lerner

Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking HBS

Professor Josh Lerner is the head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit and the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School.

Much of his research focuses on venture capital and private equity organizations. (This research is summarized in Boulevard of Broken Dreams, The Money of Invention, Patient Capital, and The Venture Capital Cycle.) He also examines policies on innovation and how they impact firm strategies. (That research is discussed in the books The Architecture of Innovation, The Comingled Code, and Innovation and Its Discontents.) He co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program and serves as co-editor of their publication, Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs The Private Capital Research Institute, a nonprofit devoted to encouraging access to data and research, and has been a frequent leader and participant in the World Economic Forum projects and events.

Professor Lerner created an elective course for second year MBAs called “Venture Capital and Private Equity.” It has consistently been one of the largest elective courses at Harvard Business School over the past two decades. He also established and teaches doctoral courses on entrepreneurship, teaches in the Owner/President Management Program, and leads executive courses on private equity. Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Swedish government’s Global Entrepreneurship Research Award and the Cheng Siwei Award for Venture Capital Research.