Rich Gentry, Ph.D.

Richard J. Gentry is the FNC Founders Chair of Entrepreneurship, Professor of Management and Co-Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Mississippi. Rich earned his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2006, focusing on corporate strategy and entrepreneurship. Rich also holds an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering (With honors) from the University of Florida. Before abandoning industry, he worked for Ford Motor Corporation and Asea Brown Boveri in manufacturing roles.

Focusing on issues impacting organizational innovation and small business development, his academic research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Managerial Issues, Strategic Organization, Journal of Business Research and Industry and Innovation. In the popular press, his work has been highlighted in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. His dissertation was funded by the Kauffman Entrepreneurship Foundation, and he is active in the Academy of Management and the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, where he has contributed to the doctoral consortium for two years and is the 2019 conference chair.

He is on the academic editorial boards of Corporate Governance: An International Review and the Journal of Business Research. 

Rich is the founding co-director at Ole Miss’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship where he has helped to raise money, create a major, and build co-curricular student programs to support the state of Mississippi. The Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) recognized Ole Miss as the Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Center in the US in 2015.

Rich has taught strategy, entrepreneurship and global entrepreneurship to students all over the world, including Finland, England, Denmark, and Nigeria.

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