Professor Steven N Kaplan

Steven N. Kaplan is the Neubauer Family Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB). He is the faculty director of the GSB’s Polsky Entrepreneurship Center. Professor Kaplan has been a member of the faculty since 1988. He earned his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University. He received his A.B., summa cum laude, in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College. Prior to completing his Ph.D. studies, Professor Kaplan held positions with Kidder, Peabody & Co. and Booz, Allen & Hamilton.

Professor Kaplan's research and teaching focus on issues in private equity and entrepreneurial finance, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, e-commerce, and corporate finance. He has published papers in a number of academic and business journals. He received the Smith Breeden Prize for the First Prize Paper in the Journal of Finance in 1998. Professor Kaplan is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a former director of the American Finance Association. He is a Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI).

Professor Kaplan teaches advanced M.B.A. and executive courses in entrepreneurial finance and private equity, and in corporate financial management. He has been one of the top-rated teachers at the GSB in Business Week's surveys since 1992. Professor Kaplan was named one of the top twelve business school teachers in the United States in Business Week's 1994 survey of M.B.A. programs. He was named one of the top four teachers of entrepreneurship in the United States in Business Week's 1996 survey.

Professor Kaplan was awarded the GSB’s McKinsey Prize for Teaching Excellence in 1998. Professor Kaplan served on the board of directors of Liberty Acorn Funds and Morningstar, and on several advisory boards.

He is the co-creator of the Kaplan-Schoar PME (Public Market Equivalent) private equity benchmarking approach. A Fortune Magazine article referred to him as "probably the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy.” Professor Kaplan co-founded the entrepreneurship program at Booth. With his students, he helped start Booth’s business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge (NVC), which has included over 800 companies that have raised almost $1 billion and created over $8 billion in value including GrubHub, Braintree/Venmo and Simple Mills.

Kaplan serves on the board of Morningstar and several fund and company advisory boards. He has been a member of the faculty since 1988.