An Enthusiastic Welcome to New MS in Entrepreneurship Faculty Director, Ken Myer!
We are pleased to welcome Ken Myer as the new Faculty Director for the Master of Science in Entrepreneurship program at University of Washington! In addition to teaching, Ken’s role as faculty director will be to oversee and offer guidance on several program aspects. Some of the areas where Ken will share his expertise include curriculum design, new program offerings, recommendations and recruitment of new faculty, and the launch and development of other program initiatives. It’s an important role that touches many parts of our community and we couldn’t think of anyone better to lead the charge.
Just last year, Ken was honored with the well-deserved MS in Entrepreneurship Excellence in Teaching Award as part of the 2018 Foster Awards, a recognition aimed at highlighting the best and brightest achievements of faculty.
“Teaching at Foster has been one of the most personally fulfilling experiences of my professional life,” Myer shares. “The students in the MS in Entrepreneurship program are bright, hungry for business knowledge, and passionate about bringing their ideas to life.”
Ken is an accomplished executive and currently serves as an interim leader to companies going through business transitions. He also teaches leadership in the MS in Entrepreneurship program and is a Commercialization Advisor at the UW CoMotion office. Ken has served as an advisor to multiple successful startups, has been a board member on public, private, and non-profit boards, and has been a leadership coach to a variety of executives in companies both large and small. Ken’s specialties include leadership, strategic and tactical planning, marketing, sales execution and operations. Ken has held executive positions at IBM both as CFO and later, General Manager of the Northwest region, as well as the North America executive for the Computer Services Industry: a $500 million business unit focused on the software and computing industry. Ken also was Executive Vice President at Active Voice, co-founded Interval Systems, and was the CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association, where he led efforts to build community and advocate on behalf of thousands of Washington technology companies.
We are excited to work alongside a leader who has been recognized three times for building a “best company to work for” and as one of Seattle’s most influential business leaders by Seattle Magazine in 2009. These accolades will also be an asset to entrepreneurs in our MS in Entrepreneurship program honing their own leadership and innovation skills.
A founding faculty member of the program, Myer looks forward to pursuing the work that his colleagues started. “I’m fortunate to be stepping in after Dr. Ben Hallen and other colleagues at Foster who did the heavy lifting designing and launching the MS in Entrepreneurship three years ago. I hope to bring some helpful new ideas and connections to supplement an already robust program. Given we are located in Seattle — a tremendously dynamic and innovative community — there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have the most sought-after entrepreneur master’s program in the world.”
We look forward to supporting Ken as he assumes his new role and hope that the rest of the MS in Entrepreneurship community will join us in welcoming him!
