Technology initiative benefits in business

Venture capitalist Neal Dempsey has donated $3 million to kick off an initiative by the University of Washington Business School to infuse technology into every aspect of training the next generation of managers.

Neal Dempsey

Dempsey, 58, general partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Bay Partners, said he applied the kind of scrutiny to the UW business school’s management and potential that he does to startup companies seeking his firm’s cash.

“I look at the UW business school at this time as an early-stage venture,” said Dempsey, a UW graduate and Tacoma native. “I think the key is the young faculty - they will take this school by the collar and run with it.”

The technology initiative is designed by Business Dean Yash Gupta, who joined the UW last summer, to train a generation of managers who can thrive in the Seattle region’s cutting-edge business climate.

“The effect of this gift - hopefully, the first of many like it - will be nothing short of transformational for the business school,” Gupta said. “This region’s business environment - bristling with entrepreneurial fervor - calls out for an equally dynamic and leading-edge business school.”

The $3 million gift will have four components:

m The first $1 million creates the Dempsey Chair in Information Systems, allowing the school to compete for a preeminent scholar.

m The next $500,000 will establish a pair of endowed visiting professorships to bring in renowned faculty from engineering and science, to lend their cross-disciplinary expertise to business students.

m Another $500,000 will create five technology fellowships, providing incentives for junior faculty to make strides in their research and teaching of technology in business.

m The final $1 million will dramatically increase the pool of endowed scholarship money available to MBAs.

Collectively, the gift will help speed what Gupta describes as a re-engineering of the business school. Among the changes already being explored are the creation of a high-tech MBA degree and an e-commerce program.

Dempsey, a longtime supporter of the business school, linked his stepped up involvement to his enthusiasm about Gupta’s new direction.

“I think that Yash is an incredibly energetic, smart, aggressive leader,” he said, “who will absolutely energize the business community and empower faculty.”

Gupta, for his part, praised Dempsey’s unusual generosity, and noted that the donor grew up in a family of modest means.

“This is somebody who went to the UW on a scholarship,” Gupta said, “and who’s well aware of the difference this institution has made in his life.” ¶

Steven Goldsmith, News & Information