Season 01, Episode 07

S.01 / E.07

Jennifer McFadden

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Over the last nine years, Jennifer McFadden has played an integral part in developing and fostering an entrepreneurial culture across Yale University.

On the show, we dive into the net of who is an entrepreneur and who has the opportunity to become one. Jennifer explains why she feels that we all have a responsibility to think wisely about our organizations, why we're building them, who we include, how we reward them, and why she’s optimistic that these changes are coming. We also zoom in on the role of design and design research and how Jennifer advises that new founders approach it when preparing to launch their new business.

Jennifer serves as an advisor to the Yale Landscape Lab on Yale’s West Campus, which supports synergistic projects in health science, entrepreneurship, and more, and connects over 20 professional schools, departments, organizations, and student groups across Yale. She also launched the Women Entrepreneurs at Yale (WE @Yale) Initiative and is a co-founder and advisor at Skillcrush, an online education company that focuses on teaching women technical skills. Prior to joining Yale SOM, Jennifer worked in media and tech. She was an adjunct professor at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York, where she also conducted research at the intersection of media, tech, and entrepreneurship and worked with start-ups in the news space.

“It's equally as important to pull people through the process of just exploring what it's like to find a problem, to find people who have that problem, to talk to them, to figure out how you can solve that problem and to put something out into the world.”
Jennifer McFadden : Associate Director of Entrepreneurship & Lecturer in the Practice of Management / Yale University

References & Socials

Additional Episodes

E.01

Todd Diemer

User Research Lead, Khan Academy

Todd Diemer is the User Research Lead at Khan Academy, the non-profit educational organization created in 2006 to provide free, world-class education for students nationally and internationally.

E.02

Michelle Lee

Managing Director, Play Lab at IDEO

Michelle Lee, Managing Director at IDEO, leads their Design for Play team. She has made it her mission to use the principles of play to create impactful products for a diverse range of industries, from healthcare to food and beverage. Michelle is an award-winning designer driven by a desire to bring thoughtful solutions to fruition through user-centered design.

E.03

Katie Silvers

Director of Design and UX, Salesforce

Katie Silvers is the Director of Design and UX at Salesforce and is an expert in aligning business needs and communication with core leadership. Before joining Salesforce, Katie was a manager of Corporate Strategy and Innovation at the Arielle X Group and LexisNexis. She specializes in Design Thinking tools and Agile methodologies and believes product and process innovation is an indispensable element in business growth.

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