Dr. Richard Gentry

Chair of Department of Management; FNC Founders Chair of Entrepreneurship; Co-Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Professor of Management

Dr. Richard J. Gentry is the FNC Founder’s Chair in Entrepreneurship and Professor of Management at the University of Mississippi, where he is the co-director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Chair of the Management Department.

His research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of Management amongst othersBoth the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review have featured his research, and, in collaboration with colleagues at Georgia, TCU & Texas A&M, he maintains the world’s largest open-sourced database of CEO turnover and dismissal. That database has been downloaded by researchers and professionals over 6,000 times. He has been active in service to the Academy of Management and Strategic Management Society, in various roles, since 2003 and was the 2019 conference chair for the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

In addition to his MBA and bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering (With honors), Rich earned his Ph.D. from the University of Florida as a Kauffman Fellow, focusing on corporate strategy and entrepreneurship. Before abandoning the industry, he worked in manufacturing roles at the Ford Motor Corporation and Asea Brown Boveri. Rich teaches entrepreneurship, strategy, and entrepreneurial finance topics for undergraduate and MBA students.