About

I am a visiting professor at Babson College. Formally I was an associate professor in entrepreneurship at the University of Edinburgh Business School, and even before that I was a geography PhD student at the University of Toronto.

My work focuses on entrepreneurial ecosystems: the economic, social, cultural, and political attributes of a place that affect the competitiveness of high growth ventures. My goal is to better understand the types of regional environments that support innovative entrepreneurship and how policymakers can encourage the formation and growth of new firms. 

I look at ecosystems from the bottom up: investigating the practices and strategies entrepreneurs use to engage with their ecosystems, the types of networks they use to gather resources from it, how they can organise their firms to best take advantage of the opportunities and support present in their local community as well as the role of entrepreneurs in building strong, resilient ecosystems. 

In the past my work has looked at how local cultures develop over time and influence the entrepreneurship process,  innovation in 'low-tech' industries, and innovation in the offshore oil economy.