Adam J. Bock, Gerard George
Adam Bock is a research academic, serial entrepreneur, and professional financier and venture consultant. As an academic, he has studied business models globally, from the US and UK to Russia and India, and has published highly cited articles about business models, including the first large-scale global study of business model innovation. As Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at The University of Edinburgh, he teaches and has taught courses on business models to hundreds of international students across every field of study. Adam has given invited lectures on business models at top global Business School as well as Academy of Management, the most prestigious management scholarship conference.
In 10 years of entrepreneurial activity, he co-founded three life science ventures spun-out of universities. One of those ventures, Nerites Corporation, was purchased by Kensey-Nash (Royal DSM, NA) for $20 million in 2011. He managed multiple angel networks, facilitating more than $10 million of seed investments into early stage technology firms. His experience includes Advisory Boards and Directorships, as well as pro bono mentoring of technology and social entrepreneurs around the world, including ventures in the US, UK, and India. In 2013 he was selected to join Young Academy Scotland, part of the Royal Academy of Edinburgh, in recognition of scholarship and contribution to the entrepreneurial community. He was also selected by MIT to participate in the Skolkovo Institute Ideas Lab (Moscow), and his research project on entrepreneurial ecosystems was subsequently funded by Skolkovo. In addition to his research on business models, he has published articles online and in practice journals, including "Agile Business Model Innovation" in European Business Review.
Gerard (Gerry) George is Dean and Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University. An award-winning researcher and teacher, Gerry has published over 100 articles in leading scholarly journals. From 2013 to 2016, he served as Editor of the Academy of Management Journal, the flagship empirical journal in the field of management. He was awarded a prestigious Professorial Fellowship from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council to work on -constrained resource or inclusive innovation. His research investigates business models, organizational design, and its implications for innovation and entrepreneurship.
He serves on the board of AACSB International. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is the world’s largest business education network connecting students, academia, and business to advance business education worldwide. For his contribution to further education and research, Gerry was awarded Fellowship of the City & Guilds of London Institute.
His books (with Adam) introduce a narrative approach on how entrepreneurs conceive and change business models to make an implausible idea into a viable growth opportunity, Models of Opportunity: How Entrepreneurs Design Firms to Achieve the Unexpected, (Cambridge University Press 2012). Inventing Entrepreneurs: Technology Innovators and their Entrepreneurial Journey (Pearson Prentice Hall 2009) addresses the human side of innovation and technology commercialization.