Saras D. Sarasvathy

Saras D. Sarasvathy is the Paul M. Hammaker Professor at the Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, where she is a member of the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Ethics area. A leading researcher in entrepreneurship, she advises entrepreneurship programs globally across Europe, Asia, and Africa, while serving on boards of companies including Lending Tree (Nasdaq: TREE) and Upekkha, a SaaS accelerator in Bangalore, India.

Her research focuses on the cognitive basis of high-performance entrepreneurship, particularly her groundbreaking work on effectuation theory. Sarasvathy's scholarship examines how expert entrepreneurs think and act under uncertainty, challenging traditional predictive approaches to business strategy. She has developed frameworks showing how entrepreneurs create markets and opportunities through action-oriented, non-predictive methods that leverage available means rather than predetermined goals.

Sarasvathy's award-winning research has generated significant scholarly attention and practical applications worldwide. Her work has spawned over a hundred scholars involved in the effectuation research program, with publications available through www.effectuation.org. Her influential book Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise and co-authored textbook Effectual Entrepreneurship (winner of the 2012 Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal) have shaped entrepreneurship education globally.

Among her numerous accolades are the 2022 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research (the highest recognition in the field), the Academy of Management's 2019 Foundational Work Award, and recognition as one of Fortune Small Business Magazine's top 18 entrepreneurship professors. She has received honorary doctorates from multiple universities in Europe and Asia and has been named a Visiting Professor at institutions worldwide.

Before academia, Sarasvathy founded and ran five successful businesses across three countries. Her doctoral research at Carnegie Mellon University was supervised by Herbert Simon, the 1978 Nobel Laureate in Economics, with whom she collaborated to discover the essential elements of entrepreneurial know-how. She holds a B.Com. from the University of Bombay, India, and an MSIA and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.