Steven Neil Kaplan

Steven Neil Kaplan is the Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Faculty Director at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He has been a faculty member since 1988.

Education:

• AB, summa cum laude in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College
• PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University

Research Focus: Private equity benchmarking (co-developer of the Kaplan-Schoar PME method), venture capital decision-making, corporate governance mechanisms, CEO compensation dynamics, and behavioral finance. His work examines how private equity funds perform, the role of executive characteristics in hiring, and pandemic impacts on capital markets.

Scientific Recognition:

• Elected to the Society of Fellows of the American Finance Association (2025)
• Smith Breeden Prize for outstanding paper (1998)
• Markowitz Award for best JOIM paper (2016)
• Addison-Wesley Prize for top financial research (2002-2004)

Notable Contributions: Co-founded Booth's entrepreneurship program and New Venture Challenge business competition, which produced successful startups like GrubHub and Braintree. His recent working papers analyze CEO market dynamics, private debt structures, and pandemic-era investment behaviors.