James Thompson

Jim teaches in Wharton Executive Education programs and works with management teams around the world. Prior to joining the academic world Jim was a divisional director of a public South African company where he was responsible for business unit turnarounds and new market development. He has worked in Africa for two decades, with firms ranging from small to large, across multiple business sectors. He currently serves on the executive board of a venture capital funded company in Philadelphia and is on the investment advisory committee of a Swiss social entrepreneurship investment fund.

Jim, along with Wharton Management Prof. Ian MacMillan, coauthored the Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook: Pressure Test Your Startup Idea. Their book, which is based on their 13 years of field research with social enterprises, provides information to help social entrepreneurs launch their own ventures. He also has been published in the Harvard Business Review, Journal of Management, Long Range Planning, Management Science, Organization Science, and the ResearchTechnology Management Journal. He is a recipient of Best Paper awards in innovation by the European Business School and the Thought Leader category of the Entrepreneurship Division at the US Academy of Management.

Jim holds a BCom from the University of South Africa, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He concluded a research fellowship in the commercialization of technology at the Wharton School and recently completed his PhD dissertation at the Swiss Institute of Technology, Lausanne.