Myra Hart

Myra Hart's research focus is high potential entrepreneurship.  She has taught MBA and executive programs, co-chaired the entrepreneurship unit, and led several_ _HBS initiatives. As a founding member of the Diana Group, Hart and a team of four other professors began a collaboration in 2000 and subsequently developed an international research consortium focused on female entrepreneurship.  She and her colleagues have co-authored Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High Growth Businesses, Women Business Owners and Equity Capital: The Myths Dispelled, and Gatekeepers of Venture Growth: A Diana Project Report on the Role and Participation of Women in the Venture Capital Industry, as well as numerous journal articles, reports, and two edited books. In 2007, the founding team was recognized with the FSF Nutek International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business research. She has also developed more than 60 HBS cases and teaching notes.

Hart has significant experience in the retail industry. In 1985, she joined Tom Stemberg as one of the four founding officers of Staples. Prior to that she was Director of Marketing for Star Market, a division of Jewel Companies.

She has served as a trustee of Cornell University and Babson College and is a lifetime Cornell Presidential Councillor. She is on the national board of the Smithsonian Institution and the advisory board of the Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory. She is a director of several public and private companies including Kraft Foods Inc, Office Depot, and Nina McLemore, Inc.  She also serves on Deloitte's Women's Initiative External Advisory Council.  Harvard Business School has recognized Professor Hart with the Apgar Award for innovation in teaching and the Greenhill Award for faculty leadership. She has been named to the Hall of Fame by Enterprising Women, CEO (Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization) and the New England Business and Technology Association.