Waverly Deutsch

Waverly Deutsch teaches the Global New Venture Challenge class for Chicago Booth’s Executive MBA program. She has been a full-time coach for the annual New Venture Challenge, the #1 rated academic entrepreneurship accelerator, since 2002. Waverly Deutsch created Building the New Venture, a unique course on entrepreneurial execution, and taught it for 15 years. In 2004, she was awarded the USASBE Innovative Teaching Pedagogy for the YourCo simulation that parallels the class and allows students to develop and run a mock startup through all phases of early operation. In 2012, she became one of the faculty coaches for the companies in the Polsky Center Summer Accelerator Program. From 2006 to 2009, in conjunction with the University of Chicago’s Collegiate Scholars Program, Deutsch pioneered and taught an intensive summer seminar entitled Elements of Entrepreneurship in which promising high school students from the Chicago Public School Systems turned an idea into a business plan in two weeks. In 2015, Deutsch was honored with the Phoenix Faculty award for her contributions to the Booth student community beyond the classroom.

In her role as Academic Director of University-wide Entrepreneurship Content, Deutsch works with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to ensure that both for-credit classes on entrepreneurship and extra-curricular content like conferences, workshops, and online materials meet the needs of all students, faculty, and staff at the University of Chicago with an interest in entrepreneurship.

Deutsch’s research focuses on the execution issues entrepreneurs face as they grow their businesses, especially marketing, sales, operations and team building and is featured quarterly in the Chicago Booth Review.

In addition to teaching, her self-proclaimed "first love," Deutsch is an active angel investor and advisor to start ups including the Stylisted, Ascent Technologies, InterApt, Markit Medical, Rekonnex, and Vamonde. She is an advisor to OCA Ventures, a leading technology VC in Chicago, and serves on the board of SmartBet Charities, which uses poker as a vehicle to facilitate entrepreneurial networking in Chicago and raises money for local programs that introduce young people to entrepreneurship education. She served on the board of directors for InContext Solutions, a leading 3D virtual-store market-research company from 2009 to 2011. Prior to joining ChicagoBooth, Deutsch held roles as managing director of NetFuel Ventures, an internet incubator, and executive vice president of marketing and strategy for internet exchange company fob.com. She spent seven years with Forrester Research, helping to grow the company from a 20-person boutique market research firm to a publicly-traded, global brand with a market cap of over $600 million and offices worldwide.

Deutsch earned a bachelor''s degree in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985. She received a master''s degree in 1989 and a PhD in theater history in 1992 from Tufts University.

She enjoys golf, reading, travel, and dogs.

Other Interests

Golf, reading, travel, dogs.

Publications

“Has the world gone crypto crazy?,” Chicago Booth Review, May 11, 2018

“How to get a company off the ground,” Chicago Booth Review, February 28, 2018

“What venture capitalists can learn from ‘racist’ rats,” Chicago Booth Review, November 14, 2017

“How can you divide something that doesn’t exist?,” Chicago Booth Review, August 16, 2017