Paul F Brown portrait
  • Professor (Lecturer), Department of Entrepreneurship and Strategy
  • James Lee Sorenson Presidential Chair

Research Summary

Although my primary focus is teaching, I have written on entrepreneurship and startups from a practitioner-oriented perspective. I have also done research on innovative debt and fixed-income securities, including green bonds.

Education

  • Juris Doctor, Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
  • Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy and Political Science, University of Utah

Biography

Paul F. Brown holds the James Lee Sorenson Presidential Chair at the David Eccles School of Business. He is a full-time professor in the Entrepreneurship and Strategy Department. Paul also serves as a senior director of the Sorenson Impact Center and is on the investment committee of the UV2, a student-run impact venture capital fund. He is an entrepreneur in residence with the University of Utah's Center for Medical Innovation.

Paul has spoken or made presentations at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management's Impact Investing Global Faculty Convening, the Irish Impact Social Entrepreneurship Conference at the Mendoza School of Business at the University of Notre Dame, the Global Health Extreme Affordability Conference in Ghana, the Impact Capitalism Summit in Chicago, and at the Winter Innovation Summit in Salt Lake City. He also was an invited attendee at the White House Convening on Pay for Success and the Opioid Crisis.

Along with his students, Paul has been engaged as a consultant by the Institute on Aging, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Ensign College of Public Health, Hydro-Cooperative Credit Union, CleanSlate Addiction Treatment Centers, and Access Afya.  He also developed a collaborative executive education program with the Money Management Institute in which financial advisors nationwide are instructed on impact investing.

Before teaching, Paul was a managing director at Sandbox Industries in Chicago, where he founded and co-managed a $300M healthcare venture capital fund. He also was the founder and CEO of Sandbox's innovation consulting practice.  

Before that, Paul was a senior executive for ten years with the national Blue Cross and Blue Shield organization, both as vice president & deputy general counsel, and as vIce president of venturing. Prior to those positions he was a partner in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis, LLP.

Paul has been a volunteer mentor with the Village Capital and Healthbox startup accelerator programs and has served as a judge and mentor for Games4Health, Bench2Bedside, American Dream Ideas Challenge, OpportunityQuest, the Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge, and Business Scholar Innovation Showcase programs. Previously, he was also the trustee of the Paul Kimball Scholarship Fund for many years.  

Outside of teaching, Paul is an advisory partner with Granite Growth Health Partners and a board member for CleanSlate Centers, amplifi.io, Central Logic, QualDerm Partners, and SwellCX. Previously, he was a board member for Nexidia, Bloom Health, PatientCo, Capson, TripleCare, and Phreesia. Paul currently advises a number of startups and is an active angel investor.

Paul holds a JD, cum laude, from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and dual BAs, magna cum laude, in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Utah, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.