Ashlea Wallington to Join STVP as New Executive Director

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center in the Stanford School of Engineering, is delighted to announce that Ashlea Wallington will be its new executive director, starting this June. With a diverse background in entrepreneurship education, innovation leadership, and global program development, Wallington brings a range of experience and a passion for fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems to her new role at STVP.

“Ever since I made an inspiring visit to STVP in 2019, the program has been a lighthouse for me and my teams,” said Wallington. “Now, more than ever, society is looking to universities such as Stanford to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. STVP’s cutting-edge research, esteemed academic community, impact-driven collaborators, innovative students, and prestigious alumni have already shown their ability to step up to the plate. I simply can’t wait to join the team and work towards our next great expansion of this impact.”

Wallington, whose career spans industries and continents, joins STVP after five years at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), most recently as director of innovation and entrepreneurship. While there, she developed the strategy and roadmap for entrepreneurial engagement across the curricular and extracurricular experience, spearheading new programs in startup leadership development, sustainability, academic entrepreneurship and spinouts, and incubation.

Prior to joining CBS, Wallington served as the director of entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Sydney Union in Australia, where she quadrupled program participation. She also designed and taught an immersive intercultural competence and entrepreneurship experience in a first-of-its kind partnership between five international universities in Suzhou, China. 

As an associate lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School, Wallington taught the MBA capstone course Lean Design for Product Development and Business Strategy, earning a dean’s citation for teaching excellence. Other accolades include the Diversity Prize at the Fonden for Entreprenørskab (Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship) and earning first place in the European Enterprise Promotion Awards.   

“My fellow faculty directors and I are thrilled to welcome Ash to the STVP leadership team,” said Professor Tom Byers, a faculty director of STVP since its founding. “One of STVP’s core action areas has always been to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem globally. Ash’s impressive track record in entrepreneurship education and dedication to advancing innovation worldwide make her the ideal fit for our center. We are excited to support her as she leads us into our next chapter of growth and impact.”

Wallington holds an MBA from the University of Sydney Business School and a BA in media and communications from the University of New South Wales. She also earned a graduate certificate in higher education from the University of Sydney and holds a fellowship from Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy).

About STVP

Founded in 1997, the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) is the entrepreneurship center within the Stanford School of Engineering. STVP empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to become global citizens who create and scale responsible innovations. As one of the few entrepreneurship centers situated in an engineering school, STVP has played a central role in defining how entrepreneurship is taught, advancing groundbreaking research on technology entrepreneurship and innovation, and catalyzing entrepreneurship ecosystems around the world. Grounded in scholarly research by faculty in Management Science & Engineering, STVP courses and programs include five student and postdoc fellows programs, a doctoral program, the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders speaker series, and the Stanford Initiative on Entrepreneurs’ Resilience and Well-Being, a collaboration with the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign.