Business School Professor Predicts UConn is on Cusp of Powerful Entrepreneurial Growth
David Noble, a professor-in-residence in the management department at the School of Business, has been named the director of the new Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UConn.
In December 2017, the UConn Foundation announced a $22.5 million commitment from Werth for the creation of the Institute. Werth said he envisions UConn becoming the premier hub of entrepreneurial education and wanted to enhance that drive. The effort will support student and faculty work with commercial application potential that can be used to create new companies.
“The number of opportunities for UConn to grow in the entrepreneurship and innovation field are immense,” Noble said. “We already have many outstanding programs and the Institute will work diligently to promote them internally and externally, so that the rest of the world knows the exceptional work we do here.”
He said the Institute will actively seek ideas from faculty and students in every school. “If they have innovative ideas, they now have a partner that can financially and administratively help support their efforts. This Institute cannot be successful without a lot of great ideas and partners,” he said. Through a call for proposals, the Institute will focus on ideas that will have the greatest impact.
Noble has been one of the key leaders of UConn’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Consortium, and that is the foundation upon which the new Institute will be built, said Interim Provost Jeremy Teitelbaum in announcing the appointment.
“I am delighted by the Provost’s decision to name David Noble as director of the Peter J. Werth Institute,” said School of Business Dean John A. Elliott. “David’s knowledge, drive and unrelenting enthusiasm will serve him well in this exciting new capacity. David will be a very effective leader, bringing together many entrepreneurial efforts across the UConn campus to help our students continue to grow and excel. The Institute will be a beacon of entrepreneurial excitement for UConn and the State of Connecticut.”
Noble said he is humbled by the appointment but emphasized that many UConn colleagues have worked hard to foster and expand the entrepreneurial spirit at UConn, and without their work the Institute wouldn’t have come to fruition.
Noble’s research and teaching expertise includes entrepreneurship and strategy. He is the director of xCITE: the Conference for Women in Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship and has recently launched a new blockchain startup, together with three UConn alumni, called Integritas Solutions Corp. Prior to joining UConn, Noble was a securities and corporate finance attorney. His academic achievements include a Ph.D. in management from the University of Alabama; a J.D. from the University of Miami and an MBA from Elon University.
Werth, who didn’t attend UConn but has described himself as a Husky at heart, is the founder of ChemWorth Inc., a full-service generic drug development and supply company, created in 1982 from a room above the garage in his Woodbridge, Conn., home. His company’s innovation made pharmaceuticals more accessible and affordable for consumers.
