Penn M&T program welcomes Wharton professor as new director

Wharton School professor David Hsu will serve as the next director of Penn’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology.

Hsu will assume the position on July 1, according to an email sent last month by Wharton School Dean Erika James and School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Vijay Kumar. The position is currently held by Wharton professor Gad Allon, who will step down after a decade in the role.

Hsu — the Richard A. Sapp Professor of Management — has a background in management, intellectual property, and venture capital. According to the email sent to Wharton and Engineering School communities, Hsu’s work has been published in “leading” journals such as Management Science and The Journal of Finance.

“We are confident he will add tremendous value to the M&T program,” the deans wrote in the email.

In 2012, Hsu co-founded Penn’s Y-Prize Competition, which involves members of the Penn community competing for the proposal of the best applications of emerging Engineering School technologies. The Y-Prize competition aims to identify “an exciting but underused technology" and “asks participants to find a problem that this technology can help solve.”

According to the email, Hsu “also served as the Associate Faculty Director of Penn’s Weiss Tech House, which encouraged students in the development and commercialization of innovative technologies.”

In addition to research, Hsu has received multiple Wharton Teaching Excellence awards, an annual program that is granted based upon “outstanding performance in teaching.”

“David is a devoted educator and deeply passionate about supporting student innovators,” James and Kumar continued.

The announcement also highlighted Allon’s role in “advancing” the M&T program and “spearheading numerous impactful initiatives.”

Allon reshaped the program’s coursework, which James and Kumar wrote resulted in a “integrated, cohesive curriculum” between the fields of management and technology. He also launched the inaugural first-year seminar, as well as the annual M&T Summit, which “brings together” the Penn community and industry leaders to “discuss the advancements that will drive the future of business and technology.”

Under Allon’s leadership, the program expanded globally. He created an “Immersive Week” for rising juniors to gain curricular and professional experience and launched Global Exploration trips to India and Brazil.

Allon will continue to serve as a professor of Operations, Information and Decisions.

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