Relationship to Blank
Jerry Engel is Adjunct Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and founding Executive Director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He served as National Faculty Director of the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program from 2013 to 2015, making him a central figure in scaling Blank's methodology nationally.
In 2012, Engel and Blank (in partnership with Stanford, UC Berkeley, and VentureWell/NCIIA) created the Lean LaunchPad Educators Class — a program to train other faculty in the methodology. This was the critical multiplier that enabled I-Corps to scale beyond what Blank could teach personally.
Background
Before joining Berkeley's faculty in 1991, Engel was Managing Partner of Entrepreneurial Services for Ernst & Young in San Francisco and the firm's National Director of Capital Resources (new venture financing). He co-founded Monitor Venture Partners, a VC firm investing in early-stage technology. He served on the board of Maxis Corporation (The Sims) from 1992-1995 and oversaw financing through its IPO. In 1998 he co-founded AllBusiness.com, which grew to 150+ employees and was sold to NBC in 2000 (13x return to Series A investors).
I-Corps Role
As National Faculty Director of I-Corps (2013-2015), Engel was responsible for training and coordinating the national network of instructors who deliver the Lean LaunchPad curriculum to scientists. This train-the-trainer model was essential — the program could not have scaled to 9,330+ scientists without a faculty network extending far beyond Blank himself.
Significance
Engel is the key figure in the Berkeley strand of Blank's academic network and the critical link in the I-Corps scaling story. If Blank created the methodology, Engel helped build the institutional machinery to deliver it at national scale.
Sources: UC Berkeley Haas, Berkeley Executive Education, VentureWell, steveblank.com