Liwei Huang Professorship in Business
Professor Sam Garg
Associate Professor, Department of Management and HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies

Entrepreneurial ventures are among society's most prized assets, driving economic development, job creation, and even poverty alleviation. A pioneer and world leader in research on entrepreneurship and strategy at the highest organizational levels, Professor Sam Garg offers a fresh vision of the CEO-board relationship and how boards, executives and CEOs work together to help young startups grow and then effectively evolve into publicly listed firms.  Professor Garg harnesses rich, unique and often hand-collected data on new ventures, and his work points to exciting new opportunities for research and practice at the intersection of entrepreneurship and corporate governance—all the way from starting up to scaling up and then to listing on stock exchanges.

Born in India, Professor Garg has contributed to academic and professional communities around the world. He followed his passion for studying entrepreneurship from Singapore to the U.S., and subsequently settled in Hong Kong at HKUST in 2011. He now serves as Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy in the Department of Management. Indeed, Hong Kong, with its long history of entrepreneurship, and HKUST, an incubator for the best and brightest minds in scientific and technological innovation, offer the ideal setting for Professor Garg's decades-long research on high-growth technology ventures and emerging markets.

His co-authored book Inspire to Innovate: Management and Innovation in Asia, published by Palgrave Macmillan, reached the finals of the MCA Best Management Book of the Year Awards in 2005, and his contribution to knowledge in the last two decades has gone from strength to strength. He has won support from influential Hong Kong funding bodies for research ranging from the scaling up of Asian entrepreneurial firms to equity crowdfunding in China. He also provides invaluable editorial oversight for leading academic journals such as the Academy of Management Journal and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.

The scope of Professor Garg's contribution to the field is far from surprising, given that his research is rooted in not only deep theoretical knowledge but also extensive practical experience of the industry. Before embarking on his M.A. and Ph.D. at Stanford University, California, marking the beginning of an illustrious career in academia, Professor Garg had built a career working with entrepreneurial firms. He even founded his own online payment venture while still a student in Singapore. Today, he is a sought-after keynote speaker and panelist at prominent entrepreneurship events, including those organized by eminent organizations such as the Financial Times, the Asia Society, and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Young and mature firms alike rely on Professor Garg's expert advice—from promising startups to the time-honored community organizations such as the Rotary Club of Kowloon, on whose board he has served.

At HKUST, Professor Garg plays a critical role in designing and delivering undergraduate and Masters courses on entrepreneurship, as well as executive education on innovation and entrepreneurship. He is keenly aware of the enormous responsibility that comes with teaching and strives to create the best possible learning experience through innovation, inspiration and collaboration. After all, he says, the essence of entrepreneurial success is "doing things interdependently." Echoing HKUST's commitment to fostering interdepartmental and academia-industry partnerships, this pithy yet practical statement encapsulates Professor Garg's highly commended approach to teaching. Just as successful entrepreneurship relies on synergy between a venture's CEO, executives, and board, so students must work creatively and collaboratively across disciplines to holistically understand and solve the problems that arise in today's ever-changing world.