People

Laura Huang

Laura Huang

Formal First Name
Laura
Location

Laura Huang is an award-winning researcher and Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Laura’s work studies the subtle signals and cues that often impact the behavioral perceptions of investors, and examines the micro-foundations of entrepreneurship and the role of individual perceptions, preferences and attributions on investor decisions of financiers such as angel investors and VCs. She is the author of the international best-selling book EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage, and the creator and co-founder of Project EMplify, an initiative dedicated to addressing inequality and disadvantage through personal empowerment. Prior to joining Harvard, Laura was an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Before entering academia, she worked across North America, Europe and Asia in investment banking, consulting and general management, for corporations such as Standard Chartered Bank, IBM Global Services and Johnson & Johnson. She has also served as a consultant and advisor to a number of entrepreneurial start-ups in the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia and China.

Professional Experience


Academic History

RESEARCH

  • Laura examines how and why investors rely on interpersonal relationships and implicit signals, perceptions, and behavioral cues.

  • Her work contributes to larger areas of scholarship such as organizational decision making, uncertainty and judgment, and interpersonal bias.

  • It addresses practical implications for entrepreneurs, investors, and for the start-up ecosystem as a whole.

  • She has examined the process through which relationships between entrepreneurs and investors develop and influence the growth of new ventures.

  • Topic areas include communications, gender and diversity, leadership, organizational behavior, technology, and innovation.

  • Trending topics include corporate social responsibility, future of work, race, equality, ethics, and workforce productivity.


SELECT HONORS & RECOGNITIONS

  • 2020 TUM Research Excellence Award

  • 2019 Responsible Research in Management Award

  • 2018 Emerging Scholar Award, Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division

  • 2016 40 Best Business School Professors Under the Age of 40, Poets & Quants

  • 2013 Heizer Award, Best Dissertation in Entrepreneurship

  • 2013 Best Dissertation Award, Academy of Management

  • Leading Management Thinkers in the World, Thinkers 50 Radar


MEDIA & APPEARANCES

  • Her research has been published in several academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science .

  • She has also been featured in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, and Nature.