Impact
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Hayes Ferguson Named Inaugural Endowed Director of Farley Center
The endowment provides resources to the Farley Center to drive meaningful program growth for years to come.
The Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is pleased to announce that director Hayes Ferguson, a clinical professor at Northwestern Engineering, has been named the Center’s inaugural endowed director. This honor recognizes Ferguson's leadership and contributions to the expanding entrepreneurial ecosystem at Northwestern University.
Funded through the combined generosity of Farley Center advisory board members and other supporters, the endowment provides resources to the center to drive meaningful program growth for years to come, including expanding the center’s academic offerings. The Farley Center itself, the academic cornerstone of entrepreneurship education at Northwestern, was endowed in 2008.
Ferguson joined the Farley Center as director in 2020. Since then, the center's course enrollment has increased by 57 percent. The number of classes offered per year also increased by five.
Ferguson has recruited 33 new faculty members to teach at Farley since she joined, from tenured professors to adjunct lecturers. Numerous new classes have been added to the center’s offerings, including The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Leaders, NUvention: Biotechnology, and The Agile Pitch: Improvisational Storytelling.
Ferguson previously spent four years at The Garage at Northwestern, serving as an entrepreneur in residence and associate director. Earlier, she was a member of the founding senior management team at Legacy.com and held executive positions at multiple other startups.