Dr. Larry Plummer

Dr. Larry Plummer is the El Pomar Chair for Business & Entrepreneurship, associate professor of entrepreneurship, and director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.  He is a leading expert on regional entrepreneurial dynamics, the role of entrepreneurship in local economic development, and the importance and function of various startup initiatives—including incubators and accelerators.  His research appears in several top journals including Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Small Business Economics, Annals of Regional Science, and Academy of Management Journal.

His research has won awards from the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Academy of Management; and is a three-time recipient of the Ivey Research Merit Award.  He is a past Research Fellow of the Max Planck Institute for Economics, a fellow of the Vienna Institute for Global Studies, and serves on the editorial review boards of the four world-leading journals in entrepreneurship.

Most recently, Prof. Plummer was an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the Ivey Business School, widely considered Canada’s top business school.  During his decade there, he led Ivey’s flagship entrepreneurship experience for HBA, MBA, and MSc students—the New Venture Project (NVP).  NVP is an experiential program allowing students to launch new startups while working with a seasoned Entrepreneur-in-Residence. NVP has spawned a number of Canadian startups including Marlow, The Do More Company, Frate, Apricotton, and Mentum.  In addition, Dr. Plummer co-designed Ivey’s MSc in Digital Management program and developed and taught courses at the MBA, HBA, MSc, and PhD levels.  Prior to Ivey, Dr. Plummer was an assistant professor at University of Oklahoma and Clemson University.

Among his extracurricular efforts, Dr. Plummer also mentored and taught a number of entrepreneurs enrolled in Western University Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship’s various programs including the Western Accelerator, Propel, Medical Innovation Fellows, the online Founder’s Journey program, and more.  He also provided entrepreneurship training for the TechAlliance of Southwestern Ontario.  He was also the de facto voice of entrepreneurship as a faculty member with Western University’s Institute for Earth and Space Exploration.

He also led a number of executive education programs for the Ivey Academy, ranked #1 in Canada by the Financial Times.  He was co-director of the Ivey Executive Program, Ivey Academy’s flagship program for senior corporate, government, and organizational leaders.  He was also director of the Canadian Private Capital Investment School and the Women Venture Forward (Investment) Program, both run as a partnership between Ivey Academy and the Canadian Venture Capital Association.  He also instructed in QuantumShift, Ivey’s outstanding program for high-growth entrepreneurs.  He has directly worked with a number of entrepreneurs in the brewing, aerospace, medical, and government services sectors.

Prof. Plummer is a proud volunteer instructor for the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities launched by Syracuse University.  Since 2007, he has shared his expertise and taught a large number of veteran-entrepreneurs at EBV programs held at SU and Florida State University.  His EBV students include service men and women from most major branches of the armed services including Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines, and Coast Guard.  He also instructs for SU’s Warrior Scholar Project.

In addition to his support of veteran entrepreneurs, Dr. Plummer also extends his allyship to Black, Hispanic / Latinx, Indigenous (First Nation), and LGBTQ+ peoples and entrepreneurs.  To educate himself and others on the entrepreneurial challenges unique to often marginalized communities, Dr. Plummer continues to write teaching cases and conduct research on LGBTQ+ and First Nation entrepreneurs.

Dr. Plummer completed his PhD in strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado – Boulder in 2007.  He holds a B.S. in communications for the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University and an M.A. in science and technology public policy from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.

Born in Mexico City, Prof. Plummer’s ability with the Spanish language should be better than it is—which he aims to remedy during his time in Colorado Springs.  He is avid about military, space, science, and aviation history; he earned his pilot’s license at the age of 17 and is a volunteer with the Canadian Harvards Aircraft Association.  Prior to life as an academic, Dr. Plummer worked in international consulting (including efforts to help entrepreneurial ventures expand to Asia), at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and as a freelancer on several TV shows including Unsolved Mysteries.  He and his family are happy to be back in their adopted home state of Colorado!