Stefanos Zenios

Stefanos Zenios is a renowned scholar of operations and innovation. He is the faculty director of Stanford GSB’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the co-director of the Program in Ecopreneurship, a joint initiative between the GSB and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He designed and teaches Startup Garage, a popular and rigorous experiential course that each year helps hundreds of Stanford GSB students and executives learn and apply the innovation processes that are at the center of the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Companies such as DoorDash, Zum, Gold Leaf Farming started at Startup Garage. Alumni of the course raised more than $3 billion in venture capital to fund their companies. He also oversees the Stanford GSB Venture Studio: a vibrant learning facility for Stanford graduate students across all disciplines who want to learn about designing and creating viable, high-impact ventures by testing what they are learning in the classroom. He previously designed and co-taught Biodesign Innovation, a project-based course on designing and launching new medical devices, and is a founding senior author of the Biodesign textbook.

In his research he explores how different innovation paradigms can accelerate the pace of innovation. He has introduced the concept of Precedents Thinking, jointly with Ken Favaro, in a forthcoming article at Harvard Business Review. He has applied Precedents Thinking to one of the most vexing inefficiencies in healthcare: how to reduce administrative costs that consume 20% of US health care budgets. That research was recently featured at the Journal of the American Medical Association. He is also the Principal Investigator (with Peter Kelly) of the Search Fund study — a biennial analysis of returns on search funds. He has published extensively in management Science, Operations Research, and M&SOM. He is a recipient of multiple best paper awards by the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science where he is also a fellow. His PhD student have secured faculty appointments at Stanford, Wharton, Harvard Business School, UC Berkeley, Emory, University of British Columbia, National University of Singapore, and Hong Kong University. He previously served as the Editor-in-Chief for Operations Research, the seminal academic journal in his field.