Thomas Hellmann

Dr. Thomas Hellmann is the DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Saïd Business School.

Thomas holds a BA from the London School of Economics and a PhD from Stanford University, where he wrote his thesis under Prof. Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel in Economics, 2001). He previously was faculty at the Graduate School of Business (Stanford, US), and at the Sauder School of Business (University of British Columbia, Canada). He also held visiting positions at Harvard Business School, Wharton, the Hoover Institution, INSEAD, and the University of New South Wales.

He has taught numerous undergraduate, MBA, doctoral, and executive courses in the areas of entrepreneurship, finance, and strategic management. His research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, entrepreneurship, innovation, and public policy and his academic writings have been published in many leading economics, finance, and management journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, and Management Science.

He has been an advisor consultant to a variety of clients, including the World Economic Forum, Barclays Bank, the Government of British Columbia, and numerous start-up companies. He wrote many case studies on entrepreneurial companies and venture financing. Thomas is the founder of the NBER Entrepreneurship Research Boot Camp. He is also the Academic Advisor of the Oxford Foundry, the Academic Director of the SBS Entrepreneurship Centre, and Academic Director and Site Lead of the Creative Destruction Lab – Oxford.

Research

Thomas’s research spans entrepreneurial finance, corporate finance, economic theory, empirical data analysis, innovation and strategic management.

The unifying theme is a quest to gain deeper understanding of the entrepreneurial process, thereby generating new insights that are both rigorous and relevant. Thomas's academic writings have been published in a variety of leading finance, economics, and management journals, including the Journal of Finance, the American Economic Review, and Management Science.

Thomas’ main areas of expertise are:

• Entrepreneurial finance
• Entrepreneurial firm formation
• Government policy towards entrepreneurship

Some of his recent work assesses the challenges of founder teams how to split founder equity, looking at the reasons why splitting the equity equally may not always be the best choice, and also looking on how investors play a role in nudging founders teams to dynamically reassess their relative ownership positions. In other work, he is empirically examining the role of angel investors and equity crowdfunding in financing growing ventures. He also has an active research agenda on the rise of entrepreneurial ecosystems, looking at the role of foreign investors, and the role of government policies.

Books:

1. Da Rin, Marco, and Thomas Hellmann, “Fundamentals of Entrepreneurial Finance”, Oxford University Press, 2020