Jacob D. Valentine

I am a PhD Candidate in Strategic Management at the University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business.

I study how organizations utilize human cognition and enterprise to create and capture value, including perceptual and experimental sources of economic novelty and competitive advantage. I utilize mixed methods to answer a variety of questions related to these concepts, specializing in experimental, computational simulation, and machine learning methods to augment traditional econometric methods.

My research interests have motivated my recent publication on the types and nature of pivoting as well as my working papers on the perceptual arbitrage, the lifecycle of ideas, and learning by experimenting. My work has been published in Strategy Science and nominated for the Best PhD Paper Award at the Strategic Management Society.

Before my PhD program, I received a BS in Mathematics and an MBA, both from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Before my undergraduate studies, I served a proselytizing mission in the Philippines (Bikol region) for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I began my career as a VC-backed technology entrepreneur and then a private equity investor at early-stage and middle-market investment firms in Boston and Dallas, where I lead and managed deals across various industries from biotechnology to professional sports. I continue to invest in and advise startups and growth-stage firms.