Dr. Josh Lerner brings more than three decades of academic, policy and advisory leadership in private investments, and innovation, helping to shape understanding and development of investing through his research, teaching, and industry engagement. His extensive experience includes advising many of the world’s leading asset managers and allocators.

He is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor at Harvard Business School (HBS), where he holds a joint appointment in the Finance and Entrepreneurial Management Areas. He is also Co-Director of the HBS Private Capital Project, which fosters research, data access, and education in venture capital and private equity.

In the 1993–1994 academic year, Dr. Lerner introduced the MBA elective “Venture Capital and Private Equity,” which has consistently been one of the most popular elective courses at Harvard Business School. His teaching materials from this course are used in business schools around the world. He has also taught executive and doctoral courses on private equity, venture capital, and entrepreneurship and has introduced a series of entrepreneurship classes at Harvard College.

He is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Bella Private Markets (Bella), which was founded in 2010 to respond to the needs of the private capital industry. Bella works with fund managers and investors across six continents, providing tailored analysis and strategic insights to help them navigate the evolving private markets landscape.

Dr. Lerner is the Founder and Director of the Private Capital Research Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to data and research in private markets. His research focuses on the structure and role of private equity and venture capital organizations.

In 2024, he was recognized as being among the forty most influential economists worldwide by ScholarGPS and research.com. He is also the recipient of the Swedish government’s Global Entrepreneurship Research Award and has been named one of the 100 most influential people in private equity over the past decade by Private Equity International.

Dr. Lerner is an author and co-author of several books, including The Venture Capital Cycle, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and Innovation and Its Discontents.

Since 2010, Dr. Lerner has co-directed the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program and serves as co-editor of their publication, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Lerner worked on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy, at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on Capitol Hill.

Dr. Lerner earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale College, where he designed a special divisional major combining physics with the history of technology, and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard’s Economics Department.

As an aligned Senior Advisor to Star Mountain Capital, Dr. Lerner applies his research expertise and global perspective to support the firm’s mission of creating long-term value and fostering innovation in the lower middle-market segment of the economy.