Steve Franks

About Steve

Mr. Franks blends a solid academic background with years of hands-on practical experience in strategic planning, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

​

Steve holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business, with concentrations in marketing and finance. He was awarded the school’s 1996 George Hay Brown Outstanding Marketing Scholar Prize. As an adjunct professor at Purdue Fort Wayne, Steve taught multiple sections of strategic planning, entrepreneurship, and small business management in both graduate and undergraduate programs.

​

Throughout the past two decades Steve has been predominantly known as an entrepreneur coach. During that time he has helped over 3,000 businesses create startup, growth, or pivot strategies. These range from startups of all shapes and sizes -  some that have scaled to raise venture capital and some traditional small businesses. He did that work at the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, with several regional community-based venture accelerators that he founded across Northeast Indiana, and for student founders via nonprofit Believe In A Dream.

​

Prior to that Steve worked as an innovation consultant with his mentor Ron Sears of the Design Consortium, where he participated in over 25 innovation projects for 9 companies, and led 13 of those. Two specifically relevant examples include helping a Fortune 500 firm identify merger and acquisition candidates and leading a project to improve the same firm’s entire customer experience, resulting in 20 initiatives being written into the firm’s strategic plan.

​

Mr. Franks volunteers with nonprofits Believe In A Dream, the Fort Wayne Police Athletic League, and Language Access Lab.