THE SPARK
If a business school makes a claim that one person can change the world, it should stand behind that statement. Changing the world is exactly what our founding teachers strive to do every day. In 1990, successful entrepreneurs Jeff Sandefer, Phil Seigel, Jack Long, and Lee Walker, among others, decided to pool their efforts to create an entrepreneurship program within the University of Texas at Austin’s MBA program. The result was a curriculum unlike anything ever taught in a business school. The Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence (AFEE) owns the intellectual property rights to that curriculum and is charged with its continual improvement and dissemination across America and the world.
LIVING TO INSPIRE OTHERS
Jeff Sandefer is a Texas oil and gas entrepreneur. Today he is ranked by BusinessWeek as one of the top ten entrepreneurship professors in the country. Phil Seigel is a venture capitalist with Austin Ventures, one of the largest VC firms in Texas. He has led the creation of three successful start-ups in recent years, while inspiring countless individuals to chase their dreams.
Jack Long launched and sold Lone Star Overnight, a package delivery business named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in America, and recently sold another successful start-up.
Lee Walker, serial entrepreneur and former president of Dell Computers, has focused his attention these days on launching lives. He has earned a best teaching award at UT three times over.
SPINNING OFF EXCELLENCE
In 2002, our ground-breaking entrepreneurial curriculum was spun off from UT to become the Acton School of Business. The school was named after the nineteenth century British scholar of liberty, Lord Acton–an entrepreneur in his own right.
ATTABOYS FROM THE STUDENTS
The Princeton Review has ranked the Acton School of Business as having the number two "classroom experience" in the country. It has rated our professors as number three in the nation – for five consecutive years - and our graduates as some of the most competitive in the world. Plus, we have been recognized as one of the country’s most innovative business schools by both BusinessWeek and Forbes.
SPREADING THE WEALTH
Today, AFEE courses are being exported to universities around the country and around the world. From UT to Rice University, Baylor University, the University of Oklahoma, Texas Christian University, Hardin Simmons University, and as far away as Holon Institute of Technology in Israel, AFEE's courses, cases, simulations and tools are busy inspiring young entrepreneurs. In 2007, Rick O’Donnell, the former cabinet director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, became our president. Rick is redoubling our efforts to expand AFEE entrepreneurial leadership initiatives across the entire globe.