Mark Coopersmith

Mark Coopersmith is a global educator, Fortune 500 executive, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and best-selling author. As a Senior Fellow and Faculty Director at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, he teaches and speaks on entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership, and driving change to students and executives worldwide. In addition to his academic work at Berkeley, his extensive private sector experience contributes to practical examples and actionable insights.

Professor Coopersmith's career is marked by building, investing in, and guiding high-growth businesses. He has built new businesses for global corporations such as Sony, founded the e-commerce platform WebOrder which is now owned by Google’s Alphabet, and advises leaders in corporations and governments on enhancing innovation, performance, and value creation.

Mark has played a key role in driving innovation and entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley since joining the faculty in 2003, helping shape the next generation of innovators, startups, and policies. His classes and programs have fostered the launch of over 100 ventures across diverse sectors, including Artificial Intelligence, medical devices, web services, cancer research, education, online retail, and fashion. Many of these ventures were created and accelerated through his popular Workshop for Startups and Learn2Launch programs; and he actively mentors entrepreneurs, including as a founding advisor and investor at UC Berkeley's SkyDeck accelerator.

As an active venture investor and limited partner in multiple venture capital funds, Professor Coopersmith brings a deep understanding of market dynamics and startup ecosystems to his work. Beyond UC Berkeley, he delivers keynotes and leads executive programs globally, including at Google, Wells Fargo, Daimler Benz, Salesforce, Genentech, Disney, Samsung, Airbus, Oracle, and IDEO.

Mark is the co-author of the best-selling book, “The Other ‘F’ Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work,” offering crucial insights on driving innovation, growth, trust, and resilience. He has been quoted in major media outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and has appeared on news outlets including CNN, Fox News, NPR, and ABC.  He holds BA and MBA degrees from UC Berkeley.