Former Dean Rich Lyons named new campus innovation officer

Former Berkeley Haas Dean Rich Lyons has been named as UC Berkeley’s first-ever Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer (CIEO).

In this new role, Lyons will work with campus partners to further develop and communicate Berkeley’s rich portfolio of innovation and entrepreneurship activities to benefit students, faculty, staff, and startups. He will also be responsible for developing strategies to raise the visibility of these activities internally and externally and to create high-value partnerships with stakeholders.

“If together we can improve the transformation of Berkeley’s prodigious intellectual product, across the whole campus, into greater societal benefit, then we will have achieved a great deal,” Lyons said in an interview.

Lyons wrapped up his 11 years as Berkeley Haas dean in June 2018, and after a sabbatical year will return to teaching on the finance faculty this fall while transitioning into his new campus role on a part-time basis. He will officially assume the new role in January, 2020.

Read the full announcement from Vice Chancellor for Research Randy Katz on Berkeley News.