Short Bio

Brett Matherne is an Assistant Professor and holds one of the Chase Professorships in Minority Entrepreneurship at Loyola University New Orleans. He earned a Bachelor of Science in International Trade and Finance and Masters in Business Administration (Internal Auditing) degrees from Louisiana State University. After years of working in his family’s business and as a commercial banker, his wife agreed to support him in fulfilling one of his lifetime goals – earning a Ph.D. He earned his Ph.D. in Business Administration (Strategic Management) from Georgia State University in 2004. While at Georgia State University, he was awarded the Harding B. Young Teaching Excellence Award and Distinguished Contributions as a Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. In addition to his teaching awards, he was also awarded the Waino W. Soujanen Research Excellence award for two consecutive years. He was also awarded the Loyola MBA Association Graduate Teaching Award. Prior to returning to Louisiana and joining the faculty at Loyola, he was an assistant professor at University of Dayton.

Brett Matherne’s research has been published in Journal of Business Venturing, European Management Journal, Journal of Management Education, Academy of Management Executive, Academy of Management Perspectives and Journal of International Entrepreneurship. His research is cited in more than 80 other publications and in five different languages. His research is primarily focuses on entrepreneurial infrastructure mechanisms and strategic change. His current research includes entrepreneurial actions during business disruption (Hurricane Katrina), strategic responses in the cinema industry and community-based entrepreneurship research in response to Hurricane Katrina.

Brett Matherne has worked as a consultant with Westinghouse Corp., UPS and DynMcDermott as well as many entrepreneurial firms in the New Orleans area. He brings a wealth of real-world experience into his classes from his prior work as Controller in his family’s business, commercial banker and Small Business Development Center Counselor. He has been an invited speaker to various groups to speak about entrepreneurship issues and corporate governance failures in the financial downturn.

Brett Matherne primarily teaches the Business Policy class for undergraduates and Global Strategy for MBAs. He infuses both classes with case discussions of companies and current business press articles and requires students to perform environmental and strategic analyses of these businesses. He also incorporates a computer simulation so that students understand the financial tradeoffs when businesses implement strategy. In addition to the strategy classes, he also teaches various entrepreneurship courses including New and Small Venture Development, Business Plan Development and Individual and Corporate Entrepreneurship.