The Galant Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce today announced that Abby Fifer Mandell has been named as its new Director.
Fifer Mandell, a recent McIntire School hire as a Senior Lecturer of Commerce, General Faculty, takes the helm as the Galant Center’s Director, following the longstanding successful tenure of Professor Eric Martin, who led the Center for the vast majority of time since its founding in 2008 with an endowment from Mark E. Galant (McIntire ’80).
“We are all excited to have Abby join and lead the team,” says Galant. “We welcome her experience at USC, where she enacted many innovative programs. Abby has some fresh new ideas that will help the Center move up to its next level.”
Fifer Mandell will oversee the operations of the Center that has served as a hub for exploration and innovation among alumni, industry, scholars, and students from across the University, advancing its programming of education, mentorship, real-world entrepreneurial experiences, and signature events such as its annual Galant Challenge competition.
In taking on the position of Galant Center Director, Fifer Mandell says that she is excited to build upon the Center’s accomplishments by elevating the University’s ability to positively impact the lives of its students and society.
“Mark Galant and Eric Martin created something extraordinary here at McIntire, and as an alum whose life and career have been shaped by the exceptional mentorship that I received as a student, I am honored to be back on Grounds, paying it forward, and building on their legacy,” says the former Student Council President, Lawn resident, and Echols Scholar, noting her profound loyalty to the UVA student experience.
Prior to joining the faculty at McIntire, Fifer Mandell excelled in a career highlighted by leadership and academic appointments. In addition to serving for 17 years at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, where she helped launch and direct the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab, she served as Director of Admissions at American Jewish University’s Fingerhut School of Education, schools where she was also a Lecturer.
Regarding her work at USC Marshall’s Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the oldest academic entrepreneurship program in the United States, Fifer Mandell says she “mentored hundreds of student and alumni entrepreneurs, many of whom have gone on to successfully launch ventures and secure investment. I am humbled to remain a cheerleader for so many of my former students, who have become my teachers, colleagues, and friends. Student success is the foundation of my career and my personal North Star.”
A winner of the USC Mentoring Award for Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Students in 2023, a 2025 USC Marshall Golden Apple Award, and the 2018 Academy of Management Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award, Fifer Mandell has expertise in areas ranging from creativity, impact innovation, and corporate strategy to venture acceleration, aging, and user-centered design. She believes that the world urgently needs thoughtful, creative problem-solvers, and that the many capabilities of entrepreneurs are as varied as the ambitions of her students.
“Some founders have a clear idea and need help bringing their product to life. Others have a specific skill set—perhaps engineering, medicine, policy, finance, art, architecture—but don’t yet see themselves as an entrepreneur,” she explains. “The Galant Center is the place where all students and alumni, regardless of background, can gain the confidence, connections, and tools they need to launch and grow their business. We curate opportunities and investment for any student with entrepreneurial interest, from the curious student who wonders what entrepreneurship is all about to the student considering a particular idea to the one who already identifies as a founder.”
A graduate of UVA’s College of Arts & Sciences (with degrees in American Studies and Religious Studies), Fifer Mandell has an academic background rooted in the humanities and applied ethnography for business. “I believe that the questions we ask are more important than the answers we end up with, and I am committed to reminding students of their extraordinary potential for creativity, risk-taking, and magic-making,” she insists. “I am eager to make the field of entrepreneurship more tangible for students and alumni and ensure that every student with an idea has the resources to make it a reality.”
Looking forward, Fifer Mandell points to the growth of the pan-University Entrepreneurship Minor and McIntire’s new three-year curriculum as important factors that will help ensure a bright future for the Galant Center. Additionally, she believes that “Charlottesville’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, the area’s attractiveness to creatives and remote workers, the launch of UVA Northern Virginia, and a social climate that is both welcoming to and desirous of disruptive innovators in the marketplace” offer an opportune moment to begin the Galant Center’s next chapter.
