Ana Bakshi has been appointed the new executive director of The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. Assuming her duties at the onset of the fall semester, Bakshi will work in close collaboration with Managing Director Bill Aulet, the Ethernet Inventors Professor of the Practice, to further advance the center’s strategic objectives and expand its influence.
Ana is recognized for her distinguished background in entrepreneurship education at the highest levels, coupled with exceptional leadership and execution skills. For more than a decade, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to developing premier centers and institutes for entrepreneurs, notably at King’s College London and Oxford University. This extensive experience is complemented by her leadership in high-growth companies, most recently serving as Chief Operating Officer for an award-winning AI startup. Her arrival at MIT is anticipated to significantly enhance both the university’s community and the broader field of entrepreneurship.
As the global landscape transforms at an unprecedented rate, the urgency to elevate entrepreneurship education standards has become paramount.
Elevating the standards for innovation-driven entrepreneurship education has become a timely and urgent imperative. The relentless acceleration of global change, significantly propelled by artificial intelligence, is not only generating novel challenges but also intensifying existing societal issues across critical domains such as climate, healthcare, manufacturing, the future of employment, education, and economic stratification. To effectively navigate this complex and evolving landscape, there is a clear and escalating demand for both a greater number and a higher caliber of entrepreneurs.
Bakshi has been appointed to the Trust Center during a pivotal period, aligning with MIT’s proactive approach to innovation. The institution is currently a leader in cultivating individuals and developing systems capable of transforming challenges into opportunities, utilizing an entrepreneurial mindset, specific skill set, and operational strategy. Bakshi’s profound experience and track record of success are anticipated to be crucial in advancing these objectives.
“I am truly honored to join the Trust Center at such a pivotal moment,” Bakshi stated regarding her new role. She further emphasized her vision, adding, “In an era defined by both extraordinary challenges and extraordinary possibilities, the future will be built by those bold enough to try, and MIT will be at the forefront of this.”
**Converting scholarly investigations into tangible, real-world advancements.**
Bakshi possesses a decade of experience dedicated to establishing two world-class entrepreneurship centers from their foundational stages. She held the distinguished position of founding director, initially at King’s College and subsequently at Oxford University. In this capacity, Bakshi’s comprehensive responsibilities covered every aspect of these centers’ operations, critically including all fundraising endeavors.
While at Oxford, she spearheaded a data-driven methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of institutional programs. This approach was substantiated by a 61-page study she authored, titled “Universities: Drivers of Prosperity and Economic Recovery.”
As director of the Oxford Foundry, Oxford University’s cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship center, Bakshi focused on identifying and investing in ambitious founders and nascent talent. The center benefited from robust backing by leading global entrepreneurial figures, notably the founders of LinkedIn and Twitter. Its network also included key corporate partnerships with firms such as Santander and EY, alongside investment collaborations with funds like Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE).
By 2021, the entrepreneurial ecosystem fostered by the Foundry, in conjunction with King’s College, had achieved substantial results. Startups supported by these institutions collectively raised more than $500 million in capital and were responsible for creating nearly 3,000 jobs. These ventures spanned a diverse array of critical sectors, encompassing health tech, climate tech, cybersecurity, fintech, and advanced deep tech spinouts originating from world-class scientific research.
She was also responsible for establishing the Entrepreneurship School, an institution that proved both highly successful and economically sustainable, serving as Oxford’s inaugural digital online learning platform.
Bakshi arrives at MIT following a nearly two-year period in the private sector, where she held the position of Chief Operating Officer for Quench.ai, a fast-growing artificial intelligence startup. With offices in London and New York City, Quench.ai appointed her as its inaugural C-suite executive. She now serves as a senior advisor for the company, focusing on enabling businesses to extract value from their knowledge through AI.
Optimal performance is achieved through the precise convergence of opportunity, timing, and talent, executed with the unparalleled speed and analytical power associated with groundbreaking artificial intelligence research from institutions such as MIT.
Entrepreneurship has been a defining characteristic of MIT’s identity and mission since its very beginning. This ethos was significantly amplified in the 1940s with the establishment and operation of the RadLab and remains a fundamental pillar of the institution to this day.
Entrepreneurship has cemented its position as a fundamental pillar at MIT, now standing alongside teaching and research, according to Mark Gorenberg ’76, Chair of the MIT Corporation. Gorenberg emphasized MIT’s decades-long leadership in the field and expressed enthusiasm for Ana’s appointment to the Trust Center team. He anticipates her transformative leadership will profoundly impact students and the wider academic community as MIT enters a dynamic new phase of company creation, largely driven by the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
Richard M. Locke, John C Head III Dean at the MIT Sloan School of Management, underscored the critical importance of entrepreneurship as an interdisciplinary field for generating impact, particularly as management education undergoes reevaluation. He affirmed that the inclusion of a highly accomplished leader with extensive experience in academia, the startup sector, and artificial intelligence, reinforces MIT Sloan’s strategic commitment to global leadership in this domain.
Frederic Kerrest, co-founder of Okta and a member of the MIT Corporation, emphasized MIT’s unique role as a nexus for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship, noting that this combination generates profound positive global impact. Kerrest, an MIT Sloan MBA alumnus from 2009, further asserted that in today’s swiftly transforming, AI-driven landscape, Ana possesses the essential skills and experience to strengthen MIT’s global leadership in entrepreneurship education. This, he explained, is vital for ensuring students are equipped to launch and scale the next wave of groundbreaking, innovation-driven startups.
Before her academic pursuits at Oxford and King’s College, Bakshi’s career encompassed public service as an elected councilor, representing over 6,000 constituents. She also made significant contributions to international non-governmental organizations and was responsible for spearheading product execution strategy at MAHI, an acclaimed family-led craft sauce startup.
Currently, Bakshi lends her expertise to the advisory council of Save the Elephants, a conservation charity. In this capacity, she utilizes AI-driven and scientific methodologies to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and bolster elephant protection efforts. Her influential work has garnered recognition across prominent media platforms, including the Financial Times, Forbes, BBC, The Times, and The Hill. She has also twice been distinguished as a Top 50 Woman in Tech in the U.K., with her most recent acknowledgment arriving in 2025.
Bakshi articulated his commitment to bolstering MIT’s capabilities in empowering its exceptional students and faculty. His focus, he stated, will be on equipping them with the essential skills, a supportive ecosystem, and the necessary backing to convert knowledge into tangible impact, especially as artificial intelligence continues to transform learning, development, and scalability across various fields.
Three and a half decades of significant and continuing impact have been established.
Established in 1990 by the late Professor Edward Roberts, the Trust Center at MIT provides comprehensive support to all students across every school and discipline. Its offerings encompass over 60 courses and an extensive range of extracurricular programming, including the notable delta v academic accelerator.
Much of the center’s work is rooted in the Disciplined Entrepreneurship methodology, which presents a proven framework for developing new ventures. This methodology has achieved global reach, with more than a thousand schools and organizations worldwide integrating its books and resources into their entrepreneurship curricula.
The Trust Center is transforming entrepreneurship education and practice through AI-powered tools like Orbit and JetPack. Its core mission is to cultivate the next generation of innovation-driven entrepreneurs, while simultaneously advancing the field to be both rigorous and practical. This strategic approach, which combines proven evidence-based methodology, emerging technology, the ingenuity of MIT students, and responsiveness to industry shifts, mirrors MIT’s pioneering efforts in establishing chemical engineering in the 1890s. In both instances, the aim was to forge a comprehensive, integrated, scalable, rigorous, and practical curriculum, designed to equip a new workforce capable of addressing the most pressing national and global challenges.
