Susan Amat

Dr. Susan Amat is the Director for Entrepreneurial Initiatives at the University of Miami Herbert School of Business and the VP for Education at the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN). GEN operates in 190 countries celebrating and connecting entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders, and policy makers. GEN Accelerates offers a platform and customized intensive training programs that have supported entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders from more than 100 countries through accelerators, universities, and government programs. Additionally, her team designed and runs Entrepreneurship World Cup, the largest startup competition globally with more than 100,000 applicants from over 195 countries each year. A serial entrepreneur, she built media businesses for over a decade, including the first CD-Rom magazine and a national television show. She is the founder of Venture Hive, an entrepreneur education company, and Flitepath, a SaaS solution that provides accountability and transparency tools and content to support innovation management and entrepreneurship programs in Fortune 500 businesses including Walmart, Visa, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

After completing her MBA, Dr. Amat developed pediatric health monitoring products and earned a Ph.D. in Strategic Entrepreneurship (coursework in industrial engineering, business, and education). While teaching at the University of Miami, she founded The Launch Pad, which was considered the top model in entrepreneurship education. Her program and platform were replicated internationally as Blackstone LaunchPads in universities including USC, UCLA, and Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Amat served as the founding Chair of the STEM Board for Miami-Dade County Public Schools and a Trustee of Miami Dade College. She actively speaks about entrepreneurship and innovation education internationally and has worked with the US State Department, the Kauffman Foundation, and the World Bank on program development, training, and evaluation. In 2012, Dr. Amat was honored as a Champion of Change at the White House.