John M. Hanak recently retired as the chief innovation and corporate officer at the University of Oklahoma.  He served until September 2021 as the managing director of Purdue Ventures – the startup investment and fund management arm of the Purdue Foundry at Purdue University.  He is also managing director of North Riverside Partners, a firm that provides consultative services into the innovation hub, entrepreneurship center and investor spaces with a particular focus on startup ecosystems.

John was one of the co-founders of the Purdue Foundry in 2014, the university’s entrepreneurial hub that is currently spinning out over 40 startups each year.  Previously, he served as Statewide Director of Purdue’s network of technology incubators across the state of Indiana.  Prior to co-founding a technology commercialization firm in 2003 and arriving at the Purdue Research Foundation in 2005, Hanak served as President, CEO and board member of Digital Innovations, a Chicago-based technology product development and marketing firm. Before joining Digital Innovations, he spent more than 20 years in the steel industry with a Fortune 500 integrated steel manufacturer where he was Vice President with responsibility for all administration and legal matters.  He also co-founded a small angel investment partnership.  He holds BS and JD degrees. He has served, and continues to serve, on a number of corporate and volunteer boards and is a former chair of the board of directors of the International Business Innovation Association and former president of the Venture Club of Indiana.

As chief innovation and corporate officer and executive director of the University of Oklahoma’s new Office of Innovation and Corporate Partnerships, he served as the institution’s senior intellectual property officer and was responsible for managing all elements of the innovation ecosystem there.