It started as a conversation between friends. A memory from the Ecuadorian Amazon. A question asked after a trip that left them curious about guayusa, a leaf long consumed by Indigenous communities for focus and energy. It had become months of supplier calls, product tests, faculty feedback, formulation decisions and late nights spent figuring out how to turn a shared vision into something real.

Now, the plant-based energy drink they built together is ready for distribution and is being sold at The Oak House at Elon.

For Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga, the milestone carries them back to McEwen Dining Hall on campus, where their friendship began during their first year at Elon in 2022.

Chiriboga, an entrepreneurship major from Quito, Ecuador, and Vargas-Lopez, a sport management major from Austin, Texas, quickly connected over language, culture, soccer and a shared curiosity about the world. They became close friends long before they became business partners.

The idea for YAPA came later, after Chiriboga brought Vargas-Lopez to visit his home country during Thanksgiving break of their sophomore year. It was Vargas-Lopez’s first time in South America, and the trip included time in the Amazon rainforest, where the two were struck by what Chiriboga describes as the “immensity” of the Amazon, from its abundance of life to the plants that have long shaped daily living in the region.

“We came back from visiting the Amazon forest and were just talking through the trip,” Vargas-Lopez says. “That’s when the idea came out. What if we took one of those plants and built a drink around it?”

That question became YAPA, a plant-based energy drink made from guayusa and a larger idea of giving people something more than expected.

The company’s name comes from an Andean expression. In Ecuador, “yapa” refers to a small token added with generosity. At a market, it might be an extra piece of fruit. At a family table, it might be a little more food on someone’s plate.

“It’s a little extra you were not expecting,” Chiriboga says. “That is what we want the product to feel like.”

Building From the Ground Up

Once the idea took hold, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga began studying the beverage industry, talking with community members in Ecuador, seeking feedback from mentors and testing whether their concept could become a real business.

They were drawn to the growing interest in cleaner, more transparent beverage options.

“I think the issue we were looking at was the energy drink industry and what a lot of those products contain,” Chiriboga says. “We saw people looking more for clean-label, natural ingredients and more transparency in what they consume.”

That focus helped define YAPA’s direction. They describe the drink as plant-based and made without preservatives, with an emphasis on ingredient transparency, quality and sourcing. Its ingredients include guayusa along with hibiscus, turmeric, ginger, prebiotics and electrolytes, each chosen with a purpose.

For the founders, the product also carries a connection to the place that inspired it.

We came back from visiting the Amazon forest and were just talking through the trip. That’s when the idea came out. What if we took one of those plants and built a drink around it? — Bernardo Vargas-Lopez ’26

In the Amazon, Chiriboga says, guayusa is traditionally consumed in community. People gather early in the morning, drink together and share their dreams before beginning the day. The leaf is associated with focus and energy, but not the jittery rush often linked with conventional energy drinks.

“It gives you that mental clarity and that energy that you need without being hyper,” Chiriboga says.

Turning that inspiration into a company required more than enthusiasm. The two spent months working through sourcing, formulation, packaging, shipping, pricing and compliance while balancing college life.

They also made early decisions about where they would not compromise, even when higher standards meant harder financial choices.

“We decided there were a few strategic points where we would not go for lower quality,” Chiriboga says. “Starting from ingredients and sourcing, we were not going to sacrifice what the product stands for.”

Asking the Right Questions

Both founders say their experience in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business gave them the confidence to approach YAPA not as a finished idea, but as something to test, refine and keep improving.

They turned to faculty members including Sean McMahon, professor of entrepreneurship; Elena Kennedy, associate professor of entrepreneurship; and Brittany Mercado, associate professor of management and chair of the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship.

“The ability to communicate clearly with people who know a lot more than we do has been huge,” Vargas-Lopez says. “The Love School of Business does an amazing job of making professors approachable.”

As YAPA developed, informal conversations became intentional. They stayed after class, brought specific questions to faculty and connected what they were learning in their courses to the choices they were making for the company. The feedback was not always easy, and that was part of its value.

“We don’t need people to just cheerlead,” Vargas-Lopez says. “We need people who will tell us what worked, what didn’t and how to improve. That’s what has really helped us move forward.”

Their time studying abroad also shaped the venture. Chiriboga was in Japan while
Vargas-Lopez was in Australia, making day-to-day operations difficult, so they used the distance to listen.

“We couldn’t really work on operations, so the only thing we could do was talk to people,” Chiriboga says.

They spoke with people in the Amazon, professionals at large companies and mentors in finance, gathering insight before returning to campus.

“We were sponges during that time,” Chiriboga says. “We just gathered as much information as we could.”

A Friendship First

Before they were co-founders, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga were friends. They built the kind of trust that later became essential to starting a company together. When one person could not take on a task, the other stepped in. When the work became overwhelming, the friendship helped steady them.

“If I cannot do something right now, I know Juan Daniel can do it, and vice versa,” Vargas-Lopez says. “That trust was built before the business.”

Living together strengthened that rhythm. It also taught them the importance of boundaries.

“We’ve gotten really good at knowing when to talk business and when not to,” Chiriboga says. “If it’s not working time, we try to focus on being friends and being present with other people.”

For Vargas-Lopez, the partnership has been less about dividing every task evenly and more about sharing responsibility over time.

“It’s not always 50-50 all the time,” he says. “But we know we’re in this together, and that makes it easier to handle everything that comes up.”

For Chiriboga, building YAPA with his best friend has been one of the most meaningful parts of the experience.

“I couldn’t be more grateful that my best friend is also my business partner,” he says.

Now based in Austin, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga are carrying YAPA into its next stage. The venture that started as a conversation between friends has become something people can open, taste and share.

The process has changed how they think about risk, learning and what it means to build something from scratch. It has also reinforced the value of starting before everything feels certain.

“Don’t be afraid to start,” Chiriboga says. “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.”

Vargas-Lopez says the venture has taught him to stay open to what others know and humble enough to keep asking questions.

“Use your resources,” he says. “Ask questions. Learn from every conversation. We haven’t had a single meeting where we didn’t learn something.”

The study, “,” looked at whether the growing availability of generative AI has changed who enters the video game market and how developers use AI in the creative process.

Kim and his co-authors analyzed more than 66,000 developers whose first game was published on Steam between 2014 and 2025. They found that more indie developers entered the platform in 2024 and 2025 than earlier trends predicted, while new non-indie developers remained within the expected range.

Key findings

• More indie developers entered the market after generative AI became widely available. The increase was greater than researchers’ models predicted based on previous trends.
• Images were the most common use of AI. Both indie and non-indie developers most often reported using AI to generate images, while use for music, voice and coding was lower.
• Indie developers used AI differently. Compared with non-indie developers, indie developers were more likely to use AI for music and coding.
• AI was associated with shorter indie games. The researchers say this may reflect AI’s usefulness in helping developers quickly develop and test ideas.
• The study shows an association, not causation. The researchers do not conclude that generative AI caused more indie developers to enter the market.

Kim plans to bring the research into his business analytics courses.

“I will use this paper in class to demonstrate the positive role of AI in facilitating human creativity by enabling individuals to quickly prototype and implement their ideas,” Kim said.

The research was published in ACM AI Letters by the Association for Computing Machinery and co-authored with Seonbin Jo and Woo-Sung Jung of Pohang University of Science and Technology and Jisung Yoon of the KDI School of Public Policy and Management.

Kim joined �þ��� in Fall 2023 from Boston University. His expertise includes business analytics, innovation, misinformation, and computational social science. He is currently the director of the Center for Applied Analytics and AI at Elon.

He started over.

Taylor was leading about 1,200 employees when he told company leaders he eventually wanted to run a business. Their response: He needed to learn how to build brands. So the engineer and plant manager moved into marketing, working alongside colleagues who were much earlier in their careers.

“It was a wonderful lesson in humility,” Taylor said. “It was a great chance to learn and to be in the learning mode, not the knowing mode.”

That willingness to keep learning became a recurring theme on Sept. 10 in LaRose Digital Theatre at the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business.

The conversation was moderated by Jack Ryan P’17, founder and principal of Jack Ryan Advisory and chair of the Love School of Business Board of Advisors.

Taylor spent more than 40 years with P&G, with assignments across the United States, Asia and Europe before eventually becoming chairman, president and CEO. Today, he serves as senior operating adviser to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, chairman of the supervisory board of Opella Healthcare Group and non-executive chair of Delta Air Lines’ board of directors.

When Ryan asked what advice he would give students preparing to enter the workforce, Taylor pushed back on the idea that there is one ideal first assignment.

“Many people ask me, ‘What’s the right first assignment? Do I need to start in marketing or sales?’” Taylor said. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do with the first assignment. Do you come into whatever you’re asked to do and do it with excellence?”

He said that strong work creates the credibility to take on larger challenges and eventually influence the organization itself.

“If you really want to change the system, be successful at wherever you are,” Taylor said. “That gives you a platform to be able to change the system. You build credibility that you can accomplish outcomes, and once you do that, the willingness for others to listen to you grows.”

Taylor said one of the strongest differentiators he has seen among successful leaders is their ability to bring out the best in the people around them.

“The greatest differentiator I’ve seen in my time with P&G, my time at Delta and now working with a private equity company is often their ability to unleash those around them,” Taylor said. “Those that have relatively little ego, but a high level of achievement, a high level of personal accountability and a high level of empathy for others.”

That combination, he said, creates something leaders cannot achieve on their own.

“What happens is they generate followership,” Taylor said. “That creates wonderful outcomes, especially when you get to mid- and higher levels, because the group amplifies the results.”

�þ��� later turned the conversation toward artificial intelligence, asking Taylor what skills they should focus on as AI changes marketing and business.

Taylor said AI is already helping companies create and analyze content more quickly, but technology does not replace the need to understand the people a business serves.

“When we go to markets, the first meeting is in homes,” Taylor said. “We’d get to know the person. We’d learn about their life, their kids. ‘Tell us what you do each day.’”

He said those visits allowed teams to observe what consumers actually did, not just what they said they needed.

“You find there’s a lot of compensating behaviors consumers have,” Taylor said. “They’ll say, ‘This is not an issue,’ but you see they do an extra step because something doesn’t work the way they think it should.”

Taylor shared examples from P&G’s work in markets around the world, including observing how consumers washed their hair in rural China and how a consumer in Japan used Febreze on furniture she wished she could wash.

“You don’t see that looking at a sheet of paper,” Taylor said.

For Taylor, AI can accelerate the work once a company understands the problem it is trying to solve.

“AI will let you have faster, better answers once you know what to work on,” Taylor said. “What mountain do you want to climb? And that often comes from a better consumer insight and empathy.”

For the final student question, Taylor was asked whether there was one piece of advice he had used as a filter when making major decisions throughout his career.

His answer brought the conversation back to learning.

“Probably the simplest one is: Can I make a difference, and can I learn?” Taylor said.

He encouraged students to consider those questions as they evaluate their own opportunities, rather than getting caught up in salary, job titles or whether an assignment appears prestigious.

“Pick a place that you’re happy to walk in the door every day, you can hold your head up, you can learn and you can make a difference,” Taylor said. “You have talents and the ability to do a ton of things. You get to choose how you use those.”

About Lessons from Leaders

Launched in 2017 by Dean Emeritus Raghu Tadepalli, Lessons from Leaders brings senior executives to campus for open talks, small group discussions and purposeful one-on-one networking that connects students with mentors. The program helps bridge classroom learning to real-world decision-making and strategy, and aims for every student to leave with a new contact and meaningful career insights.

This marks the tenth consecutive year that Elon’s chapter has been honored with either a Merit or Superior Merit Award by the national Society for Human Resource Management, highlighting the organization’s commitment to professional development and its strong presence on campus.

Elon’s chapter is advised by Professor Brian Lyons and led by a dedicated executive board of students who are passionate about advancing their skills and engaging with the HR community.

“We are incredibly proud to receive the Superior Merit Award for another year, as it reflects the hard work, dedication, and passion our members bring to the SHRM chapter. This recognition highlights not only the initiatives and professional development opportunities we have created, but also the strong community our members have built together,” said Isabelle Cross ’27, a human resource management major. “As we look to the future, we are excited to grow our presence on campus, strengthen our connections with HR professionals, and create meaningful opportunities that help our members prepare for successful careers.”

The SHRM Student Chapter Merit Award program encourages student chapters to develop more effective operations and promote the value of the human resource profession through outstanding activities and projects.

“Earning a fourth consecutive Superior Merit Award from national SHRM is a remarkable accomplishment and speaks to the sustained commitment of the club’s student leaders and members,” said Brian Lyons, professor of management and the club’s faculty advisor. “What makes this recognition especially meaningful is that it reflects years of students building upon the work of the executive board leaders who came before them, while continuing to find new ways to create engaging professional development opportunities, strengthen connections with the local and national HR community, and promote the HRM major and minor on campus. I’m incredibly proud of Isabelle’s leadership and the strong culture of engagement and excellence that our students have sustained over time.”

Ginsburg, a junior economics and entrepreneurship double major from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has built a business around transforming photographs of homes and other buildings into custom LEGO kits. Through his company, Blueprint Bricks, customers from around the world can turn meaningful places, including their own homes, into one-of-a-kind LEGO creations.

“I built my own house during COVID using the pieces I had in my basement,” Ginsburg said. “That inspired me to learn the software, make a website and start my own business.”

Ginsburg launched the company as a high school freshman in 2021 under the name Henry’s Custom Homes. He rebranded as Blueprint Bricks this summer, just in time to help bring Elon’s LEGO-themed Family Weekend to life.

Family Weekend 2026 attendees can purchase a limited-edition Elon “E” LEGO kit when they register for the weekend. The kit features 175 pieces and the final product stands 5.5 inches tall. A portion of each sale will support Elon’s Greatest Needs.

The LEGO fun will continue at the Fan Fest event on Saturday, Sept. 26 at Schar Center, as attendees will be able to participate in the building of a 40 inch x 40 inch, 16,644 piece Elon-themed LEGO mosaic. Ginsburg will be in attendance and is looking forward to seeing this project come to life.

“I can’t wait to be there and see everyone at Fan Fest. I love interacting with people and answering their questions,” he said.

Families checking in at McKinnon Hall during Family Weekend will also be able to view examples of Ginsburg’s LEGO model of Elon’s Alamance building.

“I think Family Weekend is a really important part of the Elon experience,” Ginsburg remarked. “Getting to be a part of it is such a privilege.”

For more information on Ginsburg’s business, Blueprint Bricks, visit

Family Weekend 2026 will be held September 25-27. To register, visit /u/parents/family-weekend/.

The program paired �þ��� students with faculty members to support AI-related projects across the school. Student fellows helped develop and deliver workshops, interview faculty and build materials for future courses and boot camps.

Sakura Kawakami ’26 worked with Scott Oakes, assistant �þ��� professor of management, and fellow students Julia Amodeo ‘26 and Katie Geraghty ’26 on workshops for Gateway classes.

The team visited eight classes and reached approximately 240 students through 20-minute sessions with hands-on exercises. The workshops introduced students to Gemini Pro, available through Elon, and focused on practical skills such as improving prompts through iteration and added context.

“The primary goal was to establish a baseline of AI fluency among Gateway students, who are primarily first-year business students,” Oakes said. “We also wanted to test whether a short, bootcamp-style training session could effectively introduce students to practical AI skills within a classroom setting.”

Faculty established the project’s overall objectives before the students joined. Kawakami, Amodeo and Geraghty then helped develop classroom activities, learning objectives, presentation materials, pre- and post-session surveys, and the rollout plan. The students also led the workshops and helped analyze the resulting data.

“My role as an AI Fellow was to act as a bridge between students and faculty, advising students on how to use AI to enhance their learning, not replace it,” said Kawakami, a Business Analytics and Project Management major from Rotorua, New Zealand. “The goal was to make sure students felt confident using these tools in ways that supported them.”

One focus was helping students understand that effective use of AI often requires refining a prompt rather than accepting the first response.

“One of our biggest �þ��� points was the importance of iteration when prompting AI,” Kawakami said. “By refining and tailoring your prompts to your own needs, you get far more accurate and useful responses.”

Oakes said the student fellows strengthened the project by bringing their own experiences with AI into the classroom.

“Peer-to-peer learning is incredibly powerful,” he said. “First-year students often feel more comfortable asking questions and exploring new technologies when they see successful upper-level students demonstrating how they actually use those tools.”

Another team worked with Kem Zhang, associate professor of business analytics, on projects designed to support more advanced AI use in business courses.

Thomas Case ’26, a supply chain management and business analytics major from Atlanta, G.A. and Oliver Lorraine ’27, a project management and business analytics major from Red Bank, N.J. gathered input from faculty and developed materials for future workshops. One project focused on Associate Professor David Jiang’s, Bring the Venture to Life entrepreneurship course, where students develop and launch venture ideas.

Based on the needs identified for the course, the team created materials for an “AI-powered entrepreneurship” workshop covering topics such as prompting for code, e-commerce, payment integration and deployment.

Case led the workshop design and drafted presentation materials. Lorraine documented the development process and built reusable coding templates for future workshops and boot camps.

“The transition from AI users to AI builders or AI architects is an important distinction because knowing how to use a tool generally is much different than knowing how to use a tool to innovate,” said Case.

Lorraine also created Google Colab notebooks with coding templates for future use.

Zhang said the goal is to help students move beyond basic familiarity with AI tools.

“For business students, knowing how to use an AI tool is expected,” Zhang said. “The real advantage comes when they understand how these tools can be used in problem solving and to create concrete, AI-based solutions.”

Several projects from the spring semester are expected to continue during the 2026-27 academic year, including the entrepreneurship workshop, an AI Boot Camp for incoming students and additional work on AI integration.

The spring 2026 AI Student Fellows were Brandon Boudreau ‘27, Thomas Case ‘26, Oliver Lorraine ‘27, Dylan Stone ‘28, Julia Amodeo ‘26, Sakura Kawakami ‘26, Lindsay Balick ‘27, Katie Geraghty ‘26, Katrina Papierman ’26 and Tristan D’Adamo ‘28.

Twenty-six students participated in Phoenix Summer, held July 6-17 on Elon’s campus, where they immersed themselves in hands-on, college-style academics while fostering curiosity, community and independence.

“The transition from high school to college is one of the biggest milestones in a student’s life, and after working with first-year students for many years, I’ve learned that one of the most common things they say is ‘I wish I had known what to expect,’” said Theresa Higgins, academic coordinator for alternative start programs. “Phoenix Summer gives students the opportunity to experience college before they get here full time.”

�þ��� lived in the residence halls, navigated campus, ate in the dining hall, learned from Elon faculty, connected with staff and explored the academic and social opportunities Elon has to offer.

�þ��� selected two courses to take throughout the camp, including Order in the court!, An introduction to law and justice, taught by Shilanka Lewis, assistant professor of law; Chemistry in the kitchen, taught by Mary McManamy, associate �þ��� professor of chemistry; Exploring astronomical and poetic light, taught by Claudine Moreau, assistant �þ��� professor of physics; and Start-up Spring: concept to creation, taught by Elena Kennedy, associate professor of entrepreneurship and Dan Reis, assistant director of creative learning technologies.

“The Phoenix Summer faculty were truly the highlight of this pre-college experience,” Higgins said. “Their enthusiasm, passion and genuine engagement with their subject matter inspired students to see college as a place to explore their interests and discover new possibilities.”

Each day the students spent time learning and engaging in the classroom through a variety of hands-on lessons.

“The law class was my favorite part of the camp,” said Ava Hendricks, an eleventh grade student from Raleigh, North Carolina. “I have always been interested in law and what we have been doing in the class to prepare for a mock trial has been so cool. Phoenix Summer gave me the opportunity to picture college. I would never have known what college would be like without this possibility.”

During the day, students participated in their courses, while evenings and weekends were filled with social events, activities, several off-campus excursions and signature Elon experiences to help students build community. Activities students participated in included a trivia night, human bingo, s’more making, karaoke, a water balloon fight and a sip and paint.

“My favorite parts of the camp were meeting new people, living in a dorm and attending the classes,” said Sienna Rohan, a twelfth grade student from Greensboro, Georgia. “It’s been nice meeting new people, and I’ve learned a lot about Elon.”

Higgins’ hope is that students left the camp with not only a greater appreciation for Elon, but also a renewed excitement about the possibilities that lie ahead as the students transition from high school to college.

“The primary goal of Phoenix Summer is to provide high school students with an authentic college experience that builds confidence, independence and a sense of belonging before they begin their college journey,” Higgins said. “The most exciting part of the camp was watching the students truly thrive in the experiences we intentionally designed for them.

“I watched them blossom from students who arrived on the first day feeling nervous and uncertain about what to expect into confident, engaged learners — and, in the case of our Order in the Court students, budding lawyers in training. I hope they leave believing in themselves. Whether they ultimately choose Elon or another institution, I hope Elon will always hold a special place in their hearts as the place where they first experienced college and began to see themselves as future college students.”

For more information about Phoenix Summer and information about future camps, contact Theresa Higgins, academic coordinator for alternative start programs, at thiggings7@elon.edu.

The case, “” focuses on Grupo Los Danzantes as the company considers whether to launch a lower-cost mezcal line to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded global spirits market.

The proposed line, Encantado, could help the company reach broader international audiences and respond to distributor needs. But the move also raises questions about whether expansion could weaken the brand’s artisanal identity, cultural mission and long-standing relationships with producers.

The case asks students to weigh the strategic, operational and cultural trade-offs of growth within a mission-centered organization. �þ��� must consider whether Destileria Los Danzantes should pursue category expansion or preserve its differentiated identity amid industry pressures.

The case was published by Harvard Business School through Harvard Business Publishing with co-authors James Riley and David G. Fubini at Harvard Business School and Bernal Cortes.

Harvard Business Publishing case studies are used by business educators to bring real-world decision-making into �þ���, MBA and executive education programs.

Cerecedo Lopez joined �þ��� in Fall 2024. Lopez’s �þ��� and research focus on organizational theory, entrepreneurship and strategy, with particular interest in how individuals make decisions under uncertainty.

The research, “” looks at how perceptions of inclusion and acceptance in residential communities carry into the workplace.

Using survey responses from 151 employees at a U.S.-based manufacturing company, the researchers found that employees who viewed their communities as more inclusive reported greater psychological safety at work. That sense of psychological safety not only inspires the confidence to express the one’s true self at work but is also linked to a stronger intent to stay with their organization.

Key findings:

• Community experiences carry into the workplace. Employees who perceived their communities as more inclusive reported greater psychological safety at work.
• Psychological safety is linked to retention. Employees who felt psychologically safe reported stronger intent to stay.
• Support from inclusive communities may also help when workplaces are perceived as less supportive. The connection between community inclusion and psychological safety was strongest among employees who viewed their organization’s diversity climate as less supportive.

The research is also part of discussions in Singh’s Organizational Behavior and DEI courses at Elon.

“It serves as a great way to help students understand that employees’ perceptions regarding organizational culture and inclusion are not confined to the workplace alone but are shaped by larger societal contexts,” Singh said. “I incorporate these discussions in my classroom to encourage students to think about how leaders can create psychologically safe environments and how organizations can engage with communities to support inclusion and employee retention.”

The study was co-authored with Sarthak Singh of Sheldon B. Lubar College of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and T.T. Selvarajan of the College of Business and Economics at California State University, East Bay and published in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal.

Singh, who joined Elon in 2017, teaches courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and business ethics. His research has appeared in leading journals, including the Journal of Organizational Behavior, the Journal of Business Ethics and Human Resource Management.

The co-authored article, “,” looks at entrepreneurship beyond traditional business measures such as profit, growth and market opportunity.

It asks how religious beliefs and practices may shape the way entrepreneurs understand risk, make decisions, build organizations and define success. The research also considers how entrepreneurship may affect religious organizations and communities, making the relationship more complex than religion simply influencing business.

Key Highlights:

• Religion may shape entrepreneurship at multiple points, from how entrepreneurs recognize opportunities and judge risk to how they seek funding, respond to uncertainty and define success.
• Different religious traditions and practices may influence entrepreneurs in different ways. The article notes research connected to Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism and other traditions, while cautioning that religion should not be treated as one single influence. Religious practice can also vary within the same religion.
• The article introduces a framework showing how religious beliefs and practices may overlap with entrepreneurial thinking and action. Religious beliefs may shape how entrepreneurs think about opportunity, while religious practices may shape how they build relationships, access resources or run organizations.
• The relationship may work both ways. Religion may shape entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurship may also shape religious organizations, practices and communities.
• Future research could look more closely at how religious entrepreneurs measure success beyond profit, including financial, social, psychological and spiritual outcomes.

“This research helps students think more carefully about how religion and faith can shape entrepreneurs’ motivations, decisions, relationships and definitions of success,” said Cerecedo Lopez. “That is especially relevant for students in the inaugural Love School of Business Summer Business Institute, who are serving as consultants for Hustle USA, a non-denominational, faith-based entrepreneurial support organization launching in Charlotte.”

The article was published in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development with co-authors Chris Welter and Brett Smith at Miami University Ohio, Amanda Lawson at the University of Cincinnati and David Townsend at Virginia Tech.

Cerecedo Lopez joined �þ��� in Fall 2024. Lopez’s �þ��� and research focus on organizational theory, entrepreneurship and strategy, with particular interest in how individuals make decisions under uncertainty.