meet our advisors
jeff sandefer
Jeff Sandefer has founded or co-founded nine successful companies or non-profits. Formerly managed Sandefer Capital, a multi-billion dollar energy firm
Currently growing Acton Academy, a global network of innovative K12 schools, alongside his wife Laura Sandefer
Named by BusinessWeek as one of the top Entrepreneurship professors in the United States and by The Economist magazine as one of the top Business School professors in the world.
MBA, Harvard Business School; B.S., University of TexasJeff Sandefer started his first business at age sixteen. After earning an MBA, he founded Sandefer Offshore, an oil and gas company that generated over $500 million in profits in less than five years. He then ran Sandefer Capital Partners, a multi-billion dollar energy firm.
Over the last fifteen years, Sandefer has worked with entrepreneur-teachers to build a nationally acclaimed entrepreneurship program, winning numerous teaching honors in the process. But ask him about success, and he makes it clear that money and awards aren’t what matter.
“My great-grandfather found his calling as president of a small college and is buried on the campus he worked so hard to build. On one side of his tombstone it says: ‘If you would see his monument, look around.’ This reminds me each of us wants to contribute something meaningful with our lives. On the other side of the tombstone is inscribed, ‘A good name is rather to be had than great riches.’ This reminds me that leading a good life is even more important than what you contribute.”
“We want students who have the intelligence and drive to change the world, and the integrity to change it for the better. If we can awaken in each student a sense of their God-given gifts, and help them to use these gifts to make a difference, the Acton MBA in Entrepreneurship will change the world, one student at a time.”
