Kostas Grigoriou is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Strategy at the Daniels School of Business and the Director of the Springer Business Initiative at the College of Engineering. He earned his PhD in Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship from Georgia Tech.
Kostas has extensive experience building and funding new ventures. Former academic, strategy consultant, entrepreneur, and venture studio director. His mission is to develop the future hybrid "tech+business" leaders by offering immersive and practical experience in all facets of new venture creation and helping students think, learn, and ACT as innovators, designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs to understand complex challenges, solve problems, create value, and drive meaningful economic impact.
An expert at human-centric business design and building high-performing teams. He has led business design teams building B2B software companies at High Alpha and AI startups at Forum Ventures. At High Alpha Innovation, he developed and applied the venture studio formula of de-risking and accelerating new venture creation in partnership with corporations, universities, governments, and VC funds across verticals such as industrial, supply chain, healthcare, CPG, finance, and agriculture. He also built a digital health venture studio in The Sanguine Lab.
At McKinsey & Co., he led strategy engagements with Fortune 500 corporations in digital transformation. Kostas has also been in business academia before, at Florida International University & Georgia Tech, teaching Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship and doing research at the intersection of strategy, innovation, and human capital.
At Purdue:
Kostas designed and launched Venture X @ the John Martinson Honors College - a 3-course journey in new venture creation (modeled after the proven venture studio playbook) for aspiring builders, founders, and innovators at Purdue. It starts with discovering and validating a meaningful problem worth solving, continues with building a solution to it, and concludes with crafting the most sensible commercial path for the new venture. Ready to take the first step in venture building and go from "0" to "1"? Reach out to learn more.
Kostas is the Director of the Springer Business Initiative at the College of Engineering. He will develop and launch a new Certificate (Fall 26) designed to prepare engineers - through experiences - for careers in engineering leadership. The Certificate is a collaboration between Daniels School of Business and the College of Engineering strengthening the bridge between business and engineering education. At the heart of the program is the Springer Executive Forum, which gives students a rare opportunity to engage directly with C-suite engineering alumni and gain firsthand insight into leadership, strategy and real-world decision-making.
He leads the Burton D Morgan Business Concept Competition - a 10-week active learning experience, open to all Purdue students, designed to empower aspiring founders/builders go from passion about a problem space to developing a new venture concept. The Competition culminates in a Final Event where the standout concept teams present to panel of VCs and earn $50K in Prizes. Stay tuned for the 38th Competition in Fall 2026.
He leads the Integrated Business & Engineering (IBE) Capstone program - coaching IBE student teams as they address complex challenges posed by our corporate partners and engage in integrative problem-solving to create value for our partners. Eager to work with our elite IBE students and see what they can do in your most important, relevant, STEM-infused business+technical challenges or opportunities? Reach out!
Kostas is the academic advisor for Purdue Launch - an elite student club focused on helping startups and founders through consulting while offering real-world experiences and a strong network to their student members. Are you a founder, small team, organization, or institute with an opportunity to create something new but faced with more questions than answers? Bring your problem to Purdue Launch.
Kostas is the primary advisor for buildpurdue - a club building THE community of student builders at Purdue.
He is also an Honors College Scholarly Fellow engaging with Honors College students - especially ones in the Copper House - to inspire and capitalize on existing research interest in new venture creation and the power of new venture building as the driver of value creation and progress.
