Social Impact Initiative Staff
Katherine Klein, Vice Dean | Contact/email
Professor Katherine Klein is the Edward H. Bowman Professor of Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to coming to Wharton, Katherine was on the faculty of the University of Maryland and a visiting professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
An award-winning organizational psychologist, Katherine has conducted extensive field research regarding a range of topics including team leadership, climate, conflict, social networks and effectiveness; organizational change and technology implementation; employee diversity; and employee responses to stock ownership and stock options. She has taught executive education, studied, and consulted with a variety of for-profit and non-profit organizations including Charles Schwab, Rohm and Haas, North American Scientific, Medtronic, The Baltimore Shock Trauma Center, Penn Vet, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Korean Management Association.
Her research has been published in numerous top journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, the Academy of Management Journal, and the Academy of Management Review. A former associate editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology, she is currently an associate editor of Administrative Science Quarterly. Katherine is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.
Katherine’s current research interests include race in organizations; leadership succession and social network change; and Rwanda’s reconciliation and reconstruction following the 1994 genocide.
Faculty profile >>
Sherryl Kuhlman, Managing Director | Contact/email
As one of Dean Robertson’s “three pillars” of Wharton, the Program for Social Impact furthers Wharton’s commitment to be a force for good. In her role as Managing Director, Sherryl will be responsible for working with students, faculty, alumni, staff and corporate and community stakeholders to integrate and provide strategic focus for Wharton’s numerous and diverse social impact initiatives. Sherryl brings a blend of academic and nonprofit experience to the position. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and taught in the Philosophy department at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After years of motivating the students in her ethics and social and political philosophy classes to make a real impact on social causes, she decided to make a more real-world impact on such causes herself. She left academics and earned her M.B.A. from Wharton, and spent time at the national office of Big Brothers Big Sisters before moving to the local agency, Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern Pennsylvania, one of the five largest Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies nationwide.
Jacob Gray, Senior Director | Contact/email
Jacob Gray is Senior Director of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative. At Wharton his work focusses on the broad field of impact investment, and advancing collaborative innovations in the intersection of the business and impact sectors. He is also the lead staff and Chair of the Investment Advisory Committee for the Wharton Social Venture Fund, a student-involved impact-investment fund. Since 2000, Mr. Gray has been an active impact investor, including successful investment in the learning technology and digital media industries. He is a co-Founder and Partner of Murex Investments, an impact-investment VC fund managing funds for financial institutions and high net-worth individuals. Mr. Gray is a co-Founder of GoodCompany Group, a Philadelphia-based incubator for high-growth social enterprises. Before co-founding Murex, Mr. Gray directed an incubator serving more than 50 incubated social enterprises. Mr. Gray also co-founded the first regional chapter of Investor’s Circle, one of the largest and oldest national networks of angel investors and professional venture capitalists. Mr. Gray earned his B.A. from Brown University.
Administrative staff:
John Rutter, Staff Assistant | Contact/email
J. Kayleen Palumbo, Office Assistant | Contact/email