John Surdyk is the Director of the Initiative for Studies in Transformational Entrepreneurship that encourages entrepreneurship research, curriculum development, and programming at UW-Madison. He leads the StartUp Learning Community, and he supports several competitions that foster creativity, social innovation, and entrepreneurial action, including the Arts Business Competition, the 100 Hour Challenge, and the Clinton Foundation Global Initiative.

Prior to INSITE, Surdyk co-founded Re-Envision Consulting, a firm working with arts and environmental organizations pursuing innovative earned-income strategies. Earlier in his career, Surdyk worked with the consulting arm of the Stanford Research Institute as well as Navigant Consulting.

Surdyk received the Mabel W. Chipman Award for Teaching Excellence in 2017, and he was selected as a Schmidt Futures entrepreneurial fellow in 2019. He currently serves as the Treasurer of the board of the Overture Center, Wisconsin’s largest nonprofit arts organization. He did his undergraduate work at Stanford and earned an M.B.A. at the Wisconsin School of Business.