Welcome to another edition of Professor Profiles in which we spotlight two standout professors from each of the M7 business schools, exploring their research, careers, and the ideas that define their work.
In this article, we’re taking a look at two professors from Northwestern Kellogg: Linda Darragh and Sunil Chopra.
Linda Darragh
Linda Darragh is the Adjunct Professor in Entrepreneurship at Northwestern Kellogg. She teaches a course on global entrepreneurial ecosystems.
She earned the ‘Entrepreneurial Champion Award’ in 2018, the Legacy Award from the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers in 2021, and the Richard J. Daley Award in 2021, marking an academic career studded with honors. For the latter award, the Illinois Venture Capital Association recognized her participation in the venture capital and private equity industry in the state of Illinois.
Her work in Chicago — both professional and voluntary — spans four decades. She has been instrumental in the expansion of entrepreneurship in the region; making space for new opportunity, investment and community engagement. For example, she founded a nationally-recognized investor forum for women entrepreneurs (Springboard: Mid-West 2001 and 2003), while acting as the Finance Director of the Women’s Business Development Center. She is responsible for the launch of the first Impact Investment conference in Chicago, which developed into Impact Engine, a for-profit social impact accelerator. She even rebuilt Kellogg’s entrepreneurship program while acting as the Larry Levy Executive Director of the Kellogg Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative, increasing student opportunities and enhancing the faculty and curriculum.
Darragh at Kellogg
Linda Darragh’s presence at Kellogg has greatly influenced its entrepreneurial spirit. She first joined Kellogg as an adjunct professor and later became Assistant Director of Entrepreneurship; she divided her time at Kellogg with a stint at Chicago Booth, where she served as Director of Entrepreneurial Programs. On her arrival — or rather, her return — to Kellogg, she said:
“Kellogg’s entrepreneurship and innovation assets are broad and strong. I welcome an opportunity to work within a collaborative environment to maximize the practice and impact of innovation out in the world.”
Darragh takes pride in the focus on fundamentals that she, as well as Kellogg more generally, prioritizes in business school. Her teaching focuses on longevity, and has a bottom-up approach.
Linda Darrah can be found on LinkedIn, and she features on an episode of Inside the Skev.
Sunil Chopra 
Sunil Chopra is IBM Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems at Northwestern Kellogg, and has been part of the faculty since 1989. Before his appointment as IBM Professor, he served in various other positions: Interim Dean, for example, or Senior Associate Dean: Curriculum and Teaching. Before joining Kellogg, he was an Assistant Professor at NYU Stern.
Chopra has a PhD in Operations Research from SUNY Stony Brook. His research examines operations, logistics, supply chains, communication networks, and distribution networks, and his expertise has made him a frequent speaker at global conferences. Recently, his research has examined risk management in and dissected the structure of supply changes, studying market, manufacturing, and product characteristics across a range of companies.
In addition to acting as Departmental Editor for Management Science and Associate Editor for the Decision Sciences Journal, he has co-authored two books, “Managing Business Process Flows” and “Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation.” The Institute of Industrial Engineers named the latter book “best book of the year, 2002;” both books are used by top business schools across the U.S. to teach operations management and supply chain management.
Speaking of his long tenure at Kellogg, Chopra praised the school’s “strong commitment to excellence based on its culture of collaboration and innovation among its faculty, students, alumni and staff.” His contributions there have something of a symbiotic quality: students in his initial Logistics Management class inspired his first textbook by asking him to give a lecture on what value the internet may hold for businesses. His interest piqued, Chopra began to “start thinking about the evolution of supply chains, an area that I have continued to work in.”
Sunil Chopra can be found on Google Scholar.
