Somaya named the Diane and Steven N. Miller Professor in Business

In recognition of his decades of contributions to research and to education, Gies College of Business professor Deepak Somaya has been named the Diane and Steven N. Miller Professor in Business. The investiture ceremony was held October 6 in the Deloitte Auditorium of the Business Instructional Facility.

“I am honored to be named the Diane and Steven N. Miller Professor in Business Administration,” Somaya said. “I am extremely grateful to the Millers for their support of my research and scholarship, and their belief in what we do here at Gies Business.”

The Diane and Steven N. Miller Professorship was established in 2009 thanks to a gift from Gies alumnus Steve Miller and his wife Diane. Steve is Founding Partner of Origin Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. He serves on the Dean’s Business Council and is a past chair of that council. Diane is President of the REAM Foundation, through which her family has had philanthropic impact for 17 years.

Professor Somaya joined the Department of Business Administration at Gies College of Business in 2008. He is also the first Don and Anne Edwards Scholar and Gies faculty-in-residence at the Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago. In addition, he holds an appointment in the College of Law. Previously, he served as the director of graduate studies for the Department of Business Administration, academic director of the Illinois Consulting Academy, associate director of the Illinois Strategic Organizations Initiative, and academic director of the Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

In his research, Somaya studies how companies strategize about and derive competitive advantages from their knowledge assets. In his award-winning dissertation he developed a new approach to studying intellectual property (especially patents) as a source of strategic advantage for companies. “How companies go about the strategic management of their intellectual property in order to develop and sustain a competitive advantage is what really interested me,” Somaya said. “It was a very novel question at the time, and much of my early research focused on exploring it.”

While continuing to work in this initial research area, he has branched out into research streams on human capital and relational capital, as well as studying how digital businesses scale up. Looking forward, Somaya is especially excited about his ongoing work on digital scaling. His recently published research shows that “digital companies can grow incredibly quickly by focusing on a narrower set of activities and leveraging their business models to serve a bigger and bigger share of the market,” he said. “This type of scaling is in stark contrast to [Harvard business historian] Alfred Chandler’s famous description of companies that dominated the second industrial revolution, which grew by increasing both scale and scope. Our research suggests that the corporate model of the fourth industrial revolution may instead be characterized by hyperscaling and hyperspecialization.”

Somaya’s research has far-reaching impact. “Professor Somaya is clearly one of the leading scholars in the strategy field for his interdisciplinary work on intellectual property and patent strategy and human capital in knowledge intensive industries,” said Carlos Torelli, Anthony J. Petullo Professor of Business Administration and head of the Department of Business Administration. “These kinds of topics have dominated the field of strategic management for many years, and his work explores a number of fascinating and important questions in this domain.”

Somaya has won numerous best paper awards and has been widely cited in the press. In 2010 he received the Arnold O. Beckman Award from the University of Illinois, which is awarded for research projects of special distinction or promise. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and Strategic Management Journal. He is also the Division Chair-Elect of the Strategic Management Division of the Academy of Management and is a past chair of the Strategic Human Capital interest group of the Strategic Management Society.

Somaya received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay and an MBA (PGDM) from the Indian Institute of Management at Calcutta. He was awarded his PhD in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley.

About Steven and Diane Miller

Steven N. Miller is a Founding Partner of Origin Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. Prior to Origin’s start in 1999, he spent 10 years at Quill Corporation where he held several operating roles. In 1998, the Miller family sold Quill to Staples. He has served on the boards of GrubHub, Impact Engine, VHT, doggyloot, and Shoutlet. He has been a board observer for several Origin portfolio companies, including DialogTech and BacklotCars.

Steve received his bachelor’s degree in business administration/marketing from Gies College of Business in 1987. He serves on the Dean’s Business Council and is a past chair of that council. He is also on the board of the Hillel Foundation. He also provides funding for the Steven N. Miller Entrepreneurial Scholarships and the Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

Diane N. Miller is President of the REAM Foundation, whose primary focus is its Misophonia Research Fund. Diane is an active board member of Vanderbilt University Hillel, as well as Maot Chitim (a nonprofit that provides meals to needy members of the Chicagoland Jewish community).

Diane earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in health systems management from Rush University.