Meet the New Boss

Yusuf Dahl, new director of IDEAL Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, considers himself a change agent.

“I’m here to build a best-in-class program,” says Dahl, who believes he can do it in three years with help from the alumni network.

“Students would get more out of the experience if it was colored by folks who have been in the trenches.”

If you’d like to lend your expertise to IDEAL, contact Dahl at dahly@lafayette.edu.

• He is from Milwaukee, Wis.
• Last book he read: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• He earned a master’s of public administration at Princeton where he taught social entrepreneurship.
• He built community partnerships to provide Princeton students with out-of-classroom opportunities.
• He started an affordable housing development and management company that grew from a single two-family property in one of Milwaukee’s poorest zip codes to more than 200 residential and commercial units.
• He has been awarded fellowships from Google to expand wireless access in Boston and Tata Consultancy Services to work on emerging technology issues in India.
• He has a 9-year-old daughter, Chloe. They are tentatively planning to expand their family this winter by adopting a puppy.