Nate Hill

Entrepreneurship researcher interested in the role of market-based interventions in addressing long-standing social issues. My research interests intersect occupational choice, the social and cognitive barriers to entrepreneurial entry and development entrepreneurship. 

This interest stems from seven years working in the microfinance industry in Africa, including two years living and working in Brazzaville, Congo. I have worked directly with microfinance institutions from four different countries outside the U.S., providing exposure to other cultures and practice working with diverse teams. I am currenlty the chairman of the board for Turame Community Finance in Burundi. Through first-hand experience of both the successes and shortcomings of microfinance, I’ve developed a passion for studying the types of ventures that can scale and create jobs for others, and the barriers that exist for those best suited to create these types of ventures in least-developed markets. 

To that end, my research focuses on social barriers to entrepreneurship with a particular interest in the understudied population of university educated young adults in sub-Saharan Africa. While this group is best positioned to start scalable ventures, they can be reticent to choose entrepreneurship because of three social barriers that devalue this occupational choice: status stigma arising from entrepreneurship’s association with less educated necessity entrepreneurs, corruption stigma arising from expectations that owners rather than employees must deal with unethical bribe solicitations and parental expectations that their educated children will secure wage employment rather than start their own business. 

In my spare time I like to travel, especially when it involves scuba diving or skiing. I have logged over 150 dives, and I dream of one day opening up my own scuba operation!