Will Drover

Biography

Will Drover is Professor and Chair of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Founding Director of Neeley AI Forward, and Advisor to the Dean for AI and Digital Innovation. As Chair, he works alongside a high-performing team of faculty and staff whose efforts have earned national recognition, including the USASBE Model Program Award and consistent top-25 rankings in entrepreneurship.

As Founding Director of Neeley AI Forward, he built and leads a team and five-pillar strategy for integrating artificial intelligence across Neeley’s curriculum, faculty and staff development, research, operations, and external partnerships.

He teaches Venture Capital and Foundations of Entrepreneurial AI, an MBA course he created. His teaching has earned multiple awards, along with invited talks nationally, including a keynote at Microsoft in Silicon Valley. In partnership with Neeley Executive Education, he regularly designs and delivers AI programs for C-suites and leadership teams, pairing a grounded view of the AI landscape with hands-on work in live systems, from agents to custom models built in session.

His research has been published in leading journals, cited more than 3,000 times, and featured in outlets including Forbes. His recent MIT Sloan Management Review article on AI adoption received coverage in The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as a Field Editor at the Journal of Business Venturing.

Beyond academia, Drover has been a part of, or early-stage investor in ventures spanning software and AI, robotics, real estate, and biomedical sectors, including a NASDAQ exit and a robotics company whose systems are now deployed by the Air Force, Navy, FBI, and allied forces. He has led four consulting projects for the U.S. government and teaches innovation courses for the Department of Defense on U.S. and NATO military bases overseas.

Outside of work, Drover is a lifelong sports enthusiast who has completed 10 triathlons, kiteboards and wakeboards, and competed as a collegiate pole vaulter at the University of Missouri. Prior to joining TCU, he spent eight years on faculty at the University of Oklahoma, where he held the Price Professorship of Entrepreneurship.