Advisors

Tim Kelly, MBA ’00

Polsky Center Investor-in-Residence, Consultant to the Svider Private Equity Program

Tim Kelly’s private equity career spans nearly three decades, including senior leadership and investment management roles with Allstate Insurance Company, Heller Financial, GE Capital, and Adams Street Partners. Kelly began his career with Goldman Sachs in Chicago, where he traded over-the-counter (OTC) securities and managed the office’s OTC market expansion efforts. He went on to manage billions of dollars in private equity–related investment programs and to complete hundreds of successful international partnership and direct equity and fixed income investments. He is proud of an extensive global network of general and limited partner relationships he developed throughout his career as a result of his personable interaction style, objectivity and candor, and desire to help others succeed. His vast industry knowledge and experience transcend finance, investments, law, international business, and complex capital formation structures.

At the age of 54, Kelly achieved a lifelong goal when he received his Ph.D. in organizational psychology from Northcentral University, with a dissertation topic focused on how private companies become entrepreneurially oriented. He also holds an undergraduate degree in economics, magna cum laude, from Dominican University; a law degree, summa cum laude, from The John Marshall Law School; and an M.B.A. in economics and international business from Chicago Booth. Kelly has been an adjunct professor of undergraduate and graduate courses in finance, economics, and ethics, and is a writer and speaker on finance, leadership development, decision theory, organizational culture, and legal topics.

Kelly retired from active private equity investment activities in 2013. He now consults in the areas of leadership development and private equity firm operational and organizational optimization, in addition to managing his family office and philanthropic endeavors.

Chris McGowan

Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship, Chicago Booth; Faculty Advisor to the Svider Private Equity Program

McGowan’s private equity career began 28 years ago with AEA Investors in New York City, after earning an undergraduate degree in theoretical mathematics from Columbia University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and completing following two years of mergers and acquisitions training at Morgan Stanley.

Since Spring 2012, McGowan has taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (“Booth”), and he currently serves there as an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship, and as an investor in residence and faculty advisor to at the Booth’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In the Fall of 2025, he begins his 15th year teaching He has been teaching Booth’s Booth Investment Thesis Challenge (“BITC”) for more than 15 years and the his 13th year teaching Booth’s Private Equity and Venture Capital Lab for more than a decade. He is also conducting the 11th year of the Booth Private Equity Case Challenge for over 10 years.