BYU Marriott School of Business dean Brigitte C. Madrian has announced entrepreneurship professor Trent Williams as the next director of the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology effective September 8, 2026. He replaces Mike Hendron who served as the center’s director since 2023 and has served in an administrative role with the center since 2017.
“We are extremely grateful for Mike Hendron’s many years of service in the Rollins Center,” Madrian says. “Mike’s legacy includes creating a closer alignment between the Rollins Center and the academic programs that support students with entrepreneurial interests, the successful rollout of out the entrepreneurship minor supported by the center, increasing the accountability-based support available to students interested in starting their own ventures, advancing entrepreneurship through acquisition with a rapidly growing annual conference, and moving the Rollins Center from the Tanner Building to its current space in the South Campus Building.”
With the transition, Hendron returns to the Department of Management where he will continue to teach entrepreneurship classes.
“I am grateful that Trent is willing to step into this important role,” Madrian says. “Trent is a globally recognized entrepreneurship scholar; he is also a committed teacher who combines rigor with compassion, is committed to experiential learning, and helps students integrate gospel principles with the iterative learning models used in entrepreneurial design.”
Williams earned a BA in English with a minor in philosophy from BYU and then an MS in organizational behavior and strategy from Purdue University. For three years, Williams worked as a senior consultant for Deloitte and then a senior associate for PwC. Williams earned a PhD in entrepreneurship and strategy from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. He went on to teach undergraduate and graduate courses first at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management and then in the MBA program at Indiana University. His research centers on value creation through organizational emergence, and he has published widely on related topics including resourcefulness, resilience, and decision-making. He serves as an editor at Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and is the division chair-elect for the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division, one of the discipline’s largest professional groups.
“What makes entrepreneurship at BYU special isn’t any single group—it’s what happens when students from across campus, faculty, mentors, alumni, and friends of the university all engage in the same act of creating, each bringing something the others cannot. Few places can draw on that much willing talent unified around a meaningful purpose; BYU can. Creating is a divine act and when done together, it shapes each of us into more than we could become alone,” Williams says. “I see my role as helping orchestrate connections and collaborations across the necessary but different people needed to help our students achieve their potential. When we bring our divine gifts and talents together in this way—to create, build, and explore—our efforts can bless our students and others well beyond campus.”
About BYU Marriott
The BYU Marriott School of Business aspires to transform the world through Christlike leadership by developing leaders of faith, intellect, and character. Named for benefactors J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott, the school is located at Brigham Young University. BYU Marriott has four graduate and ten undergraduate programs with an enrollment of over 4,500 students.