When Sergey Anokhin first found out about an opportunity at the University of Louisville’s College of Business, he was under the impression he was applying solely for a faculty position as well as the directorship of the innovation MBA program.
As fate would have it, though, Robert Garrett had left UofL to begin a new chapter as the dean of the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis in August when Anokhin was beginning his time at the UofL — leaving an opening for the director of the Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship.
“Apparently there was an opportunity for me there as well,” said Anokhin, who accepted that role on Oct. 1, in addition to his other duties on campus. Side note: He told me that the easiest way to say his last name is pronounce it like “Anakin” (as in Mr. Skywalker).
Prior to joining UofL, Anokhin served as an associate professor at Menlo College, a school located in Silicon Valley in Atherton, California, where he helped create an international business major. Anokhin said his biggest takeaway from that two-year experience (2021-23) was less about a certain tangible entity, and more about the overall mindset that one needs to dream big.
“It’s all possible. It’s all doable. [It’s the] 'If it is to be, it’s up to me,' kind of thing,” he said. “Over there, people are not really afraid to start businesses … If those businesses fail… they find something that works that has traction, so I definitely want to see that in Louisville.”
Although he enjoyed his time in the Bay Area, Anokhin was happy for the opportunity to return to the middle of the country. Anokhin, a native of Russia, has been in the U.S. since 2001 when he arrived as a foreign exchange student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, at the age of 24.
He would go on to spend a collective 16 years at Kent State and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland before moving to the Upper Midwest to accept a position at the business school at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 2018.
“I spent most of my life in the states in the Midwest,” he said. “The Midwest has a special place in my heart. I know that technically, Louisville is considered the South… but to me, it feels very natural to be here. … My inner self agrees with Louisville.”
Besides the city itself, Anokhin said that one of the major reasons that he was attracted to the UofL was fact that his team already had a “critical mass” of faculty in the entrepreneurial space, as well as the Forcht Center’s two Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIRs), Linda Ruffenach — one of our 2023 Enterprising Women who serves as the founder and chief strategist at Execuity Value Advisors — and Jack Manzella, the COO of SoFab Inks, a chemical manufacturing startup. He added that his team is about two-thirds larger than most counterpart institutions “and that is phenomenal.”
Going forward, Anokhin said one of his top goals is to “raise the profile” of the Brown-Forman Cardinal Challenge, the university’s annual business competition for MBA students. Although his contract had him starting work in August, he actually arrived in late July just so that he could see the competition up close and in person.
In general, Anokhin said he aims to increase the interaction between the entrepreneurial ecosystem within the Louisville metro area and UofL students.
“We have a fantastic alumni of our innovation/entrepreneurship MBA [program], who are eager to contribute,” Anokhin said. “When you bring back those people who’ve been through the program … and reached their success, they’re willing to give back their time and advice.”
