Chang Institute Launches Advisory Board as It Marks Ten Years of Entrepreneurship at SFU

Chang Institute Launches Advisory Board as It Marks Ten Years of Entrepreneurship at SFU

The Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship has established its inaugural Advisory Board, bringing together entrepreneurs, industry leaders and academic representatives from across SFU to guide the Institute into its second decade.

The Board held its first meeting on June 8, 2026 — a milestone that coincides with the Institute’s tenth anniversary year. Founded in 2016 through a transformative $10-million endowment from SFU Beedie alumni Charles Chang and Eve Chang, the Chang Institute has become SFU’s interdisciplinary home for developing the entrepreneurial mindset.  Over the past decade it has supported thousands of students through early-stage innovation & entrepreneurship classes through partnerships with the Beedie School of Business and other partner faculties, incubated 300+ startup teams, engaged over 2,200 participants annually across its curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular program, and helped early-stage ventures raise over $30 million in funding.

The Board’s mandate centres on three areas: setting the strategic vision for the next five years, championing that vision internally and externally, and supporting its implementation through fundraising, partnerships and community engagement.  The body is advisory and collaborative in nature, providing insight, accountability and strategic counsel to the Institute’s leadership, Chang Institute Academic Director Dr. Sarah Lubik and Executive Director Janice OBriain.

The Advisory Board is chaired by Dr. Lubik.  Its ten members include four external leaders — entrepreneurs and senior executives with deep ties to B.C.’s innovation ecosystem — alongside representatives from the Beedie School of Business, the Faculty of Applied Sciences, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science. Founding donor Charles Chang also serves on the Board.

“The Chang Institute was built on a belief that entrepreneurial mindset and learning belongs in every discipline and every faculty,” says Dr. Sarah Lubik. “Bringing together this group of advisors — people who have built companies, shaped policy and the innovaiton ecosystem and rethought how universities teach, learn and collaborate — gives us the perspectives we need to make the next ten years even more ambitious and impactful than the first.”

“The entrepreneurial mindset is one of the most powerful things a university can cultivate in its students in an increasingly uncertain world,” says Dr. Marvin Washington, Dean of SFU’s Beedie School of Business. “The Chang Institute has demonstrated that over the past decade, and I’m looking forward to working with this Board to ensure it remains a strategic priority for Beedie and for SFU.”

“When Eve and I made our gift in 2016, our hope was to create something that would transform how the university gets students ready for the furture — a lasting home for entrepreneurial mindset at SFU,” says Charles Chang, President and Founder of Lyra Growth Partners. “Seeing where the Institute is today, and the calibre of people willing to guide its future, tells me that foundation is strong.”

Among the external Board members are Sumreen Rattan, Co-Founder and COO of Moment Energy and a Chang Institute alumna whose cleantech venture has grown to over 75 employees and more than $100 million in funding; Jill Earthy, the inaugural CEO of InBC Investment Corp. and a governance leader across B.C.’s public and private sectors; and Matias Marquez, CEO of ethos, a Chang Institute alumnus, active startup investor and member of the Beedie School of Business Advisory Board.

The internal membership reflects the Institute’s interdisciplinary reach, with associate deans representing the faculties of Applied Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, and Science, and with leadership from the Beedie School of Business.

As the Institute enters its second decade, its leadership has articulated a ten-year ambition to establish SFU as the world’s most recognized post-secondary institution for developing the entrepreneurial mindset — across every faculty and every discipline.  The Advisory Board will play a central role in shaping and advancing that vision.

For more information about the Chang Institute and its programs, visit sfu.ca/chang-institute.