Harvard Business School
What Harvard Business School Amounts To
The clearest money for self-funded search.
At a Glance
- Courses
- 2 named courses, below.
- Club
- An ETA Club whose stated purpose is the network and resources a searcher needs.
- Money
- The Search Fund Fellowship: $65,000 a year for graduating students pursuing a self-funded search, renewable once for $130,000 in total, and pointed at small companies in underserved communities that its graduates have not traditionally gone to. A second and smaller door sits beside it: the school's career support and exploration funds make one-time awards of $5,000 to $15,000 as a loan reduction at graduation. A fully self-funded acquisition search is named as eligible, for graduates whose guaranteed pay sits at or below $130,000.
- Conference
- An Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Conference, which the school lists on its own calendar of the conferences its student clubs run.
Its Conference, Dated
HBS Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Conference November 14, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts, with the way in and the price the host publishes.
The Classes
- Field Course: Entrepreneurship through AcquisitionTaught by Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff.
- The Financial Management of Smaller FirmsTaught by Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff.
Who teaches and leads it
- Richard Ruback, Baker Foundation Professor
- Royce Yudkoff, Professor of Management Practice
What Else It Runs
- Founder Pathways: a six-session series bringing search investors and alumni who have bought companies in front of students.
- Faculty who meet the fellowship's holders regularly through the search itself, not only at the award.
- An endowed gift behind the fellowship, which is why the money is open to graduating students from any background.
Open to readers outside the school
- Think Big, Buy Small, the podcast the two course faculty host on buying a small company.
- The HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, written by the same pair.
Where to Look
Other Schools
The Intern & Job Board carries the programs that pay a salary to search, and Investors the firms that fund one. What a student group runs on is in the materials for ETA clubs.