Joel Peterson is Founder of Peterson Ventures, Co-Founder of Peterson Partners, and a lecturer at the Stanford University School of Business.

Mr. Peterson recently founded Peterson Ventures, which focuses on providing early-stage capital to entrepreneurs with a typical investment size between $100,000 and $3 million. Peterson Ventures allows Mr. Peterson to fulfill his passion for partnering with talented entrepreneurs in earlier stage ventures, while maintaining partnership opportunities with profitable, growing companies through Peterson Partners.

In 1995, he co-founded Peterson Partners, a Salt Lake City-based private equity group with $400 million under management, which has invested in local Utah businesses such as Winder Dairy, Making Memories, EnergySolutions, Diamond Rental, Asphalt Zipper and 3form, as well as national businesses such as JetBlue Airways, Cranium and Asurion.

Mr. Peterson has been a lecturer at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University since 1992 where he has taught courses in real estate investment, entrepreneurship and leadership. He was recently elected by students to receive the Distinguished Teacher Award, an annual honor awarded by students to an outstanding teacher. He currently serves as Faculty Director at Stanford’s Center for Leadership development and Research.

Between 1973 and 1991, he was treasurer, CFO, Board member and CEO of Trammell Crow Company, one of the world’s largest real estate development firms.

Mr. Peterson is currently Chairman of the Board at JetBlue Airways, Lead Director at Franklin Covey, and an Overseer at the Hoover Institution. He has served on dozens of public and private boards over the past 35 years, including Asurion, the Dallas Market Center, Texas Commerce Bank (Dallas), the Advisory Board at the GSB at Stanford, and on the President’s Council at his alma mater. He was valedictorian at his undergraduate institution, Brigham Young University, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1973