Andrew Leon Hanna

Biography

Andrew Hanna is an award-winning entrepreneur, lawyer, and author. A first-generation Egyptian-American born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, he is the founder of Mona – a global social venture backed by Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation and Alpine Social Ventures that provides underrepresented entrepreneurs with access to capital, distribution opportunities, product investment, marketing, and design support. Professor Hanna is also the co-founder of DreamxAmerica, which joins storytelling and impact to highlight and support immigrant, refugee, and first-generation entrepreneurs. Recognized on Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas List, DreamxAmerica connects small businesses across the U.S. to zero-interest loans, and its documentary short film on PBS was nominated for a Chicago Emmy® Award. 

Professor Hanna’s debut book, 25 Million Sparks: The Untold Story of Refugee Entrepreneurs (Cambridge University Press), tells the stories of three Syrian women entrepreneurs in the Za’atari camp, and of refugee entrepreneurs around the world. The book was named a Financial Times Best Book of the Year and won the prestigious Bracken Bower Prize in its proposal form. It has been called “a powerful story of hope” by Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee; a chance to “discover humanity at its best” by PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff, “inspir[ing]”; “sharply topical” and “original” by the Financial Times; and “uplifting” by Publishers Weekly.  Professor Hanna has also written on the constitutionality of solitary confinement, serious mental illness in prisons, and the constitutionality of failing to provide court-appointed counsel for asylum-seeking children facing deportation. 

Professor Hanna previously led the launch of Generation – the global youth employment non-profit founded by McKinsey – in his hometown of Jacksonville, advised senior officials at the White House and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ suicide prevention task force as a senior associate at McKinsey, served in the U.S. Department of Justice and the Vice President’s Office at the White House, and founded an education NGO called IGNITE Peer Mentoring whose curriculum has been used by 100+ schools around the world. He was chosen by the U.S. State Department as one of two American delegates to UNESCO’s biennial forum on youth issues in Paris, and subsequently served as an advisor to the U.S. Commission to UNESCO on youth development and engagement.

Professor Hanna earned his MBA with honors as an Arjay Miller Scholar at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and was faculty-selected as one of five Siebel Scholars in his class on the basis of academics and leadership. He received a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, a student leader in Harvard Defenders and the Harvard African Law Association, and recipient of the Irving Oberman Memorial Prize for Law & Social Change. And he earned an A.B. with highest distinction from Duke University, where he was a Robertson Scholar, Senior Class President, and the faculty-selected recipient of the Terry Sanford Leadership Award. Professor Hanna has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List, and his work has been featured in the BBC, PBS, Fast Company, Forbes, Financial Times, and more.

Research Interests

Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Human & Civil Rights Law

Academic Areas

• Strategy and Leadership