Jacqueline Manger

Jacqueline Manger joined the Ed Snider Center in 2018 as an executive fellow. She became managing director in 2020. Working closely with the center’s founding director, she is focused on expanding the center’s impact and is responsible for leading center activities and program operations. Manger is passionate about the role that free markets play in society allowing for individuals to lead purpose-driven careers and lives of their own creation. She is an instructor of entrepreneurship and purposeful leadership, inspiring students from pre-college undergraduates to executive MBAs to embrace lean startup principles and work with intention and purpose to solve problems meaningful to themselves and make their world a better place. Her research activities include multiple applied research projects examining entrepreneurial strategy, decision making in early stage ventures and innovation and tech transfer.

Before joining the center, Manger was CEO of Sacramento-based consumer fintech startup New Wallet. During this time she began instructing undergraduates and taught the Lean Canvas in the center’s SELF program. Prior to her startup experience Manger spent 20 years in the investment management industry including growing two firms alongside their founders. She held CFO, COO and CCO roles with hedge fund manager West Creek Capital and private family office Rockport Capital. She began her investment career on the equity trading desk at New York-based hedge fund Caxton Corporation.

Manger’s first career was in the performing arts where she found success as an actress on stage and in commercials and as a director/choreographer. Currently an active arts advocate, she serves on the board of Olney Theater Center, Maryland’s official state summer theater, and was a past chair and board member of the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. She was recently appointed by the Montgomery county executive to the MidCounty Citizens Advisory Board. A proud TERP, Manger received an MBA from UMD’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, a BS in economics from Virginia Commonwealth University and an accounting certificate from University of Maryland University College. While an executive MBA she was recognized by Poets and Quants Best EMBA’s and received the Martin Sullivan Exemplary EMBA Award in recognition of excellence in scholarship, leadership, and character.