Elaine Pak
Welcome!
I'm Elaine, a PhD candidate in Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. I am on the 2026-2027 academic job market.
I study strategy, corporate governance, and entrepreneurship. My research examines how corporate owners (private equity, venture capital, hedge funds) influence firm strategy and performance through relational mechanisms.
In my Job Market Paper, I find that private equity owners develop a distinct strategy ("playbook") and implement it across their firms through people.
My research is forthcoming at Organization Science and Management Science. It has received the AOM Gleuck Best Paper Award and the SMS Responsible Research Prize, and was a finalist for the SMS Best PhD Paper Award.
I received my BA in public policy studies from Duke University and MS in industrial engineering from Seoul National University. Before entering academia, I was a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, DC.