William B. Gartner (born 1953 in Richland (WA)) is an American Professor of entrepreneurship.
He then worked in the engineering corps of the US army and at The Hertz Corporation, before returning to Washington University to pursue an academic career.
Today William Gartner holds a joint professorship at Babson College (Wellesley, MA, USA) and Linnaeus University (Vaxjo, Sweden) Faculty profile [online] Available from: [Accessed: July 14, 2015]. In November 2017, Babson College announced the appointment of Gartner as Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship.
His main focus was now more practically oriented than before, generating evidence and insights into the process of how entrepreneurs create organizations.
Since the turn of the new millennium, Gartner has explored how entrepreneurship researchers’ theories, and the language they use, fit the way actual entrepreneurs think and talk.