About.

Andrew Leon Hanna is an award-winning entrepreneur, lawyer, author, and professor. 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. 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. 

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]”; and “uplifting” by Publishers Weekly.  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. 

Hanna is an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he teaches "Global Social Entrepreneurship." He 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.