Steve Denning

Steven A. Denning, MBA ’78, is the chairman emeritus of General Atlantic LLC (GA), a firm he joined in 1980 and helped build into a leading global growth equity firm with  $83 billion in assets under management. 

Mr. Denning joined GA after working with McKinsey & Company. Prior to business  school, Mr. Denning served for six years in the United States Navy, where he also earned  a master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He  received a bachelors from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1970, and an honorary  doctorate in 2019. 

Mr. Denning is a member of the board of directors of the Markle Foundation and the National Park Foundation, as well as a member of its executive committee. He is also vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Starr Companies Advisory Board. He is a member of the Columbia Climate Board of Advisors, and a member of its executive committee. At Stanford, Mr. Denning is vice chair of the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute Advisory Council, chair of the Global Advisory Council to the Presidentchairman emeritus of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab Advisory Group. He also is a member of the  advisory council of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Knight-Hennessy Scholar Program Advisory Board, and the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute Advisory Council.  

Mr. Denning is a former chairman of The Stanford University Board of Trustees  and former Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of The Nature Conservancy. He is emeritus chairman of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council, and a lifelong Trustee of The Brookings Institution, the  American Museum of Natural History, and the Georgia Tech Foundation. He is trustee emeritus of Blue Meridian Partners, Inc., and a former member of theBridgespan Group Board of Trustees and the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, College Advising Corps, and the Rocky Mountain Institute. 

The Stanford Graduate School of Business awarded Mr. Denning with the Excellence in Leadership Award in 2007 and the Ernest C. Arbuckle Award in 2018. The Stanford Alumni Association awarded him the Gold Spike Award in 2022.