Five minutes with the faculty: Olenka Kacperczyk

What first sparked your interest in your field?

My older brother, Marcin, was the one who first encouraged me to explore research – something he really enjoyed, particularly in finance. Since he has a habit of being right about most things in life, I figured he might be onto something with this, too. That gentle nudge got me curious, and once I started digging into questions and data, I was hooked.

⁠What’s one thing students or colleagues might be surprised to learn about you?

I’ve had a tortoise for over 35 years, and honestly, it’s one of the coolest long-term relationships in my life.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And the worst?

The best advice I ever received came from the Dean at the business school where I had my first job. He told me: “The only advice I have is to stay deeply curious about the world.” Over time, I’ve come to see how freeing that perspective really is. When you stop obsessing over your career trajectory and start focusing on the questions that genuinely matter to you, the work becomes more meaningful and often more impactful. That mindset has helped me maintain perspective and stay connected to what drew me to research in the first place.

Another piece of advice that stuck with me came from a senior mentor early in my career. He said: “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” No paper is perfect and never will be, so don’t let perfectionism or over-criticism hold you back.

As for bad advice, I don’t think I’ve received any. I’ve been very fortunate to always be surrounded by profoundly wise and knowledgeable mentors.

⁠What’s your go-to productivity trick or daily habit?

Get deeply interested in your phenomenon – so interested that you never really stop thinking about it. When you’re genuinely fascinated by a topic, working on it doesn’t feel like a task you need to push through; it becomes something your mind returns to automatically, even during idle moments. Instead of forcing productivity through rigid discipline, you sustain it through intrinsic engagement. It’s not about maximizing hours; it’s about cultivating obsession.

What’s the most unusual or memorable place you’ve ever worked or studied?

Pearson College UWC, where I completed the IB during the last two years of high school. Tucked away on the edge of the Pacific Ocean on Vancouver Island, the campus had no cars, limited internet, and was surrounded by forest and ocean. Occasionally, classes were even cancelled because bears wandered onto campus. But what truly made it extraordinary were the people. I lived and learned alongside students from 84 different countries. We were, in a sense, stranded together for two years on this remote peninsula, trying to figure out how to communicate across vastly different cultures. It was a deep social and intellectual immersion that shaped how I think, argue, and listen. Looking back, it remains one of the most intense and transformative learning environments I’ve ever experienced.

⁠What’s a skill or hobby you have that would surprise your students or colleagues?

Giving someone a haircut. It has become an unexpected and oddly satisfying hobby. There's something deeply calming about the focus it requires, the precision, the steady hands, the concentration. It’s also surprisingly rewarding to see a tangible result take shape in real time. I never thought I’d be someone who finds joy in hair clippers, but here we are.

⁠If you could have dinner with any significant figure, who would it be and why?

I’d like to hang out with John List because his work sits at the intersection of theory and real-world impact in a way that's both rigorous and practical. He consistently designs field experiments that challenge conventional wisdom, whether it's about education, charitable giving, or workplace incentives. I admire how he uses data not just to refine models, but to solve problems that actually affect people’s lives. Talking with him would be a chance to learn how he thinks through messy, high-stakes questions without getting lost in abstraction. I’d want to ask how he chooses which ideas are worth testing and how he balances academic rigor with the unpredictability of the real world.

What’s the most unexpected or unusual place your research has taken you?

Tea-growing regions of rural China. I was studying women’s entrepreneurship and came across a local economy where women were more economically empowered than their husbands, largely because of their physical advantage in picking tea leaves. Their smaller hands were seen as better suited for the work, which gave them a surprising economic edge. It wasn’t a place I ever imagined my research would lead, but it ended up getting incorporated into my work on gender and entrepreneurship in rural economies.

What book, film, quote, or piece of art has had the biggest impact on you and why?

During my high school philosophy class, I came across the Butterfly Dream by Zhuangzi and it has stayed with me ever since. The parable tells the story of a man who dreams he is a butterfly, then wakes and wonders whether he is truly a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly now dreaming he is a man. What influenced me most is how it reveals that life is full of ambiguity and paradox: how the distinctions we rely on often unravel when we look more closely. Reading it at a young age made me more comfortable with uncertainty and open to complexity, not just in life, but in the way I approach research. Rather than seeking tidy answers or rigid categories, the story reminds me to treat ambiguity not as a flaw in understanding but as a fundamental part of the world worth exploring.

⁠What’s the most bizarre or unexpected fact you’ve come across in your research?

In a recent field experiment, I tested whether startups founded by spousal teams are more attractive to job candidates. The overall finding was clear: candidates were significantly less likely to apply to startups with spousal co-founders compared to those with non-spousal teams – a kind of “founder couple discount”. But what was most surprising was the asymmetry behind this effect. The penalty was not evenly distributed; it was driven almost entirely by a perception-penalty faced by male entrepreneurs who brought their female partners onto the founding team. In contrast, female lead entrepreneurs who included their male partners did not face the same negative judgment. This unexpected result revealed a deeper, gendered assumption about whose presence in a startup is perceived as earned versus granted. It raised new questions about legitimacy, gender roles, and professionalism in early-stage ventures – and I’m still trying to fully understand what it means.

Interview by Sophie Haydock