A Foundational Part of UMD’s Top-ranked Undergraduate Education Produces Business Success
October 02, 2026
Brian Hinman
Zachary Bookman ’02 started his first entrepreneurial venture at age eight—a lawnmowing business in his neighborhood—and just kept going from there.
“I was the kid who would sell candy or bubble gum in sixth grade to other kids,” Bookman said. “I loved the commercial hustle.”
As an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, he followed his entrepreneurial passion into the Hinman CEOs Program, the nation’s first living-learning entrepreneurship program. The government and politics major’s interest in business grew as he listened to speakers the program sponsored, one of whom built a company in Northern Virginia and sold it for $80 million. “I was hanging on his words,” said Bookman.
In 2012, Bookman co-founded OpenGov, which provides cloud-based software to state and local governments across the country. Bookman sold the company in 2024 for $1.8 billion.
Bookman was exactly the type of student the Hinman CEOs program sought to attract when its namesake, Brian Hinman ’82, helped launch it in 1999.
“We were founded as a two-year residential experience that was application-based. Students were selected based on their interest and passion for entrepreneurship and innovation,” said James Green, managing director of Learning and Development for the Idea Factory (formerly MTech) in the A. James Clark School of Engineering and director of the Hinman CEOs Program. (The program sits in the Idea Factory.)
“Students engaged in courses, a speaker series, workshops, competitions, socials and mentoring, all designed to give them the opportunity to build community and practice entrepreneurship,” he said.
Since the program began, its alumni have founded or co-founded more than 100 companies that have raised over $1 billion in investments and exceeded $10 billion in total valuations, including Squarespace, FiscalNote and beehiiv. In addition, alumni have gone on to hold c-suite jobs in companies like Paramount and Soundcloud, and innovative roles across industry and government.
Hinman, who has founded six companies himself, was drawn to establish the program because it spoke directly to his experience at the university. When Hinman was an undergraduate, Matthew Polk, co-founder of the speaker company Polk Audio, gave a talk to a small group of students. “It was super impactful for me to hear how he got started, why he was motivated to do it,” said Hinman. “I think about him all the time.”
While talks like Polk’s inspired Hinman, he struggled to find a community of people interested in entrepreneurship. Creating the Hinman CEOs Program as a living-learning community ensured other students wouldn’t have the same challenge. “It was a program to get like-minded people together that could foster that sense of belief in yourself,” said Hinman
The Hinman CEOs Program has done more than shape the experiences and careers of students. Green points out that when the Hinman CEOs Program began, it served approximately 90 students and the Idea Factory (then known as MTech) offered one class outside of the program focused on entrepreneurship that enrolled 80 students. Today, the Idea Factory has 24 courses in entrepreneurship and innovation with nearly 5,000 students enrolling annually in those courses. This section of the entrepreneurial ecosystem at UMD is a large reason why the university placed No. 7 across all institutions and No. 5 among public universities for undergraduate entrepreneurship studies, according to 2026 rankings by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine .
“The success of those early Hinman CEOs students provided evidence and confidence for the university to continue investing in entrepreneurship education,” said Green.
*Currently, the Hinman CEOs Program is on pause and not enrolling students.
Zac Bookman
Hinman CEOs Program alumni share thoughts about the program and how it led to their success:
Devi Mahadevia ’03
Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at SoundCloud
Devi Mahadevia ’03 didn’t have an idea to start a company when she applied for the Hinman CEOs Program but she “wanted to put myself around people who were thinking about these things.”
The access to speakers and outside the classroom programming appealed to her as did learning how to think about how to start a business. She found that in the Hinman CEOs Program she could put into practice concepts she was learning as a business major.
After stints at the National Hockey League, the National Football League and Meta, Mahadevia is now the chief growth and marketing officer of SoundCloud, a global music platform where creators and artists share their work, connect with fans and build their careers. She was hired to “look into the white spaces” where Soundcloud can expand its business, from finding new users, to creating new products or technology.
“I'm always attracted to new areas of growth for a business and you can do that by starting a new business or you can take businesses that have been around for more than a decade and still apply that mindset,” she said.
She credits the Hinman CEOs Program with giving her a toolbox she can reach into and “know how to use this tool against that problem,” said Mahadevia.
Brija Johnson ’13
Executive Director for UCLA Ventures
Program Manager for Bruin Founders
Brija Johnson ’13 came to the University of Maryland wanting to start her own business. At the time she was going to a lot of hair and nail appointments and noticed businesses were using notebooks to keep track of them. She thought, wouldn’t it be easier if they could do that digitally?
That’s what initially drew her to the Hinman CEOs Program, where she learned about business models, startup methodologies and venture capital. She gained skills such as how to interact in a business setting, host a meeting and run a discussion. Most of all, though, “I found out all these other aspects of the startup ecosystem and other ways you can play a role in supporting founders rather than just being a founder yourself,” said Johnson.
Today, Johnson is the executive director for UCLA Ventures, which facilitates investment and growth support for any UCLA-affiliated startup. In this capacity, Johnson matches founders with resources they need to scale their companies, either through facilitating investment or hosting events where founders can connect and build relationships.
It’s the “perfect marriage” of her business major, her marketing minor and her experience in the Hinman CEOs Program.