Daren Jackson

Biography

Dr. Daren W. Jackson is an adjunct professor at Utah State University’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business and an experienced business educator, entrepreneur, and technology executive. He brings more than 20 years of secondary and postsecondary teaching experience and more than two decades of leadership in entrepreneurship, banking, payments, SaaS, FinTech, GovTech, and EdTech. His teaching emphasizes applied learning—connecting business frameworks to the decisions, risks, and opportunities students will encounter as founders, managers, and professionals.

Jackson has created, grown, and helped sell multiple technology companies. He founded Rapid Financial Solutions, scaled the financial-technology company to more than 2,300 public sector clients and led its transition following acquisition by Tyler Technologies. He also founded RefPay, later acquired by the NCAA and Serent Capital, and served in executive and board roles with ArbiterSports, where the payments platform processed more than $1 billion with no fraud loss. Earlier in his career, he worked in commercial banking and small-business lending.

At Utah State, Jackson has taught entrepreneurship, new venture creation, new venture finance, applied artificial intelligence in entrepreneurship, economics, and accounting. He also mentors student founders through the USU Entrepreneurship Center and serves on the SEED Board of Directors. His current scholarly interests include employee empowerment and the practical use of artificial intelligence in business education, workforce readiness, entrepreneurship, and organizational effectiveness.