Douglas Levin

Douglas (Doug) Levin is an American technology executive and business leader in artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and blockchain.^[1] He is currently an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School (HBS), where he co-taught “Ideation and Prototyping for Innovation” and advises HBS startups.^[2][3] He has supported the teaching of Tech Ventures at Harvard College, taught “Startup Academy” in the Harvard Business Analytics Program, and previously taught entrepreneurship and startup finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also serves as an Academic Advisor at Stanford Law School, where he taught “AI Priorities for Boards of Directors” in the Directors’ College in 2026.

Levin serves on the Board of Directors of ReversingLabs and advises technology companies including Dowsers, FiVerity, JigsawML, Resec, Stynt, and TeamLift.^[4][5][6][7]

In 2026, he founded Northstar Clarity, LLC, an AI strategy and governance advisory firm.

Levin is the author of the Substack “Lessons from a Startup Life”.^[8]

Levin founded or co-founded five companies, including Black Duck Software, where he was the founder and first CEO.^[9][10][11] He initially self-funded the company and focused on enterprise use of open source software, including code management, license compliance, and security risks.^[12][13][14] Black Duck became the de facto standard for open source security and was acquired by Synopsys in 2017.^{[13][15][16][17]}

Earlier in his career, Levin held senior management roles at Microsoft and worked as a third-party developer for the Apple Macintosh platform.^[1][18]

Levin holds an advanced degree in International Economics from the Collège d'Europe and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has completed studies at Columbia University, New York University, and MIT.

He received the CEO of the Year award from the Mass Technology Leadership Council in 2007^[19] and was named a fellow of the New England Clean Energy Foundation in 2009.^[20]