City: Chicago, IL
Occupation: CEO and Cofounder, mHUB; Managing Partner, Product Impact Fund
Chicago Booth and the Civic Scholars Program provide an exceptional opportunity to engage with educators and researchers who are leading the scholarship toward solving the social and environmental challenges within our local and global community. The engagement through the program, coupled with the peer-learning opportunities with other leaders in the nonprofit and government space, provides further professional development in and outside the classroom that will make an immediate impact on my leadership capacity. The shared learning model will give me, and the organization I currently lead, the tools and resources to continue to scale our impact and support the replication of our business model to other nonprofit organizations.
My professional career has been dedicated to creating economic opportunities, driving technological innovation and commercialization, and creating inclusive policies that equitably distribute impact and provide support for the most vulnerable members of our society. Post-MBA, and eventually post-mHUB, I expect my career to continue focusing on opportunities which create the greatest level of impact for the broadest number of people in our society, with a hyper focus on wealth and job creation.
I am looking to further develop my management and quantitative decision-making skillset with a planned focus in economics, finance, and strategic management.
The Weekend program provides that right balance between focusing on scaling the business and impact of mHUB and the Product Impact Fund, being a good husband and father, while continuing to pursue professional development at a top MBA program.
I've had an extreme non-linear career that has bridged politics, startups, Peace Corps, economic development and technology investing and commercialization. For the last five years, I've led a nonprofit focused on removing barriers of entry for companies and individuals seeking to build hardtech and physical businesses. This organization was launched as part of the public-private partnership focused on wealth and job creations in the manufacturing sector. To date, it has translated into supporting over 420 startups to raise $830 million in investment, generate over $500 million in revenue, receive 411 patents, and create over 2,100 jobs. The work for this began at the University of Michigan through the Science, Technology and Public Policy program under the direction of Professors Carl Simon, Irv Salmeen and Shrindar Kota and accelerated as part of World Business Chicago's post-Great Recession economic development plan.
