My career is about growing human, financial, and intellectual capital — and making it useful to the world. I’ve done this as a university professor (10 years full-time), board director (x4), entrepreneur/CEO (2 exits), accelerator founder (we’ve funded and coached 112 startups), and angel investor/advisor to startups (20+) and venture capital funds.For ten years, I was a professor and leader at the University of Illinois, serving as founder or first strategist on four university-wide programs with $500M+ in investment. I was lucky to work every day with extraordinary founders and technologists, usually at the very earliest stages of their ventures. I’ve closely supported — at least 50 meetings each — over 100 founding teams who’ve created thousands of jobs, enduring social impact, and over a billion dollars of priced enterprise value.As a consultant or founding strategist, I’ve worked on six continents with over 60 organizations, spanning from governments to hard-tech labs to charitable foundations. As a researcher, I’ve gotten to study hundreds of founders and leaders — and as an educator, to build programs to share those lessons with students. This work and research has been funded by the US State Department, VentureWell, numerous foundations and firms, and many fellowships and awards. I’m currently learning how to keep oranges alive in my garden.