Chris got his first taste of entrepreneurship in the late 90s when he got swept up in the dotcom frenzy and joined and eventually ran a Facebook predecessor called The Daily Jolt. After an invigorating six-year ride that included all the highs and lows of dotcomdom, he grew eager to take the lessons of running a startup and apply them to the issues he cared most deeply about. Chris sold the company in 2006 and left for New Haven to study nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship.

In the summer between his two years of business school, Chris’s eyes were opened to the power of social entrepreneurship when he worked for an entrepreneur-led start-up in Kenya called One Acre Fund—an organization dedicated to helping poor African farmers lift themselves out of poverty. After business school, he worked as an independent consultant for a range of nonprofits, including Root Cause, the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, and Nonprofit Finance Fund's Capital Partners—a group focused on helping high-impact nonprofits structure effective campaigns for raising growth capital. Chris holds a B.A. in psychology and Russian studies from Amherst College and an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management.

Each day, Chris takes inspiration from the example of his mother, who worked as a social worker in Boston City Hospital and quietly volunteered her time on the Samaritans suicide hotline for many years, and his father, who, through the joy he took in his decades of support for a local community for developmentally disabled adults, demonstrated how one enriches one’s own life by humbly serving others.

What would you say is the most surprising thing about you?
A newly discovered species of parasite that lives in the intestines of sharks is named after me and my brother.

What is the most unusual job you've ever had?
I once worked for a lobster distributor where part of my job was sniffing dead lobsters to determine which ones were rotten and which ones were un-rotten enough to go into your lobster salad.

What is your favorite quote?
"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life." -Jane Addams