Competent Involvement
Christopher serves as an advisor and mentor for a variety of founders, startups, established companies, and universities in the artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, law, ethics, fintech, and healthcare spaces. He enjoys helping great teams create new opportunities to fulfill their missions. Create the life you want is Christopher’s focal point in any advisory/investor role he plays.
More about Salzburg Global Seminar as an Example
Conscious Conversations
With topics ranging from blockchain to embracing vulnerability in the workplace to growing your company in a human way to managing and scaling technical teams, Christopher has spoken to crowds of 5-10 founders to well over 1,000 people in a variety of industries including financial services and non-profit events.
Compassionate Adventures
Anyone who knows or has traveled with Christopher can attest to his insatiable thirst for life, tendency to invite incredible opportunities around him, and the ability to transform a simple dinner into trajectory-shifting experiences.
My Principles
Love & Kindness Always
Be Obsessively Grateful
Invest in Ideas That Matter
Pursue Passions, Not Paychecks
Act Like a Man of Thought, Think Like a Man of Action
There is a Human Being and Then There is Being Human. Know the Difference.
Causes I’m Actively Involved With
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2016
2016-PresentActive Member & Contributor
London, New York
Tusk is an organization that has captured my full support for not only their direct work with large game animals in Africa but also for their efforts globally to help stem ivory trade and other mistreatment of the world's resources.
www.tusk.org
Active Member & Contributor
San Francisco, Beijing, Galapagos
WildAid’s mission is to end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes. We envision a world where people no longer buy wildlife products such as shark fin, elephant ivory and rhino horn.
While most wildlife conservation groups focus on protecting animals from poaching, WildAid works to reduce global consumption of wildlife products by persuading consumers and strengthening enforcement.
www.wildaid.org
Active Member & Contributor
New York City
Gordon Parks was one of the seminal figures of twentieth century photography. A humanitarian with a deep commitment to social justice, he left behind a body of work that documents many of the most important aspects of American culture from the early 1940s up until his death in 2006.
He was also a noted composer and author, and in 1969, became the first African American to write and direct a Hollywood feature film based on his bestselling novel The Learning Tree. This was followed in 1971 by the hugely successful motion picture Shaft. The core of his accomplishment, however, remains his photography the scope, quality, and enduring national significance of which is reflected throughout the collection at The Gordon Parks Foundation.
www.gordonparksfoundation.org
Active Member
New York City
The Young Entrepreneurs Council is one of the best communities for successful entrepreneurs to gather, share, and support each other across industries and locales. I've been fortunate enough to have been a members for years and make an effort to physically meet with members across the country anytime I'm in town. YEC has been one of the best communities for so many of us.
www.yec.co
What I’ve done so far
Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow
Salzburg, Austria
Participated in the inaugural Privacy, Ethics, and Technology Seminar. The mission of Salzburg Global Seminar is to challenge current and future leaders to shape a better world.
Salzburg Global Seminar is an independent non-profit organization founded in 1947 to challenge current and future leaders to shape a better world. Our multi-year program series aim to bridge divides, expand collaboration and transform systems.
Salzburg Global convenes outstanding talent across generations, cultures and sectors to inspire new thinking and action, and to connect local innovators with global resources. We foster lasting networks and partnerships for creative, just and sustainable change.
Fellows from more than 170 countries have come together through our work, with many rising to senior leadership positions. Our historic home at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria allows us to welcome all participants in conditions of trust and openness.
www.salzburgglobal.org
Syntrina™ Leadership
Indianapolis, Indiana
Syntrina™ Leadership is a network of experienced executive coaches and thought leaders who collaborate to deliver uniquely intimate, exclusively-designed development experiences for the world’s top leaders. Our passion is to advance senior level leaders and the triple-bottom line of the organizations they lead. Whether one-on-one coaching, designing and facilitating a senior leadership team offsite, or delivering a leadership keynote address, our mission is the same: to a provide an intensely human experience that fosters greater individual self-mastery and as a result, extraordinary leadership impact.
www.syntrinaleadership.com
Board Member & Active Member
Sydney, Australia
A select group of global socially conscious entrepreneurs with a vision that the lives we touch are enriched with the excitement of change, opportunity and innovation. With events on Necker Island with Richard Branson to events in Australia, the community is unique in it’s brand affiliations and focus.
Founder & CEO
Carmel, Indiana
Vendor Relationship Management and Community Ratings Platform for Financial Institutions. Profitable in it’s 1st year. Customers over $500M in size
Director Community Engagement
Hartford, Connecticut
Spearheaded the launch of the Financial Institution Community for financial institutions nationwide to collaborate on common product issues faced within the Fiserv and Open Solutions Ecosystems. The community serves over 10,000 financial institution employees worldwide. I worked with senior management to provide strategic direction, engagement strategies, and operational direction to ensure a healthy and vibrant community.
Community Launch Strategist
Facilitated the strategic direction, development, and launch of the Credit Union National Association’s Online Network serving over 75,000 financial institution managers, CIOs, CFOs, Marketing Professionals, and CEOs.
Dean's Advisory Board
Indianapolis, Indiana
Active board member despite not having attended the university. Passion for the arts, a desire to help architect strong flexible degree programs and support the dean in his efforts to bring the beauty of the arts to the community and futures of the students drove me to get involved.
Mentor & Coach
West Lafayette, Indiana
Longest tenured mentor at the Purdue Entrepreneurship Academy. Largest summer camp for high school kids in the state of Indiana, culminating in presentations of business models to real venture capitalists.
Mentor & Team Advisor
Boston, Massachusetts
Team mentor for one of the first entrepreneurship-oriented summer camps for high school kids at MIT. Our first year it was a joint effort between Harvard and MIT in which faculty participated and instructed while mentors guided teams. Several teams went on to create companies in real life atop the rewarding experience of having a high caliber set of influencers around them daily.
Creator & Co-founder, (Vice President Product Development)
West Lafayette, Indiana
Created, managed and successfully sold industry-leading software company from my dorm room to financial institutions in over 7 countries. Winning the Inc. 500 award in 2008, for being the 27th fastest growing company in America. Designed, Architected, and built the Passageways Corporate Portal Collaboration Platform which grew to serve financial institutions profitably and globally over 10 years. Initial investment of $100,000, profitable within 3 years, and remained profitable for 10+ years till exiting. Grew Passageways from its establishment in 2003 to over 450 banks and credit unions globally. Customers range in size from $100 million in assets to many over $1 billion, including 40 of the largest 300 institutions in the United States. Passageways’ mission is to provide collaboration solutions, helping their employees and partners draw insights and strengthen company culture.
Founding Organizing Team Member & Speaker Coach
Indianapolis, Indiana
First TEDx Event in Indianapolis. Organized with a team of passionate citizens and still active today. After my first year there, I was primarily a speaker coach and worked directly with speakers to refine, rehearse, and organize their TEDx Talks.
Founding Organizing Team Member
West Lafayette, Indiana
First TEDx Event at Purdue University. Organized with a team of passionate students and still active on campus each year.
Strategic Advisor (exited in 2013)
West Lafayette, Indiana
Strategic Advisor for FoundOps, an online service delivery facilitation startup. Top Startup of the Year in 2012, Startup Bowl, for the State of Indiana. IP and Team was integrated into Angie’s List (NASDAQ: ANGI) in early 2013.
Strategic Advisors
Indianapolis, Indiana
Platform for local businesses to find each other and partner in a better cleaner way.
B.S. Industrial Management & Minor in Management Information Systems
West Lafayette, Indiana
I think I’ll always feel astonished by the incredible scale and diversity of opportunity that the university afforded me. Looking back, I remember how excited I was to be able to attend Patrick Duparcq’s intimately-sized graduate program while still an undergrad. Four years of phenomenal professors across the disciplines pushed me to expand, challenge, and adjust my worldview. Purdue taught me so much outside the classroom as well. My participation in Purdue’s myriad innovation initiatives exercised my creative muscle, sparked my obsession with design, and strengthened my tolerance to adversity. Purdue showed me what I love to do, gifted me with a love for learning, and surrounded me with a wealth of amazing peers.
Christopher’s Stories
Beautiful Guatemala Medical/Dental Trip
Recently I was invited by my one sister, Stacy, to a medical/dental mission trip in Guatemala. Neither of us had ever done such a trip and she had always wanted to. So we headed down and had an incredible experience extracting teeth, providing medical assistance to those in need, and listening and learning about the Mayan people deep in the jungle away from civilization. For me not having a medical background, it was surreal to [...]
Truly Remarkable Joel Robuchon Restaurant
Passion can be found in business, software, and even food as I recently discovered… Remarkable. It’s the one word I use when I experience something that is truly worth “writing home about”. That word is appropriate to describe a recent restaurant experience I had in Las Vegas. I watch the Food Network often and had seen an interesting episode of Top Chef featuring the “Chef of the Century” Joel Robuchon. I had ever heard of [...]
Software Distribution Friction
Many of the things I think about when considering new software systems revolve around a central concept of connecting the value software provides as close as possible to the user consuming the value. In my opinion, anything that stands between the code executing and the user enjoying the results of that execution is “friction”. There is a concept that many small software start-ups, and non-software start-ups oftentimes do not think about in their first few [...]