John Edwardson, '72, Social New Venture Challenge (SNVC)

Becky Betts is the chief marketing and external affairs officer at A Better Chicago. In this role, Becky leads the organization’s marketing and communications, strategic partnerships, and development work. She seeks to elevate A Better Chicago’s brand at the local and national levels while maintaining and cultivating relationships across sectors to garner the resources required to achieve A Better Chicago’s mission to fight poverty with opportunity.

Becky’s track record for developing and implementing innovative social impact initiatives includes launching Chicago CRED—a foundation focused on reducing gun violence through philanthropy, direct service programs, community engagement, and advocacy—with former United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. As chief of staff, Becky led the creation of a direct service, anti-violence program and established collaborative partnerships with city agencies and community-based nonprofits to enable rapid expansion, including employment of more than 5,000 high school students each summer through the One Summer program. On the advocacy side, she led initiatives to engage young adults from Chicago’s South and West side neighborhoods in local and national conversations around gun violence prevention. Prior to her time at Chicago CRED, Becky provided strategic guidance to a wide variety of Fortune 500 companies as a management consultant with PwC and A.T. Kearney.

Becky is on the board of directors for Advance Illinois, a nonprofit policy and advocacy organization that works towards building a healthy public education system for Illinois. She also serves on the board of Fishtank Learning, a national nonprofit focused on providing high-quality instructional content for K-12 educators. Becky holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Bruce Brege has worked in corporate finance, financial services and data analysis in the private sector, including extensive time in the biomedical industry. Prior to joining OHS, he served as the founding math teacher for two charter high schools and helped to develop the charter management organization that runs these schools as well as information analytics. 

Bruce loves to travel, enjoys classical and jazz music, is a medium-distance runner, and has been attempting over the past several years to learn to play golf (with limited success). Bruce Brege has a BBA in finance from Ohio University, an MBA in finance and economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an MS in engineering-economic systems and operations research from Stanford University, and an MA in math education from Stanford University.

Jim Casselberry, the co-founder and CEO of Known, has over 30 years of experience in investing, impact investing, investment management and investment consulting. He has an extensive managerial background in family and entrepreneurial businesses across industries of waste management, food manufacturing and financial services. Most recently, Jim served as the Chief Investment Officer at 4S Bay Partners, LLC, a single-family office focused on social impact, where he will serve as Senior Advisor. Jim is a board member at the Julian Grace Foundation, where he sits on its investment committee, and at Arc Chicago, LLC, the appointed board of Benefit Chicago. Benefit Chicago is a collaboration between The Chicago Community Trust, the John D, and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Calvert Foundation. He is the board chair of Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI). Jim has authored several white papers, including “Why Not the Best? Capturing Alpha from a Long-Neglected Market.”

Jim was a principal at Ennis Knupp and Associates Inc. (currently known as AonHewitt Investment Consulting, Inc) where he had a broad range of responsibilities, including serving as the primary and managing consultant assigned to some of the nation’s largest public pension funds, foundations, and endowments. Jim spearheaded Ennis Knupp’s Emerging Manager Advisory Council and was head of the firm’s global equity research group, member of private equity research group as well as the fixed income advisory council. Jim has also held senior roles at NexTier Companies, LLC and Dearborn Park Group, LLC, both of which offered strategic consulting advice to investment management and financial services firms.

During his career, Jim has held leadership positions with The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Partner and Director of Fixed Income Investments), Trias Capital Management, LLC (Founder and CEO), and Wedgewood Capital Management, Inc. (COO and Portfolio Manager). He began his career at First Chicago Corporation and Arthur D. Little Valuation, Inc. Jim has been an adjunct Professor at Valparaiso University teaching in the College of Business MBA program and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He sits on several philanthropic boards including Mosaic Genius, American Friends of Hebrew University, and is a Trustee at Morehouse College and the National Urban League.

Jim received a BS degree in economics from the University of Illinois and an MBA degree from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Duncan Davis is a Founder and Managing Director of Breakout Capital. Breakout invests in high growth businesses, with a focus on mission-driven companies led by diverse teams. Breakout’s investments have been primarily in healthcare, consumer, and financial services. Breakout employs a deal-by-deal structure and its LPs are family offices.

Duncan began his career in leveraged finance at Goldman Sachs in New York City. He went on to join the investment team at Sterling Partners where he focused on healthcare services investing. Duncan grew up in Wisconsin and now resides in Wicker Park with his wife and two sons. Duncan serves as a mentor for American Corporate Partners to help military veterans transition to the civilian workforce.

John Edwardson is co-chairman of Advance Illinois, an independent statewide education policy and advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that every Illinois student receives a world-class education. Edwardson is the former chairman and CEO of CDW, a leading provider of technology solutions to businesses, government, education, and healthcare organizations. During his tenure, CDW’s revenues grew from $3.8 billion to more than $10 billion. Prior to joining CDW, Edwardson served as chairman and chief executive of Burns International Services Corporation. He also served as president of UAL Corporation and United Airlines. 

Edwardson serves as a trustee of the University of Chicago, on the Council on Chicago Booth, and on the advisory board of Booth’s Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation. He is also a retired board member of FedEx Corporation, Rockwell Collins Inc., and currently serves on the board of Chubb LTD. Edwardson earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. 

William Fitzgerald, CFA is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Fitzgerald Asset Management. Prior to establishing his firm, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of ZCM Capital Management. Bill spent over a decade financing sustainable infrastructure following a nearly 20-year career with Nuveen Investments. In his tenure as Chief Investment Officer of Nuveen Asset Management, Bill was pivotal in growing the firm’s AUM from $46 billion to $67 billion over a seven-year period and guided the Nuveen Asset Management organization toward an emphasis on portfolio construction, credit analysis, trading, and hedging strategies. Bill is a recognized industry leader and received the Lipper Award for Large Mutual Funds for best risk-adjusted performance in 2005. He is active as a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society Chicago. He has served on the Board of Directors of Syncora Guarantee, Inc., the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), the Ariel Education Initiative and as a Trustee of the Janus Henderson Funds.

Mr. Fitzgerald holds a BA from Beloit College and an MBA in Finance from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business where he serves as a member of the Business Council on Chicago Booth.

Foreman is the President and CEO of the Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative, which generates community wealth and amplifies local culture through shared pride, power, and investment for Chicago’s mid-South Side. Emerald South attracts and coordinates investment through community convening and collaborative partnerships that increase local ownership and prosperity.

Foreman is also the Managing Partner of the Washington Park Development Group, a real estate development firm focused on traditionally underserved urban markets. In this capacity, he has been responsible for over $50 million in investments and development. Foreman sits on several boards, including the Chicago Rehab Network, Hyde Park Art Center, and previously served as President of Chicago Police Board. Most recently Foreman joined Chicago Booth as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Strategy.

Foreman earned a BS from Florida A&M University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

As the COO & General Counsel of 4S Bay Partners LLC, a single-family office based in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Emily Green serves on the executive team supporting the family’s mission to eliminate prejudice and the inequities of our society.

In her tenure at 4S Bay Partners since 2016, Emily has overseen the growth from three employees to over fifty employees and family assets rise fourfold. In supporting this growth, Emily leads the office operations, legal and risk management, finance, and real estate teams, as well as supports the investment strategies of the investment team to ensure family’s mission, achieving both social and financial returns.

Bob Greenlee is Chief Operating Officer at Tusk Holdings, Head of Platform for Tusk Venture Partners, and President of Tusk Philanthropies. At Tusk, Bob has worked for the past decade at helping early-stage and growth-stage startups navigate the regulatory environment. He has worked in the healthcare, telecom, energy/climate, gaming, technology, education, finance, and policy/political reform sectors, leading campaigns for large corporate clients like LVMH, Tesla, and CVS, startups like Bird, Ro, and Sedera, and not-for-profits like Girls Who Code, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Gabe Hakim is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Promise Venture Studio–a national nonprofit with a mission to support innovators and accelerate innovations for equity in early childhood development and education. Promise supports a national network of 500+ social ventures in the fields of early childhood health, prenatal health, birth equity, early childhood education, parental support, and child care quality and access, among others. Promise is also the backbone organization for the national Early Childhood Leaders of Color Collaborative that supports 200+ field leaders in pursuit of greater sustainability, social capital, and collective power. 

Gabe has spent the last decade committed to equity-driven innovation in early childhood development and draws upon experience from a broader career of leadership within mission-driven organizations seeking social justice. Prior to launching Promise in 2018, he was the US COO of Generation: You Employed, a global workforce development nonprofit started by the McKinsey Social Initiative, where he supported programmatic growth and execution across 13 states. He’s also led the strategy and scaling efforts for Interfaith America, a national nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation and leadership on 1,000 US college campuses. As a former management consultant, he has experience working across the public, private, and social sectors to develop high-impact strategies for innovative solutions. Gabe has an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Rich Hoops is the executive director of Impact Charitable, a nonprofit based in Denver, Colorado that partners with donors and government funders to identify and address critical capital/funding gaps among underserved individuals, entrepreneurs, and small businesses, through the facilitation of direct, philanthropic investments and special purpose funds.  He is also a member of Social Venture Partners, an organization that provides capacity building services to nonprofits and social enterprises, and Social Venture Circle, a national network of social impact investors and he serves on several nonprofit boards.  

Hoops began his private-sector career at Tandy Corporation in 1986. After that, he joined Dell Computer Corporation where, over 11 years, he held a variety of senior management and executive positions in sales, marketing, and business development. In 2000, Hoops moved to Boulder, Colorado where he founded and served as CEO of Outdoor Intelligence, a digital mapping company that served the outdoor recreational industry. Since 2004, Hoops has invested his time, energy, and resources in a variety of nonprofit and for-profit social impact initiatives and organizations in Colorado and East Africa, where he continues to support several nonprofit community development organizations and for-profit social ventures through mentorship and investment.  

Hoops has a bachelor of arts from the University of Missouri-Columbia and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. When not working, Hoops enjoys skiing, fishing, cycling, and spending time with his four daughters.

Rachel Kohler is the CEO of NowPow and is improving access to community resources that support whole person care. Under her leadership, NowPow’s referral technology has been rapidly adopted by top health systems, payers, and community-based organizations across the country. Before joining NowPow, Kohler spent more than 20 years building and managing global luxury brands at Kohler Co., one of the largest and oldest private companies in the nation. Kohler is a trustee at the University of Chicago, the University of Chicago Medical Center, and the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. 

She also serves on the boards of Kohler Co., Kohler Foundation, LPMC Foundation and MAPSCorps, a technical workforce pipeline for NowPow. Kohler also previously worked at Booz Allen & Hamilton, a management consulting firm, and at First Boston, an investment bank now known as Credit Suisse. Kohler earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA from Princeton University.

Lloyd Lewis is the CEO of the Arc Thrift Stores of Colorado, one of Colorado’s largest social enterprises. Arc Thrift is also one of Colorado’s largest nonprofits, employers of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), recyclers, and relief organizations. Under Lewis’ tenure, Arc Thrift has funded over $250 million to nonprofit causes and charities since 2005.

Since taking on the leadership role at Arc Thrift Stores, Lewis has become a passionate and uncompromising advocate for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. With 80% of people in the U.S. with disabilities being unemployed, a champion was indeed called for. Focusing on healthcare, housing, voting rights, and employment, Lewis is most definitely that champion and is on a crusade to promote a new way to think about inclusion and diversity.

When and where he can, Lewis takes a stand and has issued a challenge to all CEOs and business leaders to follow his lead and change how we approach and truly embody inclusion in this country.

Lewis was a nominee for CEO of the Year by ColoradoBiz magazine in 2020 and named one of Denver’s Most Admired CEOs in 2021 by the Denver Business Journal. He is also the recipient of a Civil Rights Award and received the World Citizenship Award in 2022 from the International Civitans, an honor that has included such noted past winners as England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Eunice Shriver, the founder of Special Olympics.

Additionally, Lewis sits on the board of The Arc of the United States Foundation and is treasurer of Inclusion International, a worldwide organization advocating for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with members in over 100 countries.

Lewis’s career in disabilities and employment has also been recognized in the Congressional Record by U.S. House of Representatives Jason Crow and Diana DeGette.

Before coming to Arc Thrift Stores, Lewis was a municipal investment banker with Smith Barney, a senior financial analyst with IBM, a director of finance for a publicly traded medical equipment company, and a CFO for a high-tech start-up company that was ultimately sold to Micron. Lewis is a board member of the Colorado Business Roundtable and chairs its community committee. Lewis also sits on the board and serves as treasurer of Inclusion International, one of the world’s largest international organizations fighting for the rights of individuals with IDD across the world, with over 200 member organizations in 115 countries. 

 Lewis lives in Englewood Colorado with his wife Claire who is a substitute teacher. He has four grown and two younger children, including a 19-year-old son with Down syndrome.

 Lewis is a nationally recognized expert in IDD employment and speaks nationally to corporations about the positive contributions of employees with IDD. He spoke at the opening plenary session at the Arc of United States convention in November 2022. Lewis has an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Tasha Seitz leads the venture investment team at Impact Engine, where she invests in early stage software companies driving improvements in education, health, economic empowerment, and environmental sustainability. She has been making and managing technology venture investments for over two decades. Prior to joining Impact Engine, she was a partner with JK&B Capital, a technology venture capital firm based in Chicago with $1.1 billion dollars under management, where she was responsible for identifying, evaluating, and making investments in early stage enterprise software companies. Her post-investment responsibilities included serving on boards of directors, managing growth, coaching and hiring management teams, and managing investments through exit.

In addition, Seitz serves as adjunct professor of social impact at the Kellogg School of Management, board director for the Bridges Impact Foundation US, and a member of Echoing Green’s Investor Advisory Group. She is also a founding partner and former board chair for the Chicago chapter of Social Venture Partners. Seitz earned a BA from Wellesley College and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Roberto Servitje, ’13, is CEO at Altex, his family’s business and one of Mexico’s largest agro-industrial companies. He has spent most of his professional career in a variety of local and international roles within his family’s businesses in the food industry, including risk management and marketing. Directly after graduating from the full-time program at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2013, he joined Grupo Lacrem in Barcelona as Director of Marketing, and in 2015 he returned to Altex based in Mexico City, most recently serving as CEO for the group. 

Servitje received a BA in international commerce from Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico City (2008) and participated in the SNVC while he attended Chicago Booth. He is active in various organizations that support urban and contemporary art, as well as rural development initiatives throughout Mexico.

Ron Tarrson is the owner of Santa Fe Aero Services and a majority partner of The Jet Center Santa Fe, suppliers of avionics, maintenance, fuel, hangar and concierge services for private and corporate aviation at the Santa Fe, NM Regional Airport.  He formerly worked for the John O. Butler Company, where he held numerous positions, including corporate director, treasurer, COO, and president. After selling to Sunstar of Japan, which took the public company private, he served for two years as vice chairman.  He serves in leadership roles for many foundations that focus on the airline industry. Tarrson recently served on the Council on Chicago Booth and is currently on the advisory council for the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation.” Tarrson received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

As executive vice president for programs at the Mellon Foundation, Carter Stewart works closely with Mellon’s president, board, and staff to shape the Foundation’s funding priorities and direction.

 Prior to joining the Foundation, Carter was a managing director of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK), where he identified and supported new investments and grantees—primarily early-stage, justice-oriented organizations. He was appointed by President Obama to serve as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, where he emphasized deterrence, crime prevention, and alternatives to incarceration. Carter has also been a litigator, held academic positions at the Ohio State University, taught history at Friends Seminary High School in Manhattan, and was a New York City Urban Fellow. 

 Carter has served on the boards of the Contemporary American Theatre Company and the Joyce Foundation, and is a current trustee for The Marshall Project, the Nantucket Film Festival, the Nantucket Historical Association, and the Atlantic Foundation.  

He holds a BA in political science from Stanford University, an MA in education policy from Columbia University, and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Nasrin Thierer, founder and managing partner at Assetblue Investment Group, is an innovative leader and experienced entrepreneur with a proven track record of building new businesses and optimizing distribution channels.

Thierer has launched many companies from the ground up, most recently Revenew, Inc., a cloud-based distributed marketing automation platform, which was acquired by Marlin Equity Partners and now operates under the Aprimo brand. Nasrin is an active investor in the community and on the board of ShoppingGives and PatientBond.

Thierer is also founder and president of the Thierer Family Foundation, which focuses on leveraging technology to help nonprofits. She currently serves on the boards of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Ryan Opera Center.

Over the first 22-years of her career, Thierer held a broad spectrum of senior business management, technology, and marketing roles at Motorola. She holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Design from University of Tennessee and a MBA. in Marketing and Finance from Nova Southeastern University.

Tony Wilkins, CFA is a private investor and executive coach focused  on helping C-suite teams make better decisions by providing broad perspectives from experiences and investments in a variety of industries. He mentors founders at 1871, TechStars Chicago, the Polsky Exchange, Google for Startups and the founders in his portfolio. An investor in Pre-Seed and Seed rounds of startup companies, current board seats include TraknProtect and Mile1 Technologies.  

Active in the non-profit space, Tony was a member of the Disciplinary Review Committee of the CFA  Institute from 2006 – 2012, President of the Association of Investment Management Sales Executives in  2012 and Board Member of the National Association of Securities Professionals. He represented BNY  Mellon as Trustee Representative and Senior Investment Advisor to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Trust  serving as one of four Trustees on this $9B entity and currently serves on the board of AnitaB.org as Chair of  the Investment Committee. 

Prior to embarking on his career in early-stage space, he spent 18 years at Northern Trust and Weiss, Peck &  Gree in institutional asset management sales and 6 years as a portfolio manager and marketer at Chicago based Stein, Roe & Farnham starting in 1986. His finance career began after six years in the military  electronics industry working for AT&T and as a firmware engineering manager at Atlanta-based, Lockheed  Loral. He began his work career in 1979 at Chrysler Corporation in Detroit. 

Tony received his BSEE from Northwestern University and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is an avid randonneur.