Greg Van Kirk

About

Greg Van Kirk is a social entrepreneur, consultant and educator. He is Founder and CEO at ProjectX, Social Entrepreneur Corps, Community Empowerment Solutions, and Columbia Business School’s Venture for All. These are all ventures whose mission is to design and implement social innovation responses to long-standing development challenges.

Over the course of 20 years, Greg has worked with a diverse variety of organizations, leaders and communities in the US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Suriname, Brazil, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Egypt, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, South Africa, India and Thailand.

He has designed social entrepreneurial experiences, taught courses, and led workshops for thousands of students and professionals. Greg founded SocialEntrepreneurU, is a former Ashoka Leadership Group Member, is a two-time Ashoka Globalizer Fellow and World Economic Forum "Social Entrepreneur of the Year for 2012 (Latin America)".

He is the principal designer of the award-winning MicroConsignment Model and has served as a consultant for organizations such as Levi Strauss Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, USAID, Chemonics, VisionSpring, Soros Foundation, Church World Service, Inter American Development Bank, Water For People and Fundacion Paraguaya in the US, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Greg began working in rural small business development as a Guatemala Peace Corps volunteer in 2001. He worked in investment banking for five years before arriving in Guatemala. Two deals he led at UBS during this time won “Deal of the Year” honors from Structured Finance International magazine. He currently lives with his family in New York City.

Greg also contributes time as a “Social Entrepreneur in Residence” at Miami University, Columbia University, NYU, Marquette University, Indiana University, University of San Diego and Arizona State University and has taught social entrepreneurship courses at Miami, Columbia, and NYU.
Greg is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and was recognized by The World Economic Forum as the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2012. He holds a bachelor’s in Business Administration, Marketing, and Economics from the Farmer School of Business at Miami University.