Meet our Founder and Guide
Dr. Chris Wedding
Who am I?
Serial founder and board member. Former environmental private equity investor, impact investment banker, and rainforest researcher. $1B+ of investment experience. A professor with 100,000 students taught. 25 years of meditation practice.
Also an expert in failure, with way too many mistakes to keep to myself: Startups that didn’t work out. Big deals that didn’t close. Business partnerships that fell through. Visions that lacked operational follow-through. Capital raises that missed the mark. Trust that was breached.
The Business Bio
My focus is startup finance and infrastructure development in energy, real estate, and related environmental innovation.
In addition to being the Founder and CEO of Entrepreneurs for Impact, I’m also an Executive in Residence at the Fuqua School of Business, an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Nicholas School of the Environment, and a Gosnell Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics at Duke University; Cofounder and Board Member of Terraset, a carbon removal and super pollutant destruction NGO; a Professor of the Practice with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Kenan-Flagler Business School; Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry); Board advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics); former Senior Advisor at JLL; former Director and Senior Advisor at Cherokee Investment Partners, a private equity firm that raised over $2B in private equity funds and, separately, founded or invested in over 150 startups and venture funds; one of the earliest LEED Accredited Professionals with the US Green Building Council; a certified Mastermind Professional via Tony Robbins; course creator for Coursera with 2,500 ratings and 90,000+ students at 4.7 stars. I am a frequent speaker at energy and finance conferences and TIME Magazine's Person of the Year in 2006 (go ahead, Google it, laugh a little).
My studies include a BS summa cum laude (top 0.1%) in Environmental Science from Western Kentucky University, where I was a national Goldwater Scholar in Math and Science. At UNC, I earned an MS and PhD focused on business and strategy in real estate and clean energy.
(Oh yeah, and I’d love to believe that I’m super humble, despite this bio.)
On the Personal Side
Husband of 20+ years. Father of three. Global citizen — 29 countries, 3 languages. Japanophile. Kentucky roots. Chapel Hill transplant. Hiker. Full of dad jokes. 2x axe-throwing champ. Trained as a Buddhist monk, including time spent with Thich Nhat Hanh, Taktser Rinpoche, Palden Gyatso, and the Tassajara Zen Center. Forest gardener. Hoping to inspire our kids to be world changers.