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Catherine Clark
Director, RISE
Adjunct Assistant Professor

Columbia Business School

Email: cathy@cathyhc.com

Mailing Address:
    317 Uris Hall
    New York, NY 10027

 

Catherine Clark is a leading authority in the field of social entrepreneurship, social investing and social impact assessment and an experienced social investor, consultant and educator.  She has performed pioneering research into the field of double bottom line investing and for-profit social enterprise and regularly consults to entrepreneurial organizations, foundations and investment firms that aim to achieve significant impact on deep social problems.

 

Ms. Clark’s primary career focus has been as a professional social investor.  Over the last 18 years, she has been founder and Managing Director of the Flatiron Future Fund, a social venture capital fund and founder and President of the Flatiron Foundation, both incubated by Flatiron Partners, a JP Morgan Partners affiliate.  Formerly, she was Vice President at the Markle Foundation, helping to manage the foundation’s portfolio of grants and program-related investments focused on the social benefits of media and communications technologies. She worked directly for two Markle Foundation presidents: one was Lloyd Morrisett, co-founder of Sesame Street.  She has also worked with or consulted to a diverse list of nonprofit and forprofit organizations, foundations and investment groups, including:  The Aspen Institute, the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation,  Investors’ Circle, Net Impact, Springboard Enterprises, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and The US Agency for International Development.

 

Her secondary focus has been on educating a new global generation of social entrepreneurs and investors. Ms. Clark joined the faculty of Columbia Business School in 2001 to teach Columbia’s MBA course on social entrepreneurship, and founded and directs Columbia’s Research Initiative on Social Entrepreneurship (RISE) (www.riseproject.org).  In a short time, RISE has become a leading voice in the study of social enterprise, social impact assessment, and the capital markets aiming to create social, developmental and environmental change.  Ms. Clark also serves as Faculty Advisor at Columbia for the Global Social Venture Competition (www.socialvc.net), and has worked since inception with its student volunteer staff to build it into the only international business plan competition that teaches entrepreneurs to define their social returns alongside financial returns, and  provides mentorship and cash prizes to social ventures across the globe. 

 

Ms. Clark also works closely with others leading the movement to expand and enhance professional double bottom line investing. She is currently Acting Co-Chair of Investors’ Circle (www.investorscircle.net) , a national membership organization of angel and institutional social investors, and Advisory Board Chair of Commons Capital, LP (www.commonscapital.com), a venture fund investing in health, clean energy, the environment and education. Ms. Clark has co-authored several papers about Social Impact Assessment, the practice of measuring the intangible social and environmental value of mission-driven companies and has spoken widely on national platforms about nonprofit and for-profit capital markets and social entrepreneurship.

 

Ms. Clark earned her BA in French and Russian literature from the University of Virginia and her MBA from Columbia Business School.  After 13 years in the New York area, she moved in late 2005 to Charlottesville, VA with her husband and son. She currently commutes to New York weekly in the spring term (January to April) and monthly through the rest of the year.