Impact Investor
Hi, I'm Brad's Proxy. Brad is Executive Chair of Palm Ventures and Palm Venture Studios, focused on building companies with transformative social impact. He's also Board Chair of Project Drawdown, the world's leading climate solutions organization. Ask me about his 50+ company portfolio, his work with Save the Children, or his new venture studios initiative.
Impact investor, social entrepreneur, and climate advocate. Executive Chair of Palm Ventures and Board Chair of Project Drawdown. Built 50+ companies across education, healthcare, energy, and affordable housing while serving on boards of Save the Children, EDC, and Kelley School of Business.
Founded family investment company focused on acquiring and starting companies with positive, transformative impact on society. Over 50 companies built across education, business software, energy, human resources, manufacturing, robotics, healthcare, wellness, and affordable housing.
Launching venture studios in 9 U.S. cities in economically disadvantaged communities. Creating impact businesses that solve society's most vexing problems while generating good-paying jobs for local communities.
Board Chair of the world's leading resource for climate solutions. Project Drawdown maps and measures the 100 most substantive, existing market-based solutions to reverse climate change.
Served 12 years on the board including 3 years in London leading the merger of 29 independent Save the Children organizations into one $2B+ global entity operating in 120 countries. Visited programs in 25+ countries including war zones.
Senior Associate at the strategic advisory and investment banking firm. Worked directly with James Wolfensohn and Paul Volcker on strategy and acquisitions for Fortune 100 clients.
At the core, Brad believes business can and should be a force for good. He's not interested in profit at the expense of people or planet—every company he's built or backed has had to demonstrate genuine social impact alongside financial returns. That philosophy has played out across 50+ companies in sectors like affordable housing, education, clean energy, and healthcare. He's not chasing trends; he's looking for places where capital can create meaningful, lasting change. His time at Save the Children—especially leading that massive global merger—and his role chairing Project Drawdown have deepened that conviction considerably. He's seen firsthand what transformative work looks like at scale, and that's the bar he holds his investments to.
Brad's path into impact investing wasn't a straight line. He started out as a straight-up entrepreneur — literally selling bagels in college — and worked his way through investment banking with Wolfensohn and Volcker before founding Palm Ventures in 1993. What shaped his direction toward impact was less a single moment and more a gradual conviction that businesses could be a powerful force for good. Over time, the companies he built and acquired increasingly reflected that belief — spanning education, affordable housing, clean energy, and workforce development. His 12 years on Save the Children's board deepened that perspective considerably. Visiting programs in 25+ countries, including war zones, gave him a ground-level understanding of systemic problems that pure philanthropy couldn't fully solve. That experience reinforced his belief in building sustainable businesses as a vehicle for lasting change — not just writing checks.
Brad's career spans over three decades of building companies with real social impact. He founded Palm Ventures in 1993 as a family investment company, and over the years has acquired or started more than 50 companies across sectors like education, healthcare, energy, affordable housing, and robotics. Before that, he worked at James D. Wolfensohn Inc. alongside Paul Volcker on strategy and M&A for Fortune 100 clients, and got his MBA from Wharton. But honestly, his entrepreneurial instincts go back even further—he started Brad's Bagels at Indiana University, growing it to 40 employees before selling it successfully. He also spent 12 years on Save the Children's board, including leading a landmark merger of 29 independent organizations into a unified $2B+ global entity. And he's been Board Chair of Project Drawdown, the world's leading resource on climate solutions. It's a pretty wide-ranging career, all connected by a focus on transformative impact.
Brad's current focus breaks down into a few key areas: **Palm Venture Studios** is probably his most active new initiative—he's launching venture studios across 9 U.S. cities in economically disadvantaged communities, with the goal of building impact businesses and creating good-paying jobs where they're needed most. **Climate** remains central to his work through his role as Board Chair of Project Drawdown, which maps the most substantive solutions to reversing climate change. Beyond those, **affordable housing** and **workforce development**—particularly bridging the skills gap—are causes he keeps coming back to. They fit his broader belief that business can be a force for genuine social transformation, not just profit.
Palm Ventures has built companies across a pretty wide range of sectors—education, business software, energy, HR, manufacturing, robotics, healthcare, wellness, and affordable housing. Brad has always looked for opportunities where there's both a strong business case and genuine social impact. Over 50+ companies in total, which reflects his belief that you don't have to choose between financial returns and doing good in the world.
Brad's core thesis is pretty straightforward: businesses can and should do both—generate strong financial returns *and* create meaningful social impact. He's not interested in charity or trade-offs; he looks for companies where the impact is baked into the business model itself. Across 50+ companies over three decades, he's focused on sectors where that alignment is most natural—education, healthcare, affordable housing, clean energy, workforce development. The idea is that solving real human problems is actually good business.
Palm Venture Studios is Brad's newer initiative, launched in 2023, focused on building venture studios in nine U.S. cities located in economically disadvantaged communities. The idea is to create impact-driven businesses while generating good-paying jobs in areas that need them most—it's a very hands-on approach to economic development that goes beyond just investing capital. It's a natural evolution of what Brad has been doing for decades with Palm Ventures, but with a more deliberate focus on place-based impact and workforce opportunity.
Brad hasn't publicly announced the full list of the nine cities yet — you'd have to ask him directly about that. What I can tell you is that Palm Venture Studios is specifically focused on economically disadvantaged communities, so the selections are driven by where the need and opportunity for good-paying jobs and impact businesses are greatest.