Chris leads the Center for Innovation at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, a private nonprofit whose mission is the advance opportunity and prosperity for all Angelenos. In this capacity, he works to build broad external support and develop LAEDC Board and staff involvement with strategic direction for the mission of the Innovate LA program and its goals and priorities, which include efforts to catalyze and evangelize the innovation ecosystem in Los Angeles. InnovateLA, a multi-week, county wide innovation festival which tells the story of LA, a place where you can come to innovate anything, is one of the primary vehicles to achieve these goals. In recent years there have been over 150 events on the calendar. Chris also leads the LAEDC’s industry cluster development efforts in Digital Media and Entertainment where he works with both industry and academic institutions to build career pathways that best represent the diverse Los Angeles population.
Chris has extensive experience creating, producing, managing, and executing projects. During his career in film and television development and production in Hollywood, he honed his creative and leadership skills with myriad visionary artists. His passion for progressive values and social change prompted him to take those skills into the political arena where he worked with Arianna Huffington as a state organizer, Moveon.org as a lead organizer, and campaign director for a local ballot initiative to promote water conservation and sustainability in San Francisco. Prior to joining the LAEDC, he consulted for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on ActivateED, a campaign to promote prestige in education. He also brought more philanthropic donors into the nonprofit landscape for Bright Funds, and an open source digital voting project for the OSET Foundation. His campaign experience and innovative approach to digital and social media has precipitated exponential growth in visibility for every campaign he leads. Chris is a graduate of Duke University, where he designed his own major focusing on 20th C. Western European International Affairs. He is also a licensed special needs educator in California.