Brad Keywell is an accomplished American entrepreneur, investor, artist,
author, philanthropist and professor. He is the founder of Uptake, an
industrial insight software company, named 'Startup of the Year'
by Forbes in 2015. He is a co-founder of several companies, including
Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN), MediaOcean (global operating system for media buying
-- acquired by Vista Private Equity), Echo Global Logistics (leader in
technology-enabled transportation -- NASDAQ:ECHO), Drivin (acquired by
NYSE:KAR), and an early investor and board member (inception through 2019)
of Tempus Labs, a precision healthcare company.
Brad is an early investor in, and advisor to, many high-growth technology
companies, including Sprout Social, Udemy, Fiverr, Crowdrise, Reverb,
TastyTrade, Benzinga, Team Liquid, GoPuff, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hireology,
Ovia Health, SoCore Energy, Snapsheet, Square Roots, and Zeel. In 2019 Brad
founded the WNDR Museum in Chicago, an immersive art + technology experience
now expanding nationwide. WNDR has twice been named one of the
country's best immersive museums by USA Today. In 2010 he founded
Chicago Ideas, a weeklong ideas conference with 500+ world-class thinkers
and disruptors on stage, attracting over 30,000 attendees, and now a
wide-ranging innovation platform.
In 2019, he was globally honored as the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year
and was previously awarded the overall EY Entrepreneur of the Year in the
United States. He was also named to the Technology Innovator Council for the
World Economic Forum and was inducted into the Chicago Innovation Hall of
Fame. He is Chairman of the Future Founders Foundation. He is an adjunct
professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and
is a lecturer at the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University.
Brad grew up in Michigan and earned a BBA with honors from the University of
Michigan Ross School of Business and a Juris Doctorate cum laude from the
University of Michigan Law School. He is the author of the books Sunday
Thoughts; Biz Dev 3.0: Changing Business as We Know It, and Isabelle Speaks
Up (with his daughter, Chloe). Brad started his first business, a greeting
card company called Key Creations, at age seven.
