C'pher Gresham
C’pher Gresham, a District of Columbia native, is passionate about helping achieve global impact by breaking down barriers to increase diversity in entrepreneurship. As the CEO at SEED SPOT, C’pher leads the charge in bringing SEED SPOT’s impact to communities across the globe. He empowers state governments, family offices, venture firms, and foundations, to increase the impact-driven startup activity and economic growth in their respective communities. He previously served as the Chief Strategy Officer, Vice President for SEED SPOT Communities, and the Phoenix Director of Entrepreneur Initiatives where he designed and ran all accelerator programming and aided companies in raising capital. C’pher focuses on entrepreneurs developing sustainable solutions to the world's most pressing problems.
C’pher is a co-founder of Swillings Coffee, an impact-driven Colombian coffee company. Swillings Coffee works directly with small family-owned farms in rural Colombia to improve the quality of their harvest using sustainable growing techniques, roasts at origin to employ women in the local growing community, and distributes to high-end restaurants, coffee houses, and direct-to-consumers in the USA.
Over his career, C’pher has consulted with non-governmental organizations and institutional investors. He has worked with the alternative investment arm of the Arizona State Retirement System, the African Development Bank and Non-Governmental Organizations in Tunisia, and a Biotech Hedge Fund in San Francisco. C'pher was an early employee at Razoo.com, a crowdfunding platform for nonprofits and socially-minded causes.
C'pher has received the Mandela-Washington Fellowship funded by the US Department of State, lived on a 135' tall ship in the Caribbean studying oceanography, and worked internationally in Uzbekistan, Benin, Colombia, Thailand, Tunisia, and Nepal. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland teaching social enterprise and social innovation and a Mentor-in-Residence at the George Washington University Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He graduated with a B.A. from The George Washington University in Psychology with a Pre-Medicine concentration and an MBA Summa Cum Laude from the Thunderbird School of Global Management with a concentration in early-stage financing for growth companies.