About
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Christopher Gergen, CEO of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, has over 25 years of experience building, scaling, and supporting systems-based solutions in communities globally. With a passion for the positive impact that food can have on our local economies, the health of families, and our warming climate, Christopher is deeply committed to helping scale the regenerative organic movement and transitioning 10M+ acres to regenerative organic farming practices by 2030.
Prior to joining ROA, Christopher was Chief Growth Officer at 4P Foods where he helped the public-benefit corporation build a scalable, equitable regional food system in the mid-Atlantic – including launching a pioneering locally sourced Food-is-Medicine initiative. He is the founder of Forward Impact that has helped direct over $30M in public/private capital to place-based systems change efforts and the co-founder and past CEO of Forward Cities – a national nonprofit that worked with cities and rural regions to reduce barriers to entrepreneurship and small business growth. Christopher is a founding partner of Raleigh Founded, an entrepreneurial co-working community in North Carolina with more than 400 member companies, as well as Founding Chairman of BlueCo, a co-warehousing company based in Raleigh.
Additionally, Christopher is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a Senior Advisor with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation and has been a fellow and faculty member with Duke University’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship initiative, and the Innovator in Residence at the Center for Creative Leadership. He is co-author of the nationally acclaimed book Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (Jossey-Bass, 2008), and has started and scaled several social ventures including co-founding SMARTHINKING – a venture-backed online tutoring company that served 1,000 universities and colleges before being acquired by Pearson Education as well as Cafe Nunoa, a live music/ arts/ restaurant venue in Santiago, Chile, that he started when we was 24. Christopher graduated with honors from Duke University and has an MPP from George Washington University and an MBA from Georgetown. He currently serves on the Governor’s NC Works Commission in North Carolina and lives with his wife and two children in Durham, NC.
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