Chris Ghere

Chris Ghere works with faculty/staff, post-docs, Ph.D. students and entrepreneurs to form and launch high quality startup companies based on innovations developed from University of Minnesota research.  His primary responsibility is managing and getting resources to the pipeline of startup innovation coming out of the University, UMN’s Venture Center Pipeline.

The Venture Center team is responsible for leading the formation and launch of new companies based on the broad range of technologies coming out of the research enterprise at the University of Minnesota.  Chris focuses on helping nascent startup opportunities with understanding their market, recruiting and developing the entrepreneurial team, and creating early-stage funding strategies.

Chris has over 20 years of experience working to bring early staged innovations and companies to market.  He has worked on the Tech Comm team for over a decade, previously managing the University’ software, artificial intelligence and robotics portfolios and creating strategies to bring these innovations to the market.  Prior to joining Tech Comm, Chris co-founded a software startup and was the engineering lead in another.  He has worked with both investors and start-ups to evaluate or raise early-stage investment capital.   

Chris earned an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. Chris also has a B.A. in computer science from Carleton College.

He lives in south Minneapolis with his wife, two children and their dog.
Learn more about the Venture Center.