Carl Schramm

Who is Carl Schramm?

Carl J. Schramm is an American economist, entrepreneur, and former President and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation. The Economist has named Schramm the "evangelist of entrepreneurship". Schramm stepped down at the end of 2011 after nearly ten years at the helm of Kauffman. The Kansas City Star observed: "Under Schramm's tenure, the foundation laid a geographically bigger entrepreneurship footprint, launching Global Entrepreneurship Week and becoming the nation's leading funder for entrepreneurship research."

When Schramm came to the Kauffman Foundation, most of its grant-making went to local nonprofits, but he was recruited to make Kauffman a national and global institution. Schramm also made the Kauffman Foundation a pioneer in education—it became the first grant-making foundation own and operate its own charter school.