MBA, MIT Sloan School of Management
BSc, London University, Birkbeck College
Claude Grunitzky joins the Institute from Harvard University, where he is Beck Visiting Social Innovator at the Kennedy School’s Social Innovation and Change Initiative. At Harvard, Claude creates educational programs that help students and young entrepreneurs alike. Claude’s expertise and network will provide our students with the unique opportunity to learn from a demonstrated leader in global entrepreneurship. Claude’s brands and media platforms, TRACE and TRUE Africa, reach audiences of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In 2017, TRUE Africa was funded by Google’s Digital News Initiative.
Grunitzky was raised between Lomé, Togo, Washington, D.C., Paris, and London; he speaks six languages. These foreign interactions shaped his transcultural philosophy and have informed the energy of his media and communications ventures. He has led branding and marketing projects for governments, institutions, and corporations. His clients have included the U.S. State Department, the governments of Sénégal, Guinea and Togo, and multinationals such as Hilton, L’Oréal, LVMH, Nike, Nissan, and Unilever.
He received an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management as a Sloan Fellow; he is a graduate of London University and Sciences Po in Paris. Claude is a member of the Board of Trustees at MASS MoCA, Humanity in Action, a foundation that works internationally to build global leadership, defend democracy, protect minorities and improve human rights. Claude was formerly a trustee at the Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation, where he served as the foundation’s first president from 2017 to 2019. In 2017-2018, Claude was a Hauser Leader at Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, Claude was a French-American Foundation Young Leader, and was named a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2007.
His publications include Ten Years of TRACE (London: Booth-Clibborn, 2007) and Transculturalism: How the World Is Coming Together (New York: PowerHouse Books, 2004).
