Paul Carttar

Paul Carttar was born and raised in Lawrence, along with his five siblings, all of whom graduated from Lawrence High School.  Since graduating himself from LHS in 1971 and KU in 1976 and getting his MBA from Stanford in 1983, Paul has had an exhilarating, multi-faceted career as an executive, consultant, speaker and “change-maker” that has spanned all three sectors of the economy – private, public and nonprofit – and six continents, while exceeding any expectations he dared have growing up.

After early stints as an analyst with the US Senate Budget Committee, research assistant to former Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur F. Burns and special assistant to the US Ambassador in Bonn, West Germany, Paul began his business career in 1983 by joining Bain & Company, the global corporate strategy consulting firm, where he rose to vice-president in their San Francisco office.  He subsequently served as an executive with two private, venture-funded companies in the healthcare industry. 

In 1999, Paul made his long-intended pivot to the social sector when he and two partners co-founded The Bridgespan Group in Boston, an innovative, nonprofit consulting and research firm incubated by Bain that has become a leader around the world.  In 2003, he returned to the Lawrence/KC area to serve as chief program officer for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and then as Executive Vice-Chancellor for External Affairs at KU, where he oversaw government and media relations.

In early 2010, Paul was selected by President Obama to become the first director of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a high-profile new program created to demonstrate how public-private-nonprofit collaboration could enable the federal government to generate increased impact from its social-purpose spending.  Paul oversaw the initial three annual grant cycles, during which the SIF mobilized nearly half a billion dollars of total investment in hundreds of nonprofit organizations across the US that had evidence of generating significant results in low-income communities.  

Since leaving the SIF, Paul has focused primarily on fostering social investment and innovation outside the US.  Most notably, he has worked with a small team to develop the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA), a pan-African network for “social investors.”  Formally launched in 2018, AVPA has offices in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa that provide programs and services to a wide variety of individuals and organizations who are actively pursuing their own aspirations for a better Africa.  

Paul continues to advance causes and initiatives he believes in, whether as a consultant, advisor, mentor or board member.   To that end, he has shared his expertise at conferences in many countries around the world including Ireland, the UK, Germany, Denmark, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, Honduras, Colombia and Chile.  

Paul and his wife, Mary Frances Ellis, continue to live in Lawrence, which remains a highly-valued anchor for their three grown children and their expanding families.