About

Paul Carttar is an independent consultant and also senior advisor to and co-founder of The Bridgespan Group. His work has focused on social innovation, enhancing the effectiveness of philanthropy, and scaling solutions that work.

Paul brings more than thirty years of experience across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to his work. He recently served as the initial director of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a priority program of the Obama Administration that has mobilized nearly a half-billion public and private dollars to grow promising nonprofits with evidence of impact in low-income communities.

Prior to the SIF, Carttar was an executive partner with New Profit, Inc., working with entrepreneurial nonprofits to expand their scale and impact. Previously, he was chief operating officer for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, one of the nation’s most innovative private philanthropies, where he oversaw all program activities.

Carttar began his career in the public sector as an analyst and assistant economist for the U.S. Senate Budget Committee and subsequently served as research assistant to Dr. Arthur F. Burns, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, at the American Enterprise Institute. In 1982, he joined Dr. Burns, then U.S. Ambassador to West Germany, as his Special Assistant in Bonn. Later, Carttar spent several years with Bain & Company, the international corporate consulting firm, and held executive positions in two private, venture-capital funded companies in the healthcare industry.

Carttar is a frequent writer and speaker on social innovation and other nonprofit issues, including delivering keynote addresses at conferences in Kaliningrad, Russia; Dublin, Ireland; Singapore, and Seoul, South Korea.

Carttar graduated with highest distinction from the University of Kansas with a B.A. in Economics and English and received his M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.