Greg Nance

Greg Nance
Nance running a 200KM ultramarathon in Malaysia, March 2016
Born	Gregory Dylan Nance (1988-09-29) September 29, 1988 Redmond, WA
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Chicago Cambridge University
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Years active	2008–present
Website	http://gregnance.org

Greg Nance (born September 29, 1988) is an American entrepreneur, mountaineer, ultramarathon runner, and foreign policy advisor. Nance is the co-founder and Board Chairman of Moneythink,^[1] the founder and CEO of Dyad.com,^[2] and an Advisory Board Member at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST).^[3] Nance has received numerous awards for his public service and business leadership including recognition from The Diplomatic Courier as one of the “Top 99 Foreign Policy Leaders Under 33” in 2013^[4] and as a “Globe Changer” by the Jefferson Awards for Public Service in 2011.^[5]

Early life and education

Nance attended Bainbridge High School outside Seattle, Washington, where he served as class president and was the 2007 Washington State debate champion.^[6][7] He received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point but chose to attend the University of Chicago, after being offered a scholarship.^[8]

While a junior at the University of Chicago, Nance was elected Student Government President and earned the 2010 Harry S. Truman Scholarship from Washington State.^[9][10] In 2011 Nance earned a Gates Scholarship to the Cambridge University Judge Business School.^[11] In an interview with Cambridge University in August 2014, Nance credited the example of his parent’s public service in Seattle and his grandfather’s courage during the Battle of Iwo Jima as inspirations, stating that “I learned my leadership values around the dinner table."^[12]

Career

Moneythink

In October 2008, Nance, Shashin Chokshi, David Chen, Morgan Hartley and Ted Gonder established the “American Investment Fellows” club at the University of Chicago based on Nance’s idea to send students from the university’s investment club into local high schools to teach personal finance workshops.^[13] After a successful pilot program, the initiative was rebranded as Moneythink and began to spread to college campuses across the U.S. To date, Moneythink’s 1,000 college volunteers have taught more than 10,000 high school students to make and manage money in over 30 communities in 17 states.^[14][15]

In 2012 Moneythink was recognized by the Obama Administration as a “Champion of Change,”^[16] and won the $100,000 top prize at the 2013 MassChallenge global entrepreneurship competition.^[17] In 2013, The Harvard Business Review named Moneythink a “meaningful place to work”^[18] and the American Banker featured Moneythink as one of the "Top 20 FinTech Companies to Watch.”^[19] In 2015, Moneythink was represented by CEO Ted Gonder on the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans.^[20] Moneythink has raised $650,000 from JPMorgan Chase and received financial support from Google, CFSI, Capital One, PwC, Blackstone, and American Express, among others.^[21]

Nance currently serves as Moneythink’s Chairman of the Board.^[1] In recognition of his work, Nance was named a "Globe Changer" at the 2011 Jefferson Awards for Public Service.^[22]

Dyad.com

In 2012, Nance founded Dyad.com (formerly ChaseFuture) while a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University.^[23] The organization seeks to expand education access by providing “mentorship for the motivated.” Dyad.com guides students through the university admissions process with a free online library of instructional articles and videos and a digital workspace for face-to-face video-conferences and document reviews.^[24] To date, Dyad.com has over 200 admissions and career experts on the platform who have helped 1,700 clients earn admission to universities in 23 countries.^[25] Dyad.com has also helped clients earn $1,200,000 in university scholarships, guided 135 clients to admission at Ivy League universities, and advised one of China’s four inaugural Rhodes Scholarship recipients in 2015.^[24]

The organization has raised $1,000,000 in venture capital funding from 500 Startups, SOSV, Artesian Capital Management, Banyan Partners, Harbor Pacific Capital, and several angel investors.^[25] Dyad.com’s Advisory Board includes the former CEO of McDonalds, former Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, former President of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, and a National Program Chairman for 7 U.S. Presidents.^[2] The organization has been featured in Forbes,^[26] TechCrunch,^[27] University World News,^[28] and The World Economic Forum Agenda.^[29] The New York Times^[30] and South China Morning Post^[31] both quoted Nance in their news coverage of the historic Baidu and CloudFlare global Internet joint venture launch on September 13, 2015.

Dyad.com was honored as "People's Choice for Asia's Best Startup" at the 2015 Echelon Summit.^[32] Nance currently serves as Dyad.com’s Chairman and CEO. In recognition of his work, The Diplomatic Courier named Nance an “Innovator” and one of the “Top 99 Foreign Policy Leaders Under 33” in September 2013.^[4]

Foreign Policy

Nance is also a U.S. foreign policy strategist. In 2011 he authored the first white paper to use a geopolitical defensive realist framework to explain the East Asian naval arms race and argue that the U.S. should enlist democratic maritime allies to ensure peace.^[3] During the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands dispute between Japan and China in September 2012, Nance published an editorial in the Seattle Times arguing that the U.S. should advance "its commitment to open sea lanes and multilateral mediation, building momentum for a rebalancing of power in Asia that is essential for 21st century American leadership.”^[33] Nance serves as an Advisory Board Member at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST), an international security affairs research institute based at the University of Chicago.^[3] CPOST’s research is funded by the Carnegie Foundation of New York, U.S. Office of Naval Research, Argonne National Laboratory, and the U.S. Department of Defense.^[34]

Nance has published articles in the Seattle Times,^[35] University World News,^[36] and the Motley Fool.^[8]

Tidal W. McCoy, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, has said of Nance, "Greg is a humble leader who can inspire the young and old, investors, employees, customers and colleagues with his vision and ethical approach to business and big-picture thinking on difficult public policy challenges."^[37]

Athletics

Nance has summited peaks in numerous mountain ranges, including the Alps, Pyrenees, Scottish Highlands, Rockies, Tetons, Cascades, Olympics, and Tibetan Highlands.^[38] In September 2013, Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal noted Nance’s “avid interest in mountain climbing.”^[39] In an interview with Cambridge University in August 2014, Nance compared mountaineering to business: "You absolutely cannot get to the top of that mountain unless you’re putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again. The same is broadly true in entrepreneurship.”^[12]

Nance grew up on the shores of Washington's Puget Sound and has been an open water swimmer since boyhood. He has crossed some of the world’s major rivers including the Nile (Egypt), Thames (UK), Seine (France), Douro (Portugal), Huangpu (China), Moskva (Russia), and Jordan (Israel). He has also swum the Persian Gulf, Andaman, Marmara, Mediterranean, and East and South China seas.^[40]

Nance has run numerous marathons and ultra-marathons, qualifying for the 2011 and 2012 Boston Marathon.^[7] Most notably, Nance finished a 250 km ultramarathon across the Gobi Desert in June 2014.^[41] Nance’s Gobi crossing was profiled by Adventure World Magazine where he credited the encouragement of fellow runners and the medical team’s “world-class” professionalism for enabling him to finish the 250 km footrace despite injuring his knee halfway.^[42] He also published an essay on his experience running across the Gobi Desert and wrote that “we aim to find our limits and push past them."^[43] Previously, Nance boxed welterweight for the varsity team at Cambridge University and won his debut as a British amateur.^[44]

References