Chris Mumford

Christopher Mumford teaches innovation and sports entrepreneurship as a professor of practice at UNC - Chapel Hill. He started businesses in education, sport, technology, consumer products and healthcare.

Mumford is the author of the upcoming book Sports Entrepreneurship: What Really Works to be published by Columbia Business School Press. He is a co-founder of the Accelerator School, a soccer-focused middle and high school. He worked with fashion icon Alexander Julian in cycling apparel.

Mumford founded Joe Startup, an startup education website. He is also the cofounder of Launch Chapel Hill, a business accelerator, and 1789 Venture Lab, a coworking space. Mumford has written three books on design thinking, entrepreneurship and small business management.

During the last 20 years, he founded several businesses in the US and Asia. Mumford served in roles as CEO, CFO, COO, VP Sales and VP Design while raising over $30 million from VC and Private Equity. He was an investment banker for 5 years.

He grew up in Chapel Hill NC where he graduated from UNC-CH with a degree in Philosophy with Honors. Mumford has two children with his wife Joelle. He enjoys soccer, cyclocross, mountain biking, fly fishing, improv and coaching. One day, he hopes to finish editing his novel about his experiences wandering the world.