We’re excited to announce that Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory, has been selected to serve as a member of the Aspen Institute’s inaugural Braddock Scholar’s Program to help selected entrepreneurs incorporate big company skills and knowledge into the scaling of some of the world’s most innovative organizations.

The 12- month program is designed to support selected entrepreneurs with high-level mentorship, peer-learning, and capital to fund key initiatives of the scholars choosing.

“Participating in the Henry Crown Fellowship program at the Aspen Institute has been a transformative experience for me personally,” Baer said. “I’m excited to bring the power of the Aspen Institute network to support entrepreneurs in Austin through Capital Factory. We’ve got something working well locally and we’re ready to scale it to the next level with the help of Rick Braddock, Arjun Gupta, and the rest of the senior mentors.”

The program is made possible thanks to the generosity of Aspen trustee, Rick Braddock. Braddock, who had a distinguished and varied career in global business including several entrepreneurial activities, is serving as one of the senior mentors.

“Entrepreneurs are great at starting businesses that solve important problems in new ways, but aren’t always effective at scaling these innovations. Many of the skills to do this come from spending time in big companies.” said Braddock. “We aim to bridge the ‘scaling gap’ by channeling the expertise of our mentors towards the challenges our scholars face.”

The Braddock Scholars program is open to US based members of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN). Joining Baer as selected scholars of the inaugural cohort are:

• Aimee Eubanks Davis, Founder, Beyond Z
• Bart Houlahan, Jay Coen Gilbert, and Andrew Kassoy, Co-Founders, B Lab
• Brent Jenks, President and CEO, Rare.org, Fish Forever
• Jordan Kassalow, Founder and Co-Chairman, VisionSpring
• Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Founder, Chairwoman and CEO, Care.com
• Rob Price, President of Edible Arrangements
• Eric Westendorf, CEO and Co-Founder, LearnZillion

About the Aspen Institute

The Braddock Scholars Program is a mentorship initiative that pairs select US-based members of the Aspen Global Leadership Network with seasoned global business leaders. The program seeks to support Aspen entrepreneurs with the ambition and ability to achieve significant scale with their organization through a mix of high level mentorship, peer-learning, and discretionary grant capital. 

The Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) is a growing, worldwide community of entrepreneurial leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sector — currently, more than 2,100 Fellows from 49 countries — who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their extraordinary creativity, energy and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times. All share the common experience of participating in the Henry Crown Fellowship or one of the dozen Aspen Institute leadership initiatives it has inspired in the United States, Africa, Central America, India, the Middle East and China. www.aspeninstitute.org/leadership

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It also has offices in New York City and an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.