Our founder, Chris Motley, is a first-generation college graduate, born to a 13-year old single mother on Chicago’s infamous South Side.
After graduating from Columbia University, Chris spent several years at Goldman Sachs before getting his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management. Since then, he has focused his efforts on building purposeful, mission-driven companies.
Many would consider him lucky because of where he started in life. While attributing success to chance or divine intervention is common, we believe “luck” is the intersection of Preparation and Opportunity. This sparked the question, how could the next generation of young, diverse leaders find the same luck?
Mentor Spaces was built to accomplish this goal. The idea that “a person can only be who they have seen” drives our mentor-led community focused on career preparation, quality support and outcomes. By combining the power of the internet with the magic of group mentoring, we are able to transform the careers and life trajectories of diverse leaders, like Chris, much more quickly and at scale.
Mentor Spaces, a Techstars portfolio company, was launched in the Summer of 2020 after years of research with grants from Strada Education Network and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to measure the efficacy of personalized career pathways for students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Awareness and access to opportunities
