Matthew Mahoney

I work in two worlds (the private and social sectors) addressing the same challenge: how to create conditions for organizations (and as a result individuals) to grow. There are helpful distinctions between the private and social sectors to be sure. I'm hopeful one day the unnecessary ones will vanish.

World 1. Right now I'm growing Endeavor Prep to help more people -- 100 million more -- do what they love. Endeavor Prep is the trusted career advisor for young professionals seeking to discover, design and launch a work life worth living. We help people geniunely answer the question "What do I want to do next?" If you love to see people thrive, and you want to help an entire generation shape the planet, give us a shout.

Not too long ago I started and ran the professional service business at Socialtext, the enterprise social software platform with wikis at its heart. I taught people, and their global companies, how to collaborate at a distance and work more openly. That felt good.

Previously, I helped scale up Creative Good, the first management consulting firm focused on experience design, started in New York City by Mark Hurst and Phil Terry. During the first go-go Internet years, I wore several marketing and business development hats growing Autobytel.com from a small private to large, public multinational operation. Other past operating tours include Ford Motor Company and Knowledge Adventure. A few clients I've served include P&G, Novartis and Scholastic. Representative speaking gigs include Fast Company, SXSW, the US Department of Commerce, Wharton, and the DMA. I earned my MBA at Harvard Business School as an Arthur Rock Entrepreneurial Fellow.

World 2. Since the teen years, overlaying my work to help companies learn, I've been active in youth organizing and leadership development and, more recently, in the effort to reinvent US K-12 public education (ie helping schools learn). In New York City, I co-developed a pilot for Live Curriculum, a program that matches teachers with other professionals throughout the city to co-teach students. Around the same time I did some work with Gensler and the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum applying the principles of design to the work environments of teachers and administrators at the NYC Department of Education, which also included working briefly with the Manhattan High School's Superintendent Advisory Board.

Early on, I worked as a facilitator in many contexts, such as the Global Youth Summit at the Gorbachev Foundation's State of the World Forum, the Corporation for National Service, the Department of Defense, and as a facilitator trainer at the Presidio Leadership Center and the founding Earth Train. I got my start as a youth organizer, facilitator and trainer at CASC, leading teams in the US, Russia and other places for the USIA.

Many teachers have made a powerful impact. Particularly remarkable were those while I was an undergraduate at UCLA, where I studied Cognitive Science with Merideth Gattis and Keith Holyoak, and Literature with G. Jennifer Wilson. The single greatest shift in my perspective on cognition (and systems at large) stems from the work at the Santa Fe Institute and Mitchell Waldrop's introduction in 1992. Though these days the d .school is where it's happening. I'm a big fan of public radio, patterns in language, networks and nature, and travel absolutely as much as I can. I currently live in New York City.