Brian Trelstad

Brian Trelstad is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School in the General Management Unit, teaching elective courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Systems Change, Impact Investing, and the first-year required courses on the Social Purpose of the Firm (SPF) and Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA). His teaching and research focus on social entrepreneurship, systems change, impact investing, and the role of business in society. Brian is also the Faculty Chair of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, a one-year fellowship that helps seasoned leaders transition into a third chapter dedicated to impact.

Brian has spent 20 years in impact investing, most recently as a Partner and Board Member of Bridges Fund Management spearheading the US operation of one of Europe’s oldest and largest impact investment firms. Before that he was the Chief Investment Officer at Acumen, where he oversaw $55 million of investments in companies that were delivering health, water, energy, and agriculture services in South Asia and East Africa.

Brian has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University, an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and an MA in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. Brian was the first impact investor to go through the Kauffman Fellows Program at the Center for Venture Education, and is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.