Wharton and Oxford-educated with dual masters degrees in business and engineering, Alexander Blass is known as the father of crowdfundingTM. An internationally acclaimed American innovator who has traveled to 65 countries, Blass is the founder of the $20 billion a year person-to-person crowdfunding industry, inventing and launching the world’s first website of its kind. This life-saving innovation spread rapidly across the globe and garnered worldwide media coverage, helping and inspiring tens of millions of people.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Alexander Blass a patent for inventing this revolutionary technology. He is also the winner of numerous other awards and distinctions, including being the youngest grand prize recipient of the Daily Record’s Top Innovator of the Year Award, which credited him with “revolutionizing charitable giving” when he was only 32 years old.
He has appeared in numerous media outlets globally including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Associated Press, MSNBC, FOX, Businessweek, The Independent, Economic Times, and Times of India.
Alexander Blass is the CEO of the Innovation Institute of America®. A leading expert in innovation and creativity as someone who has “been there and done that,” Blass is a highly sought after international keynote speaker at conferences worldwide, as well as a masterclass workshop presenter. His clients are highly diverse across industries and include many of the world’s leading companies such as Mastercard, IBM, Saudi Aramco, KPMG, Statoil, Toyota, CIMA, and Solvay.
His presentation style is a rare and coveted combination of content-rich (with proprietary frameworks and interesting case studies), high energy, and inspirational, leaving audiences highly engaged with practical and valuable strategies they can implement immediately.
Previously, Blass was a venture capitalist, strategy consultant and software developer, beginning his career at KPMG Consulting. While a principal at the VC fund, a portfolio company went from a $500,000 investment to a $500 million cash acquisition by a Fortune 50 corporation.
Alexander Blass received an MBA from Oxford University in England and also holds a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where he concurrently studied at the Wharton School of Business. He was later invited back to Wharton where he was honored to serve as Entrepreneur-in-Residence.
