Brad
KeywellCEO

Brad Keywell, 37, is a founder and Chief Executive Officer of MediaBank LLC, a market-making and technology firm in the media buying space. He is a founder of Echo Global Logistics LLC, an enterprise transportation management firm headquartered in Chicago with eleven offices across the United States, which provides transportation procurement, management, and optimization services across all modes. He is a founder and Principal of ThePoint LLC, an innovative application that utilizes the web and the dynamics of social networking to allow people to solve problems that they could not solve on their own. Founded in November 2006, ThePoint is creating technology that can change the balance of power in the world.

He is the Managing Partner of Meadow Lake Management LLC, an investment and advisory firm. Among Meadow Lake’s holdings are IRIS WorldGroup, a Chicago-based information services and analytics firm with delivery centers in India, and Archer Corporate Services LLC, a marketing fulfillment services firm.

Keywell was previously with Equity Group Investments, LLC, Sam Zell’s investment vehicle, identifying and assessing investment opportunities across a diverse spectrum of industries, and serving as Board liason to several portfolio companies. He is the former President of HA-LO Industries (NYSE:HMK), a $700 million brand marketing organization and the world’s leading provider of promotional products. In January, 2000, HA-LO acquired Starbelly, an online promotional product supply chain management technology firm which Keywell founded in May, 1999.

Keywell is a frequent speaker at technology and marketing industry events, as well as a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan Business School, Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, and the Medill School of Journalism. He has been a Judge for the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business New Venture Challenge. He is an appointee to The Wall Street Project of the Council of Logistics Management. He has been an Executive Partner to the William Blair New World Ventures venture capital fund in Chicago, and served on the Advisory Committee of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Directors’ College. He founded the Digital Leadership Exchange, in partnership with Spencer Stuart, which is now a global CEO-level networking organization. He is the author of Biz Dev 3.0: Changing Business as We Know It, published by ALM Publishing.

Keywell was named one of the nation’s Top Ten Collegiate Entrepreneurs in 1991 by the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs, and received the 2000 Conrad Hilton Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from Loyola Marymount University. He was named one of the “Internet 100” by Crain’s Chicago Business. He was keynote speaker at the 2004 National Conference of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization.

Keywell served on the Board of Trustees of Columbia College, the nation’s largest secondary education institution dedicated to the fine arts, and a member of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. He is on the Board of Directors of Warrior Productions, a documentary filmmaker whose principal produced Hoop Dreams. He is a Trustee of the University of Michigan Hillel Foundation, and a member of the Chicago chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization.

Keywell founded the Share Our Success program in the Chicago Public Schools system, a program currently in beta mode which pairs business leaders with fifth grade classes, and asks the leaders to “adopt” the class for four years by providing motivation, inspiration, and entrepreneurial education one afternoon a month. The business leaders’ objective is to expose the students to entrepreneurship and career possibility through discussion, through bringing fellow business leaders to the classroom, and through field trips to observe how business works.

Keywell received his J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan School of Law (1993) and his Bachelor of Business Administration with honors from the University of Michigan (1991). He is a member of the State Bar of Illinois and the Michigan Bar Association.

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