Speakers
Chris Crane
President and CEO, Edify
Chris Crane is president and CEO of Edify, a humanitarian organization he founded in 2009 to provide small business loans for Christian schools educating impoverished children in Africa and Latin America. He was previously president and CEO of Opportunity International, the world’s largest faith-based microfinance organization. During his tenure, Opportunity’s revenues grew at a compounded annual rate of 30 percent. Mr. Crane acquired Comps InfoSystems in San Diego in 1992 and served as its president and CEO until he sold the company in 2000. Under his leadership, Comps grew from a small, print-based publishing firm with coverage of commercial real estate sale information in four Western states into an electronic database publisher covering the 50 top real estate markets nationwide. Mr. Crane oversaw the acquisition of 13 companies, raised four rounds of venture capital, and listed the company in an initial public offering. In 1999, he was awarded the Ernst & Young/USA Today Entrepreneur of the Year Award in San Diego and in 2009 the Bob Buford Half/Time Achievement Award. He was a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization from 1990 to 2002. Mr. Crane has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in finance from Boston College, from which he graduated summa cum laude.
