KEENA PIERRE

CHICAGO FUND OFFICER

Keena Pierre, MBA (She/Her) is a social impact investor, serial entrepreneur, and people connector. She balances her roles as visionary and executor, showing up as either or both where called. Her superpowers are facilitating strong strategic partnerships and innovative strategies and effectively mobilizing people along a common mission. Keena’s first career was in healthcare as a nurse and public health practitioner, focusing on health disparities, receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As a fearless advocate for economic freedom, she believes in and is following her God-given mission to shift wealth to the underserved and this mission fuels her work in impact investing.

As a born and raised Southside Chicagoan and avid traveler, she brings a global perspective to economic development. She considers herself world-schooled, examining the economic disparities across the diaspora and historical patterns. She is a serial entrepreneur and former owner of a retail incubator, curating and developing over 50 local Black-owned product-based brands preparing them for big-box retail. Keena is the Founder of Prep Capital, a capital readiness and deal flow consulting company aimed at preparing black and brown founders for accessing the right capital and bridging the gap between entrepreneurs of color and mission-aligned investors.

A graduate of Emory University Goizueta Business School’s Executive MBA program, Keena studied alternative investing for BIPOC entrepreneurs, becoming the first Fellow to pilot the Diverse Founders Executive Education program, providing Black and Latin(x) founders with top-tier executive education coursework within Emory’s MBA program at no cost. She developed a pipeline relationship between Google for Startups partner, Goodie Nation, and Emory’s MBA program, leading to the first-of-its-kind program for Black and Latin(x) founders at a top-tier MBA school.

Keena joins the RUNWAY team as the Chicago Fund Manager, bringing her strong Chicago roots and partnerships, passion for closing the racial wealth gap, and investment knowledge to RUNWAY’s Rooted Fund.