Today, Cliff is co-founder and COO of Scaleup, a startup that came out of Amazon, which helps small- and medium-sized businesses scale into large enterprises. Passionate about entrepreneurship, Cliff knows growing a business is hard and takes heart, smarts, luck, and lots of supporting mechanisms. Before Amazon, Cliff held several roles at Northern Trust Asset Management including COO of an early stage fintech acquisition, head of strategy for the $1 billion business unit, and CAO of a $300 million division. Before Northern, he was an executive in finance and operations for VSA Partners, a rapidly growing private equity backed marketing services firm.

Prior to VSA, as an investment professional, he reviewed over 200 privately-held business opportunities and sat on the board as an observer of companies ranging from $20 million to $100 million in revenues. Cliff serves as vice chair of the investment committee for FAMU Foundation, Inc. and is former elder board chair of Soul City Church, a fast-growing church in the West Loop of Chicago. He holds an MBA in finance and strategy from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.S. in accounting from Florida A&M University.

When he’s not working you can find him feeding his tennis obsession—playing it, watching it, captaining it—or spending time and traveling with his wife and two beautiful, smart, and sporty daughters.