Robert Weissbourd

• President, RW Ventures, LLC

• Co-founder, Chicago TREND Corporation

• Director (Ex-Officio), TREND CDC 

Bob manages RW Ventures, LLC, an economic development firm specializing in technical analysis of urban assets and markets, and in creating the products and enterprises necessary to successfully grow urban and regional economies. He was a lead developer of the New Growth Innovation Network (NGIN), for which he currently serves as interim CEO, and of the Greater Chatham Initiative, TREND, Chicagoland Food and Beverage Network, the Center for Financial Services Innovation, MetroEdge and the Metropolitan Business Planning Initiative, which he co-managed with the Brookings Institution. He previously served for ten years in executive positions at Shorebank Corporation, designing, delivering and managing comprehensive development finance initiatives to invest in distressed communities. He brings over thirty years of experience leading economic development work in dozens of cities and scores of neighborhoods.

Bob served as Chair of the Obama Campaign Urban Policy Committee, on the Obama Transition HUD Agency Review Team, as a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Center and as adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He also serves or served as President or Vice-President of the Boards of City Colleges of Chicago, Crossroads Fund, Elevate Energy, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, BPI and PROCAN, as well as on the Executive Committee of mHub, the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School, the Board of Equal Measure, and the Advisory Committees for the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development, Mayor’s Technology Advisory Committee, Brookings Metropolitan Economy Project and the Urban Markets Initiative.

Bob is a frequent public speaker and author on a broad range of urban and regional economic growth issues, including business, finance, housing, clean energy, human capital and innovation dynamics. He has also testified on these issues before federal, state and local legislatures. Before joining Shorebank, Bob was a partner at Hartunian, Futterman & Howard, leading complex civil rights and other constitutional litigation, and representing governments, non-profit organizations and community leaders. He clerked for federal Judge George Leighton, after receiving a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and a B.A. from Yale University.