Chris Wolz

As president and CEO of Forum One, Chris oversees Forum One's overall business strategy and operations. He advises clients on how to develop and implement online services to accelerate their impact to help solve global problems.

Joining Forum One in its earliest days, Chris previously worked in rural Nepal for four years as a water supply and sanitation engineer for UNICEF, CARE, the Nepalese Government, and the U.S. Peace Corps. He came to Washington as an environmental policy analyst in the Executive Office of the President/Office of Management and Budget, where he focused on air quality issues. In that role, he had the often-delicate job of leading cross-agency consultations on major policy decisions.

Chris serves as a senior strategy advisor for clients that include the World Bank/PovertyNet, U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs/ReliefWeb, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Council of La Raza, MacArthur Foundation, and others. Known as a clear and effective presenter, Chris is a regular speaker and trainer on online strategic communications for policy-focused organizations, online collaboration and engagement, and building organizational structures to run successful web operations. He also writes on these topics on Forum One's blog.

Chris launched Forum One's work in Qatar in 2003, including online strategy and web development for the Supreme Education Council and for ictQatar.

Chris's expertise is grounded in understanding how things work— organizationally, physically and at a strategy level. He holds a bachelor's degree in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a master's in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Chi Epsilon Civil Engineering Honor Society and was a Kennedy Fellow when at Harvard.

Chris is on the Board of the Global Giving Foundation (www.globalgiving.org) an online philanthropy portal that connects donors with grassroots projects around the world to make a high impact. Chris is a member of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Chris is a member of several professional organizations including the Communications Network and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Chris and his wife, Eugenie, live with their three children in Alexandria, Virginia, where they are active volunteers in school, local business, and community organizations. He has served on the boards of KaBOOM! and First Night Alexandria.  

You may not know: Chris met his wife, who is originally from the Netherlands, in Nepal. In December 2009, they returned to Nepal with their three teenage children to spend a month traveling and hiking.

His tags: Husband, Idea generator, Organization builder, Parent, Policy wonk, World traveler

Connect:
http://www.twitter.com/cwolz
http://www.linkedin.com/in/cwolz