Kristen Wainwright

Senior Fellow in Social Innovation

Kristen Wainwright has worked over her career in and around the intersection of the arts and business, often during the start up phase, with segments of her life teaching. On the arts side. She served as the Director of Visual and Environmental Arts for the City of Boston. Before that she was a co-founder of the The Christmas Store, an artists cooperative which continues to operate more than 30 years later, and she was the co-founder of large community celebration events such as the Sandcastle Competition which featured elaborate architect-built sand structures and tongue in cheek awards (Golden Shovel Award). She is a Senior Associate Guide at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

On the business side Kristen worked in product management for a classic marketing company, Gillette, and as Director of Development for the start up that has become a international leader in the digital marketing arena, DigitasLBI. She was a co-founder and for ten years a managing partner of the Boston Literary Group representing experts from universities in the Boston area to publishers. She taught the creation of business plans at Lasell College Executive Education.

Her work has been balanced with community activism, serving on the board of directors for a school (Shady Hill), for community service organizations (Cambridge Dispute Settlement Center, The Cambridge Community Foundation) and a civic leadership organization (The Cambridge Club). As a Social Innovation Fellow in the Institute for Social Innovation Kristen is involved in bringing the fundamentals of Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® to rural Tanzania.

She resides in Cambridge with her husband.