John Gamba

John Gamba is a serial entrepreneur who has founded, funded and led several education technology ventures and non-profit programs over his 30 year career. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Gamba started his career as a strategy consultant for KPMG where he performed research and published articles for NASA related to the commercial development of space. He was later recruited to serve as a senior executive at two digital marketing agencies, one of which went public in 1998.

Pursuing his passion for public education, John later started his own edtech incubator, where he co-founded PACE - The Partnership for Academic and Community Excellence. PACE was a school to home communications network that connected thousands of K12 schools to millions of parents in all 50 states. PACE was eventually sold to NTI Group and then to Blackboard for $182 million, in an all cash transaction.

John currently serves as Entrepreneur in Residence and Director of Innovative Programs at Catalyst @ Penn GSE where he mentors aspiring education entrepreneurs and oversees the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition, now in its 15th year. The Milken competition has awarded $2 million dollars to over 50 education entrepreneurs and those ventures have gone on to raise $200 million in follow-on capital.

John is an industry speaker on topics related to K12 Education and social entrepreneurship and is a founding director of the Gamba Family Foundation which is committed to closing the achievement gap for under-represented students in the United States. His family foundation has contributed over $1,000,000 in philanthropic support to education causes nation-wide.