Meet your host

Dr. Patten is a veteran change leader, social worker, scholar, entrepreneur, speaker, and educator. He specializes in nonprofit change management, social entrepreneurship, complex systems theory and managing complex change in high-stakes social justice contexts.

Through a combination of servant leadership, data-driven decision making and a focus on using business as a force for good, he and his teams have been called “a grassroots powerhouse” by the Washington Post and raised $2.5 Million from 11,000 people in 2 days. His ventures have been supported by the founders of Linkedin, Facebook, Napster, and even Cards Against Humanity.

He received his Bachelors degree in social work from Colorado State University, and a Masters degree in Social Work from the same institution. He earned a doctorate in leadership and policy from the University of Vermont in 2016, where he studied nonprofit social enterprise.

He holds faculty appointments in the Grossman School of Business at the University of Vermont, and the Snelling Center for Government. He is a serial entrepreneur, and consultant to a national network of nonprofit organizations, corporations and government agencies that seek to understand the role of social enterprise in their future.

He has logged two decades of experience leading complex organizations and held senior leadership positions at some of Vermont’s most notable organizations and been a part of global and national campaigns aimed at improving the state of the world.