Dave Mawhinney

Dave Mawhinney serves as Founding Executive Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University, and as the Executive Director of the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at CMU’s Tepper School of Business.

While at CMU, Dave co-founded three early-stage investment funds: the Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund, VentureBridge, and the 99Tartans Syndicate.   These funds have made over 200 investments in CMU startups which have raised $500mm+ follow-on investments at nearing $2B valuation. They have over $200+mm in realized exits.

Dave is also a Full Teaching Professor of Entrepreneurship at the CMU’s Tepper School of Business.

Before joining CMU, he was co-founder, chairman, and CEO of mSpoke, an internet content, and advertising recommendation engine, acquired in 2010 by LinkedIn, the world's leading professional social networking site. In 2006, Morgan Stanley's MSCI/Barra business unit acquired Peak Strategy, a quantitative investment recommendation engine, where Dave was co-founder, chairman, and CEO.

Prior to mSpoke and Peak Strategy, Dave was the general partner of PNC Technology Investors.  Earlier in his career, he co-founded three successful startup ventures, including Premier Health Exchange (acquired by Medibuy), Hawk Medical (acquired by McKesson), and Industry.Net (merged with AT&T Business Network to form Nets, Inc.).

He is an active board member at #1Cochran, 4Moms, sovaSage, Shift Robotics, Mach9, NimbleAI and many more.  

Dave holds an MBA with Distinction from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Physics, Summa Cum Laude, from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Dave was a 2017 recipient of the CMU Tepper School of Business Alumni Achievement Award, and the 2005 IUP Distinguished Alumni Award.