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Claude Grunitzky is the founder of TRACE and TRUE Africa, a media tech platform championing young African voices all over the world. In 2017, TRUE Africa was funded by Google’s Digital News Initiative. In 2003, Grunitzky and two business partners completed a multimillion-dollar financing deal led by Goldman Sachs Group. As a result, the TRACE brand is now being leveraged globally across various television, event and interactive platforms. TRACE, which now reaches an audience of more than 200 million people across 160 countries, was successfully sold to a French investor group in 2010. Grunitzky was raised between Lomé, Togo; Washington, DC; Paris and London. Growing up, Grunitzky, who speaks six languages and carries three passports, was exposed to many different cultures. These foreign interactions shaped his transcultural philosophy and informed the creative energy of his media and communications ventures. Grunitzky has led branding and marketing projects for governments, institutions and corporations all over the world, including the US State Department, the governments of Sénégal, Guinea and Togo, and multinationals such as Hilton, L’Oréal, LVMH, Nike, Nissan and Unilever. A graduate of London University and MIT, Grunitzky is also a trustee at MASS MoCA, a contemporary art museum in Massachusetts, and at Humanity in Action. Grunitzky is a Hauser Leader and Visiting Social Innovator at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Social Innovation and Change Initiative.
Updated September 2020
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