Managing Partner | LinkedIn

Gene is on a mission to build the next wave of socially and economically impactful companies. He has parlayed a lifetime of relationship, social, intellectual and experiential capital to explore avenues to support the next generation of leaders, especially those lead by people of color and women. Gene’s career path offers a unique blend of entrepreneurial initiatives, as well as management within large organizations (public & private). Uncommon is a manifestation of his life’s work to find the intersection of community and commerce while promoting innovative and sustainable growth within organizations.

Gene lives in Chicago with his wife Adriene and daughters Francesca (15) and Sydney (13), and is a graduate of Duke University. He is also a sports enthusiast and has a deep passion for event production and content development.

Managing Partner | Linkedin

Tracy is a leader & builder bringing decades of experience working across teams & functions to drive alignment and action. She has been a founder, product manager, product marketer, environmental science educator, business development deal-maker, sales ops optimizer, teacher and researcher, and has worked across laboratories, classrooms, deep in the woods, high-tech start-ups and eventually to Google where she spent 11 years. She has extensive background in applied use of advanced technologies in both public and private sector organizations across the globe. Prior to UIS, Tracy was the Managing Director for Outbound Product Management and Responsible AI. In this role she founded, created and led all of Cloud’s Responsible AI work, which became the model for how other business lines in Google create alignment with Google’s AI Principles. Big problems wake her up, and she creates solutions that thrive through business insight, customer understanding, analytical rigor, empathy, integrity and inclusion.

Tracy graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with joint degrees in Studies of Women, Gender & Sexuality and Psychology and received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and 2 not-so Small Freys. Don’t invite her to go dancing or do Karaoke unless you mean it.

Chief of Staff | LinkedIn

Karen honed her business skills developing new opportunities within a large corporate environment and focusing on maintaining best practices and acting as change agent. As the Chief of Staff and a strategic advisor of Uncommon, she puts business processes under a microscope to determine how best to improve efficiency. A veteran of Time Warner, she worked in production finance, editorial management, television development and Olympic event planning, managing $200M+ complex operating models.

Karen earned a B.A. in English from Duke University, an MSJ in Magazine Management from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and an MBA from NYU.