Staff
Robert Weissbourd – President
Robert Weissbourd is President of RW Ventures, LLC, which he founded in 2000. Bob previously served for ten years in executive positions at Shorebank Corporation, including most recently as Executive Vice President of Shorebank Chicago Companies. He was the lead developer of MetroEdge, the Center for Financial Services Innovation and the Urban Markets Initiative.
Bob is a frequent public speaker and guest lecturer on a broad range of urban markets, housing, business and economic development issues. He has also testified on these issues before federal, state and local legislatures. Bob has been active for over twenty five years in community and civic organizations, including service as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Center, as Chair of the Obama for America Campaign Urban and Metropolitan Policy Committee, on the Obama Transition HUD Agency Review Team. He has served as President or Vice President of the Boards of the City Colleges of Chicago, Center for Neighborhood Technology, Crossroads Fund, Businesspeople in the Public Interest and PROCAN, as well as on the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School and the Advisory Committees for the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development, (Chicago) Mayor’s Technology Advisory Committee, Brookings Metropolitan Economy Project and Brookings Urban Markets Initiative. Before joining Shorebank, Bob was a partner at Hartunian, Futterman & Howard, specializing in federal constitutional litigation, school desegregation and representation of government and non-profit agencies. Bob clerked for federal Judge George Leighton, after receiving a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and a B.A. from Yale University.
Gretchen Kosarko – Senior Associate
Gretchen joined the firm in August 2009, bringing experience in urban planning, community and economic development, public-private partnerships, real estate economics and market analysis. Her current projects include exploring new frameworks for regional economic development analysis, planning and implementation and developing methods for linking neighborhood and regional economic development.
Prior to joining RW Ventures, Gretchen was the Director of Research for World Business Chicago, the city’s public-private economic development organization; and a Project Manager for S. B. Friedman & Company, a Chicago-based real estate and urban planning consulting firm. Gretchen holds a B.A. in Statistics, with a second concentration in Economics, from the University of Chicago; and a Master’s degree in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Sophie Cohen – Associate
The most recent addition to RW Ventures’ staff, Sophie joined the firm full time in January 2011 after interning for six months. Sophie brings experience in environmental and energy issues, green economic development and neighborhood tourism development. Prior to joining RW Ventures, Sophie worked as a Field Researcher for the Chicago Office of Tourism and as a Research Associate for energy policy consulting firm Martin Roth Cohen and Associates, where she researched the economic development potential of renewable energy technologies. Sophie graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a B.A. in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology and minors in Political Science and Spanish.
© 2011 RW Ventures, LLC