Cavanaugh Gray

Startup Specialist, The Entrepreneur Cafe, LLC

Cavanaugh currently serves as Startup Specialist for The Entrepreneur Cafe, LLC. With over two decades of experience, he helps organizations scale through improved managerial expertise and processes, digital marketing strategies that improve return on investment, growth through access to capital, and leveraging of critical organizational resources.

Over the years, Cavanaugh has used his expertise to address a variety of social issues. As the Executive Director of the Young Entrepreneurs Program (YEP), he provided alternatives to unemployment, low-paying jobs, and destructive life choices for hundreds of students ages 12-18 through entrepreneurship and financial literacy training.  

As Executive Director of Project Compassion, he managed partnership and stakeholder collaborations, implemented long-term strategies, program development, budget oversight, and oversaw the efforts of 100 volunteers that helped 65 families transition out of homeless.  

Most recently, Cavanaugh served as Commissioner for the Village of Downers Grove, IL, a municipality of 50,000 residents. As commissioner, he helped implement the long-range plans and analyzed and approved tax levies, utility rates, zoning requirements, and other fees.  In addition, he reviewed, revised, and approved Downer’s Grove’s $49 million annual operating budget and COVID-19 Financial Response Plan that helped close a multi-million dollar budget shortfall. Cavanaugh used his platform to advance conversations around social change, diversity, equity, and inclusion among Downers Grove residents. 

Cavanaugh has served as a business advisor to a Chicago Innovation Award Winner, has dozens of published articles, and is the author of The Entrepreneurial Spirit Lives (a 2016 Amazon Top Read) and Bridging the Entrepreneurial Divide. He has served as an adjunct professor of Integrated Brand Promotion and Small Business Management (Entrepreneurship). Cavanaugh holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing and a Certification in Entrepreneurial Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also has a Certification in Digital Marketing Strategies from Northwestern University Kellogg’s Executive Education Program.

A diehard Chicagoan, he is the son of a retired Chicago Public School Teacher and Chicago firefighter. As a Baumhart Scholar, Cavanaugh will look to work at the convergence of the corporate, nonprofit, and startup landscapes to assist in bringing economic equity to underserved communities.