Gerald Chertavian

Gerald Chertavian – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Gerald Chertavian is a prominent American social entrepreneur and former businessman who founded Year Up, a leading workforce-training nonprofit. Explore his life, career, and inspiring quotes as he works to close America’s “opportunity divide.”

Introduction

Gerald Chertavian (born May 15, 1965) is an American social entrepreneur, educator, and former technology executive. He is best known as the founder of Year Up, a nonprofit organization that provides low-income young adults with training, internships, and support to enter the professional workforce. Over the past two decades, Chertavian has become a nationally recognized leader in the field of youth workforce development, combining business disciplines with social impact, and teaching others about systems change and opportunity.

His life story is compelling: from early volunteer mentoring to Wall Street and technology entrepreneurship, then pivoting into the social sector, he has devoted much of his work to bridging gaps in access and opportunity. In a time when inequality and skills mismatch are urgent national challenges, Chertavian’s mission and legacy help illustrate how structured intervention, high expectations, and partnerships with the private sector can help transform lives.

Early Life and Family

Gerald Chertavian was born on May 15, 1965, in Lowell, Massachusetts.

From his early years, he demonstrated curiosity, drive, and a desire to give back. During high school, he was involved in volunteer activities, and later on, as a university student, he became a “Big Brother” through Big Brothers Big Sisters, mentoring a boy named David Heredia from Manhattan’s Lower East Side. This mentoring relationship would be deeply formative for Chertavian’s vocation.

Chertavian married Kate Smallwood Chertavian in the early 1990s.

Youth and Education

Chertavian pursued undergraduate studies at Bowdoin College, where he earned a B.A. in Economics, graduating summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After his undergraduate years, he entered the workforce but soon recognized gaps in how talent was distributed and supported.

To equip himself with further business and leadership skills, he earned an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School (class of 1992).

These educational experiences were critical not only for his credentials but also for his mindset: combining rigor, discipline, accountability, and purpose.

Career and Achievements

Early Career: Wall Street & Conduit Communications

After finishing his undergraduate degree, Chertavian joined Chemical Banking Corporation as a credit officer in New York.

Building on his business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit, in 1993 he co-founded Conduit Communications, a technology and consulting enterprise focused on e-commerce and knowledge systems.

Founding and Scaling Year Up

In the year 2000, Chertavian officially launched Year Up (later rebranded as Year Up United), an intensive program for urban young adults aged 18–24, combining six months of skills and professional development followed by six months of internships in partner corporations.

The inaugural class began with just 22 students in Boston.

Under Chertavian’s guidance, Year Up adopted rigorous outcome measurement. The nonprofit tracks placement, wages, educational continuation, and long-term earnings.

In 2023, Chertavian stepped down from his CEO role and joined the faculty at Harvard Business School, where he teaches social entrepreneurship and systems change.

Other Roles and Recognition

Beyond Year Up, Chertavian has held multiple board and advisory positions. He served on Massachusetts’ Board of Elementary & Secondary Education (appointed in 2008) and later as chair of Roxbury Community College’s Board of Trustees (appointed in 2013, reappointed in 2016).

His published book, A Year Up: How a Pioneering Program Teaches Young Adults Real Skills for Real Jobs — With Real Success (2012), became a New York Times bestseller.

Historical Milestones & Context

• 2000: Founding of Year Up in Boston, with 22 initial students.

• 2002: First cohort graduates; early expansion in Providence and Washington, D.C.

• 2011 onward: Year Up becomes subject of formal evaluation by government agencies; expands into new cities and programs.

• 2023: Chertavian transitions leadership; begins teaching at Harvard Business School.

These milestones occurred amid broader national trends: the growing skills gap, debates over college vs. nondegree pathways, inequality in access, and efforts to reform workforce development. Chertavian’s model responded to critiques that many so-called training programs lacked accountability, and that talent is often filtered out because of zip code or network rather than ability.

Legacy and Influence

Gerald Chertavian’s influence extends well beyond his own organization. He has inspired a generation of social entrepreneurs, workforce developers, and education reformers.

• Scalable model: Year Up’s blend of employer alignment, structured accountability, and outcome measurement has become a benchmark in youth workforce programs.

• Raising standards in nonprofit management: Chertavian’s insistence on data, metrics, financial discipline, and performance has pushed the nonprofit sector toward greater accountability.

• Shifting corporate mindsets: By partnering with major firms, Year Up has encouraged many corporations to rethink rigid degree requirements and embrace skills-based hiring.

• Academic influence: At Harvard Business School, Chertavian now shapes future leaders and helps integrate systems thinking and social change into business curricula.

• Advocacy and policy: Through public writing and speaking, he has influenced discourse about opportunity, equity, and structural barriers in America.

In many communities, “a Year Up graduate entering a company” is now seen as a symbol of transformation and potential redefinition of how talent pipelines can work.

Personality and Talents

Gerald Chertavian is widely regarded as a person of humility, purpose, and resilience. Colleagues and staff often highlight:

• A learner’s mindset: He openly acknowledges early mistakes and iterates on programs rather than assuming perfection.

• High expectations plus support: He believed that underserved young adults deserve the same rigor and standards that any student might receive—but also meaningful scaffolding to succeed.

• Authentic leadership: Rather than command and control, Chertavian emphasizes modeling values, transparency, and trust.

• Emotional connection and empathy: His long-term mentoring relationship with David Heredia shows his capacity to invest personally in young lives.

• Systems thinking orientation: Chertavian speaks frequently about not just scaling Year Up, but shifting underlying social and institutional levers that create opportunity divides.

Outside work, he enjoys physical activity (e.g. biking, skiing) and art, influenced by his spouse who is an art consultant.

Famous Quotes of Gerald Chertavian

While Chertavian is more known for action than for quotable lines, here are several statements and reflections widely reported and representative of his philosophy:

“Within adversity are the seeds of resilience.”

“When we sold Conduit, I already had a clear sense of how I wanted to spend my time.”

“At Year Up we partner with top executives—CIOs, CEOs. As our students build a track record without college degrees, executives may begin to wonder if their current job requirements make sense.”

“I don’t care how much you know until we know how much you care.” (on hiring for mission)

“These young adults are economic assets, not social liabilities.”

“Our success is because these young adults are economic assets, not social liabilities.”

“The question is, What’s appropriate? There’s a lot of work to do. If I were a bottleneck in building the leadership to make Year Up sustainable and scalable, that would be a mistake.”

These quotes reflect his commitment to dignity, accountability, and belief in latent human potential.

Lessons from Gerald Chertavian

1. Purpose + Discipline = Impact
   Chertavian’s transition from business success to social mission shows that technical competence combined with moral clarity can deliver sustained impact.

2. High expectations must be matched with real support
   He embedded scaffolding—mentoring, structure, feedback—so that participants could rise to rigorous standards rather than be held back.

3. Metrics and accountability aren’t optional in mission work
   Year Up’s emphasis on outcomes, randomized evaluations, and transparency made it credible to both funders and corporate partners.

4. Success requires shifting systems, not just scaling programs
   Chertavian often emphasizes targeting institutional norms (like degree bias) and working with partners to shift hiring practices.

5. Leverage personal stories to illustrate broader change
   His mentoring of David Heredia became a narrative anchor, showing how investment in an individual can serve as a lens for structural reform.

6. Leadership evolves with the organization
   He recognized that the skills to launch an organization differ from those to sustain scale—and so he prepared succession and stepped into teaching.

7. Belief in human dignity pays dividends
   Treating young adults as assets, not liabilities, shifts mindsets, empowers individuals, and reshapes narratives about potential.

Conclusion

Gerald Chertavian’s life is a testament to the possibility of combining business acumen, moral imagination, and relentless execution. From his early days mentoring a child in New York to scaling a national nonprofit and joining academia, his journey illustrates how the gap between aspiration and opportunity can be actively closed.

His model teaches us that social change is not merely about charity—but about building institutions, aligning incentives, and rethinking entrenched barriers. If you seek more inspiration or aim to bring his approach into your context, I encourage you to read A Year Up, follow his writing, and study the metrics behind Year Up’s outcomes.