Founder and Academic Director, Kellogg Sales Institute and Clinical Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Founder and CEO, Sales Engine, Inc., Author of "What's Your Story?",
Operating Partner, Pritzker Group Venture Capital
Craig Wortmann is a Clinical Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and is the Founder & Academic Director of the Kellogg Sales Institute. Since joining Kellogg in 2017, Craig has been a top five finalist as nominated by students for the Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year award. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, Craig won the “Outstanding Professor” distinction awarded by Kellogg’s Executive MBA students.
From 2008 to 2016, Craig was Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He designed, developed and taught the award- winning Entrepreneurial Selling™ course, recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the “Top Ten” courses in the U.S. At Booth, Craig was the recipient of the 2012 Faculty Excellence Award, given to the professor who has the greatest positive impact on the students. After joining Kellogg's faculty in 2017, Craig designed and launched the MBA course called Selling Yourself & Your Ideas, which quickly became one of the most popular courses at Kellogg.
From selling tech for IBM early in his career, to financial services where he covered three-quarters of the United States, to consulting services, books and apps, Craig is an expert in sales across the B2B and B2C spectrum. He advises some of the world's largest and most successful companies on developing and fine-tuning their sales talent, as well as guiding some of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial firms on how to design and build a powerful revenue engine. In just the past ten years, Craig has been fortunate to teach tens of thousands of people how to sell, how to lead sales teams and how to lead companies.
After earning his MBA in marketing and finance from Kellogg in 1995, Craig has been a three-time entrepreneur and CEO, beginning with his first software company in 2000. After selling that firm in 2008, Craig conducted a successful turnaround of a struggling digital marketing agency, selling it to a larger French company only 11 months after joining as its CEO.
Currently, Craig is the Founder & CEO of Sales Engine Inc., a tools and services firm founded on the core belief that sales is the engine of any business. As a global speaker and virtual sales advisor, Craig helps people from every corner of the globe develop the knowledge, skill and discipline necessary to become magnetic and unstoppable sales people. In addition to growing his Sales Engine firm, Craig serves as Operating Partner for Pritzker Group Venture Capital where he helps grow the revenue engines of its portfolio companies.
Craig is the author of What’s Your Story?, a book designed to equip you with the right story at the right time for the right reason. He is also an active angel investor, solely focused on companies that help people develop healthy habits and empower people to be their best. His portfolio currently includes sleep and food companies, as well as those creating the next generation of female leaders.
Craig and his family split their time between Illinois and Wisconsin where they can be found reading, running, and laughing.
