Dr. Grant M. Warner is the Executive Director of the Center for Black Entrepreneurship (CBE), a national initiative developed in partnership with the Black Economic Alliance Foundation, Spelman College, and Morehouse College. The CBE is dedicated to increasing the pipeline of Black entrepreneurs and connecting them with investment and commercial opportunities to close the racial investment gap.
Under Dr. Warner’s leadership, the CBE offers a range of programs for both campus and community audiences, with a focus on venture development, investment readiness, and research. Signature initiatives include the LIFT Accelerators—LIFT-Atlanta, a collaboration with Invest Atlanta and TiE Atlanta supporting tech entrepreneurs in the metro area, and LIFT-National, a virtual accelerator serving tech entrepreneurs across the country, with special emphasis on innovation ecosystems in the South.
The CBE also plays a key role in managing the SBA FAST award in Georgia, in partnership with the University of Georgia, to support SBIR/STTR applications. Another flagship initiative is the CBE Research Fellowship, which funds entrepreneurship and wealth-building research projects focused on Black communities nationwide.
Prior to his role at the CBE, Dr. Warner served as Director of Innovation for the College of Engineering and Architecture and the Office of Research at Howard University. He was the Principal Investigator for the university’s participation in the Mid-Atlantic NSF I-Corps Hub, a $15 million initiative aimed at strengthening the lab-to-market ecosystem in the region. He also served as co-PI for the Pathways to Commercialization project, which assesses and supports commercialization capacity at HBCUs across the country.
Dr. Warner brings extensive experience in lab-to-market commercialization. He has supported the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program and similar initiatives at the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, serving as both instructor and curriculum developer for “deep tech” innovation. His work has extended internationally, providing commercialization support for programs such as the Korean Innovation Center (KIC-Start), Innovate Egypt, and the U.S. State Department’s Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) initiative.
Dr. Warner holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, an M.S. from Penn State University, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.