Leading Change in a Changing World: Innovative Leadership

Chris Stevens is the founding co-director of the Inspired Leadership Initiative at Notre Dame. During the Alumni Association’s Leadership Conference in 2022, Stevens shared insights and expertise with attendees.

Chris Stevens (’74) is a former Irish basketball player and past member of the Notre Dame Monogram Club Board of Directors. He is one of the three original developers of the Keurig Premium Coffee System and currently is an assistant teaching professor in the Mendoza College of Business.

Before joining Keurig in 1996, Chris worked in a variety of senior sales, marketing, and management positions at companies like Procter and Gamble and Anheuser-Busch. Leveraging his more than 20 years of experience, Chris developed the Keurig brand, sales, distribution, and marketing strategies, playing a key role in the success and growth of the company. He was also responsible for all aspects of Keurig’s corporate social responsibility practices as part of its commitment to donate at least five percent of pre-tax profits to environmental and social causes.

In the fall of 2012, Chris joined the Mendoza College of Business as a professional specialist teaching undergraduate courses. After retiring from Keurig in 2013, he began teaching M.B.A. courses in business problem-solving, change management, and entrepreneurship at Notre Dame’s South Bend and Chicago campuses. In 2017, he joined Mendoza as a full-time faculty member. His teaching honors include Notre Dame’s prestigious Frank O’Malley Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2014 and 2015, Mendoza’s Blessed Rev. Basil Anthony Moreau, C.S.C. Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2014, and the Harvey G. Foster Award in 2015 for distinguished work on behalf of the Notre Dame community and those in need.

Chris is also the founder and CEO of CS 74 Ventures LLC, a holding company for more than 20 initiatives, in which Chris invests or owns, that commit at least 50 percent of their profits to charitable and social causes. He has been an angel investor in several start-ups; has done acting, broadcasting, and voice-over work; and is the executive producer of the award-winning movie Three Days of Hamlet. He also authored Fighting to Give, a book he self-published about a Notre Dame classmate who died after a courageous battle against ALS; 100 percent of the proceeds fund research for Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Chris received his B.S. in Economics from Notre Dame.

April 23, 2022

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