CHRIS RICO

Leader.

Educator

Marketer.

Innovator.

Builder.

Doer.

BIO

Chris Rico is the founder of LevelUP, a social enterprise with a unique vision to provide studios, networks, and creative agencies with a fully formed, diverse talent pipeline with candidates who have both creative and emotional competency. Chris has a breadth and diversity of experience across Economic Development, Entertainment, Education, Politics, and Philanthropy.

Prior to founding LevelUP, Chris led the Center for Innovation at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), a private nonprofit whose mission is the advance opportunity and prosperity for all Angelenos. Chris built InnovateLA, a multi-week, county wide innovation festival with over 150 events on the calendar. InnovateLA which tells the story of Los Angeles, a place where you can come to innovate anything. InnovateLA was recognized as the Grand Prize Winner for an economic development program by CALED, (California Association for Local Economic Development - the state’s leading professional development organization for those working to increase widely shared economic prosperity.)

While at the LAEDC, Chris also created and led the LAEDC’s industry cluster development efforts in Digital Media and Entertainment (DME) where he worked with both industry and academic institutions to build career pathways that best represent the diverse Los Angeles population.

Prior to his tenure at LAEDC Chris ran a digital media marketing campaign for Activate ED - a collaboration of The Broad Center, Education Pioneers, and the Strategic Data Project at Harvard— three top education organizations that all have missions to transform education outside the classroom by identifying, training, and supporting top leaders, managers, and analysts.Activate ED recruited top talent and provided them with the support, tools and training they need to have a transformative impact on schools and students. As part of that campaign, Chris created and released a series of Education's Rock Star Videos.

Previously, Chris worked in multiple executive roles in film and television development and production in Hollywood. His passion for progressive values and social change prompted him to take those skills into the political arena where he worked with Arianna Huffington as a state organizer, Moveon.org as a lead organizer, and campaign director for a local ballot initiative to promote water conservation and sustainability in San Francisco. With a desire to better understand poverty and education in America on the front lines, Chris became a licensed special needs educator and worked with low income students at both Johnny Cochran Middle School in South LA and an opportunity youth focused charter school in the Bay Area.

Work History

I am an effective and compassionate leader with a breadth of experience across the Public and Private Sector, Education, and Politics. I bring vision, out of the box thinking, and dynamic energy to all of my roles.

Level Up - Founder, Chief Privilege Officer
Level Up is an innovative social enterprise focused on diverse talent pipelines into the creative economy.
July 2019 - Present.I left my role at the LAEDC in order to found LevelUP, a unique two stage apprenticeship that positions community college graduates on a path to lucrative careers in the creative economy. I raised a sizable amount of money, developed a holistic curriculum and program, built a network of marquee advisors and supporters, and was about to launch a $300K pilot project with Lionsgate Entertainment and Walton Isaacson when the pandemic struck.In the last year, despite all best efforts, we have been unable to regain the momentum we had before the pandemic. I have also come to realize that LevelUP should be led by folks who come from the community that it deigns to serve. Although I understand this space intellectually, it is not my lived experience. I will continue to support this great vision in whatever capacity I am able.

Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) - Director of Innovation and Digital Media Industry Cluster Development
The LAEDC is private nonprofit whose mission is the advance opportunity and prosperity for all Angelenos.
05/2014 - 07/2019As Director of Innovation, I led the development of an innovation program for Los Angeles County through the Center for Innovation. The primary vehicle for growing this ecosystem in a nation state sized economy was an annual county-wide innovation festival called InnovateLA that had upwards of 150 events on a centralized calendar. I conceived of and built this festival from concept to a successful annual event that showcased LA as a place to innovate anything including food, art, fashion, tech, aerospace, advanced transportation, bioscience, civic, and public sector. I built a dynamic website, a social media campaign, and broad external support. I developed and maintained LAEDC Board and staff involvement with strategic direction for the Innovate LA program and its goals and priorities. Throughout my tenure, I raised nearly a million dollars in sponsorship dollars from marquee companies like The LA Times, Lyft, Uber, Kaiser, EY, and Wells Fargo.

InnovateLA won the grand prize at CALED (California Association for Local Economic Development). It also was awarded a bronze medal by the International Economic Development Council.As Director of Innovation, I continually developed and maintained relationships with government, nonprofit and private sector individuals and offices with the goal of deepening the Innovate LA’s presence and brand within the greater community to further the policy and programmatic goals and objectives of the Center for Innovation.

Early in my tenure I was also responsible for the Blackstone Launchpad Program (BLP), which included managing all program performance and delivery responsibilities for the three Southern California Launchpad student innovation Incubators. This included ongoing reporting requirements under the BLP grant.While at the LAEDC, I also created and ran the Digital Media and Entertainment Industry Council in conjunction with the Center for Competitive Workforce that was domiciled at the LAEDC. This effort was part of the broader regional goals of the Strong Workforce initiative within the 19 Community Colleges in Los Angeles County. I supported the growth and development of key relationships between the colleges and regional employers.

Activate ED - CAMPAIGN DIRECTOR
Activate ED was a collaboration of The Broad Center, Education Pioneers, and the Strategic Data Project at Harvard.
04/2013-01/20142 years into a 3 year grant, I came aboard this mostly moribund campaign. In a very short amount of time, and under my direction we achieved the following: 103.7% week to week facebook engagement growth /45% week to week twitter engagement growth / 72% average growth of visits to the Activate ED website / 4.1% week to week Activate ED quiz leads growth / Paid and organic reach of 15 million / 33 strategic digital partnerships / Co-produced a highly successful education hackathon, HacktivateED
Produced Education's Rock Stars video campaign.

YES ON F - CAMPAIGN DIRECTOR
Yosemite Restoration Campaign
Prop F was a San Francisco ballot initiative to chart a course for a more sustainable water future.
04/2012 - 12/2012As the director of a grassroots, highly out-funded (by a factor of 6-1) campaign, my team and I: Built a website from scratch on the Nationbuilder Platform. / Hired, trained and managed staff and 45 volunteers. / Hired and trained 20 GOTV Canvass- ers. / Raised $150k from corporate and grass root sources. / Engaged 6,209 new participants in the Yosemite Restoration–Yes on F campaign. / Achieved a paid Facebook reach of 200,000 people and an organic reach 10,000. / Delivered 75,000 people to the polls in support of our proposition.

Siatech - Resource Specialist
Siatech is a dropout recovery charter school on Treasure Island
08/2010-10/2011As a resource specialist at a dropout recovery charter school, I managed a caseload of at risk teens and young adults. I tailored the curriculum to meet the various needs and deficits of individual students.Cochran MS - Education Specialist
Johnny L. Cochran Middle School is a Title I PI 5+ Middle School in the Los Angeles Unified School District
08/2007-08/2010As a special needs educator at an inner city Middle School, I worked to help students with myriad deficits and challenges to attain grade level standards in English and History. I worked to develop new strategies and implement and model pilot curricula in concert with my general education peers.Lighten Up Productions/Illumination - Partner/Founder
Lighten Up Productions is a Film and Television development company and Illumination was a not for profit media organization.
05/2005-05/2007As a partner and consultant in Lighten Up Productions, I acquired, developed, researched, conceived of and produced projects for film and television. Simultaneously I conceived of and worked towards bringing Illumination to fruition as a new concept in not for profit marketing/promotion.MoveOn/GCI - Community Organizer
GCI was contracted by Move On toi mplement a massive GOTV campaign across the United States in the 2004 Presidential Election.
06/2004 - 12/2004As a Community Organizer, I recruited, trained and managed a volunteer army in 26 wards across the state of Wisconsin in an innovative, quasi automated GOTV campaign. I successfully delivered the most voters to the polls of any organizer in the state of Wisconsin.Arianna Huffington for Governor - Grass Roots Organizer
07/2003-12/2003As a Grassroots Organizer I recruited college leaders, student organizers and grass roots organizations across California. Under the direction of Van Jones, I organized and executed rallies and events for a statewide collegiate tour. Additionally, worked as Arianna's handler during campaign appearances.Conwest Resources - Director of Production
Conwest Resources is a mulit‐million dollar film company based in San Francisco.
01/2002-07/2003As Director of Production, I managed Production and Post Production staff of multi-million dollar film company. I hired and managed contract staff of twenty people including directors, photographers and other crew. I oversaw film production from inception to final edit and DVD authoring of 10 productions per year. I collaborated with other Department heads on greater company wide strategy and goals. I created and managed million dollar fiscal budget for the production department. 80% of productions came in under budget.
Vinton Studios - Director of Development
Vinton Studios (now Laika) is an Animation Studio based in Portland, OR.
10/1999 - 07/2001As Director of Development, I oversaw current on air programming and future television, feature film and online entertainment development for the leading dimensional animation studio. I collaborated with writers, directors and producers to originate or purchase ideas, pitches and scripts. I worked internally with directors and animators to realize creative goals. I produced 2 pilot demos for the WB network from concept to delivery.