Eli Bildner
Member of the Board
Eli’s background spans nonprofit and for-profit entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and politics. Currently VP of Operations at Crankstart, a $5B family office and philanthropy largely focused on the Bay Area, Eli previously held HR and product leadership roles at Guild — a growth-stage workforce technology company — and, before that, co-founded and co-led Rivet School, an accelerated bachelor’s degree program for traditionally underserved students.
Earlier in his career, Eli was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to research development economics in rural China, managed a winning, upstart political campaign in Alaska, and was an early employee at Coursera.
Outside of his full-time roles, Eli has worked with startups, nonprofits, and foundations as an advisor and executive coach. Eli has also served on a number of boards, including at The Kitchen (a San Francisco-based Jewish community) and Govern for California, a political advocacy organization focused on good governance in California. Eli’s reporting and op-eds have been published in The Atlantic, EdSurge, Inside Higher Ed, and Jobs for the Future.
Eli holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and a BA in history from Yale, where he was awarded Yale’s highest honor for a graduating senior. Eli lives in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Astrid, and their two young children.
