Derwin Sisnett

As a Partner at Cambiar Education, Derwin Sisnett leads Cambiar Thrive, an initiative aimed at providing students and caregivers with meaningful information to boost student learning. At Cambiar, Derwin is also incubating Adaptive Commons, a real estate company that invests in the transformation of civic spaces for social good.

Prior to this, Derwin co-founded and co-led Maslow Development, a real estate & community development firm focused on mixed-use communities anchored by high-quality schools. Prior to Maslow, Derwin co-founded and served as CEO of Gestalt Community Schools, a charter management organization in Memphis, Tennessee.

In partnership with the Menkiti Group, Derwin also co-founded Grove Social Impact Partner’s Obsidian Catalyst Fund, a real estate investment vehicle that drives neighborhood-level social impact by capitalizing a new category of high-performing and undercapitalized developers. His work has been featured in Urban Land Magazine, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. He has lectured at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Yale School of Management, and Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

Derwin has held private, mayoral- and gubernatorial-appointed board seats. In 2015, Derwin became the youngest person to chair the board of Memphis Light, Gas and Water, the nation’s largest 3-tier public utility. Derwin is an Echoing Green Fellow and Pahara Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, where he was selected as a Braddock Scholar.