Sandy and Christine Kemper, the founders of C2FO, have been named the Regional Entrepreneurs of the Year by the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Bloch School.
The Kempers will be saluted during the 32nd annual Entrepreneur of the Year Awards on Dec. 5 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The event will benefit the Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Bloch School. Ticket information is available here.
C2FO is an online marketplace for working capital, and it has attracted some of the world’s biggest brands as users, including companies like Union Pacific, Hanes, Costco and others.
The Kempers are also the founders of The Collectors Fund, which manages the American Masters Collection and the Twentieth Century Masters Collection, the first art ownership and investment funds that let members display the pieces in their homes.
It’s fitting the awards program will be held at the Kauffman Center because Moshe Safdie, the man who designed the building, is the 2017 Henry W. Bloch International Entrepreneur of the Year. Safdie is the mind behind several celebrated projects, including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
And four firms that built the center – BNIM, JE Dunn Construction, Mark One Electric and U.S. Engineering – will receive the Marion and John Kreamer Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
The chairs for the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards are Anne St. Peter, founder of Global Prairie, and Bill Gautreaux, partner at MLP Holdings and co-founder of Inergy, now known as Crestwood.
There’s one other award, the Student Entrepreneur of the Year, which will be announced at the event. The winner will receive a $2,500 scholarship.
“This year’s honorees exemplify Henry Bloch’s brand of entrepreneurship – innovative, world-class, authentic, with a focus on giving back to the community,” St. Peter said. “The Kauffman Center in many ways represents Kansas City at its best – a great achievement made possible because of entrepreneurial success coupled with generosity, vision and civic responsibility – so it was a natural choice as the venue for this year’s celebration.”
