About Venture Ready

Kristi brings more than 30 years of corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, business ownership, and experiential education experience to Venture Ready. A former Fortune 500 global corporate executive, she is the founder and CEO of a multimillion-dollar security firm she has led since 2004 and has taught entrepreneurship at Butler University for more than a decade.

As Director of Butler’s Real Business Experience, Kristi leads 28 student businesses each semester as they launch, sell, manage operations, and generate approximately $70,000 to $100,000 in combined revenue. This work has given her an uncommon understanding of how students learn to build businesses and what teachers need to guide that process successfully.

Kristi co-architected Venture Ready’s venture-building model and played a leading role in creating its course content, student tools, applied activities, and real-business learning experiences. She helped design the progression that moves students from entrepreneurial mindset and opportunity discovery through customer validation, business modeling, proof of concept, launch, and pitch.

Kristi began her entrepreneurial journey at age 15, owns multiple companies, and holds bachelor’s degrees in Entrepreneurship and Finance, along with an MBA. She co-founded Venture Ready to translate real entrepreneurial experience into a practical, classroom-ready system that helps students learn entrepreneurship by building something real.

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Brenda brings doctoral-level expertise in curriculum and instruction together with corporate operations leadership, business ownership, and experiential entrepreneurship education. She holds an EdD focused on curriculum and instruction and has taught business and entrepreneurship at multiple institutions.

Brenda co-architected Venture Ready’s instructional model and leads the design, sequencing, and organization that make its courses engaging for students and teachable for educators from any professional background. She plays a central role in translating complex entrepreneurship concepts into structured lessons, applied activities, assessments, and teacher guidance that work in real classrooms.

Before entering higher education, Brenda spent nearly a decade leading retail operations and teams with organizations including The Home Depot and Harbor Freight Tools. She is now Director of Butler University’s First-Year Business Experience, where she helps students develop entrepreneurial thinking through innovation, collaboration, and applied business learning.

Brenda also played a central role in developing Butler’s Real Business Experience, where students build and operate ventures with real customers, revenue, and market feedback. She co-founded Venture Ready to give schools a practical, inclusive, and implementation-ready system that equips teachers to deliver meaningful entrepreneurship education with confidence.

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Together, Kristi Mitchell and Dr. Brenda Geib-Swanson played central roles in building and strengthening Butler University’s entrepreneurship program, recognized by USASBE as the 2026 Re-Emerging Entrepreneurship Program National Winner. Both are USASBE Certified Entrepreneurship Instructors.