Kristin Redington Bennett
Kristin Redington Bennett, PhD, brings to the Center for Entrepreneurship a blend of academic expertise and serial entrepreneurial success, with multiple venture creation efforts and successful exits across diverse industries.
Dr. Bennett’s academic career began at Wake Forest University, where she taught and conducted research in cognitive science, assessment, and educational technology. She then co-founded Odigia, an edtech startup that grew from a grant-funded project into a platform widely adopted in medical schools and higher education. Her entrepreneurial journey, however, started even earlier: in her early 20s, she co-founded a commercial real estate development company in the self-storage sector, scaling to multiple facilities before exiting through a sale to a public company.
She has since founded and scaled additional ventures, including ILLUMII Pathfinding Group—a multidisciplinary practice that surpassed $1.5M in revenue and expanded to multiple locations within its first three years—and Westlawn School, an independent nonprofit school exemplifying social entrepreneurship by serving twice-exceptional students. Beyond startups, Dr. Bennett also championed intrapreneurship as the inaugural Director of the Center for Excellence and Innovation at Summit School, where she launched design-thinking programs, makerspaces, and professional development initiatives that extended impact beyond the school into the wider educational community.
Dr. Bennett’s teaching and entrepreneurial practice are unified by her commitment to cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset. Drawing on her background in cognitive science and her firsthand experience in venture creation, she equips students with the tools to think critically, test ideas against evidence, and approach uncertainty with creativity and resilience. At Wake Forest, she fosters a student-centered, interdisciplinary environment where theory meets practice, preparing aspiring entrepreneurs to launch ventures and initiatives that are both innovative and impactful.
