Neal Sales-Griffin
Neal Sáles-Griffin (born July 28, 1987) is a Chicago entrepreneur, educator, and aspiring politician. He co-founded the first coding bootcamp program in 2011 and is the CEO of CodeNow, a nonprofit that teaches coding to low-income high school students. He was a candidate for mayor of Chicago in 2019.
Early life and education
Sales-Griffin grew up on the South Side of Chicago in the Kenwood neighborhood Sales-Griffin's father is African-American. His mother is of Honduran, Filipino, and Mexican descent. Sales-Griffin comes from a low-income background. and Mount Carmel High School in Woodlawn. He had an opportunity to participate in the Junior Olympics, although he did not attend due to a serious back injury. He also was an avid and competitive chess player, winning 6th place at National K-12 Championships in 1998.
Sales-Griffin attended Northwestern University, where he majored in Learning and Organizational Change. He interned for 3 months at UBS Bank, making more money in 3 months than his mother made in one year.
Career
After graduating from college, Sales-Griffin joined Sandbox Industries, a Chicago venture capital firm, as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. While there, he learned that the coders were the people putting ideas into action, and resolved to learn it himself in order to lead a more impactful life. He left this job to learn coding with his Northwestern classmate and friend Mike McGee, an experience that led them to launch their own coding program. It was one of the first tenants of 1871, Chicago's center for technology and entrepreneurship. They partnered with Chicago Public Schools to help bring code education to the classroom. The program also took an undisclosed investment from Chicago software company Basecamp (formerly known as 37signals). In 2016, New York-based coding bootcamp Fullstack Academy acquired The Starter League.
In 2016, Sales-Griffin joined CodeNow as its CEO, a nonprofit coding school that focuses in on high school students in low income areas interested in coding, design and entrepreneurship. He is the co-chair of the MakeWork Council at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sales-Griffin was named to Crain’s Chicago Business’s "40 Under 40" in 2013.
2019 mayoral candidacy
Sales-Griffin ran in the 2019 Chicago mayoral election, announcing his candidacy in March of 2018. despite it appearing that Sales-Griffin did in fact lack a number of valid signatures.
Sales-Griffin ran a very inactive campaign, and was largely absent from the campaign trail. Sales-Griffin participated in some forums. However, he was absent from many debates and forums, even being unreachable to the organizers of some debates. He was also unresponsive to inquiries from numerous media outlets during his candidacy.
Sales-Griffin finished last among the fourteen candidates, receiving only 1,507 votes, equal to 0.27% of the overall vote. He gained the nickname "LTOP" or "Less than one percent." Having been himself eliminated from the race, Sales-Griffin endorsed Lori Lightfoot in the runoff.
Early life and education
Sales-Griffin grew up on the South Side of Chicago in the Kenwood neighborhood Sales-Griffin's father is African-American. His mother is of Honduran, Filipino, and Mexican descent. Sales-Griffin comes from a low-income background. and Mount Carmel High School in Woodlawn. He had an opportunity to participate in the Junior Olympics, although he did not attend due to a serious back injury. He also was an avid and competitive chess player, winning 6th place at National K-12 Championships in 1998.
Sales-Griffin attended Northwestern University, where he majored in Learning and Organizational Change. He interned for 3 months at UBS Bank, making more money in 3 months than his mother made in one year.
Career
After graduating from college, Sales-Griffin joined Sandbox Industries, a Chicago venture capital firm, as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. While there, he learned that the coders were the people putting ideas into action, and resolved to learn it himself in order to lead a more impactful life. He left this job to learn coding with his Northwestern classmate and friend Mike McGee, an experience that led them to launch their own coding program. It was one of the first tenants of 1871, Chicago's center for technology and entrepreneurship. They partnered with Chicago Public Schools to help bring code education to the classroom. The program also took an undisclosed investment from Chicago software company Basecamp (formerly known as 37signals). In 2016, New York-based coding bootcamp Fullstack Academy acquired The Starter League.
In 2016, Sales-Griffin joined CodeNow as its CEO, a nonprofit coding school that focuses in on high school students in low income areas interested in coding, design and entrepreneurship. He is the co-chair of the MakeWork Council at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sales-Griffin was named to Crain’s Chicago Business’s "40 Under 40" in 2013.
2019 mayoral candidacy
Sales-Griffin ran in the 2019 Chicago mayoral election, announcing his candidacy in March of 2018. despite it appearing that Sales-Griffin did in fact lack a number of valid signatures.
Sales-Griffin ran a very inactive campaign, and was largely absent from the campaign trail. Sales-Griffin participated in some forums. However, he was absent from many debates and forums, even being unreachable to the organizers of some debates. He was also unresponsive to inquiries from numerous media outlets during his candidacy.
Sales-Griffin finished last among the fourteen candidates, receiving only 1,507 votes, equal to 0.27% of the overall vote. He gained the nickname "LTOP" or "Less than one percent." Having been himself eliminated from the race, Sales-Griffin endorsed Lori Lightfoot in the runoff.
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