U-M School of Kinesiology

The Geoffrey S. Prentice Challenge

Geoffrey S. Prentice AB `96 understands gifts from alumni and friends are vital to Michigan becoming one of the world's premier educational institutions. Support from both alumni and friends remains more important than ever to help improve the lives of students, especially here at the School of Kinesiology. Knowing this, Geoffrey has made a $100,000 gift to establish The Prentice Challenge.

The Prentice Challenge offers donors the unique opportunity to maximize the impact of their scholarship gift by matching every dollar pledged 2:1 up to the total sum of $100,000. The challenge will benefit the Shelly Kovacs Endowed Scholarship Fund which is awarded to an incoming undergraduate student who exhibits strong high school academics and financial need. Kovacs is the former director of Student Services and provided guidance to undergraduate students for more than 30 years.

Gifts of any amount are eligible for the match and the challenge will end on December 31, 2012.

To Make a Gift to the Prentice Challenge

Give online:

Or contact: U-M Kinesiology Office of Advancement Leslie Mader, Manager Advancement Services and Annual Fund Kin-dev@umich.edu (734) 647-2689

About Geoffrey S. Prentice

Geoffrey Prentice is a Partner at Atomico, the international venture capital firm led by Niklas Zennström, the co-founder of Skype. He is primarily focused on sourcing new investments and working with portfolio companies on global business development and expansion initiatives.

Prior to helping launch Atomico, he was the first employee at Skype where he was Chief Strategy Officer and worked with Niklas to build a leading global telecommunications platform company. He oversaw the expansion of Skype into Asia and Latin America and was responsible for developing the company's initial business plan and for fundraising activities.

Prior to Skype, Geoffrey was director of investments at Target Investments AB, Stockholm, a publicly-traded investment company focused on new media and telecommunications. Earlier in his career, Geoffrey oversaw the North American operations for a venture-backed competitive intelligence company based in Amsterdam, and started his career at Robertson Stephens, the boutique investment bank, working with a wide range of public and private companies.

Geoffrey received his bachelor's degree in Sport Management from U-M's School of Kinesiology.