LEADERSHIP
Cameron Law
Young Professionals 2022 by Jennifer Fergesen
Cameron Law had to leave the Capital Region to realize how much he cared about it . The 29-year-old grew up in Sacramento , spent his early years on a promising track toward a career in professional baseball and entered UC Davis on a partial sports scholarship , but an injury in his senior year at Jesuit High School continued to affect his play through all four years with the Aggies . So after graduating from UC Davis , he moved to Australia — about as far from Sacramento as geographically possible — to earn a master ’ s degree in business at the University of Queensland . His goal , he says , was to reinvent himself .
But Brisbane , a thriving state capital , only reminded him of home . “ Moving halfway around the world helped me see how much I love the greater Sacramento area , and that I really want to realize the potential of this region ,” Law says . “ And so when I moved back to Sacramento , that was kind of my mission and purpose : to build the greater Sacramento region into the best place that it could be .”
He started on this goal as soon as he finished his degree and landed back home , taking on a rising series of positions at local nonprofits and socially-minded venture capital firms . By 2017 , less than a year after he left Brisbane , he was executive director at Social Venture Partners of Sacramento , a network for venture philanthropists where he began to see “ the role that entrepreneurs play in building our community both socially and economically ,” he says .
His SVP position led to his 2019 appointment as executive director of the Carlsen Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Sacramento State , founded the previous year with a $ 6 million donation from Sleep Train Mattress Centers founder Dale Carlsen and his wife Katy Carlsen . In this role , Law manages a team of faculty and entrepreneurs-in-residence who create programming designed to make innovation and entrepreneurship more accessible for people from all of the Capital Region ’ s diverse communities .
The pandemic hampered some of the programs Law spearheaded with the center , but his team quickly adapted in-person classes and events to lockdown-friendly formats . The core lessons of the Lean Startup Bootcamp , for example , are now available as a free resource called the Virtual Entrepreneurship Toolkit Series . Other on-hold programs are now returning , including Startup Weekend , where entrepreneurs build out and pitch the first iterations of their business models and prototypes in a frenzied 54 hours .
Three years into the role , Law has accumulated several awards for his efforts in the region . Most recently , he was a finalist for the Global Entrepreneurship Network ’ s 2022 Ecosystem Champion Award , an international prize given to individuals who promote long-term , accessible growth in their local ecosystems . He measures his success by the successes of the people who have used the center ’ s programs and resources , such as entrepreneurs who successfully launched their businesses or made it into selective accelerators like TechStars .
“ One of the core traits that I think has allowed me to get where I am today is empathy ,” he says . “ I see myself as a service , and that service ends up coming back around … and if not , it creates a better place to live in anyway .”
58 comstocksmag . com | July 2022