Kip Frey
Visiting Professor of the Practice of Law
Director of the Law and Entrepreneurship Program
Mr. Frey is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, educator, and community leader. Currently, Mr. Frey is president and CEO of EvoApp, a technology solutions provider helping businesses to strengthen customer relationships through social media business intelligence services. Prior to joining EvoApp, Mr. Frey was president and CEO of Zenph Sound Innovations. He also has served as a partner at the venture capital firm Intersouth Partners and as the head of a variety of venture-backed companies. He served as executive vice president and general counsel of Ventana Communications Group, sold Ventana to the Thomson Corporation in 1994, and continued in an executive role at Thomson through 1997. In January 1998 he became president of Accipiter, Inc. and sold the company to CMGI, Inc., structuring the transaction so that the ultimate deal value exceeded $500 million. Later that year Mr. Frey became president and CEO of OpenSite Technologies, Inc., which was acquired in 2000 by Siebel Systems for $542 million. OpenSite was named NCEITA Software Company of the Year in 1999 and Mr. Frey was honored by Digital South Magazine as the Southeast’s top entrepreneurial CEO. He received the Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s Entrepreneurial Excellence Award in 2000.
Mr. Frey is a lawyer by training and practiced intellectual property law for five years before joining Turner Broadcasting System in 1990 as associate general counsel. While at Turner he ran several business units and contributed to the acquisition of Castle Rock Entertainment, the formation of the Cartoon Network, the construction of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino and the preparation of several projects which for various reasons never saw the light of day. For a time he was known on television as K. Allen Frey while running Turner’s World Championship Wrestling organization.
In addition to his day job, Mr. Frey has been a professor at Duke University for the past 15 years. He is currently an adjunct professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, where he teaches intellectual property law and policy. Prior to that, he served as professor of the practice of entrepreneurial management, holding joint appointments from Duke Law School and the Fuqua School of Business. Mr. Frey is a member of Duke Law School's Board of Visitors and Duke’s Athletics Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Boards of Trustees of Durham Academy and The Emily Krzyzewski Center, and serves on the Wells Fargo Bank North Carolina Advisory Board.
Mr. Frey is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Southern California Film School and of Duke Law School, where he served on the Duke Law Journal. He has been a director of more than a dozen private startups and currently sits on the board of publicly-traded Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISPH).
