Charles K. Knight, JD

Charles Knight is the founder of Abaco, LLC, a consulting and investment firm focused on leadership development, innovation and early-stage investments in technology, renewable energy and real estate. In 2020, he joined Milgrom & Daskam, focusing his legal practice on serving entrepreneurs, nonprofits and growth companies. His expertise includes corporate and securities; real estate, including affordable housing and new market tax credit development; and financing.

Through Abaco, Charlie has served as interim CEO, COO and CFO for companies involved in health care, wind energy development, and medical and professional product distribution. More recently, from 2011 until 2016 Charlie served as a board member and from 2016 through 2019 as general counsel of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, a quasi-governmental enterprise committed to providing affordable housing and small business financing in Colorado.

In his prior roles, Charlie founded Venture Law Advisors, LLC, a legal advisory firm representing emerging Colorado and California businesses and served as a co-founder and outside general counsel of Main Street Power Company, Inc., a solar developer; outside general counsel and advisor to Emerge Medical, Inc., a medical device company; and as president and CEO of AmeriVest Properties, Inc., a publicly traded real estate investment trust focused on smart office space for small business. Prior thereto, Knight practiced corporate and securities law in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and New York City.

Charlie is passionate about leadership development, innovation and community and serves as an adjunct professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, where he teaches classes on entrepreneurship and innovation in the Executive MBA program and mentors and trains executives through the Executive Education programs offered by Daniels. He is also a board member of Urban Peak, a Denver-based nonprofit providing essential services to youth who are homeless or at risk of being homeless.

Charlie holds a BA in experimental psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and MBA and JD degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles, and he is a University of Notre Dame Certified Innovation Mentor. Outside the office, Charlie and his wife Suzanne spend as much time as possible playing with their grandchildren, visiting beautiful beaches, traveling the world and spending time in the Colorado mountains.