Timing: It’s the difference between making a flight or missing it, staying in or meeting a future spouse, walking into work at eight or suffering a fender bender. It can even make or break your career.

Luckily, Kevin Gruneich (BBA80) has impeccable timing. Paired with fantastic financial and creative instincts, he and his wife, Donna, have not only launched their own careers, but those of many others.

Gruneich’s first great move was getting a degree in finance from the Tippie College of Business. He then earned an MBA and became a New York City analyst during a bull market. The city treated him well. He met the love of his life and was made a managing director at age 29. 

He worked in equities at Credit Suisse First Boston and Bear Stearns and saw many companies through IPOs. And then, importantly, he got out. Gruneich opted for an early retirement and change of pace in 2005, moving to Park City, Utah, and avoiding the financial black hole that was 2008.

Unscathed, he started a foundation and began private investment. He and Donna also began attending the Sundance Film Festival, and she joined the board. When they met a young director at a party, those two worlds merged.

If it hadn’t been for that chance encounter in a kitchen, and an instinct to go for it, they might never have become executive film producers in this second act of their lives.

Today, the Gruneichs’ foundation has backed more than 75 films, many of them award winners. Their
goal isn’t necessarily to make millions per film, but instead to recoup their financing, allowing them to reinvest it in more creatives in need of an opportunity.

“We like to invest in people who are just starting out, women, unique stories, and in films that could have a social impact,” Gruneich said. “And because of our backgrounds, we also gravitate towards filmmakers that have good business sense. For a great idea to go anywhere, they need to understand the mechanics of finance and a budget.”

The Gruneichs also invest in the success of University of Iowa students, having helped fund the renovation of the old business library into the Biz Hub at Tippie, the Nonprofit Leadership and Philanthropy program, and the Writer’s Room, which includes an “Adaptation for Television” screenwriting course at the university.
 
“Donna and I both believe that oral and written communication is foundational to success in your career—and life. And because we know how hard it is to break into this industry, we want to give Iowa students as much help as we can.”

Check out five of their favorite film projects so far:

The Social Dilemma
2020 Documentary/Thriller

The Social Dilemma blends documentary investigation and narrative drama to disrupt the disrupters, unveiling the hidden machinations behind everyone’s favorite social media and search platforms.

“Jeff Orlowski and his producing partner Larissa Rhodes are by far the filmmakers that we are the closest to. After we executive produced their documentary Chasing Coral in 2017, we never needed to invest with them again because their careers skyrocketed. But they pitch us this film, and it just hit home. We have three kids, two of them girls. We got them phones at 12 thinking this was going to be a great way to keep in touch, never having any idea how detrimental social media is in terms of mental health and self-perception. This film puts into perspective things you may already know, but in a fun, creative, unique way that might change some people’s opinions. If you have kids, you should watch it with them.”

Awards
8 wins, including 2 Emmys

Available on
Netflix

Night Comes On
2018 Thriller/Drama

Angel LaMere is released from juvenile detention on the eve of her 18th birthday. Haunted by her past, Angel embarks on a journey with her 10-year-old sister to avenge her mother’s death.

“For this fiction film, we worked with a first time, female writer/director/actress—Jordana Spiro. Because we live in Park City, if one of our films gets into the Sundance Film Festival, we will have people related to the film stay at our house. For Night Comes On, we had the young woman who was the lead actress, Dominique Fishback, stay at our house. Now she’s very famous. It has been so fun to see her star rise. The secondary character in the film was played by an 8-year-old girl from the Bronx who stayed at our house, too. She’s now 17 and Donna and I had dinner with her and her parents in New York. The people have been the best part of working in the film industry.”

Awards
9 wins, including NEXT Innovator Award at Sundance

Available on
Amazon Prime Video
Apple TV
Tubi

Meet the Patels
2014 Comedic Documentary

This is a laugh-out-loud, real life romantic comedy about Ravi Patel, an almost 30-year-old Indian-American who enters a love triangle between the woman of his dreams… and his parents.

“We fell in love with this brother-sister team from Indian heritage. The sister, Geeta Vasant Patel, is the filmmaker. Her brother Ravi was approaching marriage age, and as their parents are first-generation immigrants in the U.S., they wanted him to have an arranged marriage. So, it’s about him going through that process—all the while, he’s dating a white, redheaded woman from Minnesota. Both siblings have gone on to great success. Ravi has been in several TV series, including FOX’s Animal Control, and Geeta has directed three episodes of the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon.”

Awards
3 wins, including the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival

Available on
Amazon Prime Video
Peacock

The Cove
2009 Documentary

A team of activists, filmmakers, and freedivers embark on a covert mission to expose a deadly secret hidden in a remote cove in Taiji, Japan.

“This film documents the dolphin slaughter that happens every year in Japan where they bring nets and trap dolphins in a cove to kill them. The undercover film crew went into an off-limits area—they could have gotten into really deep trouble. It was one of our social impact movies that affected change. Japan has since dialed back the killing of dolphins and importantly, they were feeding this mercury-laden dolphin meat to the local school children for lunch, but they stopped after it was exposed.”

Awards
39 wins, including an Oscar

Available on
Hulu
Amazon Prime Video
Apple TV
                         Tubi
 

Freeheld
2007 Documentary Short

This documentary is about Laurel Hester, a homosexual police officer with terminal lung cancer. She wants to give her pension to her life-partner, Stacie, but is denied this right by her elected officials—the Ocean County Freeholders. The documentary follows Hester until the very end as she battles with both cancer and justice.

“This was the film pitched to us in a kitchen at a party. We went with it, and it ended up winning an Oscar! It’s a little bit like investing—if your first investment is a success, you go down that path further and that certainly was the case with this film. It was also successful in terms of impact, showing how this conservative township came around to the idea that partners should be given rights. It was later made into a narrative feature that came out in 2015, starring Julianne Moore, Elliot Page, and Steve Carell.”

Awards
9 wins, including an Oscar

Available on
Tubi

This article appeared in the 2025 issue of Exchange magazine.