The Venture Forum: Recent Episodes
Mark Reed-Edwards
The Venture Forum, hosted by Executive Director Mark Reed-Edwards, is dedicated to connecting entrepreneurs with the ingredients they need to bring their ideas to life while growing, thriving, and staying in Central Massachusetts. Mark asks a different entrepreneur every week to share their tale about their journey and what makes Central Massachusetts special. Prior to launching his own firm in 2010, Mark worked for a number of global technology companies in marketing and communications. Mark started his career in broadcasting—as a producer and writer for legendary media figure Dick Clark at a New York-based radio network and running leading radio stations in New York state.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Rachel Kemp, Vice-President with Pickwick Capital Partners focused on Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) within the Cybersecurity, Defense and FinTech markets. Rachel’s capital raising activities leverage resources within the alternative asset financing, private equity, venture capital and family office investment arenas for companies in the lower middle market.
This week, we continue our discussion with Dr. Charles Steinberg, president of the Worcester Red Sox--the WooSox. He’s in his 5th year as President of the club, which just moved to Polar Park in Worcester from Pawtucket, after many years as Executive Vice President of the Boston Red Sox. In a vast career in which he has also worked with the Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Commissioner Bud Selig, "Dr. Charles" has helped re-energize the Woosox here in Worcester while leading their effort to aggressively reach out to the community.
This week’s guest, for the first of two episodes on The Venture Forum, is none other than Dr. Charles Steinberg, president of the Worcester Red Sox--the WooSox. He’s in his 5th year as President of the club, which just moved to Polar Park in Worcester from Pawtucket, after many years as Executive Vice President of the Boston Red Sox. In a vast career in which he has also worked with the Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Commissioner Bud Selig, "Dr. Charles" has helped re-energize the Woosox here in Worcester while leading their effort to aggressively reach out to the community.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Ashley Fitzemeyer, community director for eforever--or entrepreneurs forever. Eforever provides entrepreneurs with valuable support and guidance through community-based peer advisory groups. The organization believes that nurturing strong, independent businesses in the heart of the neighborhood is the way to establish generational wealth, stability, and community success.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Charles Luster, Executive Director of 2Gether We Eat, a community-based youth hydroponic farming program. This organization provides food, education, training, and employment using Hydroponics to help fight the food crisis in food deserts across our communities. 2Gether We Eat donates 100% of its fruits and vegetables into the community through food banks and nonprofit organizations. In addition to these partnerships we work with academic institutions and municipalities as well.
On this episode, we feature an excerpt of our discusion from out May 11event titled "The Keys To Getting Venture Funding." Rachel Kemp, Vice President of Pickwick Capital Partners, led the panel as they dug into the common mistakes, the approach you should take, and what distinguishes a great pitch from the run of the mill. Rachel was joined by Kerry Leppo, President of Transcendent Aerospace, Larry Genovesi, CTO of Embue, and Sean Reilly, Managing Principal of Rath Capital Partners.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Lisa Drexhage, senior project manager at WBDC (the Worcester Business Development Corporation). In this role, Lisa crafts and executes complex economic and community development projects. Her passion for enhancing physical space through a user-centric approach is demonstrated through the construction of the Worcester Idea Lab and the Jean McDonough Arts Center located at 20 Franklin Street in downtown Worcester. Lisa was also recognized in 2019 as one of The Worcester Business Journal’s 40 under Forty.
On this episode of The Venture Forum, we’ve got a little change of pace. This week’s guest is Elizabeth Jefferis, executive director of Baypath Humane Society of Hopkinton. It’s one of the organizations that makes this area a great place to live. Liz started volunteering at Baypath in 2010. In 2011, she began working at the shelter as an assistant manager and was promoted to Executive Director in 2014. Liz oversees the operation of the shelter and as a board member, she also works with her fellow board and committee members on development initiatives and strategic planning. As we were talking, she had a snoring dog on her lap.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Paul Silva, General Partner at Launch413 in Western Massachusetts. Launch413 takes startups to their first $10 million in revenue. The organization is made up of serial entrepreneurs and veteran executives dedicated to helping startups become profitable engines of prosperity in the western mass region.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Kerry Leppo, president of Transcendent Aerospace and former partner at Briggs Capital. Previously, Kerry was the founding partner at HomeView and held positions at Kestral Communications. Kerry is also on the TVF Advisory Board and served as a judge on our recent Five-Minute Pitch contest.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Lauren Monroe, President of Technocopia and a founding member on the organization’s Board of Directors. Technocopia is a non-profit makerspace located here in Worcester. The 11,000 sq. ft. facility offers common work space, rental bays, and a variety of tools for artisans to create and work with. They also host training classes and workshops in their complete wood shop, metal shop, 3-D printer station, electronics bay, textile studio, glass flameworking shop, classroom, design studio, and the CNC router and laser cutter shop! Technocopia also provides several project-based learning opportunities for youth.
On this epside of The Venture Forum, we're talking with Kham Inthirath, founder and CEO of Inthink Agency. Kham has more than 20 years in marketing and branding and is also co-host of The Vulnerable Entrepreneurs Podcast. inThink Agency is a hybrid marketing and business consultancy agency based right here in the Worcester area. inThink helps businesses achieve growth through ROI-based marketing, sales and customer success innovation. Kham concentrates on enterprise growth for local to international companies.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Ike McBride, executive director of EforAll in Worcester. Before EforAll, Ike was director of the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester, where he served as a mentor, role model, coach and father figure to thousands of area kids. In his new role, Ike is shepherding one of EforAll’s nine programs around the commonwealth--with a focus on helping underrepresented individuals successfully start businesses utilizing free mentorship, education and networking.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Tyler Scionti, CEO and Founder of Centori, the winner of the 2021 Venture Forum Five-Minute Pitch Contest. Tyler says that Centori is aimed at content marketers who are overwhelmed by bloated tools for search engine optimization--known as SEO. Centori is a simple software platform that provides a proven framework for SEO. Tyler took home the first-ever Joseph P. Vignaly Award, a $5,000 cash prize sponsored by Bowditch Attorneys, a one-hour legal consultation with Bowditch, and a one-on-one session with Paul Silva of Long River Ventures. Later in the show, we talk with Victor Machado, who was Tyler’s TVF mentor.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Scott Graves, founder of SMGraves Associates, which designs and implements business plans with a focus on nuts and bolts economic development. Scott aims to build initiatives that respond to regional needs--targeted to creating a strong sense of place. So he is currently working a lot in the incubator, makerspace and media markets. Scott is very active with The WorcShop, a maker space and business incubator that recently relocated to Rochdale.
This week’s guest on The Venture Forum is Timothy Loew, Executive Director of MassDiGI. Prior to cofounding and starting up MassDiGI, Loew held senior positions in business, development and academic planning at Becker College. He also worked in financial services and as an independent management consultant to clients in the technology sector. The Massachusetts Digital Games Institute--or MassDiGI--is a statewide center, designated by the Commonwealth, for academic cooperation, entrepreneurship and economic development across the Massachusetts digital and video games ecosystem.
My guest on The Venture Forum for this episode is Jon Weaver, president and CEO of MBI--Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, a non-profit business incubator supporting life and health science companies since 1985. Jon first came to Worcester to study at Assumption, and served at COO of MBI for three years before taking over the CEO role. Jon is an example of someone working tirelessly to promote the advantages of Worcester and Central Massachusetts. He is also a member of the Venture Forum executive committee.
My guest on The Venture Forum this time might be a familiar voice in Worcester. David Ginsburg is general manager of WICN. He is a Worcester native, and returned to radio after an 11-year absence when he joined WICN in October of 2018. David has a background in both radio promotions and music programming, earned during a long tenure at 92.9 WBOS in Boston. He transitioned to social media marketing during a stint at a Boston-area media agency before forming his own social media marketing consultancy, Rose Atwater Social. Now, as WICN General Manager, David continues to build on the rich legacy of the station and with the renewed energy of the City of Worcester, something special is happening. So, in my effort to paint the full, rich picture of Worcester, I thought it would make sense to invite David to join me here.
On this edition of The Venture Forum podcast, we're joined by Elaine Vescio, director of entrepreneurship at Worcester State University. Elaine is an entrepreneurial marketing and business development professional with proven B2C and B2B experience. She built Vescio Multisport Performance Services into one of the most recognizable brands in triathlon coaching in New England. At Worcester State, she’s involved with developing the startup ecosystem in Central Massachusetts--developing and implementing a three-year strategic plan for the Center for Entrepreneurship, expanding and increasing fundraising for the entrepreneurship program, and she led an initiative to bring an EforAll location to Greater Worcester, and now serves on the Founding Committee and as Chair of the Advisory Board Programming Subcommittee.
On this edition of The Venture Forum podcast, we're joined by Larry Genovesi--a serial entrepreneur with more than 35 years experience starting and running high-tech companies. Larry has been involved in startups in the networking, storage, high performance computing, and big data analytics markets. His current focus is in the areas like IoT, energy efficiency, and building management--we could have a whole show about those. He currently serves as CTO/VP Engineering at Embue, Inc. As one of Embue’s co-founders, he is responsible for their strategic direction as well as product development. I’m talking to him today in his role as Executive Director and Chairman of the Board of WorcLab a collaborative, diverse and inspiring community where innovators can launch and grow their business. WorcLab is at 44 Portland St. in Worcester--a few floors above WICN--and you can learn more about them at worclab.org (https://worclab.org).
On this edition of The Venture Forum podcast, we’re joined by Jed Burdick, who described himself as a storyteller. He’s executive producer at Votary Films here in Worcester--shooting brand story and feature films, with an aim to tell each story with integrity, authenticity, and create something beautiful. We discuss the origins of Votary Films, what makes Central Massachusetts special, “creative economy,” what it was like building a film studio in Worcester, and where he sees Votary Films going in 2021.
On today’s show, we’re joined by Peter Martino. Peter helps small businesses define their vision, improve accountability, gain consistent traction, and become healthy, functional, and cohesive teams. Today we’ll learn what EOS—or the Entrepreneurial Operating System—which is what he uses to do that, is all about. Plus we’ll find out about Peter’s background, including what it was like to grow up as part of his family's stained glass business.
The first guest on The Venture Forum needs no introduction. But I’ll do one anyway. Tim Murray was a member of the Worcester City Council from 1998 to 2007, was mayor of Worcester from 2002 to 2007, and was the 71st Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2013. Since then, he has served as the president and CEO of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce.