Meet Olga and Stephen: FORGE's New Executives in Residence!
Today, we'd like to announce our first two Executives in Residence, Olga Bartnicki and Stephen Fleming.
The Executives in Residence (XiR) will provide vital support to the FORGE entrepreneurs.
They will support the founders by:
- Assisting with the startup gap assessment & development plan process.
- Consulting on governance, leadership, advisors, professional services, and other topics of relevance to a startup company.
- Supporting startup efforts to develop go-to-market, operations and financial plans including access to appropriate resources.
- Assisting with coordination and communication of all ongoing projects including project tracking for FORGE startup activities.
- Leveraging FORGE and professional network to improve startup’s chances of success.
Olga Bartnicki
As an XiR, Olga will apply her vast experience as a four-time founder and as the current Managing Director of the NY Barclays (FinTech) Accelerator, powered by Techstars to assist the FORGE startups as they scale their companies.
Olga said: "Turning ideas into businesses is a passion that I formed in my early childhood. My father was a gifted inventor, however, none of his patents were ever turned into products. Frustrated to know that some break-through innovations would only ever live on paper, I became driven by making ideas real, turning innovation into reality."
During her early career, Olga launched new ventures at a large media conglomerate, invested in startups as an investment banker at Allen&Co, and ideated and launched new products as a strategy consultant for Merck, Reuters, and Thompson.
Olga then jumped into the trenches of the startup battlefield and her successes and failures as an entrepreneur gave her important first-hand experience in four verticals (healthcare, entertainment, e-commerce, and enterprise SaaS) and five business models (retail, subscription, 2-sided marketplace, revenue share, and licensing fees). After two failures, I built two companies with successful exits to Oracle and to Bessemer Ventures.
Olga has earned a Master of Sciences degree from the University of Colorado and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Stephen Fleming
In the XiR role, Stephen will apply his experience with startups, large corporations, and academia to help UArizona students, community entrepreneurs, and corporate members of FORGE.
Stephen will help us develop partnerships to collaborate on research and development, commercialize new technology via Tech Launch Arizona, and provide students with opportunities for experiential learning and employment.
Most recently, Stephen served the University of Arizona as Vice President, Strategic Business Initiatives, where he built a team to connect corporate America to the university's $700M/year of sponsored research. Previously, he led the economic development group at Georgia Tech, including the nation's oldest and largest university-based business incubator, where he played a leading role in establishing the National Science Foundation I-Corps program. Earlier, he was general partner of an early-stage venture capital firm, a senior leader in multiple startups, and an engineering manager in a Fortune 500 corporation. He started his career as a bench scientist at AT&T Bell Labs.
Join us in welcoming Olga and Stephen to the FORGE team!
We couldn't be more thrilled about the team we have to deliver entrepreneurial programming both to campus and the community to help Tucson entrepreneurs thrive.