AUGUST 23, 2021
by Diego Fernandez, Aaryn Richard
The Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Michigan State University announces its 2021–2022 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence lineup. In addition to four returning EIRs, nine accomplished Spartan entrepreneurs will be joining the program’s ranks, growing this year’s cohort to thirteen.
Entrepreneurs-in-Residence serve as mentors and coaches, working closely with student venturers participating in the Burgess Institute’s venture creation program. This year’s cohort brings with them expertise, insights, and a network that will fuel student success and assist them in bringing to life their go-to-market strategies.
Nine New EIRs Join the Burgess Institute’s 2021-2022 Cohort
The Burgess Institute announced the formation of the EIR program in 2020, welcoming Jasmene Bowdry (B.S. Fashion Merchandising, '05), Curtis Daniel III (B.S. Psychology, '95), Stacey Marsh (B.A. Marketing, '86), John Rood (B.A. International Relations and Political Theory, '05), and Jim Wirth (B.A. Accounting and Information Systems, '89). The program’s success has led to its growth. Joining the team for 2021–2022 are:
Jeff Ellman
Jeff Ellman (B.A., Sales and Marketing, '00) has dedicated his career to helping people through life’s transitions. Ellman is co-founder of Urbanbound, a web-based application built to help people move to a new city, and Hireology, a technology platform that gives companies a structured hiring process. Ellman also co-founded Homescout, a residential real estate company that has since been sold to Coldwell Banker. In addition to the companies Ellman has co-founded, he serves as a board member, advisor, and mentor to various companies and organizations.
Kelly Ford
Kelly Ford (B.A., Communications, '94) is a tech industry executive turned general partner at Edison Partners, a growth equity firm focused on technology-enabled solutions in fintech, enterprise software, and healthcare IT sectors. Having never held a role that someone held before her, she is a veteran of high-growth emerging and established tech companies. In addition to investing in fintech companies, Kelly is the pioneer of the firm’s Edison Edge value-added services platform focused on building and accelerating enterprise value for portfolio companies through operating excellence.
Melissa "MACK" Mackey
Melissa “MACK” Mackey (B.A. Advertising, '04) is the founder and CEO of LU Management, a firm that helps professional athletes in their pursuit of entrepreneurship and venture capital, empowering them with a championship mentality in business. MACK was previously the founder and head of the Verizon Innovation Garage, where she led global open innovation, startup evaluation, and partnership strategy. She's also known for strategically driving many first-in-pharma branded digital marketing initiatives and for founding the first holistic health management platform for heart failure patients and caregivers. MACK advises several early-stage startups and is on the advisory board for the Michigan State University Foundation.
Mike Miller
Mike Miller (B.S. Physics, '99) is a Ph.D. Physicist and an early leader in cloud computing, helping to bring cloud technologies to Fortune 500 enterprises. In 2008, he co-founded Cloudant, a cloud database used for web, mobile, and serverless applications, which was acquired by IBM in 2014. Miller, who has over one hundred scientific publications, currently enjoys his role as a founding partner at Liquid 2 Ventures, an early-stage investment fund that finds opportunities across all platforms.
Josh Ogundu
Joshua Ogundu (B.A. Economics, '15) is product operations lead at TikTok, the world’s leading destination for short-form mobile videos. Ogundu’s work led to the release of TikTok’s photosensitive epilepsy feature warning and toggle as well as TikTok’s age verification for their Creator Fund. He has utilized his past experiences with his startup LykeMe, an identity- and interest-based social network, to become both an advisor for CLLCTVE as well as a mentor for Techstars’s L.A. Cohort. A problem-solver by nature, Ogundu continues to solve problems for one of the biggest companies in the world to some of the smallest.
James Pita
James Pita (B.S. Computer Science,'07) is a Ph.D. in Computer Science, an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor who has worked on and invested in AI-based solutions across industries. In 2013, he co-founded Avata Intelligence, an AI services company that was acquired by Procore Technologies in 2020. Pita's other notable accomplishments include numerous scientific publications, helping pioneer the field of security games, working as an Operations Researcher for RAND Corporation, and over a decade of experience working on AI applications for defense including the United States (US) Coast Guard, US Transportation Security Administration, and US Federal Air Marshal Service. He continues to work at Procore Technologies as a Principal Machine Learning Engineer and is an active angel investor.
Sheela Sethuraman
Sheela Sethuraman (M.A. Education Technology, '97) is the founder and CEO of CueThink, an application focused on improving math problem-solving and collaboration skills. She has over twenty years of experience building and implementing educational technology solutions in classrooms. Sheela was Project Director at Pearson Education, Director of Technology at CAST, and has been a member of various consortiums centered around education technology.
Amy Smith
Amy Smith (B.S. Kinesiology and Exercise Science, '97) is SVP of PMO at Techstars, a global seed investment platform that drives innovation. Before joining Techstars, she led product management at ZOLL Data Systems, where she carved her path as a results-focused leader with a proven track record of successfully releasing products to the market and driving growth. Smith is an expert at positioning technology companies to be prosperous in highly competitive markets.
Jun Wang
Jun Wang (M.S. Industrial Mathematics, '04) is a seasoned Silicon Valley tech executive. He recently built and led a global org of software engineers, data scientists, and technical program managers for a top social media company. Before this, he ran product management and data science at a venture-funded startup in the fin-tech space. He has previously spent 5 years managing Google’s analytics and data science teams in Google Maps, Adwords, and Google Payment. He started his career in risk management at HSBC after getting his master's degree in Industrial Math at MSU. Jun is a startup advisor, angel investor, and board member in his spare time, helping startups in various stages on business strategy, product management, and technical topics around big data and machine learning.
Bringing Value to Generation Will.
At the start of the semester, each EIR is matched with multiple student founders who have been accepted into both the Discovery and Launch venture creation programs. Each EIR is empowered to work with their assigned students across the academic year, helping them build their ventures toward market readiness.
The Burgess Institute’s venture creation program, open to all MSU students, advances venturers through two phases: Discovery & Launch. Discovery presents students with the opportunity to build a business plan through researching, testing, and strategic planning. Once student teams reach their tailored milestones within Discovery and are ready to take their company to market, they can apply for admission into Launch. The application process requires student venturers to pitch their startups to Burgess Institute EIRs, who, together with program advisors, decide if teams are ready to move forward.
Lori Fischer, the Burgess Institute’s director of operations, has worked with countless students throughout their venture creation journeys.
“EIRs are an essential feature of our venture creation process,” said Fischer. “They are chosen based on their areas of expertise and deep connections within their respective industries. Students receive world-class mentorship and build their professional networks well before graduating."
Fischer went on to say, “I’m really excited about the thirteen alumni in our 2021–2022 cohort and the additional help our students are going to receive. Student success is our top priority.”
EIRs are matched with students with similar backgrounds, interests, and industries, enhancing the student experience.
Christopher Sell, the Burgess Institute’s director of alumni and entrepreneur engagement, has made diversity a top priority when choosing this group of professionals. Alumni in consideration for this critically important role were chosen based on their respective industries, professional accomplishments, geographic connectivity, and emerging or continued interest in supporting entrepreneurship education at MSU.
“It’s important to have this group of professionals mirror the diversity we see on Michigan State’s campus and the community across our venture creation and academic programs. We want to make sure we bring forward a group of alumni who collectively represent the best of Spartan Nation in an authentic way.”
Last year, the pandemic posed challenges to the operational logistics of the EIR program. “We needed to ensure the safety of both our EIRs and our student ventures, while also providing them value,” said Paul Jaques, the Burgess Institute’s co-managing director for venture creation. “We capitalized on ‘the new normal,’ allowing us to promote deeper relationships between EIR and student through virtual feedback sessions and one-on-one mentoring sessions. By doing this, we’ve opened the EIR program to alumni across the country."
This year, EIRs and student venturers will continue to leverage the newfound power of the virtual space. According to Sell, “we are anticipating that the experience will be mostly virtual this coming year and that’s not a bad thing. In many ways, the geographic barriers have been removed and it allows us to engage with alumni from Silicon Valley to Boston to Chicago, and everywhere in between."
Much of the Burgess Institute’s programming will be in a hybrid format during the 2021–2022 academic year, offering the opportunity for local and visiting EIRs to safely engage with students and the campus community.
Sheela Sethuraman, CEO and founder of Cuethink, expressed her excitement to give back to MSU students in a new and unique way. “I’m particularly looking forward to doing more with female entrepreneurs of color because of my personal experience.” Sethuraman, a veteran in the EdTech space, reflects on her own entrepreneurial journey, “I think there’s a big need for motivating young entrepreneurs. It’s really all about boosting confidence—the thing that took me so long to figure out.”
The Burgess Institute continues to spearhead entrepreneurship and innovation in the academic space. Since last year’s inception of the EIR program, its goal has been to provide student venturers with a strong foundation of mentorship and collaboration with experts. The growth of the program over just one year will set the 2021–2022 EIR Cohort on a trajectory to further drive student success.