The leadership of KY Innovation, a part of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, is changing hands next month.
Attorney Anthony Ellis has served as both executive director of the statewide entrepreneur support organization and general counsel for the Cabinet for the past two years. He is departing to become general counsel for Louisville-based V-Soft Consulting Group Inc.
Monique Quarterman will become the deputy executive director of KY Innovation on April 1. She most recently served as the first executive director of Kentucky Commercialization Ventures (KCV).
In an interview Friday, Ellis said he's proud of the progress Kentucky's innovation ecosystem has made in the midst of the global pandemic. The statewide entrepreneur community, which previously was siloed, virtually came together to collaborate and communicate, he said.
"There were new organizations that weren't used to working together, and seeing them working through Covid-19 and rise to the challenge, was something I was really excited about," he said,
During Ellis' tenure, KY Innovation was able to help increase the visibility and the amount of venture capital Kentucky was investing in its startups through Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. (KSTC) and Commonwealth Seed Capital from $1.5 million a year to $4.5 million. It also helped bring back the state's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Matching Funds Program, which awarded $900,000 to nine Kentucky companies in February.
Additionally, the organization had a hand in launching KCV — a state-funded consortium made up of KY Innovation, University of Louisville, the University of Kentucky and KSTC — in September 2020. Ellis said he first met Quarterman when he was just three to four weeks in to his time as executive director and he was incredibly impressed by her.
"I think Monique has all the skills to be a success in that position," Ellis said, noting that she is well aware of the opportunities and challenges ahead. "She's always thinking about strategy and the opportunities around innovation and entrepreneurial support. So I think she'll be a great face for the organization."
Ellis said he wasn't necessarily thinking about his exit, but when the V-Soft job presented itself, he couldn't turn away.
"I really loved my job at KY Innovation, but when the opportunity arose, I went and talked to my wife about it and it seemed like the perfect fit," he said. "V-Soft is a rapidly growing company. They've got a great culture around them. Everybody that I met on the leadership team, I immediately loved and really respected their vision."
In her time with KCV, Quarterman and her team of worked with Kentucky's 24 public colleges and universities to provide commercialization and intellectual property services, and collaborated with other entrepreneurial support organizations to connect innovators with additional resources and opportunities across the commonwealth.
Alongside KSTC and UK, KCV aided in the launch the Kentucky Intellectual Property Alliance last year. It also started its own innovation fellowship program to develop the next generation of ecosystem builders, which just named its first 10 participants a few weeks ago.
Quarterman, a UofL graduate and a former UofL commercialization project manager, said she wants to be a testimony to other Kentuckians to show that they can also achieve success in entrepreneurship and innovation.
"To have an opportunity to turn around and serve in a role that allows me to extend more opportunities to more Kentuckians is thrilling to me," Quarterman said. "Kentucky has the right recipe. We have incredibly hardworking people, brilliant people, students, entrepreneurs in every corner of our state that are just looking for that opportunity to really give back to the state in a way that is meaningful and reflective of their communities."
