Editor's note: This article is part of a weekly series profiling local Black leaders during Black History Month. For this series, we also spoke with Ryan Bridgeman, William Summers V and Tiffany Benjamin.
Monique Quarterman cannot give an exact number on the mileage that she adds up on a weekly or monthly basis throughout the commonwealth.
As the executive director of KY Innovation, Quarterman visits about three cities a week to meet with founders, innovation hubs and other key members that make the state’s entrepreneurial ecosystem continue to grow.
And that’s not counting the mileage that she is accumulating from her home in Louisville to her office in Frankfort — all with a bunch of photos on her phone of her adventures along the way.
“I probably travel more than I should … Really every corner of our state has something to enjoy, and the nature of the people is absolutely wonderful,” said Quarterman, who has been in her role since April 2022, replacing Anthony Ellis. “I’ve really appreciated this job because it has allowed me to work even closer to the folks who I know are creating impact across the state — and I respect that so much being from Kentucky. It has really been a blessing to be able to do.”
It should be noted that she has served as the executive director of entrepreneurship and innovation with the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development since October 2022 after being in other roles in the cabinet since joining KY Innovation.
Listing all the organizations, boards and other efforts that she has been on since entering the ecosystem would be a tedious task.
To get a better idea of Quarterman, though, is to get a better idea of her network, composed of people throughout Kentucky — including those who have played a mentoring role in her career.
“She always reminded me of the kid in class who was always one step ahead of her teachers, who always came with pencils sharpened, lunch in book bag, and was ready to learn. She has an amazing gift for curiosity and learning,” said Nat Irvin II, the assistant dean for thought leadership and civic engagement at the University of Louisville College of Business, after meeting her about a decade ago.
“She’s a fiercely proud Kentuckian,” said Grace Simrall, chief of civic innovation and technology at Louisville Metro Government, who met Quarterman in 2016.
“She is humble and quick to elevate others,” said Tendai Charasika, chief strategy officer at Saling Wealth Advisors, who met Quarterman about a decade ago while working at Greater Louisville Inc.’s EnterpriseCorp.
“My first impressions were that she was kind, very intelligent, and she had a lot of innovative ideas — just like today,” said Taunya Phillips, the director of the University of Kentucky’s Office of Technology Commercialization, who has known Quarterman for 12 years.
At the start
The daughter of a U.S. Army veteran, Quarterman grew up in Radcliff, Kentucky, located just south of Fort Knox where her father was stationed.
While in school, she said she did not realize her interest in innovation — or thought of herself as being “STEM-oriented,” for that matter — until she got involved with the National FFA Organization (aka Future Farmers of America) chapter at her high school. Before long, she was earning statewide awards and being nominated as chapter president. She also recalled going to Washington D.C., as part of the FFA’s leadership program.
She would go onto attend the University of Louisville, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and government in 2012, before enrolling in the MBA program.
At the same time she started graduate school, she began working part-time at the university’s Office of Technology Transfer, making, she recalled, $11 an hour as an innovation project manager. Within a year, she had been promoted to a full-time role. Within three years, she was writing, leading, and managing multimillion dollar projects, while creating new partnerships between UofL and federal agencies.
“It gave me vision to keep track of what’s going on in entrepreneurial space,” Quarterman said. “But it also gave me visibility into the really cool innovative ideas that are coming from academia.”
On her way to KY Innovation, she became a founder in 2017 with Quartz Smith Strategies. The startup allowed her to make a name for herself through her involvement with many community-access-focused projects for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
“I want to be in the room,” she said of her statewide travels. “I want to celebrate those entrepreneurs in real time, because I can relate to how hard it is to be an entrepreneur, but how rewarding it is as well.”
Quarterman realized, though, that she wanted to serve the state, not just individual clients.
The ideal outlet to do that came to the surface in 2020 with the formation of the Kentucky Commercialization Ventures, which expanded access to technology transfer resources to all the state’s 24 public colleges and universities. Quarterman went to become KCV’s first executive director before being replaced by Kayla Meisner when she accepted the job at KY Innovation in 2022.
There’s more from Quarterman in the Q&A below:
Do you have any siblings? An older brother, Randy. He is Captain America. He followed my dad’s footsteps in the army. He served in Afghanistan, came back and got a Homeland Security degree. Now he’s on the police squad in Portland, Oregon.
What is your favorite piece of advice that you have heard — and who said it? I have to give that credit to my mother. One of them is “Be kind to everyone.” I completely believe in kindness, and the productivity and achievement that you can get out of being kind. The part that I struggle with is sometimes she tells me that “Rest is part of the work.” In order to give our best selves and come with our A-game, we have to give ourselves the patience to rest.
What advice would you give to a future Monique? Don’t settle. There is a change that is coming to the economy of the U.S. and the world. The business world of yesterday is not the business world of today. If you want to grow your career in a way that is aligned with your passions, and if that career does not already exist, pave that way. Give yourself some grace to be creative and build what you want.
What is one of your biggest goals for 2023? One that is very program-specific is our state trade expansion program, also called the STEP program. This is this helping small businesses to export their products overseas. We are actively hunting for Kentucky companies that may be selling locally here in the U. S. that could benefit from selling abroad.
Title: Executive director, KY Innovation; executive director of entrepreneurship and innovation, Kentucky Economic Development
Age: 34
Hometown: Radcliff, Kentucky
Lives: Louisville
Career history: Executive director, Kentucky Commercialization Ventures, 2020-22; founder, Quartz Smith Strategies, 2017-20.
Education: Bachelor’s degree, University of Louisville, 2012; MBA, UofL, 2014
Family: Husband, Kurt
Hobbies: Video games, cooking
