The new CEO of a statewide organization aimed at fueling startups is one of its own.
The board of Launch Tennessee on Tuesday named Lindsey Cox as the new full-time leader of the Nashville-based nonprofit, which supports startups and entrepreneurs in Tennessee and is funded almost entirely by state taxpayers. Cox previously worked at LaunchTN for six years.
A key juncture
Cox is rejoining LaunchTN at a potentially pivotal time.
She will be LaunchTN's fourth CEO in four years. Most recently, turnover and internal turmoil spurred board chairman Bob Rolfe, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, to seek the resignation of then-CEO Van Tucker in August 2021. LaunchTN has been led by interim CEO Abby Trotter since then.
LaunchTN works to spark business creation across the state. Its 3686 conference attracts investors from around the nation. It invests directly in companies and provides grants to regional entrepreneur centers, including the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. It regularly aids Memphis-based startups; and recently, it's given matching state grants to fledgling local businesses like NeuroDyne, SEAK Therapeutics, Preteckt, and OculoTherapy.
LaunchTN's checkbook could soon swell a lot larger: The state has proposed allotting $70 million of federal funding to LaunchTN to make equity investments in startups around the state. The plan is pending approval at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
'A change of heart'
Cox worked at LaunchTN from 2013 to 2019, heading its annual 3686 conference in Nashville and most recently serving as LaunchTN's director of operations and government affairs.
Cox left to run a startup-focused program within the U.S. Economic Development Administration. In April 2021, she moved to Chattanooga to lead nonprofit startup accelerator The Company Lab (stylized as CO.LAB).
Cox was one of 12 people LaunchTN named to a search committee that guided the hunt for a new CEO. LaunchTN also hired executive search firm Stanton Chase.
During the March 1 board meeting, board member Alan Bentley said Cox initially indicated to him that she wasn't in a position to seek the job herself, having just recently made the move to Chattanooga.
"She did have a change of heart early on in the process," Bruce Doeg, LaunchTN's vice chairman and head of the search committee, said during the meeting. "We went through our ranks several times as we were doing this search and making sure we were truly asking the talented people within our ecosystem to consider this. … I was interviewing early on with her and you could begin to see she was really thinking long and hard about this. She decided this has indeed been her dream job and this was an appropriate time to throw her hat in the ring."
A majority of board members were present at Tuesday's special-called virtual meeting. The vote for Cox was unanimous. She will receive a salary of $210,000.
"We’ve built this incredible engine. This is the time where we'll step on the gas and see how far it can go," Doeg said.
Timing
Cox's hiring comes on the cusp of LaunchTN's Innovation Week, happening in Nashville March 21-24. It's billed as the "first major gathering of Tennessee’s startups, investors and ecosystem builders since before the pandemic." More than 600 people have registered so far, Trotter said.
Cox will attend Innovation Week and begin transitioning into the CEO role as of April 1, sharing duties with Trotter while wrapping up her work in Chattanooga. Cox will be the full-time LaunchTN CEO by July 1 if not sooner, said Trotter — who also serves as executive director of nonprofit industry group Life Science Tennessee and the BioTN Foundation.
