An executive at seed-stage investment firm Innovation Works Inc. has announced her plans for retirement after spending over two decades serving the organization and the hundreds of startups it has backed.
Terri Glueck's last day as the vice president of communications & community development at the North Side-based firm will be on Jan. 31.
It's a role she's held that, among many things, has primarily worked to help budding businesses build their communications and marketing footprint so they can be better positioned for future successes.
She said learning from startup founders about how this coaching has helped these companies later down the road has remained one of her favorite parts of the job throughout her 20 years in the role.
"It's just been so incredibly gratifying, and I know that I have helped tell Pittsburgh's story, but when I hear from individuals that I helped them tell their own story, or I helped them have the courage to tell their own story, or I helped them do it better, that's just been really gratifying," Glueck said.
Prior to joining nonprofit IW, Glueck worked in the for-profit health care and energy industries. She also previously served as a communications director for a lifesciences startup as well, turning its own successes and pitfalls into educational insights for startups that received funding from IW and or went through one of its startup-building-related programs.
But it was during this time at this startup in the early 2000s that Glueck said a lot of Pittsburgh's tech scene was "mostly just smoke and mirrors."
"It was mostly aspirational," she said. "It was yet to come."
However, Glueck said it's been rewarding to see the local tech scene take shape over the past decade or so and in a way that's led to more of a focus and identification of what role this sector of the economy will play in Pittsburgh's future.
Her work at IW, a firm that has invested over $120 million across 730 companies since 1999, has helped lead to a lot of that success. She expressed joy for being able to bring much of that funding to more diverse and often-under-funded founders as well.
"I had the platform and responsibility to help women and people from non-traditional backgrounds to become part of the local tech community," Glueck said. "It has been extremely gratifying to watch my efforts become accepted practices."
