After a busy 2022, New Majority Capital is off and running for 2023. In addition to hitting a $500,000 raise on WeFunder thanks to several Rhode Island-based investors and being featured as an emerging impact manager by ImpactAssets 50, co-founder and CEO Havell Rodrigues announced that the firm welcomed Elizabeth Barno to the team as chief of staff.
Barno previously worked as the director of corporate development at Accion Systems and before that was the first employee and community director of Greentown Labs, the nation’s largest cleantech startup incubator.
Barno hadn't even graduated Northeastern University, she told RI Inno, when she joined Greentown Labs as an intern. At that time, there were a handful of energy-focused hardware startups sharing a space and rent, and the founders were quickly realizing that they needed help running Greentown Labs’ operations at the same time as their own startups, she said.
Barno joined Emily Reichert, who was the incoming executive director of Greentown Labs at that time, and together they "wore all of the hats." Barno started managing general facility operations, event planning, startup support, and whatever needed to be done.
Over the next five years, Greentown Labs became the largest cleantech startup incubator in the United States. There, she worked with over 150 pre-Series B hardware startups on their operational and growth challenges to understand the challenges of early tough-tech hardware startups and developed incubator programs to support that growth. During that time, the incubator grew from 6,000 sq.ft. to over 100,000 sq.ft. over two expansions. Barno was previously awarded BetaBoston’s 25 Under 25, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, and was a finalist for MassTLC’s Emerging Executive of the Year.
"I am incredibly proud that over my time at Greentown Labs, those startups raised over $300 million in funding and hired over 500 employees," she said. "When the incubator programs and support services at Greentown Labs were running well year over year, I started to miss the building piece of working at a small company. I had been following Accion Systems and its founders for some time and the stars aligned when Accion's then-founding CEO, Dr. Natalya Bailey, was looking for someone with my skill set to help her run the non-engineering side of the company."
Barno arrived in Rhode Island in March 2020 for what was supposed to be a couple weeks for a Covid-19 getaway. As the pandemic worsened, she stayed longer and longer, and fell in love with Providence.
"I love all the beautiful things Rhode Island offers to its residents," she said. "After a few months, I decided that I would be staying for good. I have always been drawn to mission-driven organizations and NMC's goals are incredibly near and dear to my heart. As chief of staff, I will be working with the founding team on every aspect of formalizing and scaling New Majority Capital processes. We are revolutionizing access to ETA and I'm excited to expand NMC's reach nationwide.”
Currently, according to Rodrigues, there are 31 BIPOC entrepreneurs going through the New Majority Capital Foundation’s bETA RI program, an exclusive free program for BIPOC individuals sponsored by the Papitto Foundation.
