Think of the criteria for an entrepreneurial leader — it's someone who knows how to dream big, set goals and meet them, right? How about winning medals at two Olympic games, winning a world humanitarian award, earning a degree from a prestigious university when starting a decade late and learning to code from scratch?
That resume was the right fit for the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, who announced Monday that it named Greensboro native Joey Cheek as its new executive vice president for entrepreneurship. He fills the role left empty by Lou Anne Flanders-Stec, who left the chamber in June after seven years to join Guilford College as its senior executive director for innovation and engagement.
Cheek is perhaps best known for winning the gold medal in the men's 500-meter speedskating event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. He also won the silver medal in the 1,000-meters, the same event in which he’d won the bronze medal four years before at Salt Lake City. The 2006 World Sprint Champion, Cheek also won bronze in both the 1,000- and 1,500-meter at the 2003 World Single Distance Championship.
Since hanging up his skates, the Dudley High School alumnus worked as a motivational speaker and on-air sports commentator and has spent the past decade in the tech and startup world building technology for Fortune 100 companies like Slalom, founding a sports blogging website and launching a company.
“Joey brings unique and real-world experience to our entrepreneurship efforts,” Greensboro Chamber President and CEO Brent Christensen said. “As we continue to work with our community’s colleges and universities to keep their incredible talent and technology in Greensboro, we believe Joey’s experience and enthusiasm will elevate our programming and build an infrastructure to support our thriving startup community.”
Olympic champion-turned-founder to help entrepreneurs with billion dollar potential
Starting his own company was challenge comparable to training for world-level athletic competition, Cheek said in a 2011 interview with the Triad Business Journal.
“Starting companies is harder than anything I’ve ever done – including winning the Olympics – and I have the scars to prove it,” Cheek said today. “If the Greensboro Chamber and the programming provided by Launch Greensboro can help aid entrepreneurs on that journey, then we’ve succeeded.”
Cheek said he estimates that there is more than a billion dollars in "untapped startup enterprise value here in Greensboro," and his goal is to build infrastructure to unlock that value.
Launch Greensboro, the entrepreneurial arm of the chamber, is the largest innovation advocacy group in the Triad, according to TBJ research. In 2022, the organization assisted 362 startups and entrepreneurs.
Humanitarian returns to native Greensboro to raise his family
Cheek is also known for being an active philanthropist. He donated his 2006 cash winnings – $40,000 in all – to Rights to Play, a humanitarian group that promotes sports participation for children facing poverty, war, and abuse.
He also co-founded and leads Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness about and brining an end to the crisis in Darfur, Sudan.
The TIME 100 Most Influential honoree, inaugural Heisman Humanitarian Award winner and NC Sports Hall of Fame inductee said he chose to come back to Greensboro with his wife and son in 2021 to raise his family.
“Being back in Greensboro continues to amaze us with the quality of life," he said. "Life here beats Denver, LA, NYC, any of the places we’ve lived before.”
