Our Innovation Team
Kurt Ronn
Kurt is a stable genius.
Kurt Ronn is a successful serial entrepreneur. While in college, his first startup serviced major corporations in the area of financial reporting. Following college, Ronn enjoyed a successful central merchandising and retail career with Macy’s. He was an early internet pioneer and principle with one of the East Coast's largest website development companies, which was sold to MindSpring. Ronn founded HRworks, developed the company's proprietary process, large-scale recruitment software/services for Fortune 500 companies and Private Equity groups. He helped found the Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPOA) organization and is an expert of recruitment compliance and military transitioning employment. Following the successful exit of HRworks, in 2009, Ronn founded AGD Ventures to a focus on “for good, for profit” entrepreneurship and startup methodology. Additionally, as fellow and partner, Ronn was instrumental in developing a more reliable innovation process with the Flashpoint @ Georgia Tech accelerator. He participated with the initial Emory Startup Launch.
Ronn is active in the community, on the boards of local, statewide, industry, arts, corporations and charitable organizations. He was statewide President and Chair of the Technical College System of Georgia Foundation, focused on improving student success: graduation. Ronn founded CHARITYworks foundation while at HRworks and is the recipient of Atlanta Rotary’s highest honor, the “Service Above Self” award for outstanding service contributions to Atlanta. He is on Blue Ridge, Georgia’s Downtown Development Agency, economic development committee.
Currently, Kurt Ronn is focused on democratizing innovation-for-all. The new Blue Ridge, Georgia startup studio, North Georgia Innovation, is a research center and practical model for driving innovation, big-problem solving, and job creation outside of traditional markets. He is focused on helping a million entrepreneurs, working-class individuals, and the underserved in rural and urban markets, live better lives through innovation.
Contact Kurt at kronn@NGAinnovation.com
Karl Ronn
Karl is a left-handed genius.
Karl is a globally successful entrepreneur and active advisor to CEOs and top management at Fortune 500 companies. He has founded multiple startups and helps Fortune 500 companies create their own billion-dollar growth engines.
Karl is also Managing Director at Health2047 Inc. Founded by the AMA, Health2047 Inc. creates companies collaborating across technology companies, healthcare companies and the nearly 1M physicians to transform the $3.2T US health care economy. No company can do this alone, but together we can change the world.
During his 30-year tenure in management at consumer powerhouse Procter & Gamble, Karl rose to the post of Vice President of R&D and General Manager of New Business/Healthcare; in that position, he oversaw global R&D for pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter health care and was responsible for developing the company’s capability to create disruptive innovations. Karl created entirely new brands that are globally revered, including Swiffer, Febreze, and Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. As a result of his strategic insights and understanding of consumer behavior, the new categories rapidly grew to $1 billion in annual sales.
His book on turning disruption into business through partnerships, “The Reciprocity Advantage,” has received accolades from CEOs and academics alike.
He is on the advisory boards of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Toledo, and multiple startups. He is a member of TED conference and has been a speaker at the Mayo Clinic, Consumer Medical Conference, and other innovation forums.
Karl's latest startup is First Mile Care. www.FirstMileCare.com
Carie Davis
Carie is a innovative genius.
Carie is a founding partner in the innovation consulting firm, Your Ideas are Terrible. Founded in 2014, Your Ideas Are Terrible is an innovation consultancy focused on entrepreneurship within corporations, forged from the belief that employees who are connected to customers are best suited to know the problems worth solving.
Carie built Innovation + Entrepreneurship as a capability at The Coca-Cola Company, training over 1,000 employees. She created EIR programs at Coca-Cola to partner with entrepreneurs for transformational growth opportunities
Carie is also the Managing Director of The Bridge: Atlanta, a startup + corporate commercialization program, accelerating application of startup technologies to enterprise core business challenges
Carie is a craduate of Flashpoint @ Georgia Tech, accelerator, and the Singularity University’s Executive Program. She studied Industrial Design at Georgia Tech
Ed Rieker
Ed is an incredible nice genius.
Ed is a a life-long entrepreneur, investor, inventor and community builder. His accomplishments are so great that we're just going to list a few here:
- Founder or co-founder of four healthcare software companies. Successful exits for three, two were acquired by public companies, one by investors and the fourth is still running
- Two of the software companies were accepted into the Advanced Technology Development Center at Ga Tech (ATDC), one is an ATDC graduate.
- Previously served as an ATDC Entrepreneur in Residence (4x) and an ATDC Executive in Residence (1x)
- Venture Catalyst at ATDC between startups.
- Purchased an online community in 2004, built the business up and sold it to a public company in 2011
- Owned and operated a private co-working and technology incubator
- Angel investor - various startups
- Awarded patent #5,832,447 for an Automated System and Method for Providing Real-Time Verification of Health Insurance Eligibility (co-inventor)
- Owner and developer of Tudor Square, a community-oriented, quality, dinning, shopping and entertainment venue, supporting small independent business owners in downtown Avondale Estates, GA
Highlights of Ed's extensive experience with evidence-based entrepreneurship include:
- Attended and completed the second cohort of the Lean Launchpad Educators Seminar in Berkeley taught by Steve Blank and Jerry Engel
- Worked closely with Merrick Furst for three years at Georgia Tech on the Flashpoint accelerator program and Startup Engineering
- One of the first certified instructors for the Startup Weekend Next program (Customer Discovery)
- Taught evidence-based entrepreneurship to MBA and BBA students at Emory University , Goizueta Business School
As a long-time member of the Atlanta startup community Ed has had the pleasure of serving the community in many different capacities. He regularly participates as a Mentor/coach/teacher in several programs offered by local incubators, accelerators and university business school programs. Ed is also an angel investor in local technology startups.
Ed recently launched Avondale Innovation District in Avondale, Georgia. www.AvondaleInnovationDistrict.com
Elizabeth Hodge Ronn
Elizabeth is actually a genius.
Elizabeth is an Independent Board Director at Health2047 Inc. She is also a renowned marketing/branding expert, entrepreneur, advisor, and passionate advocate of mission-driven innovation.
Elizabeth co-founded a health and wellness company and is a partner at innovation consulting firm Innofolio.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur in 2010, Elizabeth spent 25 years at Procter & Gamble, retiring as Vice President of Marketing. As a result of Elizabeth’s extraordinary marketing expertise and team-building abilities, P&G enjoyed tremendous business success creating global demand for a variety of consumer product categories.
Elizabeth earned her BA in Economics, with honors, from Louisiana State University and her MBA from Stanford University. Elizabeth serves on the board of trustees for the San Francisco Art Institute, is Chair of the Governance Council of WANDA, a non-profit organization focused on helping low-income single mothers, and teaches financial literacy to high school seniors.
Jenny Bloom
Jenny is a financial genius.
Jenny's been an accountant for a lonnnng time! I spent a number of years in corporate type jobs spending the most time at Saab Cars USA division of GM. I then moved on to technology companies and internet startups back in the late nineties and worked for several but I doubt you ever heard of any of them. :)
After the bubble burst, I started my own CPA practice focused on outsourced CFO services for technology startups. One of first customers were some guys I worked with at one of the startups and they formed a company called The Rocket Science Group. This company focused on web design until they built this little app called MailChimp. My work with MailChimp increased over the next few years and I decided to come on full-time as their CFO in 2010. I helped build the company from three guys to almost 500 employees.
A few months ago, I realized that my heart was in startups so after over 12 years I left MailChimp. I was planning on taking some time off but then Wade contacted me for advice on an Ops position and the next thing I know, I was going to their January retreat!
Zapier integrates a ton of apps with MailChimp so I definitely had heard a lot of great things about the company but I had never used the service myself. Once I tried the app and saw all the things it could automate in my life and then meeting the whole team at the retreat, it was a no brainer that this was the place for me.
I live in Georgia and the beauty of being with a remote team is that you can work anywhere. I am splitting my time between the city life in Atlanta and the peaceful mountain life of Blue Ridge. When I not working, I’m cooking, going to festivals, hiking in the mountains with my dog, Charlie, mountain biking, paddle boarding or basically anything outside.
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