San Diego’s Connect Begins Search for New Innovation Leader

San Diego landmark, Coronado Bridge, San Diego Bay

an annual operating plan to advance San Diego’s entrepreneur-driven innovation economy while keeping the nonprofit in good financial health.

In the statement from Connect, chairman Paul Laikind said, “With a strong foundation and legacy in place, the next-generation leader has an opportunity to make a significant impact in the San Diego economy and community.”

The criteria Connect is seeking in its next leader include:

—A track record of at least 10 to 15 years showing progressive entrepreneurial leadership in the high tech or life science industries with verifiable funding and business success.

—Experience as a life science or high tech CEO, COO, or general manager is highly desirable.

—Highly self-motivated, proactive leader with strong influence, advocacy, persuasion and negotiation skills.

—Proven success as a fund-raiser and “Chief Sales Officer.”

—Exceptional leadership skills working collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders, partners, boards, and teams, effectively communicating opportunities and strategies; obtaining input and consensus; assessment and implementation of new business and partner relationships.

—Experience, networks, and a full comprehension of the ecosystem surrounding early stage company formation.

“We’re encouraging our board and our business members to reach out to people and send them our way if they might be interested,” Orion said. “We’re looking for somebody very special.”

For the time being, Orion said Connect plans to look first in the greater San Diego region. “If we can’t find somebody in a reasonable amount of time, then we might expand our search beyond San Diego.”

Qualified candidates are encouraged to contact Melissa Garchie at 858-964-1300 or [email protected]

 

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.