Harvard University has named a new managing director for its Innovation Lab to succeed outgoing head Gordon Jones, who is leaving in June. She is Jodi Goldstein, and her appointment is no surprise to the i-lab—or the innovation community.
Goldstein has been with the Harvard Innovation Lab since its start in 2011. She has served as the lab’s director with Jones, working with entrepreneurs and running programs such as the recently opened Launch Lab, a business incubator space for Harvard alumni housed next to the i-lab proper.
I’ve reached out to Goldstein for comments on her plans for the lab, and will post an update after we talk.
Prior to joining the i-lab, Goldstein co-founded Drync, which makes a consumer mobile app for wine aficionados, and went through the MassChallenge accelerator program. Before that, she worked at General Electric and a number of venture-backed startups, including iMarket, Planetall, Send.com, and Mobicious. She also has venture capital experience from TA Associates, where she focused on retail and consumer products.
She’s an alumnus of Harvard Business School and the University of Vermont, so she seems like a New Englander through and through.
Meanwhile, the i-lab has become an institution that incubates about 200 new ventures a year, in addition to hosting a wide range of events and being a gathering place for students, entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors. A few examples of startups that have been housed there: BevSpot, Bounce Imaging, Nucleik, Philo, PollVaultr, Pushpins, Quorum, RapidSOS, and Vaxess Technologies.
