Flywheel's Next to Take Over August 1st

I could not be more thrilled to be passing the Flywheel baton to an esteemed veteran of the startup ecosystem, Donna Zaring.

When I discussed retirement with the Flywheel Board early in the year, we recognized we were on a strong path. Having completed the Housing Stabilization Hackathon, we established ourselves as an organization able to be responsive to bringing innovation to community imperatives. The challenge would be to find a leader with the experience and confidence to keep innovating in that direction, while continuing to to grow and improve the Flywheel social enterprise accelerator program. The accelerator has a strong track record helping 54 local social entrepreneurs find their footing. 83% are still in operation, 155 people employed and over $8-Million in revenue. We were delighted Donna was interested and we could not be more pleased she participated in our interview process and stood out for her combination of strategic and hands on expertise.

Donna’s most recent leadership role was as the Director of External Relations and Development at Cintrifuse. While there, in addition to building a strong internal communications and development team, she identified the opportunity to better connect the various organizations involved in the regional startup ecosystem to allow them to coordinate and amplify their impact. I always looked forward to her monthly StartupCincy meetings which were full of energy and great information.

Donna has been a friend of Flywheel for many years. During my entire tenure, she was a generous colleague at Union Hall. She often shared resources, connections, and experience that made Flywheel stronger or more efficient. She understood our special niche in the ecosystem and was one of our best advocates.

Flywheel Board Chair Rebecca Riegelsberger said, “Donna had great questions for us as a board about our goals and where we saw Flywheel’s best opportunities. The way we she shared her vision for growth and the depth of her experience in collaborative leadership made her a clear choice.”

Donna will begin August 1st. With a small organization like Flywheel, it takes a minute to do a proper handoff so I will remain with the organization in a part-time capacity will we get everything changed over.

I have loved my time with Flywheel. There are so many entrepreneurs in our community committed to using innovation to make us a more equitable and sustainable place to live, work and play. I am so glad to have Donna take over. I know she will love and nurture Flywheel and with Samuel Baker running programming, we will have a winner combination for years to come.

Sincerely,

Laura Tepe Randall