Jill Van Beke takes on expanded duties at LaunchTN, organization names new Director of Capital Formation
Knoxvillian Jill Van Beke has assumed some added responsibilities at Launch Tennessee.
Formerly the non-profit’s Director of Innovation and Commercialization, she has now assumed the position of Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation with expanded responsibilities. In that role, Van Beke will be managing LaunchTN’s work with the statewide network of entrepreneur centers that it helps fund as well as leading other programming geared toward helping entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.
Her new title reflects a splitting of the duties held by Jason Denenberg, a former Knoxvillian who led LaunchTN’s activities in both entrepreneurship and capital formation. As previously reported in this teknovation.biz post, Denenberg left in July to devote full-time attention to NourishWise, his healthy eating start-up.
LaunchTN will also add a new face to the team to take on Denenberg’s other duties. John Lanahan, previously Senior Associate with LaunchCapital in New York City, assumes a newly titled position – Director of Capital Formation. In announcing the latter appointment, Charlie Brock, President and Chief Executive Officer of Launch Tennessee, noted that Lanaham had attended the last two “36|86 Conferences” and was also integral in supporting the annual trip by “The TENN” cohort to New York City.
“John’s experience working with entrepreneurs and his investor connections throughout the country will further our efforts to make Tennessee the best state in the Southeast for start-ups,” Brock said. “I am thrilled to add him to the team as well as to further expand Jill Van Beke’s responsibilities. Jill has been integral to our successes at LaunchTN over the past several years and will lead our efforts to create a world class network of entrepreneur centers across the state.”
We connected with Van Beke late yesterday, and she was obviously pleased with the new responsibilities.
“I am very excited to step into this role and work more closely with our entrepreneur centers across the state, helping to increase successes and visibility for this amazing network,” she said.
