General Manager, Entrepreneurship - William Lutz

After two years of building and growing VentureLink I moved to the New Jersey Innovation Institute, NJII, during a reorganization and became the General Manager for Entrepreneurship and Commercialization. NJII is a subsidiary non-profit of NJIT so I maintained my Commercialization title and took on the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Office for the university as well.

Some Highlights

Increased licensed commercialization of intellectual property 5x

Spearheaded the creation of NJIT's Venture Fund (venturefund.njit.edu)

Built the Profeta BIPOC Entrepreneur-in-Residence Fellowship

Stuff I'm Proud Of

Helped campaign SOSV to establish their hardtech accelerator, HAX, in Newark

Grew the entrepreneurship and commercialization team to eight FTEs

Brought VentureLink's office occupancy to 93%

More Notes

Created and led a new division catalyzing entrepreneurship across New Jersey, including the VentureLink incubator.

Operated a Carnegie Research Tier 1 University commercialization effort: student and faculty incubators, technology transfer office, and two pre-accelerators. Increased annual faculty entrepreneurial licensing.

Opened up new pathways for local and underserved entrepreneurs to enter the startup ecosystem.