AZ-European Entrepreneurship Awards: Melissa Lamson to Deliver Remarks
- Sacha Francois
- 21 hours ago
- 2 min read
We are pleased to announce that Melissa Lamson, Executive Vice President for Venture Development & Innovation Strategy at Arizona Commerce Authority will be giving remarks at the Arizona European Entrepreneurship Award.
As Executive Vice President for Venture Development & Innovation Strategy, Melissa
Lamson serves Arizona’s startup and venture funding ecosystem by initiating and
executing on strategic projects, programs, and events to ensure innovation in Arizona
thrives. Ms. Lamson is the liaison for the Plug and Play Accelerate AZ program,
facilitates the ACA’s prestigious startup Mentor Program, initiated the Founders
Advisory Forum and Concierge Services for startups. She recently developed a 3-Year
Integrate & Scale Plan with key stakeholders in Arizona’s innovation ecosystem to meet
current founder and funder demands. Ms. Lamson, with her team, is launching a suite of
new programs to support startup launch and growth; Venture Start, Venture Raise, and
Venture Scale, the latter supports our signature grant program, the Arizona Innovation
Challenge (AIC).
Before coming to the ACA, Ms. Lamson ran her own consultancy working with high-
growth companies like SAP, LinkedIn, Coinbase, Zillow, and Space X to build programs,
provide leadership coaching, and develop organizational strategy. During the pandemic,
she started an accelerator for women called RECREATE to launch businesses and at
the end of nine months, three out of twelve women were funded. Merging RECREATE
with Venture Café Phoenix and turning it into the Women Entrepreneur Network (WEN),
Ms. Lamson also joined the VCP team and contributed to global strategy, VIP
programming and secured sponsorships.
Additionally, Ms. Lamson has authored two relevant books, Market Entry into the US (in
German and English) and The New Global Manager: Learning to Manage in a Complex
Business Environment.
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