NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARK. — The Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub (www.arhub.org) announced that Jeff Stinson will be the director of The Silver Mine, which will provide facilities and programs to support entrepreneurs and early-stage ventures in Arkansas.
“We are very pleased that Jeff Stinson will be joining the Innovation Hub to direct The Silver Mine,” said Warwick Sabin, the executive director of the Innovation Hub. “His depth of experience in the public and private sectors, his background in entrepreneurial education, and his continuing role as manager of our state’s largest angel investment fund make him the perfect fit to develop and oversee our business-related programming.”
“I’m honored to be joining the esteemed Innovation Hub team,” Stinson said. “The Launch Pad and Art Connection have paved the way with innovative programs touching thousands of Arkansans, and I’m pleased to be leading entrepreneurial training and development at the Innovation Hub. Warwick and I have planned a number of unique programs which we look forward to unveiling in the coming weeks. In short, it’s a very good time to be a current or prospective entrepreneur in Arkansas.”
Stinson currently is the Director of TechLaunch at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (www.ualr.edu/techlaunch) and he also is the director of the Fund for Arkansas’ Future (www.arkansasfund.com). He will leave UALR but will continue to direct the Fund for Arkansas’ Future in his new role at the Innovation Hub.
Through his role at TechLaunch, Stinson has worked with university researchers to help them protect and commercialize their technologies and inventions, as well as lead other economic development activities on behalf of UALR. At the Fund for Arkansas’s Future — an angel investor fund that focuses on early-stage, Arkansas-based companies — he leads the administration of two funds that have over 100 combined individual investors (representing some of the state’s most distinguished business and community leaders) and investments in over 25 technology-based businesses. Stinson helped to organize and structure the first fund in 2004, and has led the management of both funds since that time.
Stinson earned an MBA with honors from the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University, and since coming to Little Rock in 1999 he has worked extensively in the private equity markets. In 2001, he launched and developed his own successful business advisory practice, representing clients in the retail, real estate, and private equity industries. He began his career in 1990 as a CPA in the Nashville, Tenn. office of a Big-5 public accounting firm, and subsequently was the Director of Marketing for a large, publicly traded health care organization.
His work in the Central Arkansas community includes service as President of the Board of Directors for Youth Home, Inc.; Innovation Hub Board of Directors; Arkansas Motion Picture Institute Board of Directors; Little Rock Sister Cities Commission and Little Rock Sister Cities Foundation Board; Advisory Board for TechPreneur; Arkansas Venture Forum Committee; and volunteer for Easter Seals Arkansas, American Cancer Society, Our House, Vision Little Rock, and the Governor’s Cup student business plan competition. He also is a volunteer speaker for Arkansas Scholars and Volunteers in Public Schools. He is a graduate of Leadership Greater Little Rock, Class XVI, and was a 2006 Arkansas Business “40 Under 40” honoree.
Stinson will officially start in his new position at the Innovation Hub on Sept. 8th. He also will direct a related program for the Innovation Hub that will be announced next month.
The Silver Mine will officially open in early 2016 as an entrepreneurship resource center for co-working, startup acceleration, and other programming to support new and growing business enterprises. Earlier this year, the Innovation Hub received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to complete the development of The Silver Mine at its Innovation Center in the Argenta district of downtown North Little Rock.
Source: The Arkansas Innovation Hub
