Instructors

AI2V and Venture Lab are led by experienced entrepreneurial educators with proven success coaching and supporting early stage entrepreneurs:

For AI2V: Sharon C. Ballard

Sharon Ballard is president and CEO of EnableVentures, Inc., and former chief executive and founder of Reticular Systems, Inc. Under her leadership, Reticular won more than thirty SBIR Program awards. The company spun out new ventures that were quickly purchased. Reticular's core products are still selling globally. She held management posts in Titan Corporation, Motorola Inc., and LINKABIT Corporation. As the first UCSD CONNECT management fellow, she coached more than sixty early-stage high tech entrepreneurs. She developed the Supercoach™ system and toolset.

Ballard has coached entrepreneurs in Europe and across the US. She is a founding management fellow for Arizona State University's Technopolis Program, focusing on educating, coaching, and networking early-stage entrepreneurs. Ballard has provided key entrepreneurial training for volunteer coaches at the University of Kentucky's Entrepreneurial Coaches Institute. Ballard has coached early stage entrepreneurs to successfully raise venture capital and has worked with many company founders to develop winning SBIR and boot strapping strategies, thereby preserving greater ownership for the company founders.

For Venture Lab: James Barlow

James Barlow has worked in the university entrepreneurship space for seven years and has been commercial advisor or commercial director for sixteen start-ups as well as consulting internationally on start-up strategy, enterprise education and training. Prior to working in higher education, James was a performance coach, motivational speaker and strategy consultant for FTSE-listed companies and also worked in the pharmaceutical industry in sales and sales management. He earned his BSc Honours Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Kent. James is currently the Program Manager for Outreach at NCIIA.