Even as he felt the heat following his appointment as chairman of Connecticut Innovations Inc., Edward Bowman Jr. was quietly conducting interviews to hire a president to lead the state-backed investment fund.
In early August, Gov. M. Jodi Rell appointed the Southbury resident to replace Elaine Pullen, the former Gerber Scientific chief technology officer who chaired Connecticut Innovations for two years.
Based in Rocky Hill, Connecticut Innovations makes investments in startup companies and emerging technologies to spur economic development. The organization has been without a permanent president since Wilton resident Frank Dinucci resigned in April after a half-year on the job.
Whereas Pullen has extensive experience in technology-based economic development, having chaired the Connecticut Technology Council and the Governor”™s Council on Economic Competitiveness, Bowman”™s experience is largely in the home heating oil industry as a director of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association, and a onetime owner of Village Oil Co. of Cheshire.
Bowman and Fairfield resident Christopher Carr are readying a plant in Cheshire to mix a more environmentally benign home heating oil.
In a prepared statement, Rell said Bowman”™s energy background would help Connecticut Innovations as it invests in energy technologies via its Clean Energy Fund, a big part of its focus these days.
No less central is Connecticut Innovations”™ original mission from its 1989 charter ”“ spurring the creation of high-tech jobs through small investments in startup companies. Before he left, Dinucci was lobbying for $25 million in state bond funding which, coupled with up to $75 million more from private investors, Connecticut Innovations hopes would allow it to invest in more companies.
Bowman is involved in final interviews to identify a new president to renew the fundraising process in September; said Emily Smith, chief of staff and spokeswoman of Connecticut Innovations.
Matthew Nemerson, president of the Connecticut Technology Council whose members are high-tech companies, met with Bowman last week and supports the idea of an entrepreneurial chairman comfortable in political circles paired with a hands-on president experienced in technology and investment sectors.
“Connecticut Innovations, as an institution, has been forced to talk about what a fabulous job it has done at investing, which is great except the private sector is pretty good about picking investments,” Nemerson said. “What we are hoping is that people like Ned can make the case that CI needs to be swinging at more ”˜bad pitches”™ ”“ earlier stage (companies that are) more experimental; companies that have been turned down for funding in Boston or New York and come here for synergies with the aerospace industry or others.”
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That culture permeates technology sectors in Boston and Silicon Valley, he added, where policymakers see startup failures as grooming teams for future successes.
It is not the first time Connecticut Innovations has reached outside the high-tech and venture capital industries for leadership. After previous Executive Director Victor Budnick departed in 2005 to become a partner at Avon-based Ironwood Capital L.L.C., the Pullen-led board hired as president Bank of America Corp. executive Chandler Howard, who spent his career in retail and commercial banking.
Leaving Connecticut Innovations after just months, Howard now runs a New Haven organization that provides housing funds.
By pairing Pullen and Dinucci, an investment banker experienced in the high-tech sector with New Canaan-based Forest Street Capital L.L.C., Connecticut Innovations thought it had an experienced team to establish a new fund. Instead, it is searching for new leadership once more.
“Clearly hiring a strong executive to run it (Connecticut Innovations) is critical,” said Joe Brennan, senior vice president of public policy for the Hartford-based Connecticut Business & Industry Association. “Vic was a tremendous asset ”“ he has a very personal style but really understood finance and technology.”
If Bowman”™s resume is comparatively thin in the sector, to be fair so is that of much of Connecticut Innovations”™ board, which is purposefully varied to provide a range of views and contacts.
As Bowman interviews candidates this week to lead Connecticut Innovations as president, he need only look to the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT) in East Hartford for inspiration.
After critics carped about CCAT”™s hiring of Elliot Ginsberg, a former chief of staff of U.S. Rep. John Larson with little technology experience, Ginsberg recorded a coup by recruiting the U.S. Air Force”™s former ranking supply general to guide CCAT”™s work in improving aerospace supplier capabilities in Connecticut.
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