The Power of Many: Shared Leadership at the ESHIP Alliance
A look at how we share leadership—and an invitation to join the Leadership Council. Self-nominations due June 18.
By Andy Stoll, Founding Executive Director
Executive Director Update
June 12, 2025
From the beginning, the ESHIP Alliance has been shaped and strengthened by the collective leadership of literally thousands of people who have given their time, wisdom, and energy to advancing entrepreneurial ecosystem building in the United States.
Our belief in shared leadership isn’t just a guiding principle—it’s a practical strategy for driving long-term systems change, building trust, and centering the voices of those closest to the work.
As the ESHIP Alliance continues to grow, shared leadership remains at the heart of how we operate. Our network is not led by a single individual or a traditional board of directors, but through leadership shared across a community of ecosystem building practitioners, national resource providers, funders, and staff and volunteers, working interdependently to advance the field together.
Shared leadership allows us to tap into the collective knowledge of the field, ensures that multiple perspectives shape our direction, and builds the relationships necessary for a resilient, equitable, and truly collaborative field (see ESHIP Goal 2).
Why Shared Leadership Matters
In a complex and rapidly changing world, no single person or institution holds all the answers. That’s why shared leadership is not only a value of the ESHIP Alliance—it’s a necessity.
Distributing leadership across a large diverse group of people — well not the easiest path — makes us more equipped to navigate uncertainty, adapt to changing contexts, and elevate a broader range of experiences and expertise. Our strength lies in that diversity of perspectives and many hands working together over time.
Shared leadership helps break down silos, build collaborations, and ensures decisions reflect the lived realities of the communities we aim to serve. It creates space for new collaborations and helps the network quickly respond to new opportunities and challenges. When we lead together, we unlock more creative solutions and foster long-term resilience in our network and our collective work.
Honoring The Leaders That Helped Us Get Here
The ESHIP Alliance’s story is one of many people stepping into leadership roles since 2016. These individuals have helped make sense of the work at each stage of our journey, shaped priorities, stewarded transitions, and created space for a broad community to co-create this work together. Within this executive director update, I’d like to thank those who have served in more formal leadership roles throughout our journey.
The current ESHIP Alliance Leadership Council and Core Team
ESHIP Alliance Leadership Council and Core Team (2023–present)
The ESHIP Alliance Leadership Council is our guiding advisory body. It helps shape strategy, set shared priorities, steward resources, and uphold the mission, vision and values of our Charter. Volunteer members contribute to big-picture strategic conversations, advise on issues affecting the field, and ensure the voices of both practitioners and resource providers are represented across the Alliance’s work.
Most of the current Council was elected in late 2023 and they reflect a diverse mix of geographies, organizations, and perspectives across the entrepreneurial ecosystem building field.
The Core Team—a smaller working group of volunteers drawn from the Council or appointed into key roles—operates somewhat like a “working board” to support day-to-day decision-making, guiding the staff, executing on key activities, and serves as a bridge between the full Council, staff, and broader network.
Meet the current Council and Core Team members in the collage above and read their bios here.
A special thanks to the inaugural Leadership Council officers: Fay Horwitt (chair), Lomax Campbell (vice-chair) and Melissa Roberts Chapman (treasurer) who served in these transitionary roles from 2024-2025, guiding us in those positions until we relaunched as the ESHIP Alliance.
Amy Beaird and Anika Horn were recently appointed to the Council and Core Team to serve as treasurer and Council liaison receptively.
A photo from the Ecosystem Building Leadership Project Community Convening in Indianapolis in September 2022.
The Ecosystem Building Leadership Project (2021–2023)
The Ecosystem Building Leadership Project (EBLP) was a pivotal two-year initiative designed to imagine and co-create what a coordinating, cross-sector, community-led platform for advancing the field of entrepreneurial ecosystem building could look like.
Led by a Provisional Council of practitioners and supported by hundreds of contributors nationwide, the EBLP co-chairs and Provisional Council led the work that laid the foundation for the field’s shared vision, governance model, strategic priorities, and organizational charter.
This phase was hosted by the International Business Innovation Association (InBIA) led by President & CEO Charles Ross, on behalf of the field and was led by a team of co-chairs and a small staff. Rooted in deep collaboration, experimentation, and co-creation, the EBLP produced the blueprint for what would ultimately become the ESHIP Alliance.
The initial EBLP co-chairs were Charles Ross, Dr. Dell Gines, and Kristin Leutz.
EBLP Provisional Council members included: Charles Ross, Dara Macan, Enoch Elwell, Fay Horwitt, Grace Belangia, Ifeoma Aduba, Jim Woodell (co-chair), José Alvarez, Julie Heath (co-chair), Tarsha Hearns, Tiffany Henry, and the late Pava LaPere.
The staff for the project included: Beth Zimmer, Lindsay Schuenke, and Charlton Cunningham.
A gathering of the first class of ESHIP Goal Champions in 2018 in Denver, Colorado.
ESHIP Goal Champions and Community Activators (2018–2020)
The ESHIP Goal Champions emerged from the Kauffman Foundation’s ESHIP Summits—four annual national gatherings that brought together hundreds of ecosystem building practitioners and supporters to co-create a shared vision for the field.
From these Summits came the ESHIP Goals, a framework for developing ecosystem building as a recognized professional practice. A group of leaders from across the country and beyond—known as the ESHIP Goal Champions—stepped into volunteer roles to organize community efforts around each goal, exploring, refining, and advancing the work needed to achieve them. The Goals Champions played a critical role in laying the groundwork for the field and continue to influence the principles and practices of the ESHIP Alliance today.
This phase was guided by Cecilia Wessinger and Christine Lai, who served as ESHIP Community Activators.
ESHIP Goal Champions included: Hassan Bazzi, Jeff Bennett, Jacqui Dietrich, Carlos Estrada, Mike Fleisch, Katie Gailies, Srijita Ghosh, Tiffany Henry, Anika Horn, Norris Krueger, Mark Lawrence, Tyler LeCompte, Chad Renando, Eric Renz-Whitmore, Maleika Robinson, Katy Stanton, Rob Williams, and Beth Zimmer.
Our Roots At The Kauffman Foundation (2016–2022)
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has played a decades-long role in supporting entrepreneurship and served as a foundational catalyst in launching and stewarding efforts that led to the ESHIP Alliance—centered around the Kauffman hosted ESHIP Summits, Mayors Conference on Entrepreneurship, and several other related efforts and grant programs.
During 2016–2022, the leadership of the team that supported the ESHIP Summits and Mayors Conference at Kauffman included Victor Hwang, Philip Gaskin, Evan Absher, Lauren Higgins, and Andy Stoll and under the leadership of retired Kauffman Foundation CEO Wendy Guillies.
The Foundation hosted these pivotal convenings and funded many grant programs that helped accelerate and create the conditions that enabled the ecosystem building field to emerge and grow rapidly over the last decade. We remain deeply grateful to the generations of Kauffman Foundation staff —- past and present — whose leadership has deeply shaped our work and the growing field today.
Help Shape the Future: Leadership Council Nominations Open Now
We are grateful to the many generations of formal leadership that have guided the ESHIP Alliance—and the many many others who’ve provided leadership in less formal roles.
As we move into the next exciting phase of our work together, we’re currently seeking ecosystem building practitioners, national resource provider representatives, and field leaders to join the next generation of the Alliance’s leadership.
This is a unique volunteer opportunity to:
Help shape the strategy of our national network
Represent the needs and voices of your community
Collaborate with peers across the country to strengthen the field.
Key Dates:
Self-Nominations Open: June 1–18
Candidate Campaigning: June 19–July 3 (Candidates will post on the ESHIP Commons platform; instructions will be provided.)
Voting Period: July 7–22 (Open to anyone with an ESHIP Commons profile.)
Election Results Announced: July 29
First Council Meeting for New Members: August 26
We’re especially looking for thoughtful, committed leaders who have been active in the ESHIP Alliance, EBLN, EBLP, or the broader field of ecosystem building. Your lived experience, past engagement, and perspective are what we need to guide us into the next chapter.
Learn more about the Leadership Council opportunity and submit your self-nomination here.