The ESHIP Alliance Announces Fay Horwitt as Managing Director
Andy Stoll transitions from his role as Founding Executive Director and begins his next chapter with the Alliance as Senior Field Building Fellow
The ESHIP Alliance announced today that Andy Stoll is transitioning from his role as Founding Executive Director, a position he has held since June 1, 2024. He will continue serving the organization as Senior Field Building Fellow. Fay Horwitt has assumed leadership as the Alliance’s part-time Managing Director.
During his tenure, Stoll worked in close collaboration with the Alliance’s Core Team, Leadership Council, Community Initiatives—its fiscal sponsor—and the broader ESHIP community to transition work first catalyzed at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation into an independent national network. Together, with the crucial stewardship of the entity’s volunteer Core Team, they designed and stood up the organization, ratified its charter, developed a shared-leadership structure across its key stakeholders, designed its core programs, and launched several pilot projects.
The Alliance officially launched at the 2025 Global Entrepreneurship Congress, capping nearly a decade of work that built its foundation. That effort began with the Kauffman Foundation's ESHIP Summits, held from 2017 to 2020 and co-led by Stoll during his time there as a Senior Program Officer. It continued through the Ecosystem Building Leadership Project (EBLP), a collaborative, community-led process—funded by a Kauffman Foundation grant that Stoll facilitated as program officer—that produced the initial blueprint for the Alliance.
Shared Leadership Model
The leadership transition reflects the Alliance’s longstanding commitment to shared leadership, with different leaders stepping forward in different ways as the work and the field evolve.
For more than seven years, Fay Horwitt has helped advance the broader ESHIP effort. She previously led ESHIP Communities, a Kauffman Foundation initiative connected to the ESHIP Summits that worked with communities across the country to develop and test stronger models for entrepreneurial ecosystem building. She later served on the ESHIP Alliance’s Provisional Council, which evolved into the Leadership Council, where she served as its inaugural chair. Horwitt subsequently joined the staff as the Alliance’s first Field Builder-in-Residence. Across these roles, she has been one of the Alliance’s primary architects and has led the development of its flagship program, the ESHIP Commons, a digital community now home to more than 700 members. Alongside her role with the ESHIP Alliance, Horwitt will continue her work as Founder of WayBuilders, her social venture focused on advancing professional development for entrepreneurial ecosystem builders.
“ESHIP has never been about any one person leading the work,” said Stoll. “It has always been built through shared leadership, with people stepping forward at different moments to carry the work ahead. I’m incredibly proud of what this community has built, excited for Fay’s leadership in this next phase, and grateful to remain part of the Alliance and the field in a new capacity.”
Toward Sustainability & Growth
With its initial design and launch phase complete, the ESHIP Alliance remains a lean, startup-stage organization with significant potential ahead. Its next phase will focus on strengthening its core programs, growing its network of Field Building Partners, developing shared infrastructure for the field, and growing and diversifying its revenue and funding models to sustain and expand the work and staff capacity. As Managing Director, Horwitt will guide this next phase alongside the Leadership Council, partners, broader ESHIP community, and Core Team—including Anika Horn, Lindsay Schuenke, Cecilia Wessinger, Rob Williams, Jim Woodell, and Andy Stoll—while inviting new funders, partners, and collaborators to help shape and invest in the Alliance’s future.
“We have built a strong foundation, our network and impact are growing, and the opportunity ahead of us is significant,” said Horwitt. “I’m honored to lead the Alliance into this next phase—working alongside Andy, our Council, Core Team, partners, and broader community to strengthen what we have built, expand the infrastructure our field needs, and, most importantly in today’s environment, create a more sustainable future for this work. This next chapter will require many people and organizations to step forward, and I’m excited to invite them to help shape it with us.”
About the ESHIP Alliance
The ESHIP Alliance is a national field catalyst that unites people and organizations to advance entrepreneurial ecosystem building as a valued practice and trusted profession. The Alliance equips community leaders with the relationships, knowledge, and resources needed to build stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems and more inclusive, resilient economies. The ESHIP Alliance is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives.
