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 a Senior Field Building Fellow.

The ESHIP Alliance announced today that Andy Stoll is transitioning from his role as Founding Executive Director. Stoll, who was hired into the role on June 1, 2024, will continue his work with the organization as Senior Field Building Fellow. Fay Horwitt has assumed leadership of the organization as its 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, building on nearly a decade of collective work—including the Kauffman-hosted ESHIP Summits, which Stoll helped co-lead as a Senior Program Officer, and the community-led design process that followed.

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.

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.