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Our Team

Actualizing our mission to create opportunities for shared prosperity through inclusive and equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem development is made possible by our uniquely talented, skilled, passionate, and resilient team of equity champions and ecosystem builders.

Meet our team

Christopher Gergen Headshot

Christopher Gergen

CEO & Co-Founder

Christopher Gergen HeadshotChristopher Gergen

CEO & Co-Founder

Christopher co-founded Forward Cities in 2014 and helped launch InnovateNC in 2015. He is also a founding partner of HQ Community, NC's largest entrepreneurial co-working community and co-author of the nationally acclaimed book Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives. Other entrepreneurial endeavors include co-founding SMARTHINKING, a venture-backed on-line tutoring company that grew to over 1,000 universities before being acquired by Pearson in 2011, and Café Nunoa – a bar, restaurant, live music venue in Santiago, Chile. Christopher is an alum of Duke (BA-Honors), George Washington University (MPP), and Georgetown (MBA) as well as Leadership North Carolina (class 24) and a 2013 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He lives with his wife and two children in Durham, NC.

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Fay Horwitt Headshot

Fay Horwitt

President
& ESHIP Liaison

Fay Horwitt Headshot

Fay Horwitt

President

Fay serves as the President of Forward Cities, where she oversees programmatic strategy and serves as the executive lead of the ESHIP Communities initiative. In addition, Fay is a dedicated advocate for the emerging profession of ecosystem building, serving as Vice Chair of the Startup Champions Network and as a founding member of Ecosystems Unite. Beyond her formal roles, she is a sought after presenter, trainer, and thought leader on the topic of equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem building. Never one to be content with status quo, Fay has also recently begun addressing a new need in local communities: ecosystem healing–helping pivot ecosystems and institutions in this time of the dual COVID-19 and systemic racial injustice pandemics.

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Nicolas Gunkel Headshot

Nicolas Gunkel

Vice President, Ecosystem Impacts

Nicolas Gunkel Headshot

Nicolas Gunkel

Vice President, Ecosystem Impacts

Nicolas Gunkel is the Vice President, Ecosystem Impacts at Forward Cities, where he develops the research and policy agenda of the organization and co-leads, together with the President, the organization's largest stand-alone grant, the ESHIP Communities program funded by the Kauffman Foundation. In addition, he is responsible for overseeing Forward Cities' budget, as well as cultivating relationships and partnerships with external stakeholders.

Prior to joining the executive team of the organization, Nicolas was Forward Cities’ first Director of Research, where he pioneered the organization’s entrepreneurial ecosystem analysis framework. He received his international business undergraduate education at the Rotterdam School of Management and Harvard College and obtained his MPA from the London School of Economics.

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Michelle Benham Headshot

Michelle Benham

Senior Director of Marketing & Operations

Michelle Benham Headshot

Michelle Benham

Senior Director of Marketing & Operations

Michelle's background in marketing, media, science, and organizational development led her to create award-winning content and campaigns for nonprofits, federal and local government agencies, and the private sector. Prior to Forward Cities, Michelle led the marketing and communications team at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, an internationally renowned program of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Previously, she led efforts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Discovery Learning Alliance, and Discovery Communications. Michelle is an alumna of the esteemed Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders program, and was a founding board member of the Conservation Leadership in the Caribbean fellowship—a capacity-building, networking, and leadership development program for emerging leaders in climate science and wildlife conservation in the wider Caribbean region. Michelle holds an M.F.A. in Film & Media from the School of Communication at American University and a B.S. in Ecology from the University of Georgia. She and her family are proud Durham residents with deep affection for the Eno River.

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Brett Brenton Headshot

Brett Brenton

Senior Director
of Learning
Networks

Brett Brenton Headshot

Brett Brenton

Senior Director of Learning Networks

As Senior Director of Learning Networks, Brett helps to ensure that the practices of Forward Cities and that of it’s partners is properly disseminated to people committed to advancing the craft of building equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems. Brett is drawn to the idea that we can solve for major systemic issues in America through impact at the granular level. Brett spent thirteen years in public education before starting a diversity-focused, STEM-themed career development non-profit for the Research Triangle Foundation. This led to other opportunities in program design and implementation, stakeholder engagement, and small business tenant recruitment at The Frontier RTP. Brett loves hitting the local trails on his mountain bike as an active way to appreciate the beauty of North Carolina.

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Hassan Bazzi Headshot

Hassan Bazzi

Director of Community Innovation

Hassan Bazzi HeadshotHassan Bazzi

Director of Community Innovation

Hassan Bazzi serves as the Director of Community Innovation at Forward Cities, In this role, he oversees the entrepreneurial ecosystem capacity-building engagements in the national network of cities. Hassan is an ecosystem builder and entrepreneur. Prior to joining Forward Cities, Hassan served in Detroit’s non-profit sector in collaboration with community, philanthropy, government and the private sector on ecosystem building projects and cross-sector economic development initiatives including commercial corridor development, talent pipeline development, and small business development initiatives aimed at catalyzing neighborhood-based businesses and under-resourced entrepreneurs. Hassan serves as a Kauffman Foundation ESHIP Champion, is an alum of Leadership Detroit, an Aspen Ideas Scholar, and serves on a number of boards including Eastern Market Corp. and Venture for America–Detroit.

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Shayla Herndon-Edmunds headshot

Shayla Herndon-Edmunds

Director of Talent Development

Shayla Herndon-Edmunds headshotShayla Herndon-Edmunds

Director of Talent Development

As Director of Talent Development, Shayla is a bit of a team whisperer. With over 15 years of leadership, organizational development, training, and equity & inclusion experience, Shayla is dedicated to creating and maintaining an organizational culture that celebrates diversity through anti-racism, equity, and belonging. She is an entrepreneur who has worked with corporations, colleges, and non-profit organizations offering coaching, strategic planning, training, and development for teams and individual leaders. She serves as an internal consultant, advisor, mediator, and sometimes therapist. And, as if that weren’t enough, Shayla is also a wife and mother of three, owner of OMG Wellness Bar, an avid gardener who makes her own sauces and teas and well obviously -- a time bender.

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Eric Renz-Whitmore Headshot

Eric Renz-Whitmore

Director of ESHIP Communities

Eric Renz-Whitmore HeadshotEric Renz-Whitmore

Director of ESHIP

Eric has been a community builder in various roles through most of his life, bringing people together in ways that make the most of their talents. He’s worked in a variety of economic development roles in New Mexico where he helped lead development of the state’s digital media business community and fostered development of a regional startup community as director of the state’s tech business trade association and in work with the City of Albuquerque’s Economic Development Department. Beyond New Mexico, he has worked with the Startup Champions Network and Kauffman ESHIP Goals initiatives to lift up and connect Ecosystem Builders and expand access to entrepreneurial opportunity. He lives in Albuquerque, NM with his wife and two children.

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Stacey Williams Headshot

Stacey Williams

Director of Research & Evaluation

Stacey Williams Headshot

Stacey Williams

Director of Research & Evaluation

Dr. Williams brings nearly 15 years of public health research experience and training to the Department of Research and Evaluation. With an eye towards the social determinants of health, she uses public health concepts to produce evidence on systemic inequities. Through the use of existing data and primary data collection tools, she works with the team to generate actionable information for informing local efforts to increase equity in opportunities. She completed her graduate training at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health. In her free time, Stacey enjoys tending to her flower garden, nature photography, and ancestry research.

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Garrett Raczek Headshot

Garrett Raczek

Senior Researcher

Garrett Raczek HeadshotGarrett Raczek

Senior Researcher

Garrett Raczek is a Senior Researcher at Forward Cities. He graduated with a degree in economics from Duke University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He has spent time developing skills in non-profit management and data use, particularly focusing on moving organizations beyond data analysis and toward a more intentional use of findings. He is passionate about making data and decision-making more inclusive of all communities, particularly those most impacted by decisions. In his free time, Garrett is an active community organizer who works with others in collectively building a more just and representative community. At Forward Cities, Garrett wishes to leverage these skills to build local ecosystems grounded in economic, racial, and social justice.

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Rajah Satterwhite Headshot

Rajah Satterwhite

Content Marketing Manager

Rajah Satterwhite HeadshotRajah Satterwhite

Content Marketing Manager

After serving as the Pipeline Engagement Coordinator for Public Allies North Carolina, Rajah discovered the power of intentional nonprofit work and its ability to address inequities and the systems that sustain them. As the Content Marketing Manager at Forward Cities, Rajah develops informed communications growth strategies and produces engaging content that elevates resources and stories of underserved entrepreneurs and communities. One product of Rajah’s dedication to catalyzing systemic change is the newly launched Forward Cities’ podcast Forging Forward.

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Eliza Salmon Headshot

Eliza Salmon

Research Manager

Eliza Salmon Headshot

Eliza Salmon

Research Manager

As an artist and researcher, Eliza brings a wide set of hard and soft skills to her role as Research Manager. Her tireless curiosity serves the ESHIP team in capturing and testing a new model for economic development. Her prior work connecting immigrant families to local programs and services through Americorps motivated her to study public policy at Duke University to understand economic systems change. When she isn't designing survey questions, analyzing data, or tracking shifts in policy debates, she is walking her dog Dobby, reading Ibram X. Kendi's latest book, or painting colorful portraits of her loved ones.

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Megan Shuford Headshot

Megan Shuford

ESHIP Communications Manager

Megan Shuford HeadshotMegan Shuford

ESHIP Communications and Storytelling Manager

Megan North Shuford Megan comes to Forward Cities with over 15 years of non-profit experience including program design, storytelling, grassroots fundraising and communications. She is dedicated to uplifting the voices of our diverse ecosystem builders, community leaders and entrepreneurs, while continuing to support the creation of healthy entrepreneurial ecosystems in our ESHIP communities. Before becoming our ESHIP Communications Manager, she directly supported conscious and social entrepreneurs as a transformational coach. She is also a passionate and dedicated community builder, healer, storyteller, conscious co-creator and founder of Dreams Followed. Her life values are centered around collective liberation, compassion, love, honoring intuition, community and racial, economic, and social justice. Feel free to contact Megan at mshuford@forwardcities.org with any questions or just to say Hello!

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Matt Hughes Headshot

Matt Hughes

Accounting and Human Resources Manager

Matt Hughes HeadshotMatt Hughes

Accounting and Human Resources Manager

Matt Hughes joins Forward Cities after working in campaigns and local and state government in North Carolina, including in business operations at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Matt has over ten years of experience working in organization operations, fundraising, advocacy, grassroots organizing, and legislative policy and implementation. Matt holds a BA in Political Science and an MPA, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Matt was also serves on the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners. Believing that people should be active members of their community, Matt serves on several non-profit and local government advisory boards and serves as one of Governor Roy Cooper’s appointees on the North Carolina Human Relations Commission.

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Symone Fogg Headshot

Symone Fogg

Americorps VISTA

Symone Fogg HeadshotSymone Fogg

Americorps VISTA

Symone has a dedicated interest in social innovation and creating systems that amplify good in the community. By utilizing design thinking and methodologies, she strives to support organizations and businesses that eradicate intergenerational poverty, build equitable communities and/or break glass ceilings. As our Americorps VISTA, she utilizes her years of design & illustration experience to elevate our message. She’s an avid researcher and lover of information. She wants Durham to thrive and to close opportunity gaps across communities. In her free time, she’s either reading culture news, business strategy blogs, rewatching Parks & Recreation or writing.

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Kin Louis headshot

Kim Louis

Project Manager, New Kensington / Arnold

Community Leads

Paulo Arch 1

Paulo Gregory

ESHIP Baltimore

 

PAULO GREGORY

ESHIP BALTIMORE

Cohado is an innovative and flexible platform to support collaboration, sustainability and inclusive team- and community-development. Cohado, Inc. additionally facilitates the development of diverse startup communities nationally and locally in Baltimore. In collaboration with the Kauffman Foundation’s ESHIP Communities and Forward Cities, Cohado, Inc is stewarding the ESHIP Baltimore initiative to support the stabilization, ideation, seeding and growth of Black business in Baltimore. This initiative engages entrepreneurs and community leaders in a collective impact effort to cultivate the creativity, innovation, and leadership of Black Baltimore as a model for thriving equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems of the future. 

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LC Johnson headshot

LC Johnson

Franklin County, OH

LC Johnson headshot

LC JOHNSON

LOCAL DIRECTOR, FRANKLIN COUNTY/COLUMBUS

LC Johnson is an award-winning writer, entrepreneur, and activist with a passion for uplifting and empowering women and communities of color. She is a recognized subject matter expert whose work and writings on the topic of race and gender have appeared in outlets such as Forbes Magazine, Huffington Post, Black Enterprise, and Policy Mic. In addition to over ten years of experience developing and facilitating entrepreneurship, economic development, and social justice initiatives in a diverse range of communities, she is the founder of Zora’s House – a coworking and community space whose mission is to provide women of color with the clarity, confidence, and connections they need to amplify their authentic voices; grow and contribute their talents; and powerfully transform their lives, careers, and communities.

LC resides in Columbus, OH with her husband, her two-year-old son, and their dog Huey. When not at work LC enjoys reading, watching comic book movies, drinking beer, road trips, and eating ALL OF THE THINGS.

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Kaliah Ligon headshot

Kaliah Ligon

Indianapolis, IN

Kaliah Ligon headshot

KALIAH LIGON

LOCAL DIRECTOR, INDIANAPOLIS

Kaliah Ligon, the Indianapolis Inclusive Innovation Fellow, has served the Indianapolis community for the past ten years in several roles in grant-making, community building, outreach and organizing. Having worked for the city’s public transit system as the manager of outreach, Indiana’s largest non-profit hospital system as a community outreach project manager, and a capacity building director for a grassroots leadership development organization, Kaliah has touched the lives of thousands of Indianapolis residents. Kaliah studied at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs earning a master’s degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Policy Analysis. Kaliah is married to her childhood sweetheart, Chris, and they have three children ages 20, 15, and 13. She enjoys traveling and meeting new people.

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Gabe-Munoz Headshot

Gabriel Munoz

ESHIP Kansas City

Gabe-Munoz

GABE MUÑOZ

ESHIP KANSAS CITY LOCAL DIRECTOR

Gabe has been actively involved in the Kansas City entrepreneurial ecosystem for over 13 years. Gabe works to create a unified community vision to best serve entrepreneurs, while creating a welcoming and inclusive culture that places the needs of entrepreneurs front and center.

Prior to coming to Forward Cities, he served as the Director of Sales and Small Business Advising for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City. In his role, he was responsible for cultivating and maintaining relationships with startups, government/non-profit agencies, community leaders, and corporate America. During his 12 years at the HCC, he assisted over 1,000 micro-enterprises in getting licensed, certified as M/WBEs, and connected in the community.

Gabe is the second oldest of nine children and an avid fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Royals, and KU basketball. In his free time, you can find him playing soccer and spending time with his wife Julia and their four children, Devin, Diego, Daisy, and Desiree.

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Laura Merryfield Headshot

Laura Merryfield

ESHIP Long Beach

Laura MerryfieldLAURA MERRYFIELD

ESHIP LONG BEACH COMMUNITY LIAISON

Laura works in Long Beach, California to grow the local entrepreneurial ecosystem and to build best practices across all ESHIP communities. Most recently, they completed a master’s degree in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, with research and fieldwork spanning equity in disaster response, cross-sectoral partnership effectiveness, and civic innovation.

Laura has deep roots in Long Beach, having grown up in the city and its schools and spent years in the nonprofit sector. They worked on community organizing campaigns around health equity, education justice, and immigrant rights with both Building Healthy Communities: Long Beach (now Long Beach Forward) and the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition.

Laura is especially proud of their work with the community-based Long Beach Language Access Coalition to advocate for and partner in the implementation of the city’s Language Access Policy, allowing Long Beach residents and community members from all backgrounds to have greater voice in local governance. Laura holds a BA in development studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Margaret Lee Headshot

Margaret Lee

New Haven, CT

Margaret Lee Headshot

Margaret Lee

Margaret Lee is a co-founder of Collab, a community-centered accelerator for Connecticut entrepreneurs and project builders. Before Collab, she was the Co-Director of Marketing at SeeClickFix, a New Haven civic technology startup that brings together neighbors and local government officials. Before that, she worked at the Yale Entrepreneurship Institute (now the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale) where she managed Yale’s academic year and summer accelerators, seeing through more than 100 student and faculty ventures. In addition, she helped launch the pilot of the Social Venture Creation Program, an incubation program for social entrepreneurs. She has served as the Chair of the Board of the New Haven Innovation Collaborative and currently serves as Commissioner of the Economic Development Commission for the City of New Haven. She received the New Haven Biz Women in Business Award for her work.

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Caroline Smith Headshot

Caroline Smith

New Haven, CT

Caroline Smith HeadshotCaroline Smith

Caroline Smith is a co-founder of Collab, a community-centered accelerator for Connecticut entrepreneurs and project builders. Before Collab, she was the Co-Director of Marketing at SeeClickFix — a civic technology company that connects citizens with their local governments. She also founded New Haven Bike Month — an effort to build bicycle justice through neighborhood empowerment. Currently, she was elected the Chair of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team. She’s received the New Haven Biz Women in Business Award, Connecticut Magazine 40 Under 40, City of New Haven Individual Innovator Award, and Yale Seton Elm-Ivy Award for her work.

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Arthur Thomas Headshot

Arthur Thomas

New Haven, CT

Arthur Thomas HeadshotArthur Thomas

Mr. Thomas is the Director of Entrepreneurial Initiatives and Inclusive Economic Opportunity for The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. This role provides a platform for advancing cross-sector leadership collaboratives that create strategies for increasing equity and empowerment. Mr. Thomas recently graduated from a master’s program at Yale Divinity School to enhance his ability to evaluate the ethical outcomes of community empowerment programs, and build strategic partnerships to reduce socio-economic inequities in underserved populations. Prior to that, Mr. Thomas had a career in finance and residential real estate development. He also serves on the board of directors for Community Health Network, an organization that uses “Emotional Emancipation Circles” as a tool to address systemic and actual trauma in minority communities. Mr. Thomas is vocal about faith’s contribution to justice work. He is currently the co-chair of the Faith in Action outreach ministries at Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church, and is in the ordination process with the American Baptist Convention. Overall, Mr. Thomas is a healer at heart, and passionate about using innovation, real estate, and entrepreneurship as a treatment for disrupting the reproduction of poverty outcomes in under-resourced neighborhoods.

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Arin Ortigoza Headshot

Erin Ortigoza

ESHIP Rio Grande

Arin OrtigozaERIN ORTIGOZA

ESHIP RIO GRANDE LOCAL DIRECTOR

Erin has been involved with food community planning and development in a variety of capacities for over 15 years. Through her previous work as the senior planner at Santa Fe County, Erin was responsible for creating the Santa Fe County Agriculture and Ranching Implementation Plan. She also coordinated numerous agricultural demonstration projects and the AgriGate of Santa Fe County, an online clearinghouse of food and agricultural information designed to support food access and networking opportunities in the region.

Before coming to Forward Cities, Erin was also the co-owner of Ancient Waters Farm, her family farm in La Madera, New Mexico, from 2012 through 2017. She is passionate about facilitating collective work supportive to a rich and resilient entrepreneurial environment for the food and agricultural community of New Mexico.

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