New Roles for Activate’s Aimee Rose and Randy Allen
Less than a year ago, Aimee Rose was one of Activate’s two managing directors, supporting 13 fellows in Boston. Today, she’s our inaugural executive managing director, overseeing and supporting the managing director (MD) of each of our four fellow communities. She also represents the MDs on our executive team, playing a key organizational leadership role focused on ensuring that Activate Fellows receive world-class mentorship and guidance while also helping to shape Activate’s strategy and future expansion plans.
“I am a deep believer in the Activate model and am honored to be able to contribute to its scale,” says Rose, reflecting on the promotion. “I am excited about the amazing team of managing directors we have assembled and about aligning their collective expertise to best support each fellow.”
Rose became Activate’s inaugural MD of our then-new Boston community in 2019. She was tasked both with helping to expand the Activate community and network and grow roots in Boston while also supporting and closely mentoring fellows. And she did both with aplomb.
“I am a deep believer in the Activate model and am honored to be able to contribute to its scale.”
Prior to joining Activate, she was founding chief technology officer at Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), where she defined and built an investment portfolio to transform fibers and fabrics into advanced products to revitalize U.S. textile manufacturing. At AFFOA, she spearheaded partnerships among universities, startups, manufacturers, and global brands across a range of industries, including apparel, electronics, automotive, and materials with the goal of creating high-quality domestic manufacturing jobs.
She launched her career by transitioning her doctoral research at MIT into startup that developed materials for explosive detection. She has remarked that the Activate Fellowship would have better prepared her for the startup life, though the company, Nomadics, Inc., was quite successful, and she led its product development through an IPO and two acquisitions. The technology (acquired by FLIR Systems, now Teledyne) was deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and airports nationwide. She received national recognition for these outcomes, including the U.S. Army’s Greatest Invention Award, TR35 Young Innovator Award, and Humanitarian of the Year from MIT’s Technology Review.
Randy Allen Promoted to Managing Director, Activate Boston
When the opportunity to lead Activate as its executive managing director opened up, Rose knew that Randy Allen, who joined Activate as executive-in-residence (EIR) last year, would be a tremendous candidate to take on the managing director (MD) role in Boston.
“I couldn’t be more excited for Randy’s leadership of Activate Boston,” says Rose. “As an accomplished scientist and hard tech founder, with forays in venture capital and industry, he has the ideal track record to support our fellows.”
Prior to joining as EIR, Allen was a freshly-minted MBA (The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth), which he pursued after building an impressive career as a scientist, researcher, entrepreneur, and market analyst. He earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Stanford, studying carbon nanotube/conductive polymer composite solutions. As a post-doc, he researched applications in smart plastics, flexible electronics, wearable electronics, health monitoring, and 3D printing. He then founded and served as CTO of a sensor manufacturer, Pascalor, focused on IoT applications.
From there, Allen joined Frost & Sullivan, where he held several research analyst roles focused on chemical, materials, and food science industries. That experience led him to the venture world, most recently at Pillar VC.
It was clear from day one of his stint as EIR that Allen is a great leader—the fellows really responded to and benefited from his mentorship. When he agreed to move into the role of MD, we knew we couldn’t have found a better fit.
“In his role as EIR, I saw first hand Randy’s solid instincts, spot-on advice and deep commitment to fellows’ growth,” says Rose.
Taking on the role of Boston MD at the start of the Cohort 2022 selections process has been “a wild ride,” says Allen, since he was also busy reviewing hundreds of applications for the next cohort.
At its core, his role as MD is similar to the role of EIR, both in terms of giving fellows startup advice and providing personal mentorship. “As an EIR, I helped support the fellows with the refinement of overall business strategies as well as specific deliverables like pitch decks. Doing so helped to build trust and credibility with them,” he says.
“I believe a major part of my job is to ensure that the fellows have positive frames of mind, which is essential for them to enjoy the journey and to be the leaders that their startups need.”
The coming months will be incredibly busy for Rose, Allen, and the rest of the MDs and fellowship team, as we host the finalists during a week-long series of virtual pitches and then make the difficult decisions to select Cohort 2022.
For this and future cohorts, Allen wants to expand Activate’s reach across the Northeast. “My vision is for the Boston community to become very active within the greater Boston innovation system and to optimize programming for the fellows. And I aim to introduce more engineers to entrepreneurship—especially those outside of the usual suspects like MIT students. I’m happy that Activate is in a position to support these inventors, especially those who have previously not had the opportunity to consider entrepreneurship.”
While focused on fellows’ immediate needs, he also considers their longer-term happiness and the impact they’ll have on society. “I believe a major part of my job is to ensure that the fellows have positive frames of mind, which is essential for them to enjoy the journey and to be the leaders that their startups need,” he says.
Stay tuned! Next month, we’ll speak to Hannah Murnen and Andrew Chang, managing directors of our new Activate Anywhere and Activate New York communities, respectively. We’ll also introduce the rest of our amazing—and growing—fellowship team and share team members reflections on our upcoming finalist presentations, the final step in selecting Cohort 2022.