“Innovation is what distinguishes a leader from a
follower.”
Steve Jobs, Apple
North Star Innovation Partners About Lisa
Lisa
is the Founder and President of North Star Innovation
Partners, an economic development management and
consulting firm which develops strategies and programs
to drive innovation and job growth in communities.
She is an experienced business incubation
executive with 30 years of experience delivering
business incubation feasibility studies, business
incubation implementation plans and providing incubator
management services nationally and internationally.
She directed nearly 30 business incubation-related
projects nationally. Her market
analysis work and other project support work led to the
development of 11 incubators in Virginia, Maryland and
Washington, DC. These projects
operated in a wide range of business, technology and
community contexts. Most of these
projects involved economic development organizations and
university partners.
She launched and managed five business
incubation programs in the Washington, DC-Baltimore, MD
area, including the Bowie Business Innovation Center
(Bowie BIC) at Bowie State University.
This is the only business incubation program in
Maryland located at a historically black academic
institution and the only incubation program in the state
co-located with an office of the Maryland Women’s
Business Center (MWBC).
She has more than 20 years of economic development
project experience ranging from innovation strategy
development, programs for accessing early stage capital,
incubator feasibility assessment, design, and
management, to business development, marketing, and
international business promotion.
Her international experience includes the development
of the technology incubator strategy in the U.S. for
Scottish Development, the national economic development
agency for Scotland and the launch of Scotland’s US
incubator network, the Scottish Technology and Research
(STAR) Centers.
Ms. Smith provided initial management support or led
the management teams for the Scottish Technology and
Research (STAR) Centers at Virginia’s Center for
Innovative Technology, the Fairfax County
BioAccelerator, the Frederick Innovative Technology
Center, the Bowie Business Innovation Center and the
Harford Business Innovation Center.
Prior to founding North Star Innovation Partners, Ms.
Smith served for nine years as Vice President and
Director of Marketing for ANGLE Technology, an
international technology commercialization and
consulting firm.
Ms. Smith is frequent speaker at regional and
national industry events sponsored by organizations such
as the Maryland Economic Development Association (MEDA),
the Maryland Business Incubation Association (MBIA) and
the International Business Innovation Association
(InBIA), formerly NBIA. She is
a featured speaker at the 30th International Conference
on Business Incubation in Orlando, Florida in April
2016.
She has written frequently on business incubation
program development and entrepreneurship. Lisa
contributed to two InBIA best-selling publications:
Developing a Business Incubation Program and A Practical
Guide to Business Incubator Marketing.
She is a member of MEDA, MBIA and InBIA. A Maryland native, Lisa earned a Master’s degree in Business from The American University Kogod School of Business in Washington, D.C., and a Bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C.