Anne-Marie Maman, former manager of the NJEDA’s Life Sciences Incubator, has joined her alma mater of Princeton University as executive director of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council (PEC). The Council was permanently established in 2015 based on recommendations in the report of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Advisory Council (PEAC), which is headed by Dr. Mung Chiang, Director of the Keller Center.
Prior to her position at NJEDA, Maman was an entrepreneur, founding several medical technology companies. As PEC’s executive director, Maman will assist in strategic planning efforts for the university’s recent commitment to entrepreneurship and will work to bring its entrepreneurial community together.
PEC currently has 28 members and is comprised of three separate boards: an alumni board, a faculty board and an administrative board. The goal of PEC is to more clearly define and help to implement entrepreneurship “the Princeton way,” according to Maman.
“The idea is to expand Princeton’s mission of being a rigorous liberal arts institution into the field of entrepreneurship,” said Maman. Through PEC’s permanent role in championing entrepreneurship, Princeton will be more competitive among other colleges and universities that have a strong focus on entrepreneurship.
PEC’s two-fold role within Princeton’s entrepreneurial community will be to connect the various students, faculty, and university departments that are currently active in entrepreneurship and to provide a support structure for new university initiatives that do not have a natural home within the current departments.
Princeton has acted quickly in response to the report presented by Dr. Chiang, according to Maman. A co-working space for student, faculty and alumni entrepreneurs to gather was created and is now home for several university-related startups as well as an active place for faculty, student, staff and alumni from different academic and professional backgrounds to connect with each other. Building the community on campus will serve to foster ideas and collaboration. PEC has also established the Alumni Entrepreneurship Fund (AEF), which supports alumni who have graduated within five years. The AEF is a matching fund, where qualified startups are selected to present to a panel of successful alumni entrepreneurs. The panel then gives their recommendation to the university on whether the applicant companies should be selected for funding. The AEF has just announced that they are accepting applications for their most recent round of funding.
PEC will soon have its own website to aggregate information, initiatives and activities around Princeton that relate to entrepreneurship. Based on PEAC’s report advocating a strong connection between Princeton and the local community, PEC will engage in ongoing outreach to Princeton alumni, the surrounding community and other academic institutions.
“The university cannot become a hub of entrepreneurship without figuring out ways to successfully connect to the larger NJ community. Looking forward we will be exploring ways to partner with other academic institutions and industry groups, and to work with the community in a way that will enhance New Jersey’s entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Maman explained.
Maman will hire an alumni outreach manager to start a more focused campaign of connecting entrepreneurial alumni with the students and faculty, and a content marketing specialist who will curate and develop the PEC website and social media presence.
Maman has been in her new position only for one month but she emphasizes that a great deal of her time, at the outset, will be spent speaking with individuals and groups in the entrepreneurial community within and outside the university.
“We are trying to think outside of the box about how we can create and implement entrepreneurship ‘the Princeton way’ to become something that is signature,” she said.
