KCSourceLink hires new senior director to champion Kansas City entrepreneur ecosystem
May 2, 2022 | Startland News Staff
Michael Carmona has ‘led and lived’ the mission of KCSourceLink; now he’ll officially take the resource hub’s helm
A longtime advocate for businesses across Kansas City — including some of the metro’s most underserved — Michael S. Carmona understands how entrepreneurship can elevate communities, said Maria Meyers.
His new role as the senior director for KCSourceLink will help him further champion innovators and small business owners, she added, linking them to the right resources to start and grow — building collaborations to fill gaps in the Kansas City entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The UMKC Innovation Center partners with the university and the community to spark entrepreneurial efforts within our region and across the country. With a suite of high-impact programs, the center helps emerging and existing business owners, whether they are students, faculty or community members, hone their business basics, evaluate commercialization opportunities and connect with the right resources at the right time.
UMKC Innovation Center programs include the Missouri Small Business Development Center, Missouri Procurement Technical Assistance Center, Whiteboard 2 Boardroom, Digital Sandbox KC, ScaleUP! Kansas City, Growth360, SourceLink, MOSourceLink and KCSourceLink.
“He has led and lived that vision, working passionately with entrepreneurs to get them connected to capital and resources and with community leaders to advance economic prosperity,” said Meyers, executive director of the UMKC Innovation Center, which oversees KCSourceLink, and associate vice chancellor for economic development at UMKC. “We know that under his leadership, we can make Kansas City the most entrepreneurial and most inclusive city in America.”
Carmona, a community developer who’s spent more than a decade working with small businesses, comes to KCSourceLink from the Community Capital Fund, where he oversaw more than $2 million in funding to support underserved communities in the Kansas City area. Before that, he held multiple positions at the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation, where he led the development of the organization’s asset-wealth-building programs for underserved people in the KC metro and provided technical assistance to entrepreneurs.
Both the Community Capital Fund and Hispanic Economic Development Corporation are among the more than 230 business-building organizations in the KCSourceLink network that help aspiring entrepreneurs and established businesses in the Kansas City metro.
In his role as KCSourceLink’s director and network builder, Carmona will work beside such partners in the resource hub’s network to increase access and visibility of these resources to entrepreneurs and to improve the capacity and resiliency of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial support organizations.
“I’m so excited about the opportunity to work with an amazing group of individuals and organizations to dive deeper into our collective mission of building an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Carmona. “I am also thrilled to work with so many great entrepreneurs, coaches, mentors and supporters to create opportunities and jobs in the Kansas City metro.”
Carmona succeeds Jenny Miller, who departed KCSourceLink in January to take a role as startup community program lead for Husch Blackwell, a law firm with significant offices in Kansas City and an expanding presence within the startup ecosystem.
This story is possible thanks to support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.
For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn
Related Posts on Startland News
GEWKC returning to familiar venue (but its new destinations might surprise ticket holders)
When Global Entrepreneurship Week pulls into the station later this fall, Kansas City participants can expect a fresh experience inside one of the region’s most iconic landmarks, said Callie England, noting an intentional effort behind the scenes should help reroute the “best of the best” events onto custom agendas. “While you’ll see a few familiar…
MOSourceLink adds startup founder as new ‘Network Convener’ to rally ESOs, entrepreneurs
A newly-created role is expected to help strengthen connections between entrepreneur support organizations across the state and promote the wealth of resources available to Missouri’s entrepreneurs. Adam Larson — founder of Decimal Projects, CEO of Catnip Budz Gourmet Catnip, and former program coordinator at Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UMKC — moves to…
KCSourceLink expands bilingual entrepreneur-focused support, adding two more Community Navigators
A network of “Community Navigators” is extending resources deeper into Kansas City’s entrepreneur community, KCSourceLink announced Friday, detailing the hiring of Citlali Valdez and Racquel Rodriguez to its months-old connectivity program. “We are thrilled to welcome these experienced team members,” said Becca Castro, senior director of regional ecosystem development at the UMKC Innovation Center, which…
Kansas City ESO icon Maria Meyers championed for bringing SourceLink to the world stage
A decades-long effort to grow inclusive entrepreneurial communities by strengthening access to critical resources began as a grassroots movement in Kansas City, said Maria Meyers, whose work recently earned her global recognition — and a rare honor in recent years for an American recipient. Meyers, the founder of SourceLink — a first-of-its-kind platform boasting more…