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
Featured Business
2022 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Camel Culture tastes like home: How a Missouri dairy’s milk fills a void when everything else seems foreign
Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores innovative and uncommon ideas finding success in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro. This series is possible thanks to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which leads a collaborative, nationwide effort to identify and remove large and small barriers to new business creation. MILLER,…
Fund Me, KC: Her startup has outgrown its puppy phase; now’s your chance to feed its potential
Startland News is continuing its “Fund Me, KC” series to highlight area entrepreneurs’ efforts to accelerate their businesses or lend a helping hand to others. This is an opportunity for business owners and innovators — like Jonaie Johnson’s effort to publicly launch the highly-anticipated PlayTach smart dog crate attachment by Interplay — to share their…
KC startup earns $100K from Google initiative, funding its ‘food as medicine’ tech solution for chronic illnesses, healthy food inequity
Kansas City-based startup Free From Market will receive $100,000 in non-dilutive funding from Google as part of the tech giant’s initiative to support Black-led startups. Free From Market is a digital health platform that unites the key components needed for people with chronic conditions to make lasting dietary changes: personalized food selection, nutritional education and…
2000 Vine: Brewed under pressure, KC’s first Black-owned brewery puts more than reputations on the vine
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series from Startland News highlighting entrepreneurs, businesses, and creators leading revitalization and redevelopment efforts in and around the historic 18th and Vine Jazz District. Click here to read additional stories from this series. A brewery under construction at 2000 Vine on Kansas City’s East Side comes from…