Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/100910
Molly Lahr: Creating corporate connections If Molly Lahr ever opens her own business, it will be an indoor-outdoor dog park with a wine bar. In the meantime, the director of the Wisconsin Innovation Network at the Wisconsin Technology Council spends her days connecting entrepreneurs to people, technology and funds. At this nonpartisan, community-based economic development organization, Lahr is tasked with building a statewide community fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. She takes a bottoms-up approach to this assignment; asking business professionals what���s important to them and then finding ways to connect them to what they need. ���If you listen really well ��� sparks start to flicker and you start to see who needs what and where, and how others can help,��� says the energetic young woman who spent nearly three years connecting young professionals to business owners as the executive director of MAGNET. While the Wisconsin Technology Council has the ear of the governor and the state legislature, Lahr acts as the networker bringing entrepreneurs and members of these groups together. Bridging divides forms partnerships today, which become key drivers in Wisconsin���s entrepreneurial future. The goal behind her motives? Lahr wants people to see Wisconsin as the Silicon Valley of the Midwest. ���I want professionals to stay in Wisconsin, not because of friends or family ties, not because of quality of life, but because Wisconsin is the place to set up and start a business,��� she says. ���RG January 2013 bravamagazine.com 39