Credit: Chicago Innovation Exchange
John Flavin, Executive Director of the Chicago Innovation Exchange, started a small biotech company for drug discovery in the 1990s with his brother just after graduating college. By the time their first entrepreneurial venture was sold, they had amassed some 300 employees. "CIE is shifting the innovation paradigm, especially at the startup phase,” Flavin said. “We’re connecting innovators directly with the customers, investors and end-users of their future products."