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Board of Directors

our board

We are fortunate to have some of North Carolina’s most prominent business leaders and community stakeholders guiding the Foundation in its vital work.

Jose Alvarez

José Alvarez

Prospera
Krista Covey

Krista Covey

First Flight Venture Center
Spencer Disher

Spencer Disher

JOHNSON & WALES UNIVERSITY
Sonja Ebron

Sonja Ebron

COURTROOM5
Jerry Edmonds

Jerry Edmonds, III, Ed. D.

VANCE-GRANVILLE CC
Keith Luedeman

Keith Luedeman

Innovate Charlotte
Heather McWhorter, Director of UNCW’s Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. PHOTO COURTESY: OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY RELATIONS/UNCW

Heather McWhorter

UNCW CIE
David Morris 5.21.25

David Morris

Michael Best & Friedrich LLP
Tom Snyder 5.21.25

Tom Snyder

RIoT
Thom Ruhe

Thom Ruhe

NC IDEA (NON-VOTING MEMBER)
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José Alvarez

Vice President, Prospera

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José D. Alvarez is the vice president of Prospera North Carolina, a nonprofit focused on providing bilingual support and assistance to Hispanic entrepreneurs looking to start or expand their businesses. Prospera North Carolina is providing the state’s Latino community culturally focused and in-language business support to help increase economic opportunities through entrepreneurship. José’s current responsibilities include statewide operations, fundraising, designing programming, and managing community and government relations. A graduate of the University of Central Florida, José’s professional experience and passion during the last two decades have been focused on multicultural marketing and small business support.

Krista Covey

President, First Flight Venture

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Krista Covey is president of First Flight Venture Center in Research Triangle Park. Her passion is serving high-impact entrepreneurial ventures and helping them achieve success. She has been supporting the development and growth of early-stage companies through her work building and leading award-winning innovation hubs in Florida and Texas. She has an extensive background in banking and finance and has experience in business incubation and acceleration, strategic management, business development, marketing, economic development, economic gardening for high-growth science and tech companies, and public relations. As an entrepreneur at heart, she has also grown her own successful finance business with a profitable exit and served on several startup boards and numerous community and industry boards.

Spencer Disher

Adjunct Professor, Johnson & Wales University

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Spencer Disher most recently served as Senior Vice President at Natixis SA, an international French banking institution. He is an experienced senior executive with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. Spencer was one of the founders and co-managers of Natixis ABM Corp, a subsidiary of Natixis SA which was grew into a highly profitable entity with approximately $6 billion of fixed income assets under management. He is currently an adjunct professor for entrepreneurship in the business college at Johnson & Wales University. Spencer also serves on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity of Charlotte and as a director for the Charlotte Angel Fund. In addition, he serves as an advisor and investor to several startups and has worked as a mentor with the following startup organizations: RevTech, City Startup Labs and Innovate Charlotte.

Sonja Ebron

CEO, Courtroom5

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Sonja Ebron is a Durham native and founding CEO of Courtroom5, a 2018 NC IDEA SEED grant recipient that makes an automated legal toolbox for people in court without a lawyer. She serves on the Legal Services Corporation’s Leaders Council and has represented herself in court for many years. Sonja is a PhD electrical engineer and former college professor with a background in utilities and artificial intelligence. As Courtroom5 CEO, Sonja has made it her personal mission to empower people to represent themselves effectively in court.

Jerry Edmonds III, Ed.D.

VP of Workforce and Community Engagement, Vance-Granville CC

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Jerry Edmonds III, Ed.D. serves as Vice President of Workforce and Community Engagement at Vance Granville Community College in Henderson, NC. Previously he served in varying roles as Dean of Workforce and Economic Development and Small Business Center Director at Halifax Community College in Weldon, NC. In his earlier career, Jerry held a variety of executive leadership positions within Johnson & Johnson and IBM where he was the recipient of numerous training, recruitment, marketing and leadership awards. Jerry is currently a member of the Henderson, North Carolina Chapter of Rotary International and a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow. He also serves on the Mariah Parham Duke Lifepoint’s Board of Trustees, the Lakeland Cultural Arts Center and Working Landscapes’ Board of Directors, and the Kerr Tar Council of Governments. He recently launched Willow Creek Tennis Retreat, LLC and the Edmonds Tennis and Education Foundation.

Keith Luedeman

Board Chair, Innovate Charlotte

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Keith Luedeman is founder and former CEO of goodmortgage.com, an award winning internet mortgage lender.

Keith led goodmortgage.com to be recognized for many successes including Best Place to Work for Mid-Size Companies and Online Lender of the Year by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Under Keith’s guidance, goodmortgage.com was named to the Inc. 5000 five times, earning it a place on the Inc. 5000 Honor Roll. 

Earning individual awards along the way, such as NCTA Tech Exec of the Year, Keith developed a reputation as a passionate entrepreneur who shares his business wisdom as Board Chair of Innovate Charlotte, Board Chair of the Queens University Entrepreneurial Leadership Circle Advisory Board, an active investor in the Charlotte Region and as a mentor to startups.

Heather McWhorter

Director, UNCW CIE

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Heather McWhorter is the Director of the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s (UNCW) Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), where she leads initiatives that empower individuals and communities through entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability. With several decades of experience, she connects higher education, research, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and the broader community to grow inclusive, impact-driven innovation networks. Under her leadership, CIE has become a hub for high-impact and blue economy innovation, offering programs like the Idea Test Lab and the annual Ocean Innovation Conference to spark coastal solutions. Heather also fostered the development of the UNCW Blue Economy Index, the first global tool to track the sector’s growth and impact. With engineering degrees from Penn State in chemical, energy, and environmental engineering, she brings a systems-thinking approach to ecosystem building and startup support.

David Morris

Partner and Corporate Attorney, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP

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David Morris is a partner with the Venture Best® group at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, where his practice focuses on private equity and venture capital fund formations, mergers and acquisitions, and private company debt and equity financings. He previously served for over a decade as a managing director and general counsel for a Midwest-based private equity firm. Prior to that, he worked for UBS Investment Bank in their M&A Group and served as Assistant Director of the Duke Global Capital Markets Center, a joint venture between Duke Law School and the Fuqua School of Business. David received his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Duke University and earned his M.B.A. from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business. He also serves on the board of the Emily K Center and the advisory board of the NCCU Center of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.

Tom Snyder

Executive Director, RIoT

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Tom Snyder is Executive Director of RIoT, supporting technology-based economic development in the areas of AI, IoT, and the Data Economy. Under Tom’s leadership, RIoT has launched the RIoT Accelerator Program, RIoT Studios, which includes the RIoT Underground Podcast, and RIoT’s Education series. He has grown RIoT from a Research Triangle-focused organization to one with international reach. In his spare time, Tom co-instructs Product Innovation Lab, a Forbes award-winning multidisciplinary course in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at NC State. Prior to joining RIoT, Tom held an executive leadership role at the ASSIST Center, a National Science Foundation-sponsored effort to create wearable electronics for healthcare monitoring. Previously, he spent two decades in product development, innovation, and technology incubation for multinational technology companies and is an inventor on more than 25 US patents.

Thom Ruhe

President & CEO

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Thom is President and CEO of NC IDEA. He is an entrepreneur, investor, mentor and works with entrepreneurs, governments, universities and NGOs around the world to embrace the entrepreneurial mindset needed to grow vibrant economies.

During his seven-year tenure at the Kauffman Foundation, he directed the Foundation’s programs addressing entrepreneurial education, mentoring, access to capital and fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems. Thom also led Kauffman Labs for Enterprise Creation, a school dedicated to advancing community deployed experiential-based entrepreneurial education.

Thom has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Entrepreneurship, addressed the United Nations Assembly on Entrepreneurship, lectured at conferences around the world and serves on multiple boards including Innovation Fund America and the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina. He is also an NC IDEA MINDSET certified facilitator of the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program