Gordon Mcconnell Email & Phone Number

Gordon has significant global experience in senior roles, developing innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems, supporting economic development diversification, higher education strategic planning, research commercialization, technology scouting and scanning as well as implementation of startup incubation programs. Gordon is a lean startup practitioner who has mentored startups for over fifteen years. He is well versed in higher education strategy, university development and creating world class institutions. He has developed and launched programs at national level including startup accelerators, innovation upskilling for industry and intellectual property commercialization for research organizations. The industry innovation programs he has developed and delivered included working and coaching teams from the US Department of Defense, Saudi Aramco, Dow Chemical, LaFargeHolcim, Saudi Electricity Company, and SABB. He has mentored startups in sectors including Education, Construction, Smart Cities, Media & Entertainment, Agri, Food and Beverage, Healthcare and Education Technology. He has been directly involved as an investment decision maker in seed investment rounds through startup accelerator programs in universities across four countries on three continents as well as for government agencies including the Serbian Innovation Fund and the Innovation Fund of Montenegro, where he is also a mentor for startups. He also acts as a subject matter expert in areas including innovation ecosystem development including recently for Qatar University. As the Head of the Entrepreneurship Center, Professor of Entrepreneurship at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, he developed country-wide startup programs including the TAQADAM Startup Accelerator and launched extensive teaching programs involving Saudi university students from over a dozen universities. He was Associate Vice President of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University, Principal Investigator of the ASU Center of Excellence in Technology Transfer. His past initiatives won the U.S. award for ‘Most Promising Technology Based Economic Development’ in 2013 from the SSTI, a University Economic Development Association award in 2014 and shortlisted for ‘Entrepreneurial University of the Year’ by the Times Higher Education (THE) in 2019/20. Gordon is a lean startup practitioner, a co-founder of two funded startups in the late 1990’s and worked companies including Accenture. He has spoken at major conferences in the US, UK, Canada, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Listed skills include Start Ups, Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship, Teaching, and 50 others.

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  Chief Innovation Officer And Co-Founder

  Arkane Innovation

  Nov 2019 - Present - Ireland

  Advising, developing and consulting on entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems including startup programs, innovation strategy, development of accelerator programs, research commercialisation and spinouts, planning for innovation centres and economic development strategy. Working my international colleagues at Arkane Innovation with a range of clients including universities, colleges, economic development agencies, government departments and industry. This has included major Technology Scouting and Profiling projects across a range of technology domains including Robotics, Drones, AR & VR, Digital Platforms, Renewable Energy, Carbon Capture, Internet of Things and New Materials.