Michelle Parvinrouh is Executive Director of Innovation Portal. Michelle has been a startup cheerleader for over 15 years, focusing her career on entrepreneur and startup support, business development, and organizational improvement. She has provided mentoring and coaching to entrepreneurs of all types, in various sectors, and across multiple subjects. Most notably, she has provided investor pitch coaching to early stage startups, but has also provided other leadership, organizational structure, HR, funding, and fundamental startup support.
Originally from Mobile, Michelle earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Management with a major in Marketing from the University of South Alabama (USA). She spent most of her career in Colorado working to support entrepreneurs and early-stage startups and is now utilizing her experience to support the local economy. Michelle earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Colorado at Denver (CU Denver). Soon after graduating, she became the Program Manager for the Bard (now Jake Jabs) Center for Entrepreneurship at CU Denver. While in this position, she helped to support Denver’s inaugural Startup Week, which is now the largest in the world. After moving to Colorado Springs, Michelle became the Executive Director of Peak Startup, an entrepreneurial hub that is cultivating the city’s startup ecosystem. Michelle also served as a Program and Operational Specialist at Exponential Impact, a 14-week accelerator for tech startups.
Michelle’s role as the Executive Director of Innovation Portal allows her to utilize all of her experience in program development, resource curating and connecting, nonprofit management, and startup community building to fulfill her passion of fostering economic vitality in her hometown.
She holds the following positions to support the greater innovation and entrepreneurial community:
- Investment Council Member: Portal Fund
- Board Member: University of South Alabama Melton Center for Entrepreneurship
- Team Leader: I-Corps (at USA)
- Mentor: RAMP (at USA)
- Organizer: Startup Weekend Mobile
- Committee Member: BIO Alabama Workforce
- Committee Member: Dumas Wesley Pencil Company Incubator
- Task Force Member: Downtown Mobile Alliance Design for Safety and Development
- Board Member: Chickasaw Schools – Business Administration
- Executive Committee Member: Minority Business Development Program (at USA)