The Advancement Foundation appointed Kathy Deacon as the new Vice President of Business and Resource Development for the organization. An experienced business leader, Deacon will assume responsibilities on October 1.
Most recently, Deacon served as Executive Director for Uptown Partnership, a Main Street affiliate, in Martinsville, Virginia where her leadership sparked renewed focus on revitalization of the Uptown business district. Before that, she served as Executive Director for Staunton Creative Community Fund (now Shenandoah Community Capital Fund) where she helped exponentially increase the capacity of their loan fund and initiated a regional footprint for the organization.
Deacon is a valuable leader in TAF’s Gauntlet Program, a serial entrepreneur, and a community/business development professional with more than 35 years of experience. She worked in international development for several large US Government contractors in Washington, DC for nearly 25 years before moving to Staunton, VA.
“Kathy is a brilliant strategist in business and community development. Her extensive experience will accelerate TAFs efforts to foster the identification and engagement of businesses, with a focus on scalable companies across the region. Kathy will expand business development programs that connect talented entrepreneurs to industry expertise, acceleration and commercialization services,” said Annette Patterson, president of The Advancement Foundation.
The VP of Business and Resource Development will promote access to business commercialization services available through TAFs most recent launch of Virginia Innovation Collective. The Virginia Innovation Collective at Buena Vista is a 40,000 square foot industrial building reimagined for business acceleration that offers value-added product development, increased access to affordable manufacturing space, and commercialization services. These resources were made possible through a Go Virginia grant focused on increasing value-added product development in agriculture and technology.