North Carolina
Nancy Franklin, Principal of Franklin Solutions, collaborates with leaders of higher education, government, and business to facilitate strategic partnerships, innovation initiatives, talent development, agile planning, and program creation. Previously, she led strategic initiatives in community-university engagement, academic pathway development, STEM capacity-building, and integrating technology into teaching and learning at Virginia Tech, Penn State, and Indiana State University after an early career with IBM and ROLM. Nancy has been inducted into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholars, is a member of the Strategic Doing Faculty, and is the author of more than a dozen publications. She holds a doctorate in Higher Education Management from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s from Virginia Tech, and a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University.
Tim Franklin, Ph.D., serves as Principal and co-Founder at Franklin Solutions (FS), which he rejoined full-time following his recent retirement from a 25+-year career as an innovating senior university leader/administrator that included many regional, state, and national recognitions for his projects and work. At FS, he translates this leadership experience into client value.
Franklin is an expert in higher education policy, experienced strategic planner, credentialed Strategic Doing Fellow and Workshop Leader, as well as bringing a history of starting new endeavors, including serving on the Strategic Doing Institute’s Core Team, which supports SDI’s ongoing development. Tim’s achievements include substantial contributions in founding, designing, advocating, and building two market-facing, special purpose institutions focused on technology development and economic growth. The New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) and Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) represent two successful national models, one confronting urban challenges and the other rural. Both leverage the strengths of polytechnic research universities (NJIT and Virginia Tech, respectively) through organizational interfaces designed around applied research, innovation labs, and a comprehensive set of related educational programs and outreach services. Franklin led these intermediary organizations from start-up through institutional growth of more than 125 employees (both) and $85M+ in annual operating expenditures (NJII).
Previously, Franklin held leadership positions at Virginia Tech, Penn State, Indiana State University, and New Jersey Institute of Technology, all of which focused on strategic change and partnerships. Franklin’s responsibilities have included strategic planning, government relations, policy analysis and advocacy, strategic initiatives, fostering institutional-scale programs, fund development, leading public and private partnerships, hiring institutional staff, and articulating programs to advance the University’s economic engagement and research missions. Franklin has strategically aligned numerous partnerships between higher education, community, industry, and government focused on delivering notable regional, cluster, and technology development impact. He has obtained funding for, developed staffing, and led/overseen numerous economic and workforce development programs. Franklin founded and led TRE Networks, Inc., a non-profit organization of leading national organizations and universities dedicated to advancing the role of research universities in transformative regional engagement (TRE) efforts.
Franklin brings skills and a reputation:
· As an incisive strategist, catalyzer of constructive change, and author of messages leading to trust in and commitment to new endeavors,
· As a master collaborator and team builder in both his internal and external relationships,
· For his vision, leadership, and skills in competitive contexts,
· For building talented, high-performing work teams, whose discretionary efforts make ambitious strategic goals achievable,
· For innovation and creative solutions in confronting complex, messy problems,
· For mastering the technical and policy subjects at the core of his efforts, and
· As a builder and for starting new endeavors.
Janet Holston credits her entrepreneurial mindset and love of new ideas to a diverse career spanning municipal government, business consulting and higher education. She began her career as an urban planner and city housing department director in South Bend, Indiana. After moving to Phoenix, Arizona she owned a consultancy focused on strategic planning, grants and project services for entrepreneurs. She was a longtime board member of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) in Phoenix where she helped reestablish NAWBO’s Women’s Enterprise Foundation and created its grantmaking program. In 2005, she was invited to join Arizona State University (ASU) and spent over a decade as part of its dynamic leadership, first working in research administration and development to start up a new research center and in economic development leading cross-disciplinary grant proposal development. Later, she served as strategist, administrator and liaison in the ASU Foundation and ASU President’s Office on a range of new projects and partnerships in art and design, community and economic development, health and higher education. Most recently at UNC-Chapel Hill she worked with the School of Government on new initiatives and with Innovate Carolina as a social innovation task force and Innovate Carolina Network member. Born and raised in North Carolina and Virginia, Janet has a bachelor’s degree in urban planning from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Arizona State University. She was a longtime evaluator and juror for the University Economic Development Association (UEDA) Awards of Excellence program and a founding member of the National Association of Research Development Professionals (NORDP).
