Schmid Will Also Serve as Greater Winston-Salem Inc.’s First Vice President of Innovation

Winston Starts is announcing that Mike Schmid, formerly a founder at both the Center for Creative Economy and Winston Starts, has agreed to become the organization’s next President, effective August 10.

“On behalf of the Winston Starts Board, I’m thrilled to welcome Mike Schmid as our next President,” said Don Flow, Chairman of the Board. “His operating experience, engineering background, and firsthand experience building a startup make him exactly the right leader for this moment.”

Mike has led R&D teams at both Collins Aerospace and Assa Abloy. Between his time at Assa Abloy and Collins, Schmid founded InStryde, a custom orthotics company. Over the course of almost four years, InStryde led Schmid through Winston Starts’ own ecosystem and into the Techstars global ecosystem.

In his new role, Schmid will also serve as Greater Winston-Salem Inc.’s first Vice President of Innovation. This joint role will provide strong strategic leadership for Winston-Salem’s key startup initiatives and create a key point of collaboration between Winston Starts and Greater Winston-Salem Inc.

“This alignment between both organizations amplifies our ability to scale early-stage companies and coordinate available resources that make a difference to founders as we continue to build the best startup ecosystem for starting and growing a business,” said Mark Owens, President and CEO of Greater Winston-Salem Inc. “We are excited to welcome Mike into this joint role.”