The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) has hired Tommy Sowers as vice chancellor for innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development, and chief innovation officer.
He will join UNC-Chapel Hill on 20 April, succeeding Dedric Carter, who moved to the UNC Health Care System in December last year, and Jackie Quay, who had taken on the duties in an interim capacity during the search.
Sowers has been tasked with turning the university’s innovation ecosystem into a more cohesive, high-impact system.
Specifically, he will be scaling the university’s research commercialisation pipeline, expanding startup formation, and bolstering partnerships with industry, venture capital, and the public sector.
Sowers currently works at Duke University, where he has served as director of graduate studies and deputy director of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society since April 2024.
He had already served as a visiting faculty member at Duke University from April 2014 to April 2015 and as an adjunct assistant professor from 2018 to 2021.
During that latter period, he was also a regional director with the National Security Innovation Network, serving as the US Department of Defense’s lead for innovation in the southeast.
“I am honoured that chancellor Roberts has asked me to join him and the extraordinary team leading Carolina.
“UNC has a world-class innovation ecosystem built by dedicated people, and I cannot wait to learn from and serve this team. The chancellor’s vision for making Carolina the easiest major research university in the country to do business with is bold and exactly right.
“North Carolina is the state, and Chapel Hill is the community my family calls home — and I can think of no greater privilege than helping our students, faculty and partners turn great ideas into real impact for the people of North Carolina.”
Tommy Sowers
Outside of academia, Sowers’ expertise includes flyExclusive, the country’s third-largest private jet operator, where he served as president from July 2021 to April 2024. The company went public in 2023.
He also founded and served as CEO of GoldenKey, a platform to buy and sell homes without real estate commissions. He led the company through multiple funding rounds before an acquisition in 2018.
From 2012 to 2014, he was the assistant secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. As a soldier, he was deployed in Kosovo and twice to Iraq. He was also an assistant professor in the social sciences department at the US Military Academy.
