Invest Southwest Board of Directors

Sandra Watson brings more than 20 years of economic development leadership experience to Arizona. She and her teams have successfully attracted hundreds of companies to Arizona that have invested billions of dollars in capital and created more than 75,000 quality jobs. Ms. Watson worked tirelessly to implement the new vision for the ACA and its aggressive 5-year business plan promoting the state’s pro-business, competitive value proposition. She provided invaluable leadership during the organization’s transition from the Department of Commerce into one of the nation’s first state-based public-private partnerships focused on economic development. Under her direction, the ACA leads statewide efforts assisting companies to locate, expand and grow – bringing high-wage jobs and capital investment to Arizona. Ms. Watson holds an Honors Bachelor of Commerce degree, and completed the Global Leadership Certification program at the Thunderbird School of Management.

As Managing Director of Technology Banking, Ryan covers Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico, providing opportunities for technology companies to grow, raise capital, and elevate their business through the use of SVB’s network and decades of time in the industry.

As Chief Operating Officer, Sharon manages daily operations at GPEC, overseeing the infrastructure of personnel, systems, and processes, focusing on the organization’s finance, compliance, governance, administrative, and strategic priorities.

Sharon spent over a decade scaling and operating businesses. Prior to GPEC, Sharon built the social impact platform and led community programs, partnerships, and property management initiatives for the multifamily platform of Turner Impact Capital, one of the nation’s largest social impact investors. Prior to Turner, Sharon held roles including Investor Relations at Watershed Asset Management, Special Projects at ESL Investments/Sears Holdings, and Sales & Trading at Lehman Brothers.

Sharon graduated from Yale University (BA, Political Science) and attended the MBA/MA dual degree program with The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. She has served as an elected officer on multiple nonprofit boards across the country.

Tim Kelley has over 20 years of experience as an Entrepreneur in Construction, Education, Finance and Software in Mexico, South America, the US and Africa (Angola). He served as Founder, Chairman and CEO of KCA International Construction and Facilities Management for over 14 years and managed over $200 million dollars of projects in Mexico and over 2 million square feet of office, commercial and residential space throughout Latin America.

Tim was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine for innovative international entrepreneurship and currently serves as the COO of the Entrepreneur Opportunity Fund, owner and CFO with his wife of two education related companies with 45 + employees and several million in gross revenue, and is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Economics at Grand Canyon University and Chairman of the Canyon Angels.

Stephen has more than ten years of executive leadership experience in tech startups, product development, government affairs and investment banking, and is currently Founder of Assure Vote. Assure Vote is a commercialized online, patented voter registration software designed to reach and engage voters online as well as facilitate ballot and ‘get out the vote’ initiatives. There he introduce the first voter data aggregation and appending system.

Prior to founding Assure Vote, Stephen was Director at The LIBRE Initiative, a social NGO startup dedicated to the empowerment, education and entrepreneurship of Hispanics in the U.S. Prior to that, Stephen was an Associate at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group where he focused on managing an SMB portfolio with a combined annual revenue of $750m. Stephen holds a B.I.S. in Business Communications from Arizona State University, and trained in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Commercialization from M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, and Technology in Government from Harvard Kennedy School.