Director Baxter Webb MBA

The Center for Entrepreneurship within Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management is developing expansive plans and programs that rely on experimentation, analysis and creativity to grow venture-backed startups.

Center Director Baxter Webb, a successful former Nashville entrepreneur, has posted notice of his plans to hire a special-projects manager to help the Center capitalize on its opportunities.

Webb wrote last week that the new role "involves spearheading various key initiatives launched [during the 2024-25 academic year], such as the Convoy Conference, Summer Venture Immersion, Startup Career Fair, and Vanderbilt Founders Confidential (VFC) alumni program."

Webb's post advises that the ultimate hire will be someone proven to have excelled "in organization and interpersonal communication, with a knack for event management and some understanding of startups. A deep-rooted passion for Vanderbilt is essential."

The special-projects job description is posted by VU here. VNC has also cached the description here.

In a brief interview today, Webb acknowledged that the acclaim received in response to an array of Center initiatives -- particularly the Center's inaugural CONVOY conference in March this year -- has been very encouraging.

Attendee response to the inaugural Convoy conference was indeed enviable, as reflected in statistics provided by Webb and available here. Convoy-like scenarios for 2026 through 2028 remain in development.

Vanderbilt management has in the past year migrated much greater responsibility for formal entrepreneurship and startup development by university founders to the Owen School, while The Wond'ry Center for Innovation is now a unit of Vanderbilt's School of Engineering and focused on exploring and refining ideas and removing barriers to idea development.

In leading the Center, Webb works alongside Michael Burcham, the faculty director for the Center, which is often tagged as "C4E".

Webb provided VNC a guide to the Center's Vanderbilt Venture Framework™, which is cached here.

Vanderbilt education and innovation initiatives have proliferated in the past three years. As widely reported, Vanderbilt is establishing greater presence in New York City, West Palm Beach and San Francisco and is widely expected to plant its flag, in time, elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad.

Vanderbilt is also expanding its presence in Nashville. It recently revealed that it "envisions a long-term master plan to create [a mixed-use] innovation neighborhood on underutilized land it owns on the western side of campus."

In that neighborhood, Vanderbilt said it "envisions a dynamic and livable neighborhood with ample green space, pedestrian pathways, places to meet and linger, and that welcomes the Nashville community."

The Real Deal reported June 13 that development of 40 acres that Vanderbilt owns in Midtown Nashville will be carried-out in partnership with private developers and investors.

Vanderbilt says it has chosen international architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), urban design firm Field Operations, and Nashville-based Hastings Architecture to lead master planning for its planned innovation district.

Vanderbilt provided a map of some of its near-campus real estate holdings, with a cordoned area depicting the potential boundaries of the new innovation district. The image is cached here. VNC

last edited 1710 29 July 2025