About Lilly

Lilly Tench believes in using innovation and entrepreneurship to address the world’s most pressing problems. Over the past decade she has worked with hundreds of social entrepreneurs in industries from energy to agriculture and gained crucial insight into the opportunities and complexities of mixing mission and money.

Early in her career, Lilly worked alongside No Impact Man to design sustainability education and engagement programs around the world and also helped manufacturers to improve their environmental impact through an organization called ITAC. She later joined the Newlab team, and helped to start an innovation center for entrepreneurs in an abandoned ship building facility that is now home to over 800 entrepreneurs. Lilly went on to support cleantech researchers at Columbia University Technology Ventures, agtech innovators at the non-profit AgLaunch, and currently works as Director of the Spark Innovation Center at the University of Tennessee Research Park. Lilly has a BA in Peace and Social Justice from Berea College, an MBA, and an MS in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics from the University of Tennessee. She is the author of the book Good Business: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating a Better World.