UVA Darden Community Takes Center Stage at Tom Tom Festival 2025
By Caroline Mackey
As Charlottesville prepares for the 2025 Tom Tom Festival this week, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business is helping lead the charge.
Faculty will bring world class insights to the festival’s forward-looking conversations on civic innovation, entrepreneurship, and the future of work.
Held annually since 2012, the Tom Tom Festival is a conference and celebration in which vibrant members of the Charlottesville community gather to discuss, imagine and explore the future. This year’s theme is “Evolve,” signifying an exploration of how individuals, communities, organizations and societies adapt to change and grow into something new.
The festival runs from Wednesday through Sunday, and UVA Darden will be represented throughout. Here are some highlights:
Civic Futures: Wednesday, April 16
Kicking off the week is Professor Mike Lenox, who will moderate “Who’s Shaping Our Narrative,” a panel exploring how media, storytelling, and technology are influencing the region’s identity.
As faculty lead of UVA Innovates, Lenox brings perspective to the question surrounding what Charlottesville could be known for in the decades to come, and how to build coalitions that shape the future of inclusivity and sustainability.
Earlier in the day, UVA President Jim Ryan joins “The Innovation Economy” panel to highlight how UVA, in partnership with local government, is helping position the region as a hub for entrepreneurship and discovery.
Community Pitch Night: Wednesday, April 16
Two Darden students will take the stage at Tom Tom’s Crowdfunded Community Pitch Night, an annual showcase of early-stage ventures fueled by local vision and community support.
Kelly Okun (MBA ’25), founder of Fairway to Green and a 2024 i.Lab alum, Zackary Landsman, founder of JunkLabz (iLab ‘24), and Paul Clancy (MD/MBA ’26), an incoming i.Lab entrepreneur, will pitch their ventures.
The i.Lab program, Darden’s venture incubator for student founders, has helped launch dozens of startups in recent years.
In 2024, Darden student and now alum Beza Bisrat won the pitch competition with her food venture, Ethiopian Delights.
UVA E-Cup Student Pitch Competition: Thursday, April 17
Several Darden and i.Lab student founders will participate in this year’s E-Cup competition, sharing early-stage ventures and competing for funding, including a $20,000 first-place prize.
Among the finalists are Custis Coleman (MBA ’25), founder of Land Credit; Stephanie Massucco (MBA ’25, i.Lab ’25), founder of Mother&; Danny Holloway (MBA ’25), founder of TalentBeam; and Miles Landham (i.Lab ’24), founder of Metopi.
Attendees can also cast a vote for the Audience Choice Award.
Entrepreneurship Day: Friday, April 18
On Friday, Omar Garriott, the Executive Director of the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology, opens the day with a keynote on “Entrepreneurship for All” – including an overview of “effectuation,” the need for more widespread entrepreneurship education across K-12 and higher ed, and a fireside chat with two entrepreneurs who went through Batten’s i.Lab Incubator program: Olivia Cleary, founder of The Clearly Collective (iLab ‘24) and Kevin Eisenfrats, founder of Contraline (iLab ‘16).
Following that, Vice Dean Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Academic Co-director the LaCross Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Business, takes the stage for a keynote that breaks down how AI is changing the way we lead and work.
In the afternoon, Professor Christine Mahoney, an expert on impact investing and social entrepreneurship, joins a panel on Demystifying Impact Investing.
Jefferson Innovation Summit: Friday, April 18
Also on Friday, Darden’s Batten Institute and UVA Innovates host the Jefferson Innovation Summit with the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation.
This is an invitation-only gathering of 25 state leaders, founders, investors, and academics.
Through facilitated dialogue and workshopping, the delegates will generate a set of recommendations on the role that universities can play in helping to commercialize and scale new technologies and grow entrepreneurship in the Commonwealth.
Find more information at the Tom Tom Festival site.
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 18,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Darden School of Business
University of Virginia
MitchellM@darden.virginia.edu
