The Path Forward Center is not just one or two people, rather a community and team of support.

The formal team is small but with big plans for expanding. We have the passion and background to meet our goals of reaching thousands of women across dozens of countries to create entrepreneurs, grow women-owned businesses, and expand economic opportunity. Check back to see how we grow!

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  Julie Lenzer Kirk

  Co-Founder and Board Member
  Having experienced the empowerment of entrepreneurship first hand, Ms. Kirk co-founded the Path Forward Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This passion was fueled from six years instructing the internationally-acclaimed ACTiVATE® program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), which the Center has now taken over to expand internationally. Through this program, which was named “Best Specialty Entrepreneurship Program” by the US Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Julie expanded her proven “Boot in the ButtTM" facilitation process to accelerate women’s business and leadership growth, resulting in expanded opportunities for them as well as the communities they serve. She was recently tapped to be the Director for the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship in Columbia, Maryland.
  
  Ms. Kirk founded her first company, Applied Creative Technologies, Inc. (ACT), in 1995 as an IT solutions firm focusing on manufacturing operations and inventory control. With Fortune 500 clients, she grew the company to multi-millions in revenues, winning several national awards for workplace excellence. Through her 10-year leadership, ACT developed and commercialized ACTrax , a leading-edge production and warehouse management system, for which she negotiated the sale in 2005.
  
  Ms. Kirk is an award winning entrepreneur receiving the Athena Award in 2004 as recognition for her contributions to other business women and the community and was named to Maryland's Top 100 Women 2005 and 2008 sponsored by The Daily Record. She is a member of the National Center for Women and Information Technology's Entrepreneurial Alliance and on the advisory board of the NeoTech Incubator in Howard County.  She also currently chairs the DC Chapter of the Women Presidents’ Organization.
  
  A requested speaker across 4 continents in what has been heralded as “life changing” keynotes and workshops, Ms. Kirk’s approaches to leadership, innovation, and success are inspiring and uniquely engaging. She is frequently quoted in the media – from Entrepreneur to Redbook and Family Circle Magazines - and having appeared in numerous broadcast interviews, she also writes a column for Enterprising Women Magazine. Her book, "The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches About Building a Successful Business" (John Wiley & Sons) which shares business tips and advice for starting, growing, and running a business using parenting metaphors, is available online and in bookstores across the globe.
     
  
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  Renee Lewis

  Co-Founder and Interim Director
  Renee Lewis a serial entrepreneur fascinated with the important role that business – small and large – plays in our economy. She has dedicated much of her career to doing her part to strengthen business where ever possible, with a special focus on women-owned businesses and the unique economic potential women’s entrepreneurship provides.
  
  Renee co-founded the Path Forward Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship after teaching its core entrepreneurship program, ACTiVATE® at UMBC (the founding program) for three years.  The Center focuses on developing women-owned businesses that have the potential to leverage technology as they grow beyond their founder to increase economic opportunities for themselves and their employees.  It provides a unique and proven applied-learning approach for women, coupled with necessary resources and support required to catapult women into building and growing successful businesses in information technology, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical device and other related service areas.
  
  Ms. Lewis began her career as a “techy” running software engineering organizations during the long-ago dot-com era.   She gained a reputation for knowing how to get things done, delivering high-quality software, and addressing client’s real concerns, which she quickly realized were often different than the ones they stated.  Her start up experience crosses a variety of industries including healthcare, benefits administration, pharmaceuticals, banking, drug safety systems and e-learning. She gets big business, too, having cut her teeth running big engineering shops at Bell Atlantic, Booz, Allen and Cerner.  This cross-industry exposure has provided a solid foundation for enhanced creativity when finding solutions for clients.
  
  She sold her last tech company, a difficult turn-around situation, to Cerner.  After holding key senior roles in six separate start-ups, she realized all she really knew was how to drive a business through its logical stages successfully and started the Pensare Group to share her experiences with those who needed them most – other entrepreneurial CEO’s with the spirit and intent to expand and grow. Pensare focuses on alignment strategies – an under- used asset and secret sauce for growth and getting results.
  
  Ms. Lewis serves on a variety of boards and is active is numerous community activities.  She has served on the advisory board for the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development for 10 years, working to ensure our teachers of the future are prepared and technically adept.  She was also actively involved in the PTA as co-President and served as the President of the Wood Acres Citizens Association for 4 years.
  
  She is a requested speaker on developing competitive advantage, new sales strategies, and the role of innovation.  Ms. Lewis holds a BS from the Pennsylvania State University and an MS from George Washington University in software engineering.