Wendy Bolger, founding director of Loyola University Maryland’s Simon Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, was named among the Baltimore Business Journal’s 2022 Women to Watch, a “list of women leaders poised to make headlines in the coming years,” according to the journal.
The Baltimore Business Journal recognized honorees as “women leaders who have excelled in their industry by showing innovation, perseverance and great success.”
Bolger helped establish Loyola’s Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship in 2018, which nurtures student innovators through education, hands-on experiences, and creative experimentation. The center works to benefit Baltimore through support of wealth and job creation driven by underrepresented women entrepreneurs and innovators of color.
As director, Bolger has grown the center to include the Baltipreneurs Accelerator, a cohort-based venture development program that supports and mentors entrepreneurs. She plans to continue Loyola’s commitment to this work thanks to a $3-million endowed gift from Nick Simon, MBA ’84, and Susie Simon, M.Ed. ’81.
Prior to joining Loyola, Bolger’s 20-year career spanned projects in the public and private sectors, including experience as an entrepreneur starting her own firm, managing technology product development, and launching new initiatives and teams for nonprofit organizations. In 2020, Bolger was named to Technical.ly Baltimore’s inaugural RealLIST Connectors roundup of those building Baltimore’s tech, entrepreneurship, and innovation community by linking others with the goals of growth and inclusivity.
Previously, Bolger directed innovation strategy for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, founded a management consulting firm, and held director positions with global humanitarian organization Mercy Corps. She was a senior product marketing engineer at Intel, where she oversaw the development of a digital camera line, and a marketing fellow at Save the Children, where she started youth-led initiative YouthNoise. In Fall 2021, Bolger served in a key leadership role as Loyola and University of Baltimore hosted the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers Conference in Baltimore.
Bolger holds an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Smith College in Massachusetts.
