Pittsburgh Power Moves: Whiskey mogul takes the helm of CMU’s entrepreneurship program

Tech leadership moves came from unexpected places in tech this month, including breweries and law firms. 

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) looks to an established whiskey-mogul-turned-professor to lead its entrepreneurship project. A global law firm builds out its tech practice here in Pittsburgh with the hire of a former engineer. Plus, there’s leadership news out of a relatively nascent emergency services tech spinout. 

Get the updates on all that and more in this month’s Power Moves. 

Whiskey exec to help get CMU businesses off the ground

Meredith Meyer Grelli, cofounder of Wigle Whiskey and Threadbare Cider & Mead, is taking on a new role as assistant dean for entrepreneurship initiatives and director of Project Olympus. 

The project is CMU’s effort to support new business owners in areas like product-market fit, business modeling and securing funds. 

“My goal is to spend the first several months collaborating with stakeholders to envision what the next five to 10 years of Project Olympus might look like,” Grelli said. “This will involve input from across the university and external partners as we define what entrepreneurship needs Project Olympus will meet.”

During her tenure as assistant teaching professor of entrepreneurship in the Tepper School of Business, Grelli has already connected with more than a thousand CMU students. Grelli said she’ll be turning to the community for feedback on the direction of the programming moving forward. 

GIS tech spinout gets new leadership

Datamark Technologies hired Tim Jenkins as chief strategy officer. The Pittsburgh-based geospatial data management company focuses on public safety efforts and tapped Jenkins from Comtech Telecommunications Corp. which, among other things, hosts 9-1-1 emergency services. 

Jenkins’s new role will focus on client relationships, business development and other strategic planning efforts. 

As a standalone effort, Datamark Technologies only recently launched in June. Consulting firm Michael Baker International acquired 9-1-1 location service Digital Data Technologies and spun out Datamark as a combination of the efforts.

Law firms hires tech specialist to accommodate booming scene

Law firm Dentons brings on patent lawyer Wei Yu at its Pittsburgh Cohen & Grigsby P.C. to staff its technology practice. 

“With the addition of Wei, we have bolstered our offerings to the growing and robust robotics and artificial intelligence industries both here in Pittsburgh and worldwide,” said Michael Dukes, chair of the Pittsburgh intellectual property and technology practice group. “We can now offer this specialization to our emerging growth and venture technology clients.”  

A former electrical engineer, Yu then pursued a career in patent, trademark and copyright law with a focus on engineering intellectual property. He was the founder and principal of Wayfarer Patent Law LLC.

Yu also mentors students at CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.

More Power Moves:

• Ashis Barad will be leaving his post as chief digital and information officer at Allegheny Health Network. Effective Sept. 10, he’ll be taking on a similar role at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

• CMU’s Zico Kolter is joining the board of directors for ChatGPT parent company OpenAI. He currently directs the machine learning department at the university.