Biography

Nancy Forster-Holt, PhD, MBA, CMA, RFG, is Assistant Professor in the College of Business. At URI, she developed and launched the Innovation and Entrepreneurship major, minor and certificate programs. Previous to URI, she was a professor and the director of a family business center. Her teaching interests include entrepreneurship, lean start-up, innovation in new and existing business, small firm finance, business plans, small business management, entrepreneurial accounting and finance, and global strategy. She also teaches at the executive level, to family-owned businesses.

Her research interests include: gerontology and aging of business owners, innovation in existing (and family) businesses (‘intrepreneurship’), business owner retirement, entrepreneurial and small firm exit, acquisition strategies, and ENDrepreneurship. Dr. Forster-Holt has presented her research nationally and internationally, including on the TEDx stage. Prior to academia, she had a 25-year career in public accounting and tax (Ernst and Young, NYC and Sacramento, CA), and as CFO of the second largest credit union in Maine. She is currently the co-owner of a family business, the manufacturing company Shaw & Tenney, which was a finalist for the Maine Family Business of the year, and has won innovation grants from the Maine Technology Institute. Dr. Forster-Holt has been a founding CFO, an advisor, a mentor, and a pitch coach to several startups in New England. She is a certified management accountant, a registered financial gerontologist and serves as both a Member of URI Aging Fellows research consortium, and as a Research Associate for University Maine Center on Aging.