When Chris P’08 and Elaine McLeod P’08, together with their son, Colin McLeod ’08 M’11, committed support to establish the future Lehigh Venture Studio, their gift reflected a shared belief in the power of ideas and the people who carry them forward.
Designed to support Lehigh’s Office of Entrepreneurship, the family’s investment will help students and faculty move promising ideas beyond the lab and into the real world while gaining the confidence that comes from learning through experience.
Thinking Like an Entrepreneur
At its core, the Venture Studio is about connection. While Lehigh faculty produce high-impact intellectual property, there is a critical gap between the research lab and investable startups. The Venture Studio will bridge that gap.
As Chris McLeod explains, “Lehigh has high-quality research and good ideas that faculty and graduate students are working on. The challenge is always: How do you find the route to commercialize that?”
The Venture Studio model, he says, is designed to answer that question by pairing research outcomes with expertise, student engagement, and a replicable process that allows the market potential for new ideas to be explored with purpose and direction.
“As a longtime member of the Lehigh community, I've watched remarkable research emerge from our labs year after year that could potentially be the focus of a new venture,” says Lisa Getzler, vice provost for entrepreneurship. “The majority of our faculty want to remain in their academic roles rather than leave them to be a CEO. The Venture Studio is an opportunity to honor their work by giving it a new path forward — from discovery to market.”
“But a program like this doesn't come to life in a vacuum,” Getzler continues. “I'm grateful to the team we assembled, including students, staff, and alumni whose vision and dedication has shaped it, and to the Entrepreneurship Kitchen Cabinet for the guidance that helped us get it to this point. I'm deeply thankful to the McLeods for a gift that makes these first steps possible. I couldn't be more proud to see this launch.”
Thinking Bigger
Chris McLeod is a venture capitalist and partner in a New Haven-based fund that builds startups around academic research, primarily in the life sciences. Over the course of his career, he has seen how innovation — when thoughtfully supported — can lead not only to economic growth, but also to meaningful societal impact.
“What excites me,” he says, “is not just the opportunity to make money, but to bring technology to bear on some of the big problems society faces.”
From advances in personalized medicine to new approaches to cancer treatment, Chris has witnessed firsthand how early-stage ideas can improve lives.
Elaine McLeod, a graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Nursing, brings her own lens to the family’s philosophy. She has seen how innovation can emerge when different disciplines intersect.
“It’s not just engineering and business,” she says. “When people with different backgrounds work together, that’s where meaningful ideas come from.”
Learning Outside the Classroom
Those lessons resonate deeply with Colin, whose Lehigh experience shaped how he thinks about innovation today. Arriving on campus undecided about his major, he was relieved to find that Lehigh embraced that uncertainty — a concept not always shared by other institutions he considered. Over time, he discovered that some of the most compelling problems — and solutions — were found outside the classroom.
For Colin, leadership roles in student organizations — from University Productions to club sports — proved formative. Managing budgets, motivating volunteers, and taking responsibility for outcomes taught lessons that continue to guide him professionally.
Just as important were mentors who gave him space to learn through experience. Tara Frank ’99, who led University Productions during Colin’s time at Lehigh, entrusted him with meaningful responsibility early on, offering guidance and feedback without prescribing outcomes.
On the academic side, economics professor emeritus Vince Munley ’74 played a key role, particularly through the Lehigh-Ireland study abroad program, where Colin participated in a research project that helped shape his academic and professional direction and ultimately inspired him to pursue a master’s degree in environmental engineering under the guidance of professor Kristen Jellison.
Innovation Anywhere
Colin earned both his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Lehigh and now serves as director of knowledge and data at an engineering firm, focusing on internal innovation — breaking down silos, sharing expertise, and helping organizations learn from both successes and failures.
He describes himself not as an entrepreneur, but as an “intrapreneur” — someone who applies entrepreneurial thinking within established organizations. That perspective shapes how he views the Venture Studio’s potential.
“You don’t have to be a startup founder to be innovative,” Colin says. “You can take creative thinking into a corporate environment, into public service, into research — anywhere.”
Exposure, he believes, is key. Even ideas that never become companies still create value through the skills and perspective students gain along the way.
Investing in the Future
The McLeods share that long-term view of success. While they hope the Venture Studio will eventually help bring new technologies to market, they also see value in outcomes that are less tangible but equally important.
“Even if we don’t have a commercial success,” Chris says, “if we have more entrepreneurial thinking among students and faculty, that’s still a worthwhile investment.”
By contributing together, the McLeods hope to inspire other parents and alumni to view philanthropy not only as an individual act, but as a shared commitment — one that expands opportunity, fuels innovation, and empowers students to explore what they might become.
For the McLeods, that impact is the greatest return on investment.
