NEW ORLEANS – Loyola University New Orleans College of Business welcomes Barbara “Bara” Watts as the new executive director of the school’s Center for Entrepreneurship. In this role, she will lead day-to-day operations of curricular enrichment programs as well as strategic development and community outreach for the center.
“Nationwide, and in our city, entrepreneurs have been hit hard by the pandemic; others have launched new businesses or found new and creative opportunities for partnership, adapting long-needed advancements through communication and technology,” Watts said. “I look forward to sharing my start-up and business development experience with Loyola students and area residents to help them grow and start their businesses as we engage in economic recovery.”
Watts is a business executive, serial entrepreneur and educator with a Bachelor of Science degree from George Washington University and an M.B.A. from Babson College’s F.W. Olin School of Business, with a concentration in Social Entrepreneurship.
For the past three years, she served as director of entrepreneurship at Oberlin College, where she grew a small one-month startup bootcamp and pitch program (Oberlin’s LaunchU) run by alumni into a vibrant year-round program with classes, workshops, TechStar startup weekends, an innovation speaker series, and a venture mentor program. During this period, she supported the formation of 66 companies among students, alumni and faculty through her instruction and bootcamp program.
