NEXT Innovation:
We help our clients find what’s next.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Executive

Nida Ansari

Finance and Operations Partner

Megan Bearry

Megan has over 15 years of experience in finance and operations, particularly in service of helping start-up companies scale. Her skills include budget creation and implementation, financial modeling, process creation, and obtaining funding through diverse sources. She takes pride in helping companies start from scratch and guiding them along the path to become successful and profitable.

Prior to NEXT, she was the Director of Finance at Sigstr (now Terminus) where she gained experience in the SaaS industry and ran point on their acquisition. She was the CFO at Eleven Fifty Academy, in charge of finance, operations and HR.  At Eleven Fifty, she gained  experience in the non-profit world and obtaining grant funding.  Before Eleven Fifty she was the Director of Finance at ClearObject, having started with the company when it was just beginning, and helping see them through multiple rounds of capital raising and ultimately a sale to private equity. She is a graduate of Indiana University – Bloomington.

Education Innovation Executive

Dr. Kevin Berkopes

Kevin is responsible for expanding the Studio’s work in education innovation, particularly in the area of new ways to deliver relevant skills to today’s students.

Kevin is also the CEO of MathTrack, an innovator in delivery of both apprenticeship degree paths and mathematics teacher talent development across the US. He is also the managing partner of RoverCode, the founder of research and development firm Crossroads Education, and formally served as Faculty and Researcher at Indiana University, Purdue University, and Wabash College.

Kevin holds a Masters degree in Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelors degree and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Educational Mathematics from Purdue University at West Lafayette.

Innovation Consultant

Mary Dougherty

Mary began her career as a teacher, inspiring students to learn and grow. After 13 years she transitioned to a director role at an education technology company, where she managed over 50 employees and contractors, organized events, planned projects, implemented process improvement, and ensured the quality of the services provided.

At NEXT Innovation, she brings skills in organization, event planning, resource management, operations, time management, and project management. She also enjoys mentoring and coaching people, helping them develop their potential and achieve their goals.

She is always looking for new ways to improve customer experience and deliver value to clients, and is committed to excellence and innovation in everything she does.

Innovation Advancement Strategist

Chris Johnston

“CJ” has had long career in the investment management and philanthropic fundraising business – and most recently after a multiyear experience managing a community impact portfolio.

He has led teams in national, regional, and local projects raising more than $3 billion for churches, schools, institutions of higher education, investment management firms, trust accounts and more.

Clients and marketing partners include CEOs, Directors, Boards, Executives, Physicians, Attorneys, CPAs, and Financial Advisors.

In both professional and volunteer roles, he formed, trained, and managed operational and fundraising boards. His career demonstrates collaboration with a variety of constituencies including boards, volunteers, CEOs, professionals, development officers, business owners, and association directors.

Communication and Storytelling Executive

Kara Kavensky

Kara Kavensky has 25+ years experience as a professional corporate communications expert, public relations strategist, author, and podcaster. Her super power is humanizing businesses and empowering them with authentic messaging.

A born storyteller, Kara loves sharing inspiring stories. She has written thousands of personal interest articles, op-eds, and features on fascinating people to local and national magazines and news outlets. She writes speeches and coaches teams of entrepreneurs on how to craft their pitch.

Kara possesses a strong passion for honest, powerful, effective storytelling catalyzing meaningful, positive change. Her first memoir, Finding Joy, will be released soon. Her podcasts Finding Joy with Kara and Record Scratch with Kara celebrate inspirational humans.

Kara serves on the Board of Directors for The Indianapolis Propylaeum, volunteers with the Caroline Scott Harrison chapter for Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), is a Blue Star mom (her son serves in the USAF), and will be launching Remain Relevant: a Master Class for corporate storytelling in 2024.

Managing Entrepreneur

Tom Kilcoyne

I’ve delivered successful exits on five startups over the last twenty years and raised over $100M in capital, so I know what it takes to scale a concept into a growth stage company.

As COO of ClearObject, I helped grow their managed services business, and support the growth of the company into a leader in the Internet of Things, before helping to sell the company to two leading East Coast private equity firms.

Before that I was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Elevate Ventures, where I helped portfolio companies develop and execute funding strategies, and then helped them create strategic business plans. I was also the co-founder and managing partner of NewRoad Partners, a boutique merger and acquisition advisory firm based in Reston, Virginia, where I helped companies devise capital strategies.

I’ve been a three-time CEO of technology companies, first I was the founding CEO for Simplexity, a communications marketplace that was successfully sold to In Phonic, a publicly traded company. Following that, a venture capital firm selected my team and I to turnaround two portfolio companies. Next, I helped sell Red Creek Communications to SonicWALL, a publicly traded, Silicon Valley company. The following year, my team and I led the sale of Veritect, a Northern Virginia-based security company to Red Siren, a privately held company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I was part of a select team at VeriFone, a leading Silicon Valley payment technology company, that created a new Internet payment system, which we ultimately sold to Hewlett Packard for $1.3B. Before that I was an executive in marketing at MCI, Carnation and Oral-B.

I earned an MBA from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from The University of Colorado at Boulder.

Managing Entrepreneur

John McDonald

Enterprise Innovation Executive

Dr. Bryan Ritchie

Bryan Ritchie is a company creator with extensive startup, scale, and execution experience. He has been a CEO/operator of many companies, particularly in software, investment, and consulting. In addition, Bryan also has extensive experience derisking deep tech intellectual property, including commercialization, venture studio, licensing, and venture capital at Michigan State University, the University of Utah, and the University of Notre Dame. He has been involved in over 350 startups, brought in more than $2 billion in investment and grants, and overseen an average of 90 licenses and 90+ patents per year at each institution. He is the author of several books and numerous articles. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and holds an M.B.A. from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in political economy from Emory University.