The Honorable Tommy Sowers, Ph.D., serves as Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development and Chief Innovation Officer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He brings cross-sector leadership to strengthen Carolina’s innovation ecosystem and leads efforts to scale the University’s research commercialization pipeline, expand startup formation, and deepen partnerships with industry, venture capital, and public-sector collaborators. His work aligns Carolina’s innovation infrastructure – from labs to launch – into a more cohesive, high-impact system.

With experience spanning academia, building public and venture-backed companies, national security innovation, and public sector leadership, Sowers is positioned to accelerate how Carolina translates discovery into real-world solutions that drive economic growth across North Carolina and beyond.

Before joining Carolina, Sowers served as director of graduate studies and deputy director for the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. His teaching pairs interdisciplinary student teams with real-world technology challenges from organizations including the N.C. Governor’s office, SAS, OpenAI and the NIH. While at Duke, he was appointed by Gov. Josh Stein to, and currently serves on, the N.C. AI Leadership Council.

Before his leadership role at Duke, Sowers was president of North Carolina-based flyExclusive, the country’s third largest private jet operator. After leading flyExclusive through multiple periods of rapid growth, the company went public in 2023 and continues to be an economic driver for eastern North Carolina.

Sowers served from 2018 to 2021 as the Southeast regional director for the Department of Defense’s National Security Innovation Network and Defense Innovation Unit. He led department innovation across the Southeast, bringing together dozens of research universities, entrepreneurs and venture investors to build new technology solutions for national security units.

As founder and CEO of GoldenKey, he created a technology-driven alternative to help Americans buy and sell homes without traditional real estate commissions. In three years, he led the company from conception through product launch, multiple capital raises, market expansion and eventual acquisition in 2018.

From 2012 to 2014, he served as an assistant secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs. As one of the youngest Senate-confirmed assistant secretaries in the federal government, Sowers set the department’s national communications strategy and oversaw public engagement and intergovernmental relations with all 50 states, U.S. territories and tribal governments. Prior to his VA service, Sowers was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

An 11-year U.S. Army combat veteran, Sowers led a combat engineering platoon in Kosovo and deployed to Iraq twice as a Green Beret, leading and advising U.S. and Iraqi units on counterinsurgency operations. He also served as an assistant professor in the social sciences department at the United States Military Academy.

Sowers earned his undergraduate degree in public policy from Duke University and his master’s and doctorate from the London School of Economics. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Ericka, their four girls, two dogs and currently two chickens.