Ashley Currie is a Nashville native with some midwest living in between, receiving her B.S. in Marketing from Northern Illinois University.

She currently serves as the Marketing & Communications Director, overseeing the thoughtful storytelling of Launch Tennessee through an integrated approach encompassing digital, email, social media, editorial and advertising. She is an entrepreneur and creative, bringing years of experience within corporate marketing, advertising and managing her own marketing consultancy along with being the founder of Nashville’s only multicultural city guide, Urbaanite.com.

When she is not working, you can find her on a hiking trail, laughing with family or honing her at-home chef skills, trying out new recipes.

Sam Elliott is a Alabama native, receiving his undergraduate degree at the University of Alabama and Master’s degree from Belmont University.

He currently serves as Launch Tennessee’s Accounting Manager where he handles payroll, benefits and accounting efforts to ensure our non-profit efforts are managed effectively. His prior experience includes private and public accounting across various industries in healthcare, commercial real estate, and the music industry. He is also the resident “Spreadsheet Wizard” in our office.

When not working, you will find Sam enjoying anything with music, sports, and the great outdoors.

Mahni Ghorashi is a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur and investor. He’s founded and help grow a number of ventures to exit in Silicon Valley, including Clear Labs, Bina (acquired Roche) , Trapit (acquired ScribbleLive), and LiteScape (acquired Dell). Currently, Mahni runs Strategy at Launch Tennessee the state of Tennessee’s economic development initiative to promote early stage startup ventures. In this role, he oversees venture capital and portfolio investments, seven entrepreneurial incubators, university and government-lab tech-transfer and licensing programs, university engagement, business development and policy outreach. He’s been interviewed in the The New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, Wired, CNBC and CNN. Mahni attended MIT, Yale, and Vanderbilt Universities and studied piano at the Juilliard School. He has taught courses in entrepreneurship at MIT and Stanford Universities.

Khrys Hatch is a Nashville native and Summa Cum Laude graduate of Fisk University.

He currently serves as Launch Tennessee’s Capital Formation Manager where he works to expand and expedite the availability of capital to TN startups so that they can grow, be sustainable, create jobs, and build accessible economic prosperity. As part of those efforts, he manages LaunchTN’s investment fund, investor relations efforts, and several other capital-focused initiatives.

Outside of LaunchTN, Khrys is an active musician. He is also an HBCUvc Fellow and a class 74 graduate of Young Leaders Council.

Charles “Chuck” Layne is a trained planner and community development practitioner. As a Nashville native, he recognizes the power of entrepreneurship in building community equity and the importance of place-based development in establishing accessible innovation ecosystems. Primarily, he focuses on these efforts at the local level through the utilization of the Complete Neighborhoods framework, an advocacy platform he created to empower planners and economic development practitioners to take a holistic lens at how neighborhoods are and are not working for their residents – including how conducive they are to entrepreneurial activity.

In his role as Strategy Coordinator at Launch Tennessee, he manages a variety of special projects and facilitates resources for entrepreneurs across capital, commercialization, and market building programs at the organization. His favorite part of working at Launch Tennessee is the time he gets to spend on community building efforts across our major Tennessee regions and cities, particularly with entrepreneurs who have a vision for how they can create something new for the places they call home.

Prior to joining the team at Launch Tennessee, Chuck was a Housing and Community Development Fellow in Memphis who worked on policy & advocacy efforts for reallocation of the Memphis Affordable Housing Trust Fund, where he concurrently obtained his Masters of City & Regional Planning from The University of Memphis. Ultimately, this work has inspired him to identify new ways to combine community and economic development through entrepreneurial economic gardening practices that focus on people, places, and the policies necessary for building a better Tennessee tomorrow.

Evan Prislovsky is a Knoxville native and graduate of Appalachian State University where he studied Finance and Banking. 

He currently serves as a Launch Tennessee Strategy Coordinator, a role that supports tech commercialization, market building, and capital formation. His prior experience includes working with nonprofits in Southeast Asia and apprenticing at a financial advisory firm that helped people spend, save and invest better.

When not working, you will find Evan running, traveling or building a passive income.

Katherine serves as Accounting Director after joining LaunchTN in March 2020 as the Finance and Accounting Manager.

Prior to LaunchTN, she owned a boutique accounting firm that focused on helping closely-held businesses and their owners navigate the worlds of accounting and taxes. Katherine has a background in both private and public accounting, which has given her a unique perspective into the entrepreneurial ecosystem in various industries, including real estate, hospitality, retail, country clubs, and healthcare. She has also been the CFO for several companies within these industries.

A Nashville native, Katherine earned her BBA, majoring in Accounting, from Belmont University. She is a CPA and a member of the AICPA and TSCPA.

Katherine serves on the Advisory Board for Restore Small Groups.

Jeremy joined the LaunchTN team at the start of 2021 as Head of Partnerships to guide and create in and out of network revenue opportunities. As an entrepreneur himself, he is a natural fit to identify mutually beneficial partnerships for the Tennessee entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Jeremy has worked in the entertainment industry for 12+ years with experience ranging from talent agencies to management firms, large event producers, and most recently in the brand partnerships sector. Jeremy has played a key role in the launch and success of several brand partnership agencies in Nashville and other major markets. He has led multiple national brand partnership programs and delivered quantifiable value for each. Jeremy studied entrepreneurship at Arizona State University and music business at CRAS.

Abby is excited to be serving LaunchTN as Interim CEO. She has significant experience working with the state’s startups and innovation-based economy through her work as executive director of BioTN and Life Science TN (LST). 

Abby is also a partner at Hall Strategies, a public and government relations firm. She was a driving force behind Tennessee’s SBIR/STTR matching program, as well as the development and expansion of LaunchTN’s Mentor Network programs that now assist startups in the life science, automotive/mobility, energy and ag-tech industries.

Abby has vast experience managing multi-faceted, complex projects that include communications, policy and advocacy, events,  membership development, fundraising, and grassroots campaigns.

A native of Oak Ridge, Abby is a graduate of the University of Tennessee. Abby is regularly engaged in community work. She has a passion for education, the biosciences, the Nashville Zoo, Tennessee’s lakes, and hot chicken. Her husband Doug is a high school history teacher. She has two daughters, one freshman at Purdue and the other a senior at Nashville’s John Overton High School.

A product of the LaunchTN Internship Program herself, as well as working with The Biz Foundry and Tennessee Tech’s iCube, Ashlin has gained experience with Tennessee’s entrepreneurial ecosystem on multiple levels. Being exposed to the innovation and entrepreneurship program in college ignited Ashlin’s love of ideation and collaboration, working to ensure entrepreneurs thrive as a founder at any stage.

As LaunchTN’s Market Building Manager, Ashlin has the opportunity to connect our Network Partners across the state, support university engagement and manage various initiatives at the organization. Ashlin is a Tennessee native and earned her undergraduate degree in Finance and Economics and an MBA concentrated in Information Systems from Tennessee Tech University. She enjoys venturing outdoors with her pup, water skiing and scuba diving with her family, and trying too many Pinterest crafts and recipes.