Team Member Feature: Jamie Fugitt

by Emily Reeves Dean August 19, 2018 Acceleration, Talent

Meet Jamie Fugitt, Innovate Arkansas talent development consultant and chairman of the Arkansas Fellowship program.


What makes Arkansas a great place to start and grow business?

Arkansas has enough talent and resources to do world-class things, but small enough to get access to the highest levels of leaders and opportunities relatively easily.


What trends are you seeing in Arkansas startup businesses right now?

Our experienced startup founders are growing and hiring and maintaining awesome company cultures, and their employees are seeing those things and internalizing them.


Why is the Arkansas Fellowship program good for the state?

Throughout the AR Fellowship program, we have continual relationships and collaboration with students, faculty, and administrators in nearly every four-year college in Arkansas, plus continual relationships and collaboration with over 50 Arkansas companies that have either hired one or more Fellow, are intending to hire a Fellow, or support our program in some other way. This means all of these people are engaged in a long-term, long-vision effort for developing and seeding entrepreneurial talent in our young Arkansas professionals and for developing a more intentional entrepreneurial ("intrapreneurial") culture inside our existing companies.


What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Best piece of advice: people will pay you to make their life easier or(and) make them look good, and that is true for any industry, business, or service


What two pieces of advice would you give to someone looking to become an entrepreneur?

Be a listener and a sponge first; assume you do not know the answers. Your network is more powerful than your idea, your product, your service, your pedigree... and your network on top of a great (earned) personal reputation and work ethic is even more powerful.


Follow Jamie on Twitter.

Learn more about the Arkansas Fellowship.

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