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She wanted off the beaten path and ultimately found herself in the Houston entrepreneurial ecosystem. Leisa Holland-Nelson interviews Sarah Groen, co-founder and director of SURGE Accelerator, a mentor-driven seed accelerator focused on energy software.
Leisa: Hello, I'm Leisa Holland-Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we're going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is Sarah Groen, co-founder and Director of Surge, an energy accelerator, here in Houston, Texas. Welcome, Sarah.
Sarah: Thanks.
Leisa: That's a big mouthful. Tell us how you got to be an energy accelerator.
Sarah: Well, I'd always been interested in business. I went to University of Texas for undergrad and majored in finance there. While I was there, I also spent a lot of time traveling the world. I studied abroad twice. At this point, I've been to 45 countries -
Leisa: Wow.
Sarah: - but, you know, went, ended up going into investment banking here in Houston at Simmons and Company International, where I did mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas space. Then I moved on to private equity, where I did investing into oil and gas companies, as well as other companies from other spaces. But I was interested in kind of getting off that beaten path. Like I, opening my horizons like I had when I had traveled and decided to go back for my MBA to Stanford Business School. At Stanford, I really kind of focused on entrepreneurship and my eyes were open to everything that's going on in Silicon Valley and I wanted to bring a piece of that back with me to Houston. So I came back to Houston. I was focused on entrepreneurship. I met a couple of my co-founders and we thought that an accelerator focused on energy software in Houston would be a really great addition to the entrepreneurial ecosystem here.
Leisa: And it is. Thank you so much for coming back.
Sarah: Thank you.
Leisa: There you have it; another extraordinary woman doing extraordinary things. I'm Leisa Holland-Nelson, President and co-founder of Content Active, Houston's leading Web and mobile technology company. You can find me at contentactive.com or follow me on Twitter at lhnelson. We'll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.
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