Boone County native Nikki Boehmker wasn’t always involved in entrepreneurship, but her love for community outreach eventually led her to the field.
“I’ve always had an interest in entrepreneurship and financial literacy and helping to develop youth interest in that area,” she said. “I didn’t intend for it to lead where it did, but then after many years in public accounting and post-pandemic, decided to make a career change and by chance happened upon the opening of Cintrifuse.”
After nearly three years at Cintrifuse – an entrepreneurial support organization based in Cincinnati’s Over The Rhine neighborhood – Boehmker was promoted to the newly created position of executive director, which will oversee the operational aspects of the nonprofit.
Previously, Boehmker served as the organization’s comptroller and chief compliance officer. The move came after former CEO Pete Blackshaw announced his departure in January, prompting management reshuffling. J.B. Kropp was named as the organization’s new CEO, in addition to serving as the managing director of Cintrifuse Capital.
Kropp is bullish about Boehmker’s ability to enable cohesion between the organization’s resource and funding sides.
“I have worked closely with Nikki since joining Cintrifuse, and I have been very impressed with her leadership ability, her attention to detail, and her ability to tackle complex challenges,” Kropp told LINK nky. “I can think of no better person to help lead us in this next chapter of the organization and our work providing our region’s entrepreneurs with the resources, connections, and capital they need to scale.”
Boehmker began her career in the financial sector at the Cincinnati branch of PricewaterhouseCoopers — one of the “Big Four” worldwide accounting firms. She progressed up PwC’s ranks for 17 years, serving in roles where she directly coordinated with nonprofits and school districts to organize community events.
The advent of the pandemic led Boehmker to seek a career change. She told LINK nky that she had longer-term aspirations to work in the nonprofit sector, ultimately leading to her landing a role at Cintrifuse in 2021.
Last fall, Cintrifuse launched Cintrifuse Capital Fund III – an SEC-registered investment arm of the organization. The fund effectively allows the support organization to function as a venture capital firm by directing capital investments into seed-stage startups in the Cincinnati area and around the U.S.
In her new role, Boehmker will focus on preparing companies for capital funding and directing them toward Cintrifuse’s array of entrepreneurial resources. Boehmker said she brings a “logical” and “pragmatic” mentality to the role and primarily focuses on driving meaningful impact.
“We now have the ability to actually deploy capital into local companies,” Boehmker said. “We’re writing checks, and then really trying to wrap resources around those companies to enable their success. My vision for the nonprofit is to better prepare companies and to build the pipeline to our funds, and give them the resources they need to be prepared for capital. Once we’ve given capital to those companies, we’ll continue to assist them and make sure we’re providing the right resources at the right time.”
It’s a pivotal time for the Greater Cincinnati startup ecosystem. The region is seeing positive momentum and from Boehmker’s perspective, founders, venture capital funds and entrepreneurial support organizations must continue to work together to capitalize on it.
“Once we see successful founders generate meaningful exits from their businesses, we hope that both the talent and capital will be reinvested back into the ecosystem,” she said. “This reinvestment is expected to help generate the creation of even more companies.”
