Part of what makes St. Louis a great tech ecosystem is the number of corporations that are willing to work with the local startups. In specific, St. Louis has become famous for having the benefit of massive financial institutions in its downtown area.
SixThirty, Jim McKelvey’s financial tech accelerator in St. Louis, has leveraged the financial identity of the city to their advantage for some time and to great ends. Today they announced that Atul Kamra, former the Head of Advice for Wells Fargo Advisors, will be joining SixThirty as a new Managing Partner.
“SixThirty is making great strides in the FinTech space. I am very passionate about getting involved in the startup ecosystem that is booming across St. Louis,” says Kamra. “A true asset of SixThirty is our network of mentors and relationships with the vibrant financial services community in St.Louis. I look forward to working with my SixThirty directors to nurture and strengthen this asset.”
During his time at Wells Fargo Kamra oversaw the firm’s investment strategy, research services, discretionary portfolio management, and advice quality functions. He also led a number of initiatives to enhance the firm’s core value proposition to clients and Financial Advisors.
According to the SixThirty team, the role of Managing Partner is crucial to the success of the accelerator: it is critical to executing all of the operational and strategic aspects to attract new startup companies. Further, the Managing Partner has to make sure the companies get the best experience possible through the program and accelerate their commercialization.
“I am excited to have Atul come on board as our Managing Partner. His background in financial services, his experience and connections, and his passion for the startup ecosystem make him well suited to succeed in this role and lead SixThirty to greater success,” says Brian Matthews, general partner of Cultivation Capital and director of SixThirty.
There are only a few accelerators that have the benefit of this corporate support, Tech Wildcatters being one of the others. SixThirty is wise to take advantage of this, because at the end of the day strong corporate partnerships are only going to result in win-win situations.
Image Credit: stltoday.com / ‘Five Questions with Atul Kamra, Wells Fargo chief of gurus‘