Courtesy of TechFW
Cortney Gumbleton
Officials with TechFW announced on Thursday that Cortney Gumbleton has joined its team as assistant director.
Gumbleton will work with TechFW Executive Director Hayden Blackburn to define and execute the strategic plan and vision of the organization. She will also lead the organization’s marketing and operations team members.
A news release announcing Gumbleton’s hiring described her as “a transformative leader with an impressive history of building innovative programs.”
“Cortney is a highly motivated self-starter who makes creative and significant contributions to everything she is involved with, a results-driven achiever with exemplary planning and organizational skills and has the ability to handle multiple projects at once,” Blackburn says in a statement. “She will be an incredible social networking asset, community representative, and developer of business partnerships.”
TechFW supports tech entrepreneurs and startups to take their proprietary innovations to market.
Most recently, Gumbleton was founder, co-owner, and managing partner of Locavore, an event center and commercial kitchens rental business. Before that, she was executive director of The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation, where she implemented Hope Squad, Texas’ first peer-to-peer suicide prevention program for youth. Additionally, she created the Hope Initiative, which trained thousands of community members with the tools to save a life.
“After reading the job description, I knew my skills would be an excellent fit,” she says. “With Locavore, I’ve spent the last few years strongly involved with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Fort Worth and feel called to further support local entrepreneurs through the incredible work TechFW is doing.
“The majority of my professional career I’ve spent working in groups to identify community problems and utilizing critical thinking to strategize and develop action-oriented solutions. I have been fortunate to develop community partnerships and cultivate relationships that advanced our mission through their philanthropic generosity.”
Gumbleton earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from TCU and UT Arlington. She also has completed two years of study on a doctorate in education at TCU. Gumbleton also has a certificate for Women’s Entrepreneurship from Cornell University.
Gumbleton was honored by UTA as a MAVS 100 Top Business in 2020 and ’21. She also has been a Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year Finalist and won the 2018 Fort Worth Business Plan Competition. In 2019, she was selected for a "40 Under 40" award by the Fort Worth Business Press.
In the community, she is a TechFW MCrew mentor; a Sparkyard Advisory Board member; a board member with The Welman Project, Amphibian Stage Productions, and Women’s Policy Forum of Tarrant County; a member of the Chef’s Committee of the Fort Worth Food and Wine Festival, and a 2019 graduate of Leadership Fort Worth.