Executive director begins role at college’s entrepreneurial center

By Lauren McDonald lmcdonald@thebrunswicknews.com

Ande Noktes had a question, so she turned to an obvious place to find the answer: a search engine on the internet.

Twenty years ago, that search engine was yahoo.com, where Noktes typed “how to start a business” into the search bar.

“And about.com pops up with ‘These are the seven steps to start a business,’” she recalled.

It seemed as simple as following a recipe.

Noktes has since learned in her two decades of work as an entrepreneur that while it’s not as simple as seven quick steps, there are core ingredients to creating and running a successful business.

“Having a clear why,” said Noktes, who began this week in her new role as executive director of the Art and Lindee Lucas Center for Entrepreneurship at College of Coastal Georgia. “Knowing what your North Star is so you can make decisions in alignment with that. Knowing where your own strengths are so that you can complement those strengths in your hiring with your team. Having a strong team environment. Thinking about what value you bring to your customers and how you communicate that value.”

These are among the clear building blocks to any kind of entrepreneurial endeavor, Noktes said.

She will be the first to hold the executive director position for the new center, which was unveiled in November and created through a donation from local business leader Art Lucas and his wife, Lindee.

The new center will support economic development, business creation and other entrepreneurship efforts through academic programs, mentoring, consulting services, community events and partnerships.

Art Lucas founded the Lucas Group in 1970 and led the company nearly 40 years as it grew into one of the nation’s leading executive recruitment firms. He founded Lucas Properties after moving back to Coastal Georgia. He also serves as a trustee for the college’s foundation.

It was another, more recent perusal of the internet that brought Noktes to Glynn County. She saw news on her LinkedIn feed about the new Lucas Center, the mission of which fit easily into her own desire to help create a community ecosystem for entrepreneurism.

“A few months ago I was thinking about how I can take the research that I’m doing as a part of my doctoral work and use those learnings that I’m coming across in a way that really has an impact in the world,” she said. “And what I really need is a college or a university that could make that happen to have the intellectual capital to really be able to stand it up.

“And then that day across my LinkedIn feed I read about the gift that Art Lucas gave to the college here.”

Noktes moved to Coastal Georgia from Atlanta, where she founded and led Midtown International School before transitioning in May 2020 into a new role focused on helping entrepreneurs as a coach and consultant.

She earned an MBA at Emory University in 2018 and is now doing doctoral work at Northeastern University that is focused on women’s entrepreneurship and barriers women face when starting a business.

“I am a serial social entrepreneur,” she said. “I’ve started three businesses over the last 20 years. I started my first one with a $100 gift card, to my name, and have really been through the ropes of trying to figure out how to create solutions for the world that help people’s lives.”

Her first entrepreneurial venture began with the internet search and the gift card, which she used to get cash and buy the supplies she needed.

“It grew really organically, and within the first five years I was opening my next business and within seven years the third,” she said.

Those businesses include International Preschools and Midtown International School, both of which were intended to address a gap Noktes saw in what some students need and what’s available.

She sees a similar gap now in the ecosystem supporting entrepreneurs.

“I remember what it felt like at the very beginning when I didn’t have a network and I didn’t have capital, I didn’t have a community, and honestly when I started my first business I had never had a business class in my life,” she said.

Many women and people of color lack a support group of mentors and other networks, which makes starting their own business significantly more challenging, Noktes said.

“Entrepreneurship is more than the sum of its parts,” she said. “It’s not just your mission, and it’s not just your team and it’s not just your marketing strategy. It’s all of those things working together to make something happen.”

Teaching entrepreneurship means helping students see how all of those business functions work together to create something new for the world, she said.

The Lucas Center’s mission is to create an ecosystem for entrepreneurship on campus, in the community and in the region and to serve as the hub for those partnerships and resources, Noktes said.

Its scope will include educational programming for entrepreneurs — both new and established — as well as mentoring and networking opportunities. The center will also work with local partners like the Chamber of Commerce and development authority to create an ecosystem that fosters and supports entrepreneurs.

“My role will be kind of facilitating that whole system,” Noktes said.

The college currently offers an entrepreneurship minor that is open to all students, no matter their major, as well as other classes focused on entrepreneurship.

“Those classes are working with real entrepreneurial problems in the community to help solve their issues, whatever it is,” Noktes said.

Her first day on the job this week was spent listening to what others are excited about and learning how the center’s supporters hope to see its work unfold.

“And I expect the next couple of weeks I’ll spend a lot of time really listening to the community,” Noktes said.

She encouraged anyone with insight to share to reach out at anoktes@ccga.edu.

“I am really grateful to be here,” she said. “I think the center has a lot of potential to really make a difference for the community, and I’m excited to be a part of that. And I’m so grateful of course for the gift from the Lucas family that made it possible.”

Republished with the permission of the The Brunswick News. Originally published in The Brunswick News.