President & CEO, Research Park Corporation
Hometown: Aurora, Ohio
Age: 58
The difference between Baton Rouge and every other city Byron Clayton has lived in? Here, his neighbors invited his family to attend their Thanksgiving dinner.
“I always knew my neighbors, but I never got a Thanksgiving invite,” he says. “The social culture here is phenomenal. The people just enjoy each other.”
When Clayton moved here from Cleveland one year ago for the Research Park president position, he knew the social culture would be key to revitalizing the organization. In his first weeks on the job, he scheduled meetings with as many people as he could, in Research Park and beyond. His strategy has worked.
“Dr. Clayton and his staff do a really good job in letting us know that they’re here to help in whatever our current situation or our current dilemma is,” says MasteryPrep’s Charlie Davis, who Clayton works with at Research Park. “They’re helping the companies here succeed.”
• Clayton arrived in Baton Rouge with decades of business and technology experience. His previous job in Cleveland was vice president of cluster development at economic development organization NorTech.
• He is in the process of rebranding Research Park Corporation to operate under the trade name Nexus LA.
• He’s building a digital database of business resources, such as marketing, sales, talent, tech and investors.
• Clayton is gathering metrics about the Capital Region so businesses understand how impressive the local entrepreneurial ecosystem is. From education to food and agribusiness, he is big on branding Baton Rouge as the place to be for business.
• Previous efforts to build a network of Baton Rouge angel investors to provide financial backing for start-ups have not been successful. Clayton has taken the first steps to change that. He’s formed a group of 12 Capital City angel investors and teamed them up with the NOLA Angel Network. His goal is to build a local network of angel investors in 2016.
What’s to come in 2016:
“There are incredible things going on with the Water Campus, digital media with IBM and gaming, and education technology and innovation. … For us in Baton Rouge, we have to see our assets and use those to link to other regions.”
“He understands how to motivate people to do the best possible job that they can. I think you’ll continue to see bigger and better things from the Research Park.”
—Charlie Davis, MasteryPrep co-founder
