Holly Sullivan is the Vice President of World Wide Economic Development at Amazon. In addition to spearheading the search for Amazon’s second headquarters in Arlington, VA and bringing 25,000 jobs to the region, Holly led the development of the new 5,000 employee Amazon Nashville location and the expansion of Amazon’s 18 North American Tech Hubs creating more than 50,000 corporate and tech roles. Holly has also worked with local leaders to foster the growth of the company’s operations and logistics footprint and job creation efforts around the world.

She has more than 20 years of experience in economic development, most recently as President and CEO of the Montgomery Business Development Corporation in Maryland. She also formerly led economic development organizations in the Nashville region. Holly received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Tennessee. She was recently named one of Washington DC’s Most Powerful Real Estate Players in 2020 by the Commercial Observer. She serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry, is a member of the Middle Tennessee Community Foundation and an Advisory Board member for the University of Tennessee Haslam School of Business.

B. Frank Gupton, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized scholar and industry expert. After attending the University of Richmond on a basketball scholarship, he received his master’s degree from Georgia Tech. He earned his doctorate in chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University.

His 31-year industry career included senior positions with the Hoechst-Celanese Corporation and Boehringer-Ingelheim. In 2007, Gupton retired as executive director of process development for Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.

Gupton then joined the VCU College of Engineering faculty and became the Floyd D. Gottwald Junior Chair in Pharmaceutical Engineering in 2016. His research focuses on improving global health care by making pharmaceutical production cleaner and more cost-effective. To help advance these goals, he founded the Medicines for All Institute (M4ALL) with a simple idea: expand global access to lifesaving medications by producing them more efficiently.

An inventor on multiple patents, including one for his work to produce nanoparticle catalysts supported on graphene, Gupton is a National Academy of Inventors Fellow. He received the Billy R. Martin Award for Innovation in 2017.

For his efforts with M4ALL to develop cost-saving methods to produce the anti-HIV drug nevirapine, he won the 2019 Peter J. Dunn Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS). For that work, he and M4ALL chief technology officer D. Tyler McQuade, Ph.D., also won the 2018 ACS Green Chemistry Challenge Award and the 2018 ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry. The institute is working with a manufacturer in South Africa and partnering with the government of Ivory Coast to bring these advances to the places they are most needed.  

Kristen’s goal with her two kids is to have more stamps in their passports than candles on their birthday cakes. They’ve conquered all seven continents together, including a visit to Antarctica in 2018. And considering she recently returned to be the first female CEO in the 52-year history of The Martin Agency, it’s no big surprise that she’s a fan of going places.

Prior to returning to Martin in December 2017, she helped MullenLowe’s flagship office grow 106% in six years. Since taking the helm at Martin, she has taken key issues head on — eliminated the wage gap, fought invisibility with 34% diversity hires, gotten major buzz for a smattering of clients, and produced double-digit growth with new clients (to include Buffalo Wild Wings, Sling TV, Kohl’s).

But what she’s most proud of is setting an example of resilience and possibility for her children. Whether that’s reflected in summiting Mount Kilimanjaro, crossing the Drake Passage, getting certified to scuba in Egypt’s open water, or just trying something new, she and her family are most comfortable when they’re outside of their comfort zone.