100 People to Meet in 2026: Innovators

These scientists, founders and executives are leading the way in tomorrow’s industries, from small modular reactors to indoor farming.

JEFF BECK

CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, ANSWERSNOW, RICHMOND

After working as a licensed therapist, Jeff Beck co-founded AnswersNow in 2016 to provide telehealth therapy for children with autism and their families. A graduate of Randolph-Macon College, Beck earned his master of social work degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
AnswersNow’s platform launched in 2017, and the company has raised more than $30 million, and this year, Beck was named one of Ernst & Young’s Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurs of the Year. The business operates in eight states and estimates it will assist 1,000 families this year.

Telehealth took off during the pandemic, but Beck noted in a 2024 interview with Authority Magazine that for children with autism, “the ability to receive in-person care is severely impacted by shortages of available therapists,” and remote appointments can be a faster option.

In 2026, Beck expects AnswersNow to expand into four to six more states and to expand its network of approximately 100 clinicians by 50% to 100% to support its goal of serving 10,000 families nationwide.

CONAWAY HASKINS

VICE PRESIDENT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEMS, VIRGINIA INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP CORP., RICHMOND

Conaway Haskins joined VIPC in 2021 to head its entrepreneurial ecosystems division, which supports startups across the state through project funding, technical assistance and network building, with the goal of growing jobs, attracting science- and tech-based startups and supporting their growth.

Haskins has over 20 years of experience in economic development and government affairs. Before joining VIPC, he was associate director of the Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation, and he serves on Virginia Tech’s Center for Economic and Community Engagement’s advisory board.

In 2026, Haskins expects to focus on merging VIPC’s ecosystems and strategic initiatives teams. The latter works to develop emerging technology industries where Virginia has unique advantages and assets.

“Bringing these two groups together will amplify VIPC’s efforts to support regional and industrial ecosystems in all corners of the commonwealth and continue positioning Virginia as a leading state for innovation-led economic development,” he says.

JENNY MUNSON

PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR, CANCER RESEARCH CENTER, VIRGINIA TECH, ROANOKE

Nearly two-thirds of the body is water, and much of it is fluid that flows between cells to deliver nutrients and remove waste. For Jenny Munson, this fluid-flow system points to treatments for lethal brain tumors and Alzheimer’s disease.

At Virginia Tech, Munson’s lab builds tools to measure, model and manipulate these flows, applying them to brain cancers to find invading tumor cells and address conditions affecting memory.

Munson also co-founded Cairina, a company that offers clinicians imaging tools and an algorithm to predict where a glioblastoma (a type of cancer that starts as a growth of cells in the brain or spinal cord) is likely to grow. The newest venture at her lab is Lympha Bio, which focuses on immunological testing and how chemotherapy affects the lymphatic system.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and neuroscience from Tulane University and her Ph.D. in bioengineering from Georgia Tech.

AHMAD NASSAR

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROFESSIONAL TENNIS PLAYERS ASSOCIATION; CEO, WINNERS ALLIANCE, TYSONS

Ahmad Nassar has been involved for years with professional athletes, helping them secure licensing and marketing deals as founding CEO of OneTeam Partners and chairman of REP Worldwide. His newest venture is Winners Alliance, the Fairfax County-based company that represents worldwide athletes’ name, image and likeness (NIL) rights, from cricketers to soccer stars. In June, he was named one of Ernst & Young’s Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneur of the Year winners.

Nassar calls Winners Alliance “kind of a baby business, or a toddler business. We’re still growing, and I don’t mean that solely in a revenue or headcount way.”

Having earned a law degree from the University of Chicago, Nassar was president of NFL Players Inc., the NFL Players Association’s marketing and licensing business, and since 2022, Nassar has been executive director of the PTPA. In March, the organization filed lawsuits against tennis’s governing bodies in the United States, the U.K. and the European Union, advocating for higher compensation and improved anti-doping and scheduling processes.

JOY POLEFRONE

APM TECH HUB REGIONAL INNOVATION OFFICER, COMMONWEALTH CENTER FOR ADVANCED MANUFACTURING, PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY

A former health innovation director at Virginia Commonwealth University’s da Vinci Center and an ultrasound and radiology strategist for Philips, Joy Polefrone earned her Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Virginia, focusing on cancer immunology and bioanalytical chemistry and proteomics.

Founded in 2010, CCAM is a public-private research and development consortium that hosts a training lab for scientists and engineers to develop and test technology for manufacturing, with a focus on producing active ingredients for medicines in Central Virginia. In 2023, the alliance was designated a tech hub by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Polefrone serves as the organization’s point of contact for the EDA, and she drives the consortium members’ collaboration and strategy.

In addition to her career in science, Polefrone has been a yoga teacher and student for more than two decades.

JEFF ROLANDER

VICE PRESIDENT OF CLAIMS AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, FAYE, RICHMOND

After almost 20 years working for Allianz Group subsidiaries, Jeff Rolander left the French corporation in late 2021 to join Richmond travel insurance startup Faye, drawn by its focus on customer loyalty and retention. Following his most recent promotion, Rolander oversees the claims and frontline teams, comprising almost all of Faye’s roughly 50-person local workforce.

Founded in 2019 and owned by Zenner, Faye achieved $100 million in sales revenue this year, and Time magazine included the company on its Best Inventions of 2025 list. Its app allows customers to file claims quickly and to keep them in a virtual wallet, as well as offering a “cancel for any reason” coverage option.

Faye’s corporate office is in Delaware, but it has major hubs in Richmond and Tel Aviv. The company has leased an office in Henrico County, and it anticipates more growth in 2026. With about 150 employees worldwide, the company hopes to grow its local headcount by 35% within the next year.

GWENN ROSENER

CEO, FLEXPROFESSIONALS, FAIRFAX

In 2010, Gwenn Rosener co-founded her staffing firm, FlexProfessionals, which even pre-pandemic has focused on finding remote and hybrid jobs for women with family demands. The company has worked with about 1,000 companies over the past decade and a half, and many of its placements are in accounting, sales, marketing and human resources at organizations throughout Northern Virginia.

Before starting FlexProfessionals, Rosener was a systems engineer at General Electric and a senior manager at Capgemini, the French multinational IT company that purchased Ernst & Young Consulting in 2000.

Amid federal spending cuts and job layoffs in the private and public sectors, Rosener and her colleagues have been very busy fielding calls this year. Speaking this summer, Rosener said that many of the former federal workers she’s spoken with never expected to go through another job search after landing what used to be dependably secure employment.

JEREMY SHEN

CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, YOUNT, HYDE & BARBOUR, WINCHESTER

In March, YHB tapped Jeremy Shen to be the Winchester-based accounting and consulting firm’s first chief strategy officer, a job that involves merging long-term strategy with practical execution.

“Public accounting is changing faster than ever,” Shen says, “and my focus is on making sure YHB remains sustainable and ahead of that curve.”
Looking ahead to 2026, Shen plans for YHB to focus on “strengthening national partnerships, exploring selective [mergers and acquisitions] and continuing to evolve how a modern, independent firm competes and grows.”

Shen joined YHB as its marketing director in 2015. Over the last decade, he’s also helped with shaping business development and client engagement strategies at the firm.

A graduate of Longwood University’s MBA program, Shen worked for a firearms business, a global law firm and a metal manufacturer before moving to YHB.

AKSHITA TIWARI

CO-FOUNDER, qMe, PROCO, CHARLOTTESVILLE

Akshita Tiwari, 19, attended a STEM-focused high school in Loudoun County, and that’s where she got interested in quantum computing, which she’s now studying at the University of Virginia as a computer science major.

An entrepreneur, Tiwari also passes along her quantum knowledge to elementary and middle school students through qMe, a tech education startup she co-founded as a high school student.

She’s also launched another business to help fellow students find mentors in the work world. With two friends at the University of Maryland, Tiwari started Proco, an app that pairs business mentors with mentees. The app grew out of an assignment in one of her U.Va. classes, and it received $1,000 in seed funding from U.Va.’s VentureForward program and support from the Darden School of Business’ i.Lab Incubator. The team plans to grow the business post-graduation, and Tiwari has added a business minor to her workload.

In her free time, Tiwari is trained in Indian classical dance, and she loves trying new restaurants around Charlottesville.

JEFF WHITT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA INNOVATIVE NUCLEAR HUB, LYNCHBURG

In February, former Framatome U.S. Government Solutions President Jeff Whitt became executive director of the Virginia Innovative Nuclear Hub. Created in 2024 with a seed grant of $350,000 from the Virginia Department of Energy, the organization connects researchers, utilities and nuclear tech companies, including Lynchburg’s Framatome, in promoting nuclear energy production in Virginia.

This year, the VIN Hub received $1.2 million in grants to create a research facility around a microscale reactor, all still in the planning stages.
Small modular nuclear reactors have a major cheerleader in Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has promoted SMRs as a clean energy source amid higher power demand from data centers and artificial intelligence.

NATALIA ZAPPERNICK

DIRECTOR OF HORTICULTURE, BABYLON MICRO-FARMS, RICHMOND

In her sophomore year at Ohio State University, Natalia Zappernick decided that she wanted to work in biosystems and agricultural engineering. “I really haven’t looked back since then,” she says.

Zappernick moved from Baltimore’s Bowery Farming to Richmond this summer to start her new job as horticulture director for Babylon Micro-Farms, a growing indoor farming operation.

On a recent morning, Zappernick and two colleagues were studying 11 micro-farms at the Inc. 5000 company’s Richmond headquarters. “We’ll spend our day seeing what we need to do in terms of harvesting and farming tasks, collecting data, synthesizing it and sort of interpreting if our research trials worked or didn’t work,” she explains.

In 2026, Zappernick plans to expand Babylon’s produce menu. Currently, the company cultivates more than 45 leafy greens, lettuces, microgreens, herbs and flowers for its customers, including Aramark, Sodexo and other food service corporations.

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