Growth Capital Network

Lauren Bigelow, PhD

Lauren Bigelow has served as the CEO of the Growth Capital Network since 2010. Dr. Bigelow manages programs for the philanthropic, health care and innovation community providing strategic, project management, research, analytic, and evaluative services.  She uses the framework and ethnographic field techniques of anthropology to manage large scale regional and statewide programs, health and economic impact evaluations.  Dr. Bigelow’s team oversees the project management of several programs including the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, the Midwest Green Technology Entrepreneur Academy and the Midmarket Capital Survey. She has an exceptional professional network of senior executives and emerging technologies as well as venture, private equity, and corporate investors targeting early to mid-stage technology.

Dr. Bigelow has spent 15 years in the non-profit technology space and brings a strategic perspective with exceptional execution skills on all organizational levels.  Prior to GCN and before its ‘09 acquisition by Bloomberg, Lauren was the North American Commercial Director for New Energy Finance, the leading independent provider of information and research to investors in the clean energy markets. From early 2004 – 2008, Lauren was the Managing Director of the Cleantech Group where she oversaw the firm’s technology and innovation pipelines.  She is currently on the investment advisory boards of the Zell Lurie Fund and Belle Capital Michigan.  She is on the board of the Energy Innovation Business Council, the advisory board of the Erb Institute, the Great Lakes Leaders Council and the Michigan advisory council for the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

Dr. Bigelow is a lecturer at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.  She has a bachelors in Economics from the University of Michigan and masters and doctorate in anthropology from Northwestern University.

Susan Kane

Chief Operating Officer

After 20 years spent as a Senior Executive in customer facing retail and service industries, GCN's Chief Operating Officer, Susan Kane is expanding her capabilities to the entrepreneurial and philanthropic sectors, focusing on health care.  Ms. Kane currently leads operations, marketing, customer service, and business development.

Ms. Kane brings a wealth of experience in three primary areas: Building high performing teams, creating operational excellence, and thinking about customers first, she has developed integrated business strategies at RadioShack, Shell Oil, most recently as COO of the national leader in airport parking: Park ‘N Fly.  Acting as an improvement catalyst to enhance the customer experience and employee engagement, she has introduced relevant performance based KPIs, voice of the customer data gathering, employee retention and development programs and innovative technology for creating operational consistencies throughout diverse multi-unit organizations. Her experience ranges to managing P&L’s exceeding $500M and providing operational leadership to as many as 6K employees.  Ms. Kane is a Six Sigma certified, lifelong learner currently working to acquire a Masters in Health Care Administration from Colorado State University to add to her MBA and Management BS.  

Tatiana Bailey, PhD

Senior Economist & Lead Evaluator    

Tatiana Bailey has been working in the health care field for over 20 years focusing primarily on health interventions that aim to improve health outcomes and access for at-risk communities. Current projects include working with the Detroit Medical Center Foundation reviewing community health intervention grants for their Board of Directors and a Michigan Association of Health Plans Foundation Grant which is building a framework for the expansion of fully integrated care (including home and community-based services) for the Medicaid, long-term care population.

Dr. Bailey has collaborated with other health experts on various state and foundation grants. She was Director of Evaluation for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant that aimed to better manage pediatric asthma for inner-city, low-income children in seven urban areas around the country.  She obtained funding and became Principal Investigator (PI) for a BCBSMF grant implementing a worksite wellness program aimed at reducing hypertension. Dr. Bailey is a bi-lingual Hispanic so she helped tailor interventions to the Latino communities within these cities.

More recently, she was PI for a grant through the Michigan Association of Health Plans Foundation (MAHPF) that looked at differentials between fee-for-service costs and managed care (health plan) costs for the Medicaid population.  Early in her career, Tatiana conducted research on how to better train future physicians about increasing access to health care for low-income, greater Detroit residents. She also did a meta-analysis on best practices for increasing mammography screenings in low-income communities.

Dr. Bailey teaches health policy and health economics courses and presents to various audiences on the current status of the U.S. health care system including the particulars of the Affordable Care Act.

Dr. Bailey has a master’s in economics and doctorate in public health from the University of Michigan.

Desiree Liwosz, MSW

Senior Analyst & Evaluator

Desiree Liwosz brings a deep analytic and community based focus to her role as a senior analyst and evaluator for GCN.  She provides consulting, research, evaluation, and technical assistance services. Before GCN, Ms. Liwosz was a consultant for Formative Evaluation Research Associates (FERA), working collaboratively on several empowerment and utilization focused, community based evaluation projects as well as assisting with multiple projects on coordination and data visualization.  She was also an evaluation associate for the Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group, working alongside PIs as the lead evaluator evaluation and research projects including process, outcome, and developmental evaluations, and needs assessments.

Prior these positions, Ms. Liwosz held several research positions at Intergroup-Social Change Agents and Family Education and the Support Training Program at Eastern Michigan University College of Health and Human Services.  She conducted research activities on social & educational policies concerning educational disparities and cultural competence for an intergroup dialogue program and assisted in the data analysis of over 11 years of quantitative data for a quasi-experimental pretest and posttest design evaluation of a family education and support training program, respectively.  Other professional experience includes working as a detoxification counselor at Dawn Farms, an infant mortality community organizer for the Washtenaw County Infant Mortality Coalition and a body safety training coordinator for the Washtenaw Area Council for Children.

Ms. Liwosz holds PEERRS and RCRS certifications.  She received her BSW Magna Cum Laude from Eastern Michigan University and her Masters of Social Work from the University of Michigan.

Stasia Poncher, Associate

Stasia Poncher is an experienced project manager and event coordinator.  She brings a versatile set of skills in communications, writing and organizing.  She has a background in marketing, administration and is a certified American Sign Language interpreter. 

Ms. Poncher has a BA from Gallaudet University and a certificate from the USDA Graduate School.