President and CEO
Upstate Capital Association of New York
Noa Simons is an entrepreneur, investor and ecosystem builder. She leads the Upstate Capital Association of New York, an organization that increases access to capital for companies across the state. Simons manages a robust membership network and convenes events on technology, trends and best practices for investors, entrepreneurs and professional advisors. She emphasizes collaboration and inclusion across the ecosystem. She participates in several investment initiatives across the upstate New York ecosystem. She is a co-founder, former manager and current advisor to the Hudson Valley Startup Fund, a member-managed, place-based seed capital fund. She is an executive advisor to Genius N.Y., a $5 million business plan competition focused on unmanned systems and big data/IoT startups. She serves on the Launch N.Y. Investment Committee, the Jeff Lawrence Manufacturing Innovation Grants Committee, the Tech Garden’s External Review Committee for Grants for Growth, and on the board of the Hudson Valley Technology Development Center. She is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
Prior, Simons worked in a private family office that led to the launch of a China-based venture capital firm. She managed early-stage startup tech-to-commercialization projects in wind turbine development and waste-to-energy. At TD Growth Capital, she sourced early stage technologies in the cleantech sector and conducted deep due diligence, primarily in energy and transportation. Through the family office, Simons also served as interim CEO at Norton Motorcycles in Portland, Oregon, and she built and launched the digital archive housed at the Mary Ferrell Foundation. She started her career at a fast-growing education company headquartered in the Boston, Mass. area. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in politics from Brandeis University, and attended Miss Hall’s School where she graduated summa cum laude.
