RICHMOND — Activation Capital, the state authority that manages the VA Bio+Tech campus in downtown Richmond, named Michael Steele, a veteran of the medical technology industry, as its new CEO.
Steele replaces Chandra Briggman, who last summer. Since her departure, interim CEO Robert Ward has led the authority.
Steele
For three years, Steele was a vice president for Biocartis, a molecular diagnostics company. Before that, he was a vice president for five other medical and diagnostic testing companies for 20 years. He also ran his own consulting business.
A Virginia native, Steele earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from James Madison University.
Briggman left in 2024 after members of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's administration felt dissatisfied with her performance, a state delegate said at the time.
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The authority has struggled for years to find a tenant for a planned $50 million, four-story building project at East Leigh and North Eighth Streets. The authority has since "right-sized" the project to use public resources more efficiently and to ensure timely completion, a spokesperson for Activation Capital said Tuesday.
Activation Capital, charged with growing technology and entrepreneurship in the state, oversees the 34-acre science and technology campus in downtown Richmond called the VA Bio+Tech Park.
In the past year Activation Capital has launched a program called Frontier BioHealth, which helps researchers turn scientific breakthroughs into businesses and raise money from investors. Another program, called Start the Journey, helps researchers before their discoveries are ready for scientific trials.
