James Hendren stepped down from his role as Chair of the Board of Directors at The Venture Center at the beginning of this year, a Thursday press release from the organization announced.
Hendren served as Board Chair since The Venture Center’s founding in 2014, helping guide the organization from its earliest days into a piece of Arkansas’ startup and innovation ecosystem.
The Venture Center’s Board of Directors appointed Ray Dillon, former president and CEO of Deltic Timber Corporation, to serve as Interim Board Chair at the beginning of the year. Hendren will continue to support the organization as a mentor and advisor.
The press release stated that Hendren’s leadership helped shape The Venture Center’s mentorship-driven model and its long-term focus on building scalable, high-growth companies.
According to Hendren, The Venture Center was created to address a critical gap in Arkansas’s economic development landscape — supporting early-stage companies and founders at a time when the state lacked a centralized organization focused on entrepreneurship, mentorship and company growth.
Hendren played a key role in creating efforts such as Accelerate Arkansas, Innovate Arkansas, the Arkansas STEM Coalition, and the Arkansas Research Alliance. These initiatives helped establish statewide pipelines for education, research, mentorship, capital and entrepreneurship.
Also under Hendren’s leadership, the organization hosted weekly founder gatherings, built a large trained mentor network and launched accelerator programs that required founders to spend extended time in Arkansas.
“We realized things really weren’t going to happen if we just wrote reports and walked away,” Hendren said in the release. “You have to build the companies. You have to build the systems around them. And from the beginning, mentorship was at the core of that work — that’s what set The Venture Center apart, and it still does.”
“James is truly a pioneer in Arkansas’ entrepreneurial history, and his impact goes far beyond the creation and early growth of The Venture Center,” Arthur Orduña, executive director of The Venture Center said in the release. “From his own successful high-tech start-ups to championing critical legislation for venture investment, James has worked tirelessly not only for his own initiatives to succeed but also to help others realize their own success. It’s been an honor working with him, and I look forward to his continuing support as a mentor to Venture Center members.”
Hendren said he just wants the organization to grow and continue to be successful, “and for us to be changing Arkansas.”
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