LYNN — Entrepreneurship for All, a nonprofit organization that helps underrepresented individuals find entrepreneurship opportunities, has announced that former Program Manager Kat Lawlor will be promoted to executive director for the organization’s site in the city.
She will serve as the executive director for the EparaTodos in Lynn, which helps Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs.
The site of both organizations is located on the Lynnway.
As executive director, Lawlor’s responsibilities include fundraising for community leaders of Entrepreneurship for All (EforAll) and EparaTodos and engaging and recruiting those who are interested in starting a business.
“My goal is to continue to help the 45 entrepreneurs we have been partnering with within Lynn and hit the ground running,” Lawlor said. “We are going to be holding four pitch contests this year and hold our business-acceleration program in the summer and winter.”
Lawlor, who lives in Salem, started her first small business in 2019.
The business, known as “City of Roses,” was an e-commerce company that sold clothes made of renewable materials such as hemp and bamboo.
Later that year, she became an intern at EforAll, helping the organization earn grants to run programs and workshops for entrepreneurs.
In 2020, she was promoted to program manager at the organization’s Lynn site and held virtual events as COVID-19 began to spread in the United States.
“That was a crazy time,” Lawlor said. “We held everything in person and then we had to pivot everything to a virtual setting.”
Despite the change in setting, Lawlor said there were more people interested in becoming entrepreneurs throughout 2020.
“There was an influx of people wanting to start their own business,” she said. “Everyone was at home and began to become interested in their craft, their cooking (and) it was a time that people became interested in what they did at home.”
Lawlor said one of the biggest tasks she has been given as executive director is filling positions.
She said it took some time to find a successor as program director and that she had to temporarily run the Lynn site on her own.
In addition to her work at EforAll and EparaTodos, Lawlor works at Inc.Cubate Coworking, a nonprofit organization that helps connect entrepreneurial and small-business professionals in Lynn, Hamilton and Winthrop.
