Innovation is my monthly column in Madison Magazine covering startups and the entrepreneurial community in Dane County, Wisconsin.
This column appears in the February 2020 issue of Madison Magazine.
Amy Gannon’s Immeasurable Impact on Local Entrepreneurialism
Madison Magazine
Monthly Innovation column, February 2020
When I took over this column from Brennan Nardi last year, she said, “Before you do anything else, go see Heather and Amy.” She meant Heather Wentler and Amy Gannon, co-founders of the Doyenne Group. As I type these words, news of Gannon’s sudden, tragic death on Dec. 26, along with her 13-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, is spreading throughout the entrepreneurial community and beyond. Both were killed in a helicopter crash during a family vacation in Hawaii.
I’m writing this during that strange, sleepy week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. But I know the reverberations of Gannon’s passing are still shaking the city she championed, just as I am certain her powerful legacy will continue to ripple outward. She was a catalyst, a true mover and shaker, and her work made so many other people’s work possible.
—Maggie Ginsberg is an award-winning freelance writer in Madison, Wisconsin