To further the mission to recognize, study, promote, teach, practice, support and celebrate entrepreneurship, GOOSE has moved into a new phase of organization and structure. Samantha Lewis, a Rice MBA, is the newly appointed Director of the GOOSE Society and shares the goal to grow the Houston startup ecosystem (bio below). Jack Gill will remain involved as Chairman, Jay Collins will serve a one-year term as President and Larry Lawson, Ashok Rao, Brian Patterson, and David Klein will serve on the Board of Directors.
Samantha’s passion is entrepreneurship and building the Houston start-up ecosystem. Before attending Rice Business school, she successfully started two ventures, one of which she recently exited. The other company, New Mexico Green Chile Co, generates over $3 million in annual revenue and boasts of customers like Torchy’s Tacos and HEB. Samantha’s position at the GOOSE Society allows her access to high growth, scalable start-ups and the opportunity to help build the Houston start-up ecosystem.
During her time at Rice Business, she helped launch two tech start-ups, worked with a start-up private equity firm, participated in the Rice Alliance accelerator OwlSpark, and interned at Station Houston. Samantha pitched at five business plan competitions including the Rice Business Plan Competition and the Rice Launch Competition where her start-up, Trace Matters, won the $10,000 first place prize. She received the Texas Business Hall of Fame Scholarship, the National Association of Women MBA’s Scholarship, and the Jones Citizen Award. Her peers elected her as Alumni Class Ambassador for the full-time Class of 2017. Her favorite position at Rice was as President of the Rice Business Wine Club, a position she used to host the inaugural Rice Business Wine Tasting Competition.
