Fine fellows: Roanne Lee creates 'awesome' life

Venture for America fellow Roanne Lee knows that even when everything doesn't work out as planned, life can still be awesome.

 

Lee, who grew up in North Hollywood, decided to move across the country to study finance and international business at Georgetown University, which she graduated from in 2012.

 

But it was her daily drive to work in L.A. listening to NPR that introduced her to the concept of Venture for America, the initiative which eventually brought her to Cincinnati.

 

“The story for VFA is so easy and compelling that it doesn’t take much to persuade someone,” Lee says.  

 

But two weeks before she was scheduled to move to Cincinnati to work at local startup Define my Style, the business closed.

 

Lee reacted swiftly—albeit with a tinge of panic—and reached out through social media for help. She soon connected with Cintrifuse, the new innovation accelerator that links entrepreneurs to businesses, research institutions and other peers to support their success and growth. She is currently Cintrifuse’s startup liaison and analyst.

 

But her local efforts aimed at building and supporting important networks extend beyond Cintrifuse.  

 

Lee is also the dean of the Awesome Foundation’s Cincinnati chapter. The non-profit, which started in 2009 in Boston, raises funds to support exactly what its name suggests—awesome ideas. Each year, the Awesome Foundation distributes $1,000 grants on a monthly basis to projects and creators that are "devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe."

 

Lee first heard about the non-profit while she was still in college, and when she realized Cincinnati didn't yet have a chapter, she set out to launch one.

 

“We’re trying to inject Cincinnati with creativity and get people to stop in their tracks,” she says. “Get something interesting to happen in their day, and on the street level have something that is very democratic to make sure everyone gets access to this art and creativity.”

 

In Boston, an Awesome Foundation grant helped an artist build a cotton candy cannon that could coat a human in one to three minutes. Now that's awesome.

 

Much like her fellow VFA fellow, Dan Bloom, Lee had very few expectations when moving to Cincinnati.

 

“I didn’t have any concept of Cincinnati,” she says. “It was off my radar entirely, but I’ve been really pleasantly surprised."

 

While Lee’s experience in Cincinnati has been mostly positive, some aspects of the city do bother her.

 

“I think the segregation here is pretty bad,” she says. “I’ve never seen anything like this before—and that’s saying a lot, because I think going to D.C. is pretty bad, too. I feel like here it’s oddly classist.”

 

Home is about having comfort, Lee says. And being able to create routines and feel comfortable with schedules has made her feel at home here.

 

“Every weekend I’ll go to Findlay Market, and when I get home early enough, I’ll take [my maltipoo Pico] to Washington Park, or pick up a Streetpops whenever it’s hot and they’re open,” she says. “So there are all these little things that I do that almost has nothing to do with anyone else and are very personal.”

 

While an adamant supporter of Fusian, Sotto and Collective Espresso, Lee is among Cincinnati’s legion of dog walkers. Her weekly schedule always includes a trip to Sharon Woods with Pico.

 

“I’ll go there pretty much every weekend, do like two laps, walk like eight miles and stay there an hour or two,” she says.

 

Living in three very different cities has taught Lee how to cope with transition.

 

“Cincinnati is really hard not to like,” Lee says. “When I moved from L.A. to D.C., that was much more straining in a lot of ways because there were a lot of transitions happening and I didn’t understand East Coast prep culture.”

 

But Lee’s transition to Cincinnati came much more smoothly, primarily because of the city's size.

 

“It’s super accessible,” she says. “And you’re not anonymous. That’s a good thing, because when you’re trying to make connections and open doors, it’s so easy. I feel like I’m able to create so much more value here than anywhere else.”

 

Lee likes to stay busy and involved. She’s a self-proclaimed “over-subscriber.”  

 

“It makes me active, happy and keeps me sane,” she says. “As long as I have different things to sign up for, I think I’ll stick around.”

 

Lee currently takes a coding class at the Brandery, and hopes to eventually start her own business.

 

“It has a lot to do with opportunities,” she says. “Cintrifuse has tons of opportunities for me and the city, and it’s really exciting because I think I could see myself here for a very long time.”