BOSTON — TiE Boston announced that Massachusetts Secretary of Economic Development Eric Paley will be the featured keynote speaker at TiECON East 2025, the region’s premier conference for entrepreneurs and innovators. The event, organized by TiE Boston and co-hosted by TiE New York, will take place this Friday, September 26, 2025, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel in Boston.
Paley will take the stage at 2:30 PM, bringing his deep experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and public leader to the forefront of the conversation on innovation and economic growth. In June 2025, Governor Maura Healey appointed Paley as Secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development (EOED), where he now leads the state’s strategy to strengthen Massachusetts’ innovation-driven economy.
Prior to his public service, Paley co-founded and served as Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world’s top-performing seed-stage venture capital funds. His portfolio includes transformative companies across sectors such as healthcare, robotics, consumer tech, media, transportation, and enterprise software—including Uber, The Trade Desk, Omada Health, Cruise Automation, Whoop, Formlabs, and Airtable. He served on the Board of Directors at The Trade Desk from its inception through its IPO and beyond, stepping down in 2023.
Paley’s leadership also extended into convening the innovation ecosystem through Collective Future, an annual conference he founded to connect technology, government, media, and nonprofit leaders in shaping the future of the Massachusetts innovation economy.
Before his venture capital career, Paley was a serial entrepreneur. He served as CEO of Brontes Technologies, a hard-tech startup that commercialized cutting-edge 3D imaging technology developed at MIT, revolutionizing dental manufacturing. He led the company through its acquisition by 3M in 2006.
A frequent name on the Forbes Midas List, Paley reached as high as #9, ranking him as the top seed-stage investor globally. He has also been named a Technology Power Player by the Boston Globe for four consecutive years, and was recently recognized as one of Boston’s Most Influential People by Boston Magazine in 2025.
Paley holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Dartmouth College. He lives in Lexington with his wife, Shirley, and their two children. Together, they focus much of their philanthropic work on addressing food insecurity in Massachusetts. Paley also serves on the Board of Directors of the YMCA of Greater Boston.
TiECON East 2025: “The Heart of Entrepreneurship”
This year’s TiECON East conference embraces a bold theme: “The Heart of Entrepreneurship.” As the largest entrepreneurial gathering in Boston, the event will challenge conventional narratives that reduce entrepreneurship to pitch decks and funding rounds. Instead, it will explore the deeper creative drive behind innovation and the inner journey of the entrepreneur.
With over 400 attendees expected—including startup founders, venture capitalists, technologists, corporate executives, artists, and students—TiECON East 2025 promises a unique, cross-disciplinary experience that redefines what it means to build, create, and lead in a rapidly changing world.
To register for the event, click here.
