Will Allen
Will Allen, who joined the Foundation’s Board of Directors in June 2023, has an authentic style of leadership honed from years of team sports and business. He has combined that with an innate sense for people, motivation drivers and collaboration, which he leverages to identify distinct qualities of leadership and keen recognition for strategy execution.
Allen is dedicated, humble and selfless in his work. He is known as a go-to problem solver, connecting the right resources to optimize solutions that will mitigate risk and ultimately help companies better serve their customers and stakeholder communities.
Allen has over a decade of experience as a business leader, investor, nonprofit founder and professional athlete managing high-performing teams and producing outsized returns on investments. He has led investments, advised companies and up-starts on market-growth strategy, business analytics, facilitation of strategic partnerships and leadership development. Allen’s direct leadership experience includes service to a 10-county regional economic development organization and a $26 billion, multi-state health care organization as a member of its Risk Committee. He also serves on the board of a mid-size foundation, and is a member of its Investment Committee. Other service includes the Pennsylvania’s Workforce Development Board and Crexi, a pre-IPO tech company, where he is an independent director.
In his current role, Allen is a founding partner at Magarac Venture Partners (MVP), an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in market-defining technology companies. As a founding partner, Allen brings strategic creativity and analytic rigor to help scale portfolio companies for high performance. In addition, he leads the design and integration of the firm’s Inclusion Investing initiatives by establishing the firm’s financial commitment of 33% of assets under management to diverse entrepreneurs and architecting the firm’s term sheet to ensure an inclusive hiring policy.
Previously, Allen co-founded Nascent Group Holdings immediately following his career in the National Football League where he has led real estate investments through multiple business cycles.
During his collegiate and professional football career, Allen developed his skills in leadership, decisive analytical assessment, focus, discipline and driving a team/culture oriented environment. He was a member of the 2002 National Championship Team at The Ohio State University. He earned All-American honors his senior year and competed at the highest professional football level, playing 12 years in the National Football League for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Allen was named to the Pittsburgh Business Times “Power 100 – Most Influential Business Leaders.” He earned his master’s degree in business management and analytics from the University of Dayton and a Bachelor of Arts in strategic communication from Ohio State. He resides in Pittsburgh, loves the game of golf and is a sought-after keynote speaker.