Kathleen Coviello

Kathleen Coviello is the director of the Technology & Life Sciences Division (TLS) at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA). She is responsible for working closely with the emerging technology and life science companies and investors in the state and delivering the various Edison Innovation Fund products to this community. She joined the Authority in August 2005 as a program manager.

Under Coviello’s direction, the EDA has delivered over $600 million in direct investments, business incentives, tax credits, and venture fund investments through the Edison Innovation Fund.  Coviello’s related accomplishments include crafting, for the first time at the EDA, financing instruments in the form of subordinated convertible debt with warrants to support the New Jersey technology community and the EDA’s conversion in several portfolio companies to be a preferred stockholder. She has also assembled and runs several technology advisory boards comprised of private sector industry specialists, which supports the EDA’s commitment to a public-private partnership. Coviello leads EDA’s work with the New Jersey Pensions Division to, for the first time in New Jersey, earmark pension investments to New Jersey-based investments in New Jersey venture funds and companies, via the NJ Direct Investment Fund. During her tenure, the TLS division rolled out the EDA’s green technology initiatives; New Jersey’s first accelerator, TechLaunch, was established; Federal SSBCI funds were deployed into several regional venture funds, and New Jersey’s Angel Tax Credit Program was launched. Coviello also oversees the management of EDA’s Commercialization Center for Innovative Technologies (CCIT), an internationally recognized 46,000-square-foot, leading life science incubation facility.

Prior to joining the EDA, Coviello spent over seventeen years in the banking industry, with the last eight focused exclusively on the NJ Technology Venture Lending Market. Her venture lending experience includes employment at Silicon Valley Bank, Comerica Bank and Progress’ Techbanc.

In 2009, Coviello was the recipient of the John H. Martinson, Technology Leadership Award by the New Jersey Technology Council, an award recognizing her leadership in the New Jersey technology community over the last ten years. She was named “Financier of the Year” by the New Jersey Technology Council in June of 2003 and had been a finalist in June 2001. Coviello actively participates in numerous technology forums throughout the state as a speaker, judge and panelist.

Coviello sits on the advisory and/or valuation boards of the Edison Venture Fund, the Garden State Life Sciences Fund, the NJTC Venture Fund, New Spring Health Ventures, and Osage Venture Partners. She also sits on the boards of the NJ Technology Council, the NJ R&D Council, and is a member of the Community Development Committee for University Science Center in Philadelphia.

Coviello received her undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Albright College in Reading, PA, and she received her Master’s in Business Administration with a specialization in Finance from LaSalle University in Philadelphia.

Coviello resides in Hillsborough with her husband and three children.