Tim Rowe

Tim Rowe is the founder and CEO of CIC and CIC Health.  CIC is a global leader in building innovation campuses, with locations in the United States, Europe, and Asia.  CIC Health is the largest COVID-19 testing company in New England and operated Massachusetts’ largest mass-vaccination sites.

An entrepreneur all his life, Tim founded his first company, the Belmont Computing Group, at age 14.  He later went on to earn a BA from Amherst College and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.  With over 40 years of experience in the entrepreneurial and startup landscape, largely in the science and technology sectors, Tim is a well-established leader in New England’s evolving innovation ecosystem.  He is a passionate and creative thinker who constantly questions the status quo to tackle complex challenges.  Through this lens, he continues to provide opportunities that support and advance the work of other innovators and streamline processes in ways that benefit society at large.

In 1999, Tim launched CIC in Kendall Square, on MIT’s doorstep.  Over the past 23 years, he has grown the company to operate more than 1 million square feet of innovation campuses globally, which include the largest commercial shared wet lab hub in the world.  In total, CIC has served nearly 8,000 startups and innovators.  Its innovation campuses seek to concentrate each city’s most impactful entrepreneurs in a location designed for collaboration, networking, and high-speed growth.  By providing these innovators with both a workplace and opportunities to connect with one another, CIC helps its clients grow faster and advances its mission to “fix the world through innovation.”

At the start of the pandemic, Tim recognized a need to offer convenient and accessible COVID-19 testing services to CIC clients.  He and noted health leader Dr. Atul Gawande decided to collaborate to provide much-needed testing services on a massive scale.  That led to the launch of CIC Health in June 2020, which quickly became the largest COVID testing and mass-vaccination company in New England.  Working closely with CIC Health President Rachel Wilson (also on Boston Globe Tech Power Players 50 list), Tim led the company to operate dozens of public testing sites and provide testing services to more than 3,000 schools and organizations nationally.  CIC Health ran four mass vaccination sites – including Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park – and over 135 community-based sites in Massachusetts, which increased vaccine access for some of the state’s hardest-hit populations in their own trusted neighborhoods.  It has facilitated more than 5 million tests and over 1.2 million vaccine doses.

Tim currently serves as the chair of Venture Café Global Institute and was the founding chair of LabCentral, the renowned nonprofit shared wet laboratory in Massachusetts, and of MassRobotics, the world’s largest shared robotics innovation facility, which is based in Boston’s Seaport district.  He launched and served as the first president of the Kendall Square Association, which promotes and fosters the neighborhood near MIT dubbed “the most innovative square mile on the planet.”

Prior to founding CIC, he served as a principal with the Boston Consulting Group, working out of its offices on several continents.  He speaks English, Spanish, and Japanese.

Tim has previously served as a lecturer at MIT, an analyst at the Mitsubishi Research Institute in Tokyo, and a venture partner at New Atlantic Ventures.  He is a past Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year winner, a Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree, and a Boston Globe Tech Power Players 50 list honoree.