Carolyn Kirk

Carolyn A. Kirk has served as CEO of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) since February 2019. Kirk has earned a reputation as a fierce advocate for the state’s tech and innovation sector by building strong partnerships across industry, academia and government. 

Kirk oversees team of almost 90 employees, more than 60 percent of whom are women. In 2024, Kirk was ranked #72 in the Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts, a list created by The Women’s Edge and published in the Women & Power issue of The Boston Globe Magazine. 

Under Kirk’s leadership, MassTech has spearheaded investments statewide and regionally across several critical industries including advanced manufacturing, bluetech/marinetech, cybersecurity, digital health, fintech, robotics and quantum computing. Notably, in 2023, Kirk steered the agency through a highly competitive process that secured $19.7 million to establish the Northeast Microelectronics Hub (NEMC), a regional Department of Defense Microelectronics Commons Hub funded through the federal CHIPS and Science Act. And in 2024, Governor Healey signed the Mass Leads Act, which entrusted Kirk and MassTech with $100 million to establish the Massachusetts AI Hub.

For more than a decade prior to becoming MassTech CEO, Kirk was a government leader at both the local and state level. She served as the first woman popularly elected as the City of Gloucester’s mayor for seven years. After departing the mayor’s office, she served as the deputy secretary at the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.

Prior to roles in public service, Kirk’s private professional career spans more than 25 years and includes long-time experience as a management consultant, working with clients that included many of the Top 20 U.S. banks along with Fortune 500 companies. 

She was raised in Clinton, N.Y. and moved to Massachusetts to attend college, graduating from Boston College.