Virginia Tech® home

Brett Malone '90

Alumni Leader Spotlight

Brett Malone '90 '91 '96

President, Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center

I'm an aerospace engineer who found myself in the middle of building biotech companies. I started my career writing engineering software. Then I launched my first company, learned how to lead and manage teams, and have been building ever since. I was fascinated by the mapping of the human genome so I shifted careers and got into bioinformatics. The book “The Genome War” convinced me to make the leap. Over the course of my career, I've been part of some of the coolest project teams from the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works to inside of Google's life science venture division. I'm now coming back to Blacksburg to help the next generation of entrepreneurs learn how to chase “10X impact.”


How Virginia Tech equipped me for the 'real world'...
my Ph.D. experience taught me to never give up.

Favorite Virginia Tech tradition...
Enter Sandman!

Words of encouragement to a current Virginia Tech student...
think big, focus, and don’t quit.

Wisest thing Joe Meredith taught me...
you gotta crank up the marketing machine.

Up and coming tech startup I’ve been watching...
Cowden Technologies.

Computer/OS I used to launch my first company...
Dell laptop / MS Windows (’95 no less!)

If I had a superpower, it would be…
time travel.

Last book I read…
Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss).

Last time I ventured out of my comfort zone…
I ran 100 miles.