It’s often said that a leader is made, not born. For alumna Inge Lindholm, it was the combination of community and crisis that ignited her process of ‘becoming’ during her time as a graduate student at USC Iovine and Young Academy. One year out from graduation, Lindholm has gone from solo entrepreneur to C-suite leader. She is co-founder and COO of a successful startup, RoomMatch, an app that matches potential roommates based on apartment buildings and compatibility.

"I have a global team of people that work with me. I'm able to effectively communicate with my CTO and his team. I'm effectively able to manage multiple design teams depending on the modality of it. I work with several legal teams that are required to run this kind of technology platform,” says Lindholm. "The Academy empowered me to let my leadership freak flag fly."

And yet, the boisterous founder confesses she used to be shy. “I was nervous and I was scared,” she admits. “But the community helped me feel comfortable.”

Surrounded by like-minded peers and “upside-down” thinkers at the Academy, Lindholm’s leadership instincts kicked in during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when Los Angeles was facing a dire shortage of personal protective equipment. Lindholm quickly mobilized graduate students from Hawaii to Texas to Los Angeles to use their maker skills and equipment to boost PPE supplies. She assembled a virtual sewing circle of MSIDBT students who exchanged tips and played music over Zoom as they churned out dozens of cloth masks.

"Most of us didn't even know how to sew," Lindholm recalls. "We either bought or borrowed sewing machines and taught ourselves how to sew within a matter of hours. There was nothing that was going to stop us."

Lindholm reports that the Academy graduate student and alumni social network is highly active, and that the Academy's community spirit extends beyond personal camaraderie into a professional network of powerhouses. The interdisciplinary nature of the program has created a network with subject matter experts on almost every topic relevant to an entrepreneur like Lindholm, and it has been an invaluable resource to her business. Whether developing her RoomMatch's privacy policy or securing legal counsel for her company, her Academy connections have enabled her to grow her fledgling company in ways she never could have dreamed of when she worked alone.

"Any time I have a question," Lindholm says. "I'd have this incredible community of other startup founders that I'm quickly able to reach out to and have almost immediate response for them to say, 'Oh yeah, we did that last week,' or 'Here, let's share resources.'"

And with such strong ties to her school's community, Lindholm has not left USC entirely. After helping one of her former professors adapt his class for remote learning, Lindholm now co-teaches USC Marshall's "Digital Foundations for Business Innovations.” Along the way, she's discovered a love of teaching and mentoring as well.

"It's so interesting talking to students all the time," says Lindholm. "Some of them are dealing with 'What's going to be my next career?' or 'How do I change?' There's a lot of course material stuff, but there's also a lot of life stuff, and I'm happy to be a sounding board for it all.

As much support as the Academy community has given Lindholm, she gives back even more, and she hopes she can convince others to join her. She advises curious prospective students to "just go for it" and apply, and she tells incoming Academy students to embrace everything the program can be.

"It is your experience. Take full advantage of it, be intentional about it. Experience it in a way that is going to make you comfortable with the story you're going to take away from it,” says Lindholm. “There's a great community waiting to welcome you in the wings."

Graduate alumna Inge Lindholm was once a self-described "solopreneur," but within the collaborative Academy environment, she blossomed into a team-builder and leader. She says, "I was constantly inspired by the products and the technologies and the ideas that my colleagues were coming up with. But the thing that inspired me the most was them."

From solo to c-suite: Inge Lindholm