Dr. Thad Seymour, Jr., Interim President
Vice President for Partnerships and Chief Innovation Officer
Thad Seymour was selected as interim president by UCF’s Board of Trustees on Feb. 21, 2019. Thad also serves as UCF’s Vice President for Partnerships and Chief Innovation Officer, focused on expanding and deepening the university’s partnerships and enhancing UCF’s ability to cultivate the talent needed to strengthen and diversify Central Florida’s economy.
Prior to his current role, Thad spent two years leading efforts to bring UCF Downtown to life and positioning the campus, which will open in August, as an innovative model of 21st-century higher education. Before that, he led the development of UCF’s Collective Impact Strategic Plan, which was unanimously approved by the UCF Board of Trustees in May 2016.
Before UCF, Thad’s three-decade business career included senior executive roles with large healthcare and technology companies, as well as multiple early stage businesses. As senior vice president of Tavistock Development Company, he led strategy and business development for Lake Nona Medical City and helped bring more than $3 billion in health and life sciences investment to the fast-growing innovation cluster. Thad also led the recruitment of the United States Tennis Association to Orlando to build the nation’s largest tennis complex, and founded and served as president of the Lake Nona Institute, a not-for-profit organization committed to driving innovative collaboration among Lake Nona’s diverse partners, including health and wellness, education and sustainability. It also hosts the widely acclaimed annual Lake Nona Impact Forum.
Thad served as a board member of BioFlorida and was the 2015 recipient of the BioFlorida Leadership Award. He co-chaired bioOrlando and is a past chair of the Florida Research Consortium. Within the Orlando community, Thad has served on the board of Visit Orlando and the president’s advisory council of Valencia College. He is a past chair of StarterStudio, a nonprofit entrepreneurial support and co-working organization in downtown Orlando, and Shepherd’s Hope, which provides free medical care to more than 20,000 uninsured patients throughout Central Florida. Thad currently serves as an executive committee member of the Orlando Economic Partnership.
Thad holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Dartmouth College and a Master of Arts and doctorate, both in History, from the University of Wisconsin. He also holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He and his wife, Katie Glockner Seymour, have three grown children.