Matt Cordio, one of the co-founders of entrepreneurial skills program The Commons, has announced he will leave his role on the management team of the organization.
Cordio said he will continue to serve as an advisor and mentor to the college students in the program, but he will focus more of his time on Skills Pipeline, the IT talent acquisition firm he also runs.
The Commons is a nine-week program that enrolls students from 23 Milwaukee area colleges in entrepreneurship training. Cordio founded it along with Joe Poeschl and Michael Hostad, in partnership with the Greater Milwaukee Committee’s Innovation in Milwaukee initiative.
“I’m just excited to go focus on growing my IT skills acquisition company, Skills Pipeline, and also just kind of exploring launching a new startup or two,” Cordio said. “I have limited bandwidth of time and I really need to focus—because we’re really growing rapidly at Skills Pipeline—to focus my time on that and reduce my nonprofit work.”
Cordio isn’t revealing what he’s working on for the potential new startups, but said sees a future in accelerated skill development programs.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunity around doing stuff similar to The Commons,” he said. “I just think the format for the delivery of The Commons is the next big thing in post-secondary education.”
As for Skills Pipeline, it has grown 450 percent in 2015 with several new clients coming on board, and Cordio will work to accelerate that growth in 2016. The company has two full-time and two part-time employees.
“There’s just an immense need for technology talent and I don’t see that stopping,” Cordio said.
In August, Cordio and his other nonprofit organization, entrepreneur resource provider Startup Milwaukee, exited the management of the 96Square co-working space in the historic Blatz Walsh House Building at 1101 N. Market St. in Milwaukee.
