Veneeth Iyengar
ConnectLA: Executive Director
Veneeth is the first executive director for the state of Louisiana’s broadband efforts (also known as ConnectLA). Under the leadership of Governor Jeff Landry, he is responsible for coordinating efforts among federal, state and local leaders in allocating nearly $1.6 Billion in federal funds to eliminate the digital divide in Louisiana by 2029 if not sooner.
He and his team are considered thought leaders in the broadband community for their rapid scale up and execution of federal dollars to impact the 1.7 million residents in Louisiana who lack high speed internet. Louisiana’s efforts have been recognized nationally, and he is often asked to speak at events hosted and or organized by the Pew Charitable Trusts, National Governors Association, Consumer Electronics Show, Fiber Broadband Association, National Conference of State Legislators, US Department of Commerce’s SelectUSA Summit, Federalist Society, American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institute and leading other organizations.
ConnectLA’s work also has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Politico, Axios, Fierce Telecom, Telecompetitor, Associated Press, Semafor, The Advocate, USA Today’s network of newspapers and other leading telecom publications.
Their office has also been recognized nationally and among other states in the following ways:
- #1 – Best Practices in Broadband Policy and Execution by the American Enterprise Institute
- #1 – Full Approval of Volume 1 and 2 of our BEAD Initial Proposal in December of 2023
- #8 – Largest allocation of Broadband Dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill ($1.35 Billion)
From 2018-2021, he was the Assistant Chief Administrative Officer for the Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish primarily responsible for Economic Development. He was involved in the lifecycle of Economic Development deals and he led the administration’s response in helping small business owners during the pandemic.
In 2020, Veneeth was asked by the Governor to co-chair his Resilient Louisiana Healthcare Task Force, which included the CEOs of leading healthcare systems, payors and rural healthcare organizations in the state. The task force recommended approaches to create an innovative healthcare economy given the challenges posed by the pandemic. Prior to his time as a public servant, Veneeth helped build the Venture Capital/Private Equity healthcare practice for Sage Growth Partners and worked in the office of the former CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation under President George W. Bush.
In 2023, Veneeth received the Louisiana Community and Technical College System
Impact Award, the Woodrow Wilson Distinguished Alumni Award for Public Service from Johns Hopkins University in 2022, 2020 Leadership Louisiana Recipient by the Council for a Better Louisiana and 2018 Forty under 40 in Baton Rouge by the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report.
He is on Ochsner’s Health State Advisory Board with the focus of significantly improving the healthcare rankings in the state, Board of Pennington Biomedical
Research Foundation and Chairman for Innovation Catalyst, a non-profit evergreen investment based in Baton Rouge that has made more than a dozen investments startups.
He received his Master of Science in Finance from Johns Hopkins University and his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Purdue University. Veneeth grew up in Baton Rouge and attended Baton Rouge High School.