Laura Davis Moderates "Fastest-Rising American Hubs of Innovation" at Texas Venture Forum
Laura Davis moderated a Texas Venture Forum panel on rising innovation hubs with chamber leaders from Arizona and Memphis.
At 1:15 p.m. on Thursday, May 29, 2025, USLege co-founder Laura Davis — credited in the event program as "Laura Carr, US LEGE Cofounder & Chief Business Officer" — moderated a panel titled "Fastest-Rising American Hubs of Innovation" at the Texas Venture Forum, held as part of the Texas Venture Gala. It's a small but telling naming detail: Laura went by Laura Carr professionally at the time, and the archived program page still reflects that credit today.
Who was on stage
The panel brought together two chamber-of-commerce leaders from outside Texas to talk about their own regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: Danny Seiden, President and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, and Ted Townsend, President and CEO of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. Per the event program, the session explored what it calls "fastest-rising American hubs of innovation" — a chance for Arizona and Memphis to make the case for why they belong in the same conversation as Texas when it comes to entrepreneurial momentum.
Laura's role here was as moderator and, per the program, as a media-partner representative — the session was presented in partnership with USLege, which the program also credits with organizing Capitol tours held the evening before the forum. That combination is worth noting for anyone tracking USLege's civic and Capitol-adjacent presence in Texas business circles: this wasn't just a sponsorship logo on a slide, it was USLege's own team helping shape and host part of the Gala's programming.
A note on access
The Texas Venture Gala's 2025 event page is an archived program listing, not a transcript, so there's no verbatim audio or quoted exchange from the panel to pull from. Everything above — the time, date, panel title, moderator credit, and panelist names and titles — comes directly from that program page. We're not filling in what Laura, Seiden, or Townsend actually said with invented lines; if a future version of this post needs direct quotes, they'd need to come from an audio or video recording of the session, if one exists.
Listen to the companion conversation
USLege's own Bills & Business podcast was on the ground for this event: Episode #33, "Bills & Business Live From Texas Venture Forum," was recorded live at the forum. It's the natural next stop for anyone who wants more color on what the event felt like beyond the printed program — listen to it on the USLege podcast page. You can also see the full Texas Venture Forum program, including this panel, at texasventuregala.com.
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