Max Meeks is a 2024 MBA candidate at Texas McCombs, concentrating in entrepreneurship and venture capital. Max is passionate about transforming the built environment into more efficient and sustainable real estate assets, especially as it relates to reducing the industry’s overall carbon footprint. His favorite class in the program thus far has been TVL’s Energy Venture Practicum, a course focused on applying a framework to take energy-related ideas from concept stage to market.

Prior to business school, Max was a vice president of commercial real estate lending with Texas Capital Bank. During his time in banking Max worked in deal originations, portfolio management, and in the special assets restructuring group throughout the pandemic. During the Summer of 2023, Max interned in the Innovation Services group at MetaProp, a PropTech-focused VC based in New York. These experiences, working with large real estate owners, provide him a unique perspective into industry-wide challenges and the importance of real estate innovation.

Max has been selected as a Founder-in-Residence within TVL’s Startup Fellows program. Using his real estate background and his dad’s technical expertise, Max is helping to develop a hardware innovation that will materially increase efficiency of air-cooled commercial HVAC systems. His primary objective is to create a product that will transform the way real estate operators approach commercial cooling and thereby decrease utility costs, extend the life of the equipment, and ultimately lower greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next nine months, the team will focus on product development, market validation, and go-to-market strategy.