Title Track Type of Date Time program (EST)
Creating Corporate Diversity Keynote Remarks Keynote March 5 12:30 -1PM Programs
The Next Normal: Sneak peek into Micro-economy Panel March 5 1-2PM the Post Pandemic World of Retail
Digital Health Micro-economy Panel March 5 2-3PM
Climate Change, Data, Analytics, +AI Coding and More Panel March 5 2-3PM
Innovation in Wholesale Banking Micro-economy Panel March 5 3-4PM
Human Connection in an Age of Coding and More Panel March 5 3-4PM Apps: Digital Redlining
The ROI on UN SDGs Micro-economy Panel March 5 4-5PM
Coding for Everyone: Inclusion Coding and More Panel March 5 4-5PM through Career Change
Closing the Gap Between New Global Community Panel March 5 5-6PM America and Corporate America
Fireside Chat: Diversity in the Venture Keynote Remarks Keynote March 6 12:30 -1PM Capital Community
Future of Women in Venture Capital World of Venture Panel March 6 1-2PM
Social Entrepreneurship is the Future Global Community Panel March 6 2-3PM of Startups
Startup Landscape for Diverse & World of Venture Panel March 6 3-4PM Female Founders
New Business Models in Global Community Panel March 6 4-5PM Sustainability
Moonshots Capital Presents: From Global Community Panel March 6 5-6PM Military Service to Entrepreneurship Keynote Speakers Creating Corporate Diversity Programs Friday, March 5, 12:30pm - 1pm EST
In 2020, Corporate America found itself in the crosshairs of the fight for greater inclusion and equality. In the wake of social justice protests and demonstrations, many expect that the corporate landscape will finally be transformed into a more equitable experience for all of its participants. Unfortunately, traditional corporate diversity efforts have fallen short in delivering on this expectation. Can we reasonably rely on Corporate America to get it right this time?
With the arrival of the Multicultural Mainstream, a new economy largely driven by a society that is more inclusive, more Black, more Brown, more Female, and more Dispersed, so too has come the time for a new way of thinking about corporate diversity initiatives. This thought-provoking discussion will explore the traditional approaches undertaken by America’s corporations, challenge conventional wisdom, and present new perspectives for how corporations can play a meaningful and constructive role in bringing about equitable and lasting change. William Crowder, Early Stage VC and Corporate Diversity & Inclusion Specialist William Crowder is a founding partner at Aperture Venture Capital, a diversity-focused venture fund backed by the world’s leading corporations and fund investors. Over the past decade, William has established himself as an investing pioneer and has built diversity investing platforms for major corporations including Comcast and Morgan Stanley. His direct investing activities and the corporate platforms he has designed have collectively invested in over 120 companies with diverse founders and have raised the bar for performance and outcomes across the industry. Some of his notable investments include Cuyana, AptDeco, Squire, Partpic (acquired by Amazon), and LiveNinja (acquired by IDT).
Prior to his investing career, William spent over 10 years as a management consultant with Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), Thomson Reuters, AOL, and founded his own consulting firm serving the needs of large media companies. In a past professional life he was a software engineer designing networking and information solutions for large-scale distribution.
He is a native of North Carolina and holds an MBA from Duke University, and degrees in Computer Science from North Carolina State University. William and his family currently reside in the Philadelphia area where they are investors in one incredibly high-growth Labrador Retriever. Fireside Chat: Diversity in the Venture Capital Community Saturday, March 6, 12:30pm - 1pm EST
How does one switch his or her career from a lifelong marketer and operator to a capital market investor? What differentiates a VC-backed company from other companies? Why is there a lack of diversity in the VC industry?
Richelle Parham is everything you think of when you hear the word "power woman." She is the managing director at WestRiver Group (WRG), a VC based in Seattle. Prior to WRG, she was a partner at Camden Partners and served as Chief Marketing Officer of eBay. Come join us for a frank conversation with Richelle as she shares her thoughts on these various topics. Richelle Parham, MD at WestRiver Group, ex-CMO at eBay Richelle Parham is a Managing Director at WestRiver Group (WRG), where she leads WRG’s Experience sector with Erik Anderson, leveraging her operating, consumer and digital marketing expertise to lead investments in the consumer experience economy. Parham is passionate about WRG’s purpose to drive diversity of gender, ethnicity and thought with their co-led, gender-balanced fund investing model. She is known for empowering the next generation of diverse leaders and is recognized as one of the most influential marketers in the world.
Prior to WRG, Parham was a partner at Camden Partners, a private equity firm focused on lower middle market growth stage investments and served as Chief Marketing Officer of eBay. Parham also served in numerous executive leadership positions at Visa Inc., Rapp, and Digitas.
Parham’s honors include Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Forbes 50 Most Influential CMOs in the World, Savoy’s Power 300 and Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America, and Top Innovator of Marketing and Advertising by Black Enterprise Magazine. She also serves as Executive Chairman of Shyn, is a Member of the Board of Directors of Best Buy, LabCorp, and e.l.f Beauty.
Parham holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a focus in Marketing and a bachelor’s in Design and Merchandising from Drexel University, where she serves on the board of trustees.
Christine Lee '16EN, Senior Associate at WestRiver Group Christine Lee joined WestRiver Group in 2019 as an investment associate. In this role Christine screens potential deals for new opportunities, performs due diligence, drafts term sheets and supports growing existing companies within the WRG portfolio. Prior to WRG, Christine held several positions at the Seattle-based Nordstrom company from 2017 to 2019, including financial analyst and senior financial analyst. While at Nordstrom she helped manage Nordstrom’s capital from both the brick-and-mortar and the online sides. Her primary responsibilities included analyzing new business opportunities from international store openings, mergers and acquisition and forecasting approximately 120 Nordstrom stores and online investment. From 2016 to 2017, Christine was an equity research associate at Credit Suisse in New York, covering department stores and off (top) 3 price. Primary responsibility included pitching investment ideas to sales and institutional clients, writing research reports on both company and industry levels as well as building and maintaining financial models. Christine has a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research and a minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Columbia University.
Panels Climate Change, Data, Analytics, +AI Friday, March 5, 2pm - 3pm EST
Climate change is manifesting in unpredictable and damaging ways, and the speed of change catches even residents of wealthy countries unprepared. Without preparation, damage to those living along the equator in poorer countries, may result in catastrophic damage more severe than residents have already endured. Recent, unexpected cold weather in Texas, interrupted crucial infrastructure providing residents heat and water. A series of seemingly independent faults combined to result in a failure of electricity, gas, and water systems in the state. The halt to basic infrastructure we take for granted, highlights the complicated problem of identifying and planning for climate change and its effects on systems people rely on. Understanding complex factors that will change how we live as a result of new, puzzling weather patterns requires sophisticated study of the data with application of AI. Our panel of researchers, technologists, and entrepreneurs examine tools and approaches to examining the problem and contemplate approaches to plan for the future. Sarah Stone, Executive Director, eScience Institute at the University of Washington, moderator Sarah Stone is the Executive Director of the University of Washington eScience Institute, where she also directs the UW Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program which partners student fellows from across the country with project leads from academia, government, and the private sector to find data-driven solutions to pressing societal challenges. Stone is the Co-Executive Director of the West Big Data Innovation Hub (WBDIH), where she focuses on building and strengthening cross-sector partnerships across the western U.S., with a particular focus on urban data science and data-enabled scientific discovery and training. Stone has a doctorate in marine sciences from UCSB and has previously been involved in many large, interdisciplinary research projects in oceanography.
Donnel Baird '13BUS, CEO at BlocPower, panelist Climate Tech Founder. 100% focused on averting climate disaster. Lessons learned from: software, sustainability, policy, financial innovation in the financially underserved real estate climate tech sector. Focused on: Climate Tech, fintech, Startups, Business Development, Marketing Strategy, Finance, Community Organizing, and Venture Capital. Columbia Business School MBA, Second District Board member at New York Federal Reserve Bank, Echoing Green Fellow
Priya L. Donti, Co-founder and Chair at Climate AI, panelist Priya Donti is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and a U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow. She is also a co-founder and chair of Climate Change AI, an initiative to catalyze
(top) 4 impactful work in climate change and machine learning. Her work lies at the intersection of machine learning, electric power systems, and climate change mitigation. Specifically, her research explores ways to incorporate domain knowledge (such as power system physics) into machine learning models.
Peter Wang, CEO & Co-founder at Anaconda, Inc., panelist Peter Wang has been developing commercial scientific computing and visualization software for over 15 years. He has extensive experience in software design and development across a broad range of areas, including 3D graphics, geophysics, large data simulation and visualization, financial risk modeling, and medical imaging. Peter’s interests in the fundamentals of vector computing and interactive visualization led him to co-found Anaconda (formerly Continuum Analytics). Peter leads the open source and community innovation group. As a creator of the PyData community and conferences, he devotes time and energy to growing the Python data science community and advocating and teaching Python at conferences around the world. Peter holds a BA in Physics from Cornell University.
Closing the Gap Between New America and Corporate America Friday, March 5, 5pm - 6pm EST
For People Leaders around the world, COVID-19 and the George Floyd civil unrest in 2020 proved to validate what many already knew, Corporate America is two to three generations culturally removed from New America, hence the need to modernize the practice of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and culturally transform from the inside, out.
For People Leaders, employee disengagement was and continues to be at an all time high because of the need to digitalize the workplace while culturally transforming the workplace. With only 2% of Fortune 1000 organizations digital from onboarding to exit, according to a report by The Engagement Institute, employee disengagement costs U.S. companies up to $550 billion annually and will be an $8T global problem (Korn Ferry, 2018) by 2030, most organizations around the world are not prepared to modernize their organizations culturally at scale. Jeffrey Bowman, Co-Founder and CEO at Reframe, moderator 2X Future of Work award winning Wiley published author, Madison Avenue executive turned tech entrepreneur helps People Leaders build the most inclusive employee and customer experiences.
While at Ogilvy, Mr. Bowman re-introduced a McKinsey future of work topic and developed an innovative approach that helps organizations build more inclusive customer experiences. After the topic and approach was adopted by the +$650Bn marketing and communications industry, Mr. Bowman left Ogilvy in 2015 to validate his future of work thesis while being paid by F15 to F350 brands across retail, technology, financial services, travel, arts & culture, consumer packaged goods, food & beverage industries.
(top) 5 With only 2% of F1K brands being digital globally*, COVID-19 exposed business’ lack of digital readiness, ability to adapt to change and slowed growth due to 91 percent of the workforce being forced to work remotely. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement caused pain and tension between employees and People Leaders. More and more companies are being challenged to take a stand by their own workforce.
In July 2020 in the midst of COVID-19 and the BLM movement, Bowman and his co-founder & Chief Technology Officer, Safraz Sears launched Reframe | The People Leaders Platform to help enterprise organizations build more inclusive customer and employee experiences at scale.
His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, Fast Company, NBC (Today Show), Forbes, AdAge and Campaign. Mr. Bowman speaks frequently at industry and trade events across the United States, Europe and South America.
When he is not "hacking workplace and marketplace change" for F1K companies, he enjoys being at home in Harlem, New York with his two daughters.
Dick Cattani, Chief Executive Officer at Restaurant Associates, panelist Dick Cattani oversees a company that under his direction has grown into an $850 million business. Restaurant Associates is widely considered the pre-eminent on-site food service company in the industry. Restaurant Associates delivers hospitality excellence to premiere clients in some of country's top cultural centers, corporate accounts, educational facilities and off-premise catering events in cities across the country.
Headquartered in New York City, Restaurant Associates operates a premier portfolio of corporate accounts, including Condė Nast, Warner Media, Sony Music, Google, Amazon, Tiffany, Tapestry, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Capital One, as well as prestigious law firms and educational facilities, such as Harvard Business School and The Culinary Institute of America. The list is well over 175 accounts.
Landmark Cultural Centers include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the American Museum of Natural History, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA and the many Smithsonian Museums in Washington, DC, including the National Museum of the African American History and Culture, to name a few.
In 2002 Dick oversaw all of the food service operations at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. The massive effort comprised fifteen venues spread over 5,000 square miles and served 150,000 meals per day for seventeen days. It was the first time in Olympic history that one organization was responsible for hospitality catering, concessions and athlete feeding.
Dick is a graduate of Paul Smith's College in upstate New York where he served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for seven years. He is a former Fellow of The Culinary Institute of America and a former board member of the Society for Hospitality (top) 6 and Foodservice Management (SHFM). Currently he is a board member of The New York Common Pantry, dedicated to reducing hunger in New York City. He was honored with a Conti Distinguished Professor Chair at Penn State University, a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, RI and a Wise Professor at the University of Delaware. Dick has also been the commencement speaker at Paul Smith's College (twice) and the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.
In addition, Dick was awarded the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association 2005 Silver Plate Award, the industry's premier accolade, for his achievements in the Foodservice Management category. In 2016, Dick and Restaurant Associates were honored as Employer of the Year by Job Path, New York, for showing a strong commitment to hiring and creating opportunities for employees with developmental disabilities. And in 2018 at Compass' Annual Global Conference, representing 50 countries, he was honored with the Company's first Lifetime Achievement Award.
Robin Cerrati, Vice President Human Resources | Restaurant Associates, Wolfgang Puck Catering & Bench, panelist Robin Cerrati has demonstrated success in building partnerships with executive leadership to implement vision and strategy that achieves sustained business results. She is an HR thought leader and strategic advisor, organizational expert on organizational design, development, management, and leadership. She has a distinct ability to translate business strategy into best-in-class performance cultures. She strives for positive results, creating excitement around business and people objectives through the application and optimization of people-centered activities to ensure these efforts supports the company’s growth and business success.
Cerrati's background includes senior leadership roles leading strategic and culture change for start-ups, mergers and acquisitions and fast-growth organizations.
Coding for Everyone: Inclusion through Career Change Friday, March 5, 4pm - 5pm EST
Despite unfulfilled employer demand for hiring software professionals, on campus curriculum for studying computing remain a domain that continues to practice gate keeping. Gate keeping can manifest as prerequisites that assume privilege or not addressing hostile environments with no sponsorship for inclusion. With the growth of communities and resources focused on computing education beyond traditional campuses, opportunities to acquire skills to succeed as a software professional expand every day. Through career change, talent that were previously excluded from study of computing, are introducing greater diversity to tech work places. Panel features two professionals and their personal stories of career change and founder of a bootcamp enabling career changers to succeed. Don Sheu ‘98GS, General Partner & Co-founder at Apertu Capital, moderator Focused on helping open source project creators capture the value they create with investment from vc fund Apertu Capital. Invests in early stage startups early as team formation. Created one of the world’s largest open source communities with 10,000 members in Seattle. Founded Python community’s most financially successful (top) 7 grassroots conference and delivered a 120% profit margin by second year. Produced a fundraiser for CSforALL, featured creators of Java, TypeScript, Perl, and Python. Chair of event invested the proceeds from fundraiser and funded a pilot program with JROTC. Resulting program will roll out CS education for 500k students.
Nicholas Hunt-Walker, Senior Software Engineer at Verica, panelist Nicholas Hunt-Walker is a developer and instructor of software and web development, teaching the techniques necessary to create and deploy websites that employ the full stack, with Python running strong on the back end. He is passionate about well-orchestrated systems, intuitive user experiences, and clean code and data. Prior to his work at Code Fellows, he was a data scientist with experience in data acquisition, data management, data analysis, and presentation of analytical results for casual (~1000 items) and massive (500+ million items) data sets. Most of his training involves applying statistics, physical knowledge, and problem-solving skills to glean physical insight from astrophysical data as an astronomer studying the structure of our galaxy. Outside of that work, he has cultivated a love for exploring and visualizing data of all origins.
Jason Moss, President and Founder at Metis, panelist Jason aspires to improve everyone's data science skill set. For almost 20 years, Jason has worked in education. From founding a nonprofit organization in New Orleans to working at companies such as McKinsey & Company, Scholastic, Kaplan, and now Metis (a part of Kaplan), he has sought opportunities to build businesses and work with exceptional teams on creating transformative learning experiences and products.He spends most his time at Metis (1) ensuring the quality of the student experience and outcome; (2) developing the roadmap and building the team to grow the business; and (3) engaging with data scientists around the country with whom Metis can collaborate.He has been married for 12 years and has two kids. In his spare time, he enjoys kickboxing, participating in obstacle courses, and blogging about billiards movies and television shows.
April Speight, Senior Cloud Advocate, Spatial Computing at Microsoft, panelist April Speight is an author and developer advocate based in Beverly Hills, CA. She graduated from the University of Maryland University College with a BA in Global Business & Public Policy in addition to a certificate in Business Project Management. She later pursued and completed a MA in Luxury and Fashion Management at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
April began her professional career in the luxury fashion industry as a menswear stylist and visual merchandiser. She later transitioned into the tech industry as a project manager and systems analyst. In August 2020, she published Bite-Size Python: An Introduction to Python Programming with Wiley as a starter for adolescents to learn the Python programming language. She is currently a Sr. Cloud Advocate with the Spatial Computing technical team at Microsoft.
(top) 8 Digital Health Friday, March 5, 2pm - 3pm EST
The COVID-19 pandemic heralded an acceleration in technological innovation in health and wellness. On the other hand, it has provided more insights to the growing health disparities in the United States and around the world. While these technologies offer unique and cost-effective solutions, this panel will explore the disparities in the context of mental and emotional health, clinical testing, and data bias from lack of population diversity that these technologies are built on, with the goal of charting new ways to achieve health equity. Kingsley I. Ndoh, Clinical Assistant Professor, Global Health | Co-Founder at Regista, moderator Kingsley I. Ndoh is a public health physician with over 12 years experience in leading sustainable innovative global health programs focused on health systems strengthening in low and middle-income countries, with the goal to narrow the widening disparities in cancer care outcomes. He interlaced in the complex web of working with governments, academic/research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, multilateral organizations and those at the forefront of implementing these programs - the healthcare workers. More recently, he co-founded a med tech startup that leverages the power of AI and big data to leapfrog the gaps in cancer prevention and control in underserved regions of the world focusing on sub-Saharan Africa.
Crystal Evuleocha, CEO & Founder of Kiira Health, panelist Crystal Evuleocha is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Kiira Health Inc. Kiira Health is the first women's telemedicine company revolutionizing the women's health space starting with colleges and Universities
Crystal, who was originally born and raised in Nigeria, started her Journey in the United States at the University of Houston where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and Business Administration. Starting her career in Real estate investments and law, Crystal ventured into healthcare technology following a personal health experience.
In 2018, she started Kiira Health and has since then won numerous awards and has been featured in various publications including Forbes, TechCrunch, Med City News, and more.
Along with Crystal's work at Kiira Health, she is also the Founder of FemHealthTech, a yearly healthcare conference centered around women's health innovation and technology. The conference highlights the importance of innovation in women's health and the amazing founders behind these innovations.
Sumit Mukherjee, Ph.D., Senior Applied Scientist / Researcher at Microsoft AI for Good Research Lab, panelist Sumit Mukherjee, Ph.D. is currently a Senior Applied Scientist in Microsoft's AI for Good research lab, where he works on using AI to solve important social problems related to healthcare. His current work covers a few different domains such as time series (top) 9 modeling, computer vision, privacy preserving machine learning and genomics. Prior to this role, he was a Research Scientist in the 'Neurodenerative Research' division of Sage Bionetworks. His research at Sage focused on developing Machine Learning algorithms to aid the study of Alzheimer's and other Neurodegenerative disorders.
James Edward Murray, Media Partnerships at Facebook | Co-Founder at TheraMatch, panelist James is the CEO of Therify (formerly TheraMatch), a digital platform that leverages AI to match Black and Brown therapy seekers with culturally informed therapists. He also works at Facebook, where he leads partnerships with digital publishers in the US. Prior to Facebook, James worked on the enterprise sales team at Invision, and co-founded NewsCart, a B2B SaaS company that delivered competitive insights and analysis to global media companies. He’s a proud graduate of Howard University and received his MBA from Vanderbilt University. Through his work at Therify, James' mission is to make mental healthcare more inclusive and accessible to people of color around the world.
Future of Women in Venture Capital Saturday, March 6, 1pm - 2pm EST
An insider panel of women (and men) breakdown our current reality in order to build effectively for the future. The discussion will first look at our current narrative and in doing so create space to envision a new venture ecosystem. With less than 3% of venture capital going to female founders and close to 3/4 of all venture capital firms having no female partners, this will be a critical conversation at a critical time. Stacy Tarver Patterson '16BUS, Managing Director at West, moderator As a Managing Director with West, Stacy Tarver Patterson (CBS ’16) is instrumental in advising companies’ strategy, marketing, and creative across a range of industries and visionary partners from health and wellness to wearable technology and digital identity systems. Before forging a path into venture, Stacy spent over a decade at Nike in a myriad of diverse roles in brand strategy, planning, and digital marketing; including stints leading the marketing teams in Beijing and Shanghai, two of Nike’s largest growth markets.
Kate Brodock, CEO at Women 2.0, panelist She’s lived in the tech startup world for over 15 years, and has played an active leadership role in the women in tech ecosystem for over a decade, having led a global, 60+ chapter organization focused on women in technology and entrepreneurship as its President for several years.
She’s also an EIR at LaunchNY, and a long-time mentor for Techstars. She was recently CMO of untapt, an AI-driven tech talent marketplace based in NYC and has held the role of Adjunct Professor in PR and Marketing at at Syracuse University.
Driving diversity, equity and inclusion action and awareness has been absolutely central to her work, and she additionally enjoys putting her experience in the tech industry to work advising and mentoring startups. (top) 10 Kate has spoken at and been featured in numerous places, including SXSWi, Collision Conference, Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored, IBT, MSNBC, TechCrunch, the BBC and Al Jazeera America.
She holds BAs in Political Science and African American History from the University of Rochester, an MBA from Goizueta Business School at Emory University and an MA in International Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
When she’s not doing all *that*, she’s a very non-professional (but adventurous!) athlete, an equally as non-professional musician, can be found outdoors in any weather — skiing, biking, hiking, sailing — loves a good meal with bubbly, craft beer and good friends, hilariousness and life. She tries hard to read when she can, non-fiction only. Her husband is a startup-web-developer-turned-beer-guy and they live on a hops farm in Upstate New York with their two boys. She can be found on Twitter at @just_kate.
Joanna Rees '90BUS, Managing Partner at West, panelist Joanna Rees is a Managing Partner at West, a venture studio enabling companies to define and defend their market opportunity with a brand people love. West develops marketing and creative that delivers results for fees and warrants and selectively invests in studio partners. West partner companies include Twitter, Square, Impossible Foods, Prelude Fertility, Chegg, Proxy and New Front to name a few. Joanna currently serves on the corporate board of FICO (NYSE: FICO), Tentrr, Prelude Fertility, Boon Supply and HimForHer. Joanna served on the board of Care.com (NYSE: CARE), Leapfrog (NYSE: LEAP), Quinstreet (Nasdaq: QNST), Sabrix, Danger, Posit Science, Account Now, Post, The Coppola Company, National Venture Capital Association, NFTE, Endeavor, New Schools Venture Fund and as a Senior Partner of the B Team. Joanna led the formation and capital raise for Endeavor Catalyst. Joanna was a candidate for Mayor of San Francisco in November 2011. She has significant experience in venture capital, finance and investment banking as the Founder of VSP Capital, along with roles at BA Securities and Vrolyk & Co. Joanna’s roots are in marketing and branding having held several senior marketing leadership positions with Groupe Danone and DMB&B. She was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum and a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute, where she also serves as a seminar moderator. Joanna is the Board Chair of The Representation Project. She earned her MBA from Columbia University and a BS from Duke University.
Melanie Strong, Managing Partner, Sports and Wellness VC at NEXT VENTŪRES, panelist Mel spent over 17 years at Nike, leading international marketing teams across running, women’s, soccer/football and training. She worked on all of Nike’s digital sports and tracking products, advised their new business incubator Valiant Labs, and was most recently vice president and general manager for their skateboarding business. Today Mel is managing partner at Next Ventures, a VC fund investing in innovative health, sports and wellness companies. She sits on the board of performance brand Amp Human, and is an advisor for photography app VSCO. And she's a board member for Women in (top) 11 Sports Tech and Outdoor Afro. Mel and her husband also run a mountain bike tour guiding company in Hood River, Oregon.
Human Connection in an Age of Apps: Digital Redlining Friday, March 5, 3pm - 4pm EST
How is the increased usage of social networks during the pandemic impacting data practices, especially related to user interaction and engagement? Today’s designers of virtual app-driven social spaces for connection can practice their craft in a way that fosters inclusion and encourages diverse interactions, but user profiles that follow us around the internet can result in an experience that sidelines the user altogether. A poet, a data scientist, and a technologist come together to discuss how people are organized by algorithms in the age of apps. Let’s identify the problem and chart a plan to prevent digital segregation. Emily Burg ‘96BC, Founder and Strategic Advisor at Guru Em Consulting, moderator Emily Lauren Burg is a 1996 graduate of Barnard College. As the President of the Columbia Alumni Association of Southern California, Inc. (SoCal), on whose Board she has served for six years, Burg led a programming focus on arts and culture. With the pivot to virtual events, she has empowered the Club community to lead events showcasing their own interests and expertise. A two-time founder, operations strategist, and activist who drives social change through events and philanthropy, Burg works with celebrity, corporate, and nonprofit clients on equality, homelessness, and women’s empowerment. Burg holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and an MDiv from Vanderbilt University.
Shayla Lawson, Book Author, panelist Shayla Lawson is the author of This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope (Harper Perennial, 2020) and three poetry collections: I Think I'm Ready To See Frank Ocean, A Speed Education in Human Being and PANTONE.
She has also recently appeared on OPB with Tiffany Camhi, NPR’s Live Wire Radio broadcast, The Special Report with Areva Martin, Salon Talks with D. Watkins, The True Romance Podcast, at The Center for Fiction with 2 Dope Queens’ Phoebe Robinson, Storybound by LitHub, at The Strand with Ashley C. Ford, Memoir Monday, and the Tanz Im August Art Festival in Berlin, Germany.
She is a regular columnist at Bustle magazine and has written for ESPN, Guernica, Vulture, New York, and The Cut. Shayla is a MacDowell and Yaddo Artist Colony Fellow and a 2020 National Book Critics Circle Finalist.
Widad Machmouchi, Principal Data Science Manager at Microsoft, panelist Widad Machmouchi is a Principal Data Science Manager in the AI Platform at Microsoft. She leads a team of data scientists in the Experimentation Platform group focusing on experimentation and user measurement. Widad develops tools and techniques that enable teams to make data-driven decisions and grow users, through trustworthy A/B (top) 12 testing, metric development, and user behavior modeling. She applies these techniques in multiple products covering many industries like web search (Bing), collaboration and productivity (Microsoft Office) and AI development (VSCode and Azure Machine Learning).
Widad is passionate about developing intelligent products that gives users agency over their data while maximizing the utility they receive. In her free time, Widad is an angel investor via the Seattle Angel Conference, helping early-stage startups develop their business plans and raise funding.
She holds a PhD in Theoretical Computer Science from the University of Washington, Seattle and is a co-founder of a technology hardware start-up.
DJ Patil, Former U.S. Chief Data Scientist, panelist DJ Patil has held a variety of roles in Academia, Industry, and Government. He is CTO for Devoted Health, a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, and an Advisor to Venrock Partners.
Dr. Patil was appointed by President Obama to be the first U.S. Chief Data Scientist where his efforts led to the establishment of nearly 40 Chief Data Officer roles across the Federal government. He also established new health care programs including the Precision Medicine Initiative and the Cancer Moonshot, new criminal justice reforms including the Data-Driven Justice and Police Data Initiatives that cover more than 94 million Americans, as well as leading the national data efforts. He also has been active in national security and for his efforts was awarded by Secretary Carter the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service which is the highest honor the department bestows on a civilian.
In industry, he led the product teams at RelateIQ which was acquired by Salesforce, was founding board member for Crisis Text Line which works to use new technologies to provide on demand mental and crisis support, and was a member of the venture firm Greylock Partners. He has also was Chief Scientist, Chief Security Officer and Head of Analytics and Data Product Teams at the LinkedIn Corporation where he co-coined the term Data Scientist. He has also held a number of roles at Skype, PayPal, and eBay.
As a member of the faculty at the University of Maryland, his research focused on nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory and he helped start a major research initiative on numerical weather prediction. As an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow for the Department of Defense, Dr. Patil directed new efforts to leverage social network analysis and the melding of computational and social sciences to anticipate emerging threats to the US. He has also co-chaired a major review of US efforts to prevent bioweapons proliferation in Central Asia and co-founded the Iraqi Virtual Science Library (IVSL). In 2104 he was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and is also a Member of the Council of Foreign Relations. And if you’ve read this far, he barely graduated from high school because of his math grades.
(top) 13 Innovation in Wholesale Banking Friday, March 5, 3pm - 4pm EST
Partnerships between FinTechs and banks will be a key driver for innovation in wholesale banking. While most of the FinTech activity in the last 5+ years has been retail oriented, the trend is changing now. Akrati Johari '18BUS, Co-Head of North America Digital Innovation at JPMorgan Chase & Co., moderator
Cathrine Andersen, Co-founder and CEO at Roger.ai, panelist Cathrine is the co-founder of Roger, a tool that helps small businesses pay their bills and automate their bookkeeping. She's a 2x founder, and exited her first startup, Assemblage, to Cisco in 2014. Her newest venture, Roger, was recently acquired by Fleetcor - a public company and a world-wide leader in business payments.
Sabrina Cao '19BUS, Principal, Digital Partnerships at BNY Mellon, panelist Sabrina Cao is a Principal of the Digital Partnerships Team at Bank of New York Mellon focused on bridging internal strategy with external capabilities. Sabrina spends most of her time evaluating partnership opportunities to accelerate business priorities and strengthen alignment with principal investments. Having been in the financial services industry for over 10 years, Sabrina’s experience spans multiple areas, including investment banking, investment management and fintech. Sabrina received her MBA from Columbia Business School.
Sarah Shenton '12BUS, Growth Investor, Advisor & COO of the Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, panelist Sarah Shenton ‘12BUS is an experienced Venture and Growth Investor focused on fintech, enterprise tech companies that are transforming the financial services and real estate markets. Her previous experience overseeing Technology Strategy, Operations and Data Management teams at Goldman Sachs has provided a unique perspective to help early stage investments scale while navigating complex enterprise customers. She is skilled in Strategic Investing, FinTech, PropTech, Workflow / Automation, Market Infrastructure, Business Strategy, and Business Development. She also has strong product knowledge with financial analysis background.
Sarah Parsons Walter '18BUS, Principal at FinTech Collective, panelist Sarah is a Principal at FinTech Collective.
Prior to joining Fintech Collective, Sarah spent ten years at Morgan Stanley, most recently in Global Capital Markets as a member of the Equity Syndicate Team, primarily focusing on TMT and international offerings. Prior to that, she worked in Sales and Trading. A former athlete and sports enthusiast, Sarah was the youngest member of the 2006 Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team that won a bronze medal in Torino, Italy. She also co-authored a book on Serie A, the top Italian professional soccer league.
(top) 14 Sarah received her MBA with highest honors from Columbia Business School and her B.A. in Economics cum laude from Dartmouth College.
Moonshots Capital Presents: From Military Service to Entrepreneurship Saturday, March 6, 5pm - 6pm EST
Veterans played a significant role in the entrepreneurship boom that took place after World War II, but both the veteran population and entrepreneurship have been on decline in the US. However, since 2012 the military has offered an introduction to entrepreneurship as part of its training program for service members leaving the military. Existing research has largely been positive about the capability of veterans to succeed as entrepreneurs and suggests that veterans may have the personal characteristics or experience that contribute to successful entrepreneurship. However, research also suggests that these traits alone are not sufficient for success in the challenging world of entrepreneurship, particularly in the high-stakes world of technology-based startups. This panel will discuss the hurdles, and opportunities, facing veterans pursuing entrepreneurship. Jason Dempsey '08GSAS, Chief of Military Veteran Research for Moonshots Capital, moderator Jason Dempsey, PhD, is an Army veteran and currently serves as the Executive Director of Center for Veteran Transition and Integration at Columbia University. His research includes reports from the Center for a New American Security on the veteran transition landscape and ecosystems for veteran entrepreneurs. After departing the Army he co-founded MILLIE, which won the 2016 Military Spouse Employment award from the US Chamber of Commerce and in 2017 was named one of the top 25 veteran-owned start-ups by Forbes magazine.
Christopher Brown, Co-founder at Zabo, panelist Christopher leads strategy and engineering efforts at Zabo as CEO/CTO. Prior to Zabo, Christopher worked directly in Air Traffic Control and also managed teams working on mission critical infrastructure both in the U.S. Air Force and Dept of Transportation. Christopher served 8 years active duty, including one deployment to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, earning two Achievement Medals and an honorable discharge. In 2016 he started doing development for open source projects in the Ethereum ecosystem and eventually put together a small team that would eventually evolve into creating Modular, Inc. (today, Zabo).
Marcus J. Carey, Enterprise Architect at ReliaQuest, panelist Marcus J. Carey is an Enterprise Architect at ReliaQuest where he does security research and product development. Prior to joining ReliaQuest, Marcus was the founder and CEO at Threatcare (acquired by ReliaQuest) and has 20 years of cybersecurity experience. Marcus is a U.S. Navy Cryptography and Signal Intelligence veteran who has worked in penetration testing, incident response, and digital forensics with federal agencies such as NSA, DC3, DIA, and DARPA.
(top) 15 Craig Cummings '05GSAS, Co-founder and General Partner of Moonshots Capital, panelist Craig actively invests in technology start-ups, many of which are founded by military veteran entrepreneurs, through his venture capital firm, Moonshots Capital, which he co-founded with Kelly Perdew.
Craig is the Co-Founder and former Chief Operating Officer of RideScout, a mobile app that showed users how to get from point A to point B by providing real-time ground transportation information. RideScout was acquired by Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) in September 2014.
Before he became an entrepreneur, Craig spent 17 years in the Army, most of that time as an Intelligence Officer serving in support of the National Security Agency (NSA). Craig deployed to Afghanistan with the Joint Special Operations Command where he earned the Bronze Star. He also served as an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point, NY. Craig received a B.S. in Political Science from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he was their first Truman Scholar, and he received a Ph.D. in Political Science (minor: Econometrics) from Columbia University.
In 2015, Craig was selected by HillVets as one of the 100 most influential and impactful veterans in the United States and, in 2016, Inc. Magazine named him as one of the Top 20 Military Veteran Entrepreneurs in the US. Craig is a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows with the Aspen Institute. Craig is married to Lawton Cummings, a Partner with the Notley Group. They have two children, Addison (17) and Cooper (15), and reside in Austin, TX.
New Business Models in Sustainability Saturday, March 6, 4pm - 5pm EST
Carbon sequestration measurement; standards (Verra); carbon pricing; carbon credits exchanges; low carbon farming rewards/incentives; agtech data platforms Lane Jost, Environment and Americas Leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, moderator Lane Jost is an expert in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG having held leadership roles over the last 10 years in the consulting, financial services and food service sectors. He currently serves as part of PwC’s national Responsible Business Leadership team helping the firm and its clients deliver on their ESG performance. In addition to his time at PwC and the PwC Charitable Foundation, Lane has been the Director of Philanthropy and CSR at Santander US, where he led the Bank's $10M annual grants portfolio, successfully leading to an upgrade in the Bank’s Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rating. He also helped develop the first sustainability and performance strategy at Sodexo USA, across the food service and facilities management firm’s North American footprint. He has advised several impact investing projects, spanning sustainability and ed/tech verticals on client acquisition strategies and has served as an adviser to a myriad of early stage firms working at the intersection of innovation and social impact. He currently serves on the advisory boards of SeaAhead, (top) 16 a bluetech startup based in Boston and FUEL LA, an Opportunity Zone investment and innovation platform based in Los Angeles. Prior to working in the corporate world, Lane was an entrepreneur and a marketing/PR professional. He has a Master's in International Development Economics from the UC San Diego School of Global Policy & Strategy (GPS) and a Bachelor's in International Studies from Kenyon College. Lane lives in Providence, RI with his family.
Mark Huang '97BUS/SIPA, SeaAhead, Inc.Co-Founder & Managing Director, panelist Mark has over 15 years of cleantech venture experience. He co-founded Novus Energy Partners in 2008, a US-European cleantech VC fund. Prior to that, Mark was with GE for 10 years. As a Senior Vice President of GE Energy Financial Services he co-led the effort to re-start GE’s cleantech venture investing efforts. In the maritime sector, Mark has worked in shipbuilding and as a naval architect. Mark also served for 13 years as an officer in the US Army Reserves. He was mobilized in 2003 to Baghdad where he focused on nation-building. Mark’s public sector experience also includes a term as the Economic Development Director for Providence where he focused on the Innovation ecosystem and developed an Urban Food strategy. He is currently a US director of Alfanar, the only venture philanthropy non-profit focused on the Arab world, and Tern, a Taiwan-based urban mobility company.
Mark holds an MBA and Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University and a BS in Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering from Webb Institute.
Mark Tracy, Chief Executive Officer at Cloud Agronomics, panelist Mark Tracy is the CEO of Cloud Agronomics. He has spent the majority of his career at the intersection of food, finance, technology and public policy. For over 20 years, Mark has served in leadership roles at Cargill, as well as at Indigo Ag. While at Cargill, Mark and his team empowered farmers globally through the creation of new financial tools to help them manage risk, and also managed an institutional sales team working with public pension funds, foundations and endowments. Mark is Secretary of the board of Hope Hospice and Palliative Care of New England. He is also the chair of the board of the Rhode Island Public Health Institute. Mark earned his Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University's JFK School of Government in 2011 and a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1995. Mark is a named inventor on two US patents.
Sue Yang '10CC, Vice President at Orion Energy Partners, panelist Sue Yang is a Vice President at Orion Energy Partners and is responsible for the origination and evaluation, due diligence and execution, and monitoring of investments. Orion Energy Partners is a credit-oriented private capital partner founded in 2015 with over $2.0 billion in investable capital that invests across the energy landscape and increasingly into the value chains driving the energy transition. Existing investments include ones in plastic recycling, an energy efficient water-cooled data center, a renewable diesel biorefinery, fuel cells, LED lighting-as-a-service, and distributed power generation. Prior to joining Orion Energy in 2018, Sue was at Macquarie Infrastructure (top) 17 and Real Assets where she was involved in the firm’s power, midstream, and transportation investment activities. Sue began her career with McKinsey & Company’s Middle East Office, where she worked on engagements across infrastructure, real estate, industrials, banking, and private equity. Sue holds a BA from Columbia College where she majored in Middle Eastern Studies and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
The Next Normal: Sneak peek into the Post Pandemic World of Retail Friday, March 5, 1pm - 2pm EST
Retail is in the middle of its most radical transformation in modern history. As much as the landscape has changed over the past year, the change is just beginning. In this panel we'll discuss the retail innovations that will continue to transform the industry over the next few years. Lindsay Trombley '11BUS, co-founder of Wovn, moderator Lindsay Trombley '11BUS is a cofounder of Wovn, which helps fashion brands predict demand with laser precision, reduce waste, and engage with new customers.
Isabela Chick, Chief Strategy Officer at Founders Factory, panelist Isabela Chick is the Chief Strategy Officer at Founders Factory, responsible for defining opportunity themes and leading investments into both existing startups and ventures born within Factory. Prior to this she led the retail and beauty sectors at Founders Factory, was Head of Business Innovation at Telefonica and worked in growth and brand strategy consulting in London and New York. She began her career in architecture at Foster+Partners.
Angela Chou, investor at Felix Capital, panelist Angela Chou is an Investor at Felix Capital, a venture firm for the Creative Class. Felix Capital operates in the intersection of creativity and technology, and partners with companies and founders that channel the energy from this intersection to transform the consumer journey. Prior to joining Felix Capital, Angela was a Product Marketing Manager for Facebook’s first SaaS product, Workplace. Prior to Facebook, Angela was a Marketplace Strategy Manager at eBay UK, where she designed and implemented several strategies for eBay’s European businesses. Angela started her career at McKinsey & Company’s Taipei and London offices, where she served numerous consumer, food & beverage and packaging companies on a multitude of marketing & sales topics.
Rebecca Saunders '08BUS, Founder and CEO at Seekology, panelist Rebecca Saunders is the Founder + CEO of Seekology, the destination to shop innovative Beauty + Wellbeing brands. Since launching in 2019 she has helped over 80 brands into stores, the majority of which have not sold in physical retail before. With store locations currently closed, in the UK, Seekology's brands can be purchased via the online platform at www.seekology.co. Named a "local hero" by Retail Week, Rebecca has also achieved visibility for Seekology in Forbes, Stylist and the BBC, where she is regularly featured as a skincare guru.
(top) 18 The ROI on UN SDGs Friday, March 5, 4pm - 5pm EST
All about the financial ROI on ESG/CSR/ Sustainability/Diversity actions by corporations; turns out, corps that perform better on ESG/CSR are actually more likely to have better financial performance. Steven Rochlin, CEO at IMPACT ROI, LLC, moderator IMPACT ROI is a management consulting firm founded by 24-year industry veteran Steve Rochlin to help clients maximize their financial, social, and environmental performance. IMPACT ROI works to enable companies, NGOs, and government agencies alike to take full advantage of the landmark findings of the Project ROI research series, described by Forbes as a "godsend" for those working in the ESG, Sustainability, and CSR professions.
Jim Gowen, VP Supply Chain Operations and Chief Sustainability Officer at Verizon, panelist As Verizon’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Gowen is responsible for setting the direction of the company’s sustainable growth strategies and for reducing its carbon footprint. He also oversees initiatives being implemented across Verizon including fuel and energy reduction, paper suppression, waste reduction and recycling, and management of end-of-life-cycle material recovery.In his supply chain role, Gowen leads centralized operations and the global customer premises equipment program with responsibility for more than $2.5 billion in annual through-put and half a billion dollars in annual inventory. He oversees Verizon’s regional distribution centers, purchasing and materials management, investment recovery, international supply chain and centralized fleet operations.Gowen earned his master’s degree in business administration from Long Island University and his bachelor’s degree from Manhattanville College.
Esther Kim '17BUS, Vice President of Global Engagement, Columbia Venture Community, panelist Esther is the founder and CEO of ConsiderBeyond, a lifestyle app that connects conscious consumers with conscious brands worldwide (to be launched in April 2021). She started the CBeyond community which comprised of impact women entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals, now joining from 21 different countries. Prior, she worked as a sustainability management consultant, ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) data analyst, impact investing advisor to corporations, asset management firms, and pension funds. Esther started her career at Ernst & Young and later worked at UN Global Compact and a top ESG data firm in Asia. Born in South Korea, she grew up in the Middle East and Asia and studied mostly in the UK. She has lived and traveled to more than 30 countries to date, leading her to gain an extensive understanding of different cultures. She holds a BA from Nottingham University and an MSc from the London School of Economics in the UK. She received the Sustainable Finance professional certification at Columbia University. She is currently a mentor for the Plug and Play Sustainability program.
(top) 19 Luis Neves, CEO of GeSI, panelist Luis is the Global CEO of GeSI, responsible for the establishment of the Initiative strategic goals and overseeing all GeSI's activities.
Luis Neves was born in Covilhã, Portugal. In 1975 he finished his University degree in History. He worked for Marconi (today Portugal Telecom) as Head of Department and at the Corporate Office. Later he started an international career in Switzerland and developed an intensive activity at European and International levels. During this period he participated in different international bodies such as member of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications in the European Union and "Chair" of diverse Work groups, member of the High Level Group on the Information Society. He was appointed as "Expert" by the European Commission to different "Working Groups" in the Telecommunications field as well as in questions related to "Information Society "issues.
In May 2004 Luis Neves joined Deutsche Telekom as a Senior Manager in the Corporate Sustainability and Citizenship Department. In May 2008 he was appointed Head of Sustainable Development and Environment at Deutsche Telekom Corporate Responsibility and as from December 1st 2008 he was assigned to the position of Vice President Corporate Responsibility. Effective February 2012 he was appointed to the position of Group Climate Change and Sustainability Officer.
Luis Neves has been playing a fundamental role in promoting the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in relation to Climate Change. In 2006 he was elected Chairman of GeSI, and together with the other board members, he successfully developed GeSI to become a recognised global organisation in the sustainability area. Under his leadership, GeSI became a globally recognised Industry organisation in the field of sustainability and a “thought Industry Leader” in the area of climate change.
As GeSI Chairman he was the driving force and the chairman of the steering committee of the recent SMARTer 2020 study “The role of ICT in driving a sustainable future" done for GeSI by the Boston Consulting Group. On January 2013 he was appointed Senior Vice President Group Climate Change and Sustainability Officer.
Luis has been holding positions in many organizations and initiatives such as Chairman of the GeSI - Global e-Sustainability Initiative, Steering Committee Member of the United Nations Global Compact Lead Group, Steering Committee Member of the United Nations “Caring for Climate” Initiative, Member of the ERT - European Round Table of Industrialists Climate Change Group, Member of the SAP Sustainability strategy, reporting & assurance Board Advisory Panel, Co-chair of the ICT4EE Forum, Member of the ICC Commission on Environment and Energy and Green Economy Task Force Meetings, Member of the Steering Committee of “Econsense”, The German Sustainability Association, Member of the Environment and Sustainability Steering Committee of BITKOM, the German ICT Association , Advisory Board member of the UNFCCC Momentum for Change Initiative and Member of the Leadership Team of the Joint Audit Cooperation (JAC) initiative and Jury member of GreenTec Awards and Board Member of the World Resources Forum Association. (top) 20 Social Entrepreneurship is the Future of Startups Saturday, March 6, 2pm - 3pm EST
The world is at such a critical point today. So many of us are lucky enough to have access to technology to create massive change, and we surely have no shortage of issues to address in order to create a sustainable and equitable future. The upcoming generation, Gen Z, has already proven to be driven by an active social conscience. In the next generation of entrepreneurs, we will see an incredible increase of startups with social impact baked into their core missions and values. A double bottom line will no longer be a rarity, but it will be the ideal to strive for. The misconception with social enterprises now is that they are just charities, but they're actually profitable business models with a mutually beneficial social aspect. Join our panelists as we dive into why social entrepreneurship is the future of startups, the importance of social responsibility to brand and customer loyalty, and fundraising for socially-minded founders. Michelle Kwok, Co-founder and CEO at FLIK, moderator Michelle is a born and raised Vancouverite - medical science student turned social entrepreneur. She is the Co-Founder & CEO of FLIK (weareflik.com), a platform connecting female founders/leaders and students across the world via meaningful apprenticeships. Michelle has had the honour of speaking at universities and spaces across North America sharing her thoughts on entrepreneurship, womxn empowerment, diversity and inclusion, and breaking down barriers. She now serves on the alumni advisory council of League of Innovators and as an alumni rep for Next 36 where she works to accelerate more youth entrepreneurs. She has been recognized as YWCA’s Young Woman of Distinction in 2020, a Conversationalist GenZ Honoree, and has been featured in publications like Forbes, The Hustle, and Women of Influence.
Sarah Burgaud, COO at StartOut, panelist Sarah Burgaud is the COO at StartOut, a national organization accelerating and supporting LGBTQ+ founders. Sarah previously worked as the COO at CALSO, a nonprofit organization supporting social entrepreneurs in San Francisco and in Austin, TX. Before moving to the Bay Area in 2014, Sarah managed incubation programs for social entrepreneurs in 8+ countries. Prior to her international work, Sarah worked as investment officer in an impact investing firm in Europe. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics, Economics and Social Sciences and a Master’s degree in Finance from Sciences Po Paris.
Alana Mann, Principal at Cultivation Capital, panelist Alana Mann is a highly agile, intrapreneurial operator, who's spent the past 5+ years driving outlier growth at iconic consumer brands such as: Saks, Saks Off Fifth, Gilt.com, Jet.com, Walmart.com, & most recently Club Monaco. In 2018, Alana launched her own venture, VER CO., a DTC fashion brand making sustainability more accessible & affordable to millennial women. As an early stage founder turned investor, she's spent the past year in a variety of roles within VC: as a Summer Associate at Starta Ventures, a highly active Scout for GVC Partners, and advisor to several Technology companies. Recently, Alana joined Cultivation Capital as a Principal on their Investment Team.
(top) 21 Startup Landscape for Diverse & Female Founders Saturday, March 6, 3pm - 4pm EST
In this panel, we will discuss accessing the global entrepreneurial network. A dive into how diverse and female founders can look beyond their local jurisdictions for expanded opportunities in investments and business development. We will inspect how collaborations and partnerships across the Black diaspora and beyond may stimulate economic growth in developed and developing countries. Shanita Nicholas ‘09EN ‘14BUS/LAW, Entrepreneur and Legal Business Consultant; Co-Founder at Sip & Sonder, moderator Shanita Nicholas has a passion for entrepreneurship, community building and coffee!
An accomplished Los Angeles-based startup attorney with her own practice, Shanita provides strategic advice and legal work to entrepreneurs starting from pre-incorporation to funding, commercialization and final exit. She began her legal career at top international law firms focused on private equity mergers and acquisitions and derivatives. Prior to her legal career, Shanita was an IT consultant for federal agencies in the Washington, DC area.
Shanita is Co-Founder of Sip & Sonder and the LA Black Investors Club (LABIC). Sip & Sonder is the first specialty coffee house in Inglewood, CA. With a coffee roaster, creative studio, and multi-purpose event space on site, Sip & Sonder is much more than just a specialty coffee house—it is a black woman-owned entrepreneurial and creative hub where coffee, community, and culture connect. LABIC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to inform, exchange, and foster the development of entrepreneurial ventures by serving as a conduit to venture creation, capitalization, and capacity building for diverse communities.
Shanita graduated from Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. She also received her JD/MBA from the Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School, where she was instrumental in creating the Columbia Entrepreneurship program.
Adie Akuffo-Afful, Partnership at Wefunder, panelist Adie "Ah-d" Akuffo-Afful is your typical British born, West African raised American. Growing up in three different worlds allowed him the opportunity to see gaps and opportunities in each ecosystem that lead him into equity capital and startups. 1x Exit, 2x Learning points and recent partner in a stealth beverage accelerator. Current lead at Wefunder for community partnerships & inbound.
Tracy Gray '07BUS, Founder and Managing Partner at The 22 Fund, panelist Ms. Gray is the Founder and Managing Partner of The 22 Fund (The 22), an impact, early-growth equity firm with a mission of growing intergenerational wealth and creating the clean, quality jobs of the future by increasing the global competitiveness of manufacturing companies, intentionally targeting women- and BIPOC-owned businesses. She is a Board Director for Applife Digital Solutions, Inc (ALDS) and the (top) 22 California State University, Dominguez Hills Philanthropic Foundation Endowment, where she serves as Treasurer/Secretary and is on the Investment Committee.
Additionally, Ms. Gray serves on Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Venture’s Women of Color Advisory Council, PGIM Real Estate’s Impact Advisory Council, the Fearless Fund’s Investment Committee and numerous global-steering committees focused on the intersection of finance and multiple issues including technology, climate, gender, race and manufacturing. She is also an Executive-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and chaired LACI’s Diversity in Entrepreneurship Advisory Council. Ms. Gray is the first Social Impact Fellow at the UC Berkeley Haas Business School’s Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership.
In 2015, Ms. Gray gave a TEDx Talk entitled “Why It's Time for Women to Be Sexist with Investment Capital.” Due to the response from her TEDx Talk, Ms. Gray founded the nonprofit We Are Enough (WAE). WAE’s only mission is to educate ALL women on how and why to invest in women-owned, for-profit businesses or with a “gender lens.” WAE was recently chosen by Variety magazine as a global 50 most "impactful" nonprofits.
Ms. Gray was named one of the 50 Women of Influence in business in Los Angeles and is featured in the recently released book “200 Hundred Women: Who Will Change the Way You See the World” and co-wrote the article “How Foundations Fail Diverse Fund Managers and How to Fix It” recently published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and she co-created the Due Diligence 2.0 Commitment. In 2019, Ms. Gray received the Bad Ass Woman in Green award from the California League of Conservation Voters and the Women of Courage award from Youth Mentoring Connection.
Ms. Gray was formerly senior advisor for international business to the LA Mayor, an investment professional at a venture capital fund and a systems engineer on the Space Shuttle program. Ms. Gray holds a B.S. in Mathematical Science with an aeronautics emphasis from UC Santa Barbara and dual MBAs from Columbia University and UC Berkeley.
Eda Henries '13BUS, Founder at Henries & Co., panelist Eda is the founder of Henries & Co., a financial advisory firm that serves small and emerging privately held companies.
Eda has15+ years of entrepreneurial, advisory and investment experience in the U.S. and Africa. Her past roles include Principal at an early stage investment firm, Vice President in Citigroup's Investment Banking division and co-founder and operator of food service and agribusiness ventures in West Africa.
Eda has a lifelong commitment to public service and volunteerism. Ms. Henries is a mentor to teens, startup advisor, angel investor and a board member of the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society. During the coronavirus pandemic, Ms. Henries was Founder and Volunteer Coordinator of Covid19BizRelief, a volunteer group that directly helped over (top) 23 150 (mostly minority and women-owned) small businesses across the U.S. understand and access federal, state and local emergency relief programs. Her work and insights were highlighted in Forbes and The Washington Post and she contributed to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s research on the disproportionate distribution of small business pandemic relief.
Eda is an alumna of Georgetown University, Columbia Business School and Teach For America.
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