Speakers

Jennifer S. LeBlanc is the best-selling author of Launching for Revenue: How to Launch Your Product, Service or Company for Maximum Growth and Changing Tides: Powerful Strategies for Female Founders, and owns the publishing house, HAL House. She is the founder of the Changing Tides Movement, which was developed out of the pressing need for a collaborative community focused on the unique experiences of women founders, entrepreneurs and investors.

Jennifer is known as a high-energy and inspiring keynote speaker and workshop facilitator for startup accelerators and corporate teams. In her private coaching work, Jennifer works with female founders, entrepreneurs, and change agents to provide them with the tools and connections they need to succeed. Jennifer has also acted as an advisor to President Obama, Congress and the SBA via the National Women’s Business Council. The Silicon Valley Business Journal honored Jennifer with its Silicon Valley Women of Influence Award in 2016 and she was shortlisted as Advocate of the Year by Women in IT Silicon Valley for her work with the Changing Tides Movement to support female founders and women entrepreneurs.

Jennifer is also the founder and CEO of ThinkResults, which was ranked as the 10th Fastest Growing Private Company in Silicon Valley in 2017 and has been recognized as one of the top Silicon Valley agencies each year since 2013.

Ita is a Partner at venture capital firm GingerBread Capital, which backs high growth female founded companies. Her mission is to engage, educate, and elevate the next generation of successful women business leaders and investors. In 2014, Ita founded Tigress Ventures, an advisory and consulting firm that tapped her considerable network to bring together visionary entrepreneurs with seasoned professionals to help women scale their businesses and hone their leadership skills.

Ita also served as Venture Partner at Plum Alley Investments, where she oversaw investment opportunities and pipeline for high-growth female-founded and gender-diverse startups. Previously, Ita held product management roles at TravelClick and American Express. She began her career at Goldman Sachs as an analyst in Credit Capital Markets and an institutional trader of preferred stock.

Ita holds an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; and earned a Bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in Psychology, with a certificate in Finance, from Princeton University.

Maha spots technology trends early and partners closely with her companies to drive growth and exits. She focuses on e-commerce and enterprise / cloud, and was one of the first investors to recognize the potential of social gaming. She was also the first investor in The RealReal (REAL) and sat on the company’s board through the 2019 IPO. A champion of women in technology, Maha is passionate about funding and raising the profiles of female entrepreneurs and is a founding member of All Raise. She is also a trustee for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Maha holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.

Kate is CEO of Women 2.0, a global brand focused on gender, representation and inclusion in the tech and startup spaces, and Founding Partner of W Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in women- and diverse-led tech startups.

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.

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.

Xandra Laskowski is a startup advisor with over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience with large multinational tech companies as well as startups as founder, investor, advisor and board member. She has held positions as Worldwide Commodity Manager and National Major Accounts managerial roles before moving into the Angel Investment and startup worlds. She founded OSEA Angel Investors in 2017, a woman focused angel investment group based at the UCI Cove, University of Irvine, California. OSEA Angel Investors is an investment partner with Tech Coast Angels, Titan Angels (CSUF) Angel Syndication Network and Family Office Networks. Through Xolas, Ms. Laskowski provides startup consulting assisting entrepreneurs in producing their “Startup Roadmap”.

In 2019 Ms. Laskowski was included in the Orange County Business Journal OC 500 Directory of Influence for Innovation and in February 2020 was nominated to the Orange County Business Journal Woman in Business Awards. In March 2020 Ms. Laskowski was nominated as a Women of Influence Awards finalist for the Gamechanger Award.

Shiri is a Program Manager for Google’s global acceleration program, empowering tech startups to accelerate their growth and build world-class tech companies.

She started her career in Israel in marketing and advertising, managing enterprise accounts of over $1MM for leading Israeli companies. After founding her own Marketing Consultant company, she fell in love with the startup world and its contagious energy.

In 2017, Shiri launched “Google for Startups Women Founders”, a program that strives to match the best of Google – its people, network, and advanced technologies – to the global community of women-led startups, helping women founders support and inspire one another while building and scaling successful products and businesses.

Shiri is passionate about innovation and its ability to be a positive change enabler. She is currently leading the Google for Startups Accelerator: Sustainable Development Goals.

Fun fact: Shiri was an assistant producer for the Israeli version of “Dancing with the Stars”

Suzanne is a General Partner with Prime Movers Lab investing in breakthrough scientific startups in energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation and the future of computing. She has 20 years of experience working in the technology and investment space. Most recently, she spent five years at StartX, the Stanford University focused entrepreneur community, managing the Stanford-StartX Fund and working directly with hundreds of entrepreneurs. Prior to that, she spent ten years doing secondary private equity investing. Suzanne started her career at Morgan Stanley in the Technology Financial Sponsors Group. As Fund Manager at StartX, Suzanne oversaw $175M of direct investment in 300 start-ups across 500+ rounds, from seed through Series D, in industries ranging from Enterprise, Consumer, Hardware and Medical. She earned an MBA from Stanford University and a BS in Finance and Information Systems from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude. Suzanne lives in Silicon Valley, she is happily married to an entrepreneur, and is a mom to human twins & lot of pets!

Hillary is an expert in supporting leaders communicate at their highest levels of influence and impact. Specializing in executive voice & presence, she uncovers the ways in which communication creates perceptions about who you are, your level of expertise, & the opportunities you are ready for. Using her background in the psychology of influential communication, she ensures clients “Show Up” in meaningful and powerful ways to have their value recognized, their confidence felt, & their voices heard.

Kate Anderson is a leader in generating change and gender equality within the private fundraising space. As co-founder and Operations Director of IFundWomen, she has driven millions of dollars into the hands of female founders. IFundWomen’s flexible crowdfunding platform combines a pay-it-forward model, expert startup coaching, professional video production, and a private community for its entrepreneurs, all with the goal of helping female entrepreneurs launch and grow better businesses.

Maria Malavenda is Managing Partner of KOL Ventures and Founder & CEO of Look Enterprises, a personalized, data-driven care management platform for beauty and wellness services. Prior to Look, Maria catalyzed several award-winning high-growth ventures in healthcare, consumer products and technology –including companies acquired by Microsoft, Bosch and IMG. Maria previously focused on Strategy for Fortune 100 clients working for top tier consulting firms such as Deloitte and Accenture, and immersed herself in the “digital data revolution” as VP of Strategy and Corporate development for Monster Worldwide and ZoomInfo. Maria has worked with a multitude of individuals and companies with the intent of helping to inspire and motivate them to sustain, grow, and succeed. Maria has raised over $4B in seed, venture capital, Private Equity, IPO and post IPO financings’ and achieved considerable returns for investors. In addition to Maria’s career success, she continues to provide her thought leadership as an advocate and mentor for women and serves as a board member for Planned Parenthood and Partner’s Innovation. Maria believes Innovation is a mindset, as well as a skill set. She has worked with a multitude of individuals and companies with the intent of helping to inspire and motivate them to sustain, grow, and succeed. Maria has raised over $3B in seed, venture capital, Private Equity, IPO and post IPO financings’ and achieved considerable returns for investors. In addition to Maria’s career success, she continues to provide her thought leadership as an advocate and mentor for women as a board member for Planned Parenthood, Harvard iLab, Brigham and Women’s Innovation Hub and TechStars.

Being “blessed” with a chronic skin affliction, Hillary learned early on that not all products work for everyone.  Prior to WheeMeet, she developed B2C marketing solutions for F500 companies including Avon, Yahoo!, eBay and Visa.  She’s an avid product searcher and is passionate about supporting women and female entrepreneurs, is Executive Director of the Founders Network, and was a 2018 Finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year with the Women in IT Awards.

Kyla Lam has been a bartender in the industry for 18 years and is bootstrapping Startender, a much-needed app for the bars/restaurants/nightclub industry, now in beta testing. If there’s anyone who has questions about building an app, she can definitely help avoid the expensive mistakes and pitfalls she has experienced and offer help in designing and building an app from scratch. Champion for other females and lover of cats!

Dr. Sophia Yen graduated from MIT, UCSF Medical School, and UC Berkeley’s MPH program. With 20+ years in medicine, she is a Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford Medical School and on the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics’s Section On Adolescent Health. Her passion is Women’s Reproductive Health and she co-founded 3 non-profit projects to improve the lives of women: The Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women, SheHeroes.org, and fffl.co (Female Founded, Female Led, B2C awareness campaign, by from a FFFL!)

Jennifer Saxton is the Founder and CEO of Tot Squad, which she founded in 2011 during her time at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Saxton is well regarded as an expert in the baby and parenting space, and has been featured on CNBC, Fast Company, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and made six appearances on CBS’s The Doctors but none of her accomplishments make her as proud as her daughter, Charlotte, who was born in September 2018. After successfully divesting the legacy service business of Tot Squad in March 2020, Saxton now serves as CEO of the new Tot Squad company: a digital marketplace for parenting services, from lactation consultations to sleep support, and many more.

Kate is a Board Director at ABD Insurance and Financial Services and a Business Advisor and Executive Coach. She is also an author and a Senior Fellow at Georgetown University.

Kate is a passionate advocate for diversity at the highest levels of business and is a firm believer that unwavering optimism can transcend even the most daunting systemic barriers in the workplace. She has spent decades as an executive coach, bringing out brilliance in leaders and their teams. Kate launched her career as a member of Palm Inc.’s founding management team before becoming a Senior Vice President at SanDisk.

She has subsequently served as CEO and COO for several start-ups and privately held companies, and serves as an Independent Board Director. Kate now applies her expertise to research gender equity in the C-Suite as a Senior Industry Fellow at Georgetown University.

Kate is a guest lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan’s Ross school of Business and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. She is the author of The Moonshot Effect: Disrupting Business as Usual. Her second book, The Impostor Breakthrough, will be published in 2021.

Lee has spent over 30 years focusing on building high performance teams and delivering market-winning technology products/services to the world’s two biggest consumer markets, the US and Western Europe – and to emerging/global markets. She has had P&L responsibility for business units in the world’s largest technology, mobile communications, and mobile phone manufacturing companies: Samsung, Vodafone and Nokia.

Throughout her career Lee has used the world stage she operates on to spearhead a number of projects focused on ensuring women have access to mobile technology in emerging markets. She led Vodafone’s participation in the establishment of the Connected Women Program.

Morvareed Z. Salehpour is Managing Partner of Salehpour Legal Consulting, a law firm specializing in handling a diverse range of complex legal matters both in and outside the courtroom. She is experienced in negotiating a variety of contracts and legal agreements and handling cases from inception to trial and appeal. She has represented clients across the nation ranging from entrepreneurs and small businesses to Fortune 500 companies and works in a variety of industries, including technology, media and entertainment, and real estate among others. Ms. Salehpour is a graduate of UCLA and UCLA School of Law, where she also served as a Managing Editor for the UCLA Law Review. Ms. Salehpour previously practiced at BakerHostetler, a national firm where her work included being a member of the legal team seeking to recover the principal lost in the Madoff Ponzi scheme, and then at Strange & Butler, a complex litigation boutique. Ms. Salehpour is also President-Elect of the Santa Monica Bar Association, Board Member of the UCLA Westside Alumni Network, Board Member of the Rabbit Hole Network Women’s Blockchain Community, and a regular speaker and writer on tech, real estate, and business law issues.

Briana is a writer, creative & business woman of many trades. As a self-professed “literary artist”, her talents lie primarily in using her communication/storytelling abilities to bridge gaps & cultivate community. Having put her skills initially to work through her ventures, The English Major Takes Tech & Just B. Frank, she later pivoted into wellness before shifting focus following the George Floyd protests to champion for equity via The Prosp(a)rity Project.

Christy’s professional education expertise has afforded her the opportunity to work around the world. Since achieving a Masters Degree and Teaching Credentials in Sussex, England, she has created and developed two companies focused on Leadership Development Programs through education and conservation projects overseas.

She has delivered leadership initiatives internationally to individuals, universities, small companies, and non-profits in the UK, Europe, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, South Africa, Canada, the USA, and Australia.

Through her company, Venture Within, she creates transformational experiences for personal and professional growth. She lives a full and meaningful life while inspiring and enabling others to do the same.

• Expert in leadership development amongst professionals
• 20 years an Educator, CEO of Venture Within, and formerly Co-Founder of EDventure International
• Curated strategic leadership workshops catered for traveling professionals, with a focus on personal development and growth.
• Utilizes cultural immersive experiences as transformative opportunities.

Dr. Ashie Bhandiwad is an entrepreneur, scientist, and educator. She is a strong advocate for food based STEM education for young children. Ashie founded StemChef on this principle to keep STEM interest kindled and alive in children to inspire the next generation. Happily she also tackles the female “pipeline” issue that is blamed for under-represented female gender in STEM careers. Prior to that she had dedicated a decade of her life working on renewable energy to combat climate change. Her papers have been published in top scientific journals. Now Ashie is out to inspire the teeny tots to take on global issues of their generation. Ashie holds a PhD in Engineering from Dartmouth College.

Maria Tamellini, is a co-founder of GamerSafer, a company designing technologies to help online games prevent fraud, toxicity and child exploitation. She was named a Headstream Innovator this year for creating positive, ethical and healthy technologies for teens and is a Child Safety co-chair at XR Safety Initiative. Before GamerSafer, she had a successful CSR consultancy B Corp certified company and advised eighty businesses across the world. Maria is a UC Berkeley SkyDeck alumna, a Board Member of Latinas in Tech, holds an international certification in social business. She is also a gamer, a mom of two passionate gamers and an Ambassador for Women in Games.

Debra is an international business lawyer based in Silicon Valley. She advises tech companies, entrepreneurs and investors on a wide range of commercial transactions, financings and exits. She advises executives experiencing family dissolution and assists with division of securities, assets and businesses in divorces. Debra received the Women of Influence Award in 2016 and was named a “Woman to Watch” in Silicon Valley. She supports diversity and inclusion initiatives and was a founding director of The Athena Alliance and LabGirls STEM Initiative, and a contributing author to Changing Tides: Powerful Strategies for Female Founders published in 2018.

Ms. Terman is a Founder, CEO and CIO of Solstein Capital, LLC. At Solstein, she oversees both investment and operations functions and leads the firm as a Managing Member. With over twenty-five years of experience, Ms. Terman manages tactical, global portfolios for institutional, family office and high net worth clients at Solstein. Previously, Ms. Terman was a Partner with Blum Capital Partners and served on its Investment Committee. For over eight years, she invested in both public and private companies and worked extensively with portfolio companies’ management teams and boards on business, financial, and governance initiatives. Prior to Blum Capital, Ms. Terman was a private equity Associate with Behrman Capital. She also worked as an Analyst with both Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. Ms. Terman is a regular contributor across global television, radio and media platforms. Ms. Terman has a B.A. with Honors and with Distinction from Stanford University and was recognized with the Firestone Medal for Excellence in Research and as Phi Beta Kappa. In addition, she earned an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Marianne O, CFA, Partner & Co-Founder, Lumen Global Investments
MARIANNE is a Partner in Investments and a Co-Founder at Lumen Global Investments (LGI), which leverages data, technology, and a unique valuation algorithm to help investors build personalized and best-outcome portfolios. She is also a Co-Founder, Partner, and Portfolio Manager of Lumen Advisors, LLC, an investment management and advisory company formed in San Francisco in 2002. Marianne has been researching and investing in global developed and emerging markets for 25 years. At LGI she conducts portfolio management and market research for the investment platform and oversees data and implementation. Her investment and finance career include mutual funds, institutional accounts, hedge funds (global macro), and merchant banking in firms including G.T. Global, Dresdner RCM Global Investors, Tradewinds Financial, Gavekal Capital, Lumen, and Citicorp International Limited, Hong Kong. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst and received her MBA in Finance from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and her B.A. (HONS) Economics from the University of Cambridge, U.K. She co-chairs 100 Women in Finance in Northern California and co-founded the Allocators-Female Managers (now “FundWomen”) Conference with Nadine Terman at 100 Women in Finance in 2014.

Lauren Volper is a Social Media Consultant with 15 years experience in consumer-facing roles living in New York. Prior to consulting, Lauren was a sommelier and ran educational wine events in San Francisco with her company, WineUp. Her passion for educating people on tricky concepts and knack for writing catchy content has led her to be a full-time content creator for emerging brands and solopreneurs. Lauren has been featured as a self-care entrepreneur in Forbes, a panel speaker on Creating Community IRL at General Assembly San Francisco, listed as OBO Movement’s “2020 Innovators,” When she’s not conducting client work, you can find her recording and editing for the podcast, It’s All Bullshit.

Erika is an accomplished investment banking executive, advisor, and board member who leads corporate objectives and turnarounds trough 25+ years in M&A, recapitalizations, capital raising, divestitures, succession planning and valuations. While serving as Partner and Chief Compliance Officer at Silver Lane Advisors LLC, Erika completed 52 transactions involving over $240B in assets under advisement/ management (AUM) exchanging hands. She has raised capital for alternative investment products, and early stage fintech firms. Erika served as a Board Director and Audit Chair of country’s oldest African American Life insurance company, Atlanta Life Insurance Company. Erika is an Advisory Board member at OpenInvest, a venture banked fintech asset manager focused on impact investing. She also serves as Board Director of Trips for Kids Marin, which provides cycling experiences for underserved youth.
She is a Partner with CANY Capital, LLC, a single family office and the sister firm of Alternative Access Capital, LLC, a private placement firm raising Institutional capital for alternative investment products. Prior positions include SVP, Strategic Development, for U.S. Trust Company of NY (formerly a subsidiary of Charles Schwab Corp.), and Director & Partner with Berkshire Capital Securities, LLC. Erika is a Committee Member and Angel for the Northern California Chapter of 100 Women in Finance. She is also a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors. Erika earned an MBA in Finance at Pace University and a bachelor’s degree in Finance from West Virginia University. She is a licensed for Series 79, 7, 63, 24 with the SEC. Certificates earned include NAIC Statutory Accounting Principles; Berkeley Law, University of California, Venture Capital Unlocked Deal Camp, and Harvard Office of he Vice Provost for Advances in Learning in FinTech. She is triathlete, marathoner and avid cyclist, a wife and mother to two daughters.

Jan has done hundreds of investment deals over a 30-year career as a M&A and investment lawyer, angel investor, advisor, and private equity executive. For the last 12 years she has focused on startups and early stage businesses. She has led entrepreneur and investor bootcamps all over the world, judged hundreds of pitch competitions and developed a keen eye for evaluating startup talent. Hear from Jan on the art of angel investing and discover whether it is an investment class that should be a part of your portfolio.

Connect on Twitter @JanLederman

Award-winning Silicon Valley-based marketing expert Linda Popky, founder and president of Leverage2Market Associates, helps organizations and individuals get heard above the noise. Her clients include startups, small businesses, mid-sized companies, and large Fortune 500 enterprises.

Named one of Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women of Influence and to the Alan Weiss Million Dollar Consulting® Hall of Fame, Linda is Executive Director of the Society for the Advancement of Consulting and past president of Women in Consulting.

Linda is the author of Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters, and Top of Mind: 101 Insights to Transform Your Business. She is also a writer and editor who works with many authors to create more compelling self-published and commercially published books. A classically trained pianist, Linda has released Night Songs, a CD of classical piano music.

Shannon is an associate with Morrison & Foerster’s Corporate Group based in Palo Alto, California. Her practice focuses on corporate and securities matters, including private financings, emerging-growth companies and mergers and acquisitions. She works with startups across all life-stages on matters ranging from incorporation to exits. She also has a robust practice representing venture capitals in their investments in early- and late-stage companies.

Donna Griffit, Corporate Storyteller, has worked globally for over 16 years with Fortune 500 companies, Start-Ups and investors in a wide variety of industries. She has consulted and trained clients in over 30 countries, helping them create, edit and deliver verbal and written presentations, pitches and messages. Donna has the ability to magically spin raw data into compelling stories that captivate audiences and drive to results. Through her guidance clients have raised over a billion dollars. To learn more, visit DonnaGriffit.com

Shuai Chen is the Founder and Chief Puzzle Officer of Patchwork Adventures. Her core values are curiosity, creativity, and community. With neuro-biology degrees from MIT and Stanford, Shuai fuses the science of community building and connection with her love of games and play. Shuai has over 10 years of experience in corporate team-building and started researching virtual team-building in 2017, when she realized that remote teams had trouble bonding over videochat. She has produced, hosted, or coordinated over 700 events in the past 15 years. Before starting Patchwork Adventures, she co-founded Middle Circle, a nonprofit that fosters “church-like” community without religious dogma, and was the Executive Director of SCRAP, a San Francisco creative reuse nonprofit. She represented Team USA in the 2017 and 2019 World Escape Room Championships and has played over 100 escape rooms.

I’m a Life Coach here to support you, hold space for what is, and be your guide to YOUR life’s transitions. Together we will elegantly clear and sort through the patterns of the mind that creates rapport with your body, spirit, emotions, and your unique expression in the world. Certified Yoga Instructor: Therapeutic yoga that is designed to fit your body-mind-spirit needs. I have a gentle restorative and healing style. I’ll create a custom routine for your life-style.

Sandra Wong is a Certified Agile Coach, Accredited Kanban & Agile Trainer, and #IamRemarkable Facilitator. She has over 15 years of experience working in Fortune’s top companies as well as start-ups. With her passion for continuous improvement, coaching and facilitation; her goal is to deliver a unique learning, inspiring and engaging experience. Some of her other passions include supporting women’s groups, leading group meditations, doing Improv, blogging, volunteering, and challenging herself to learn and try something new everyday.