Co-President, Board

Elizabeth Galbut

Elizabeth Galbut is a venture capitalist, designer, professor, and global speaker on healthcare innovation. She is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of SoGal Ventures which invests in diverse founding teams in the US and Asia. With over 50 investments to date, she is actively seeking to back exceptional startups revolutionizing how the next generation lives, works, and stays healthy.

Elizabeth’s favorite investment area is the intersection of smart design and machine learning/AI fueling major health tech innovation. Her portfolio of digital health startups include lab platform Everlywell, sexual wellness brand Unbound, digital pathology analytics pioneer Proscia, medication adherence tech eMocha, smart water bottle Hidrate, AI-powered drug discovery Insilico Medicine, smart socks Siren Care, data-driven skincare technology HelloAva, asthma management tool Tueo Health, and veterinary immunotherapy technology Vetivax.

Board Member

Calanthia Mei

Calanthia joined SoGal Foundation board at its formation in 2017 and is passionate about supporting the next generation of diverse founders and funders. She is an investor and founding team member of PayPal Ventures, PayPal’s Corporate Venture Capital arm. Calanthia is a proud investor in global early-stage fintech and commerce startups, such as Tala, Toss, DOSH, and Raisin, and works closely with portfolio companies such as Acorns and Raise. Aside from her work at SoGal, Calanthia also co-leads the fintech vertical at Bay Area Young VC network. She is recognized as an inaugural class member of Money 20/20’s highly selective Rise Up program and is one of the youngest speakers at Money 20/20 Asia. Calanthia graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she focused on the intersection of international security and women’s and genders studies.

Board Member

Elaine Truong

Elaine Truong has experience in emerging markets, having worked on Facebook’s open-source connectivity efforts in Africa and Southeast Asia. She now works on mobile developer frameworks as a product program manager at Facebook. Elaine is a mentor for the Startup Station accelerator program, serves on the board of SoGal Foundation, and a contributor to the On Community book. She’s passionate about scaling technologies and products across emerging markets, loves bringing people together across borders, and giving back to startup ecosystems.

Board Member

Taylor Hebble

New York

Amanda Coopersmith

Amanda is a graduate of Stanford University’s Product Design program. Through Product Design, Amanda learned to integrate design thinking methodology and mechanical engineering to solve “wicked problems.” She is deeply passionate about designing tools and programs that work for diverse populations and providing great design to those who need it most. Amanda has worked across several non-profit initiatives, including working as a Design Fellow for TeachAIDS, improving mental health access at Stanford through iThrive, working at a grassroots organization in South India, and designing volunteer programs for the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. She is also a founding member of Project Include, a non-profit working to provide transparency in hiring and benefits across Silicon Valley companies. Amanda’s passion for equity led her to Parity, where she is helping design and scale the growing Parity Professional Program (P3) for 2018.

Tampa Bay, FL

Allie Felix

Allie Felix is the Director of Programming & Partnerships at Embarc Collective. Previously, Allie led community at Work-Bench, an enterprise technology venture fund, and business development at 37 Angels, a women’s angel investing network in NYC. Prior to that, Allie managed marketing and partnerships for Tim Draper’s pre-accelerator program in San Francisco, Draper University. Allie currently serves on the board of Emerging Technology Leaders Tampa Bay and previously with the Smith College Business Network Advisory Board. She is a graduate of Smith College and Tampa, FL native.

Sarajevo

Marisa Mejric

Marisa worked directly with startup accelerators in Europe, UK and USA. She has been advising European Incubators and Chambers of Commerce in setting up their Incubators. Marisa has spent most of her career as an Immigrant in EU, US and UK, and has worked for numerous organizations throughout the world. Marisa has expertise driving revenue growth in the US, UK and EMEA markets, developing strategies, analyzing business markets and launching sustainable products. She has built global teams that have brought several products to global market and generated corporate revenues.

San Francisco

Nandini Nallasivan

Head of Ops @ Zypsy. Former e-commerce founder.

Charlotte

Sam Smith

Sam Smith is the founder and CEO of Vishion, a mobile app that allows interior designers and new homeowners to search for decor by color.

London

Simrat Randhawa

Simrat was born India and later moved to America for college. After graduating from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, Simrat moved to New York City to help launch Kinsa, a health technology startup that created the world’s first smartphone connected thermometer to track and stop the spread of illness. After four years at Kinsa, working out of New York, San Francisco and London, Simrat moved on to the London startup space, and currently heads Global Onboarding at Hostmaker, a fast-growing Series B prop-tech startup head quartered in London. Simrat is extremely passionate about using technology in innovative ways to create real impact and hopes to empower more young women in the UK to break into the tech and VC space through SoGal London. She has seen first-hand the massive underrepresentation of women at top positions at some of the biggest venture capital firms and has been determined to work towards bridging this gap. Simrat has become more involved in the social enterprise sector in the UK, and was selected to be a facilitator for Drivers for Change – an annual journey across the UK to creative social action.

Harvard, Cambridge, Boston

Trisha Prabhu

Trisha Prabhu is an 18-year-old innovator and Founder & CEO of ReThink, a social enterprise that’s working to end online hate and make the Internet a safer place. Spurred to action by the cyberbullying-related suicide of a 12-year-old girl, Trisha invented a proactive solution, ReThink: an award-winning, patented technology solution that detects and stops online hate before it occurs. Trisha’s work has been recognized by The White House, Google, MIT, and WebMD, and featured on ABC’s Shark Tank, and TED/TEDx stages. At President Obama’s invitation, Trisha was selected as one of few entrepreneurs in the world to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University. ReThink works closely with the U.S. State Department’s ShareAmerica program, and as a result, ReThink is now available in 3 languages and has reached over 5.5 million students and 1400 schools. In 2017, Trisha was elected the first female Youth Governor of Illinois in 28 years. She is pursuing an undergraduate degree at Harvard University and continuing her passion for innovation at the intersection of technology and society to make the world a better place.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Shanèy Vijendranath

Shan is a wife, mom to 3 kids and a businesswoman who works from home and gets very little sleep at night. Her days are filled with dirty diapers and toddler tantrums, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything else. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of the award-winning blog – You, Baby and I and just recently launched her start up – Momsays.

Washington, DC

Chelsea Hart

By day, Chelsea is an experienced strategy and management consultant. Her passion is supporting entrepreneurs and as a lead of the DC SoGal chapter, fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the DMV area. Chelsea loves to travel and spent the last year meeting with entrepreneurs and accelerators in Chile, China, India, and Germany to learn about what makes entrepreneurship thrive in those countries.

Berlin

Carrie Lulu Shuer

Carrie “Lulu” Shuler is a collegiate tennis player turned tech lover. She is currently the Co-Founder & CMO at Stark Mobility Inc, a Techstars company currently based in Berlin, Germany. Shuler has worked for multiple media networks including CBS Corporation and NMG Network (nmgnetwork.com). After getting her Masters Degree in 2016 she started her first business at the age of 24 (fairystring.com). Since the middle of 2017 she has been part of an amazing vision at Stark Mobility Inc (http://starkmobility.com) where she is doing what she loves most: founding a sustainable and profitable company.

Singapore

Kelly An

Born in Asia and educated in America and Europe, Kelly is an entrepreneur with global vision. Currently Kelly lead the PayPal Singapore Innovation Lab’s ecosystem partnership.

Kelly is a vocal advocate for gender diversity in tech. Her educational background in computer science and psychology in Atlanta, inspired her to set up a foundation for women’s college students, bridging liberal arts education with the tech industry. Kelly is also a key force in creating a life-size billboard for the  #ILookLikeAnEngineer movement. This movement has inspired hundred engineers around to world to combat gender and racial stereotypes of the profession. Kelly previously led SF/Bay Area SoGal community and now in Singapore.

Los Angeles

Lauren Crist

Operating in marketing, business development, recruiting and partnership roles at three Silicon Valley startups has given Lauren the full lifecycle entrepreneurial experience— from early “stealth” stage through strategic acquisition, to a hyper growth Series A-D, to a full wind down. Lauren is a start up operator, holistic health and wellness coach and outdoor adventure seeker recently transplanted from 7 years in San Francisco to sunny Los Angeles, CA.

Tokyo

Wei Chen

Wei Chen is the content marker at ZILLA, a crypto startup. Previously, she was in charge of stage program at Slush Tokyo, the biggest and the most diverse startup and technology conference in Japan. Wei graduated from the University of Cambridge with the Master of Philosophy degree.

Sydney

Stella Ungphongphan

Stella trained as a Radiographer in Sydney before deciding to quit and buying a one way ticket to Thailand. With some soul searching she started a factory manufacturing natural skin care and herbal supplements growing the business and eventually selling it for a 7 figure sum.

She became the Brand Ambassador for Lorna Jane, hosted TV shows for Tencent (largest tech company in Asia and owner of WeChat), founded the Thailand Farmers Market, worked with Celebrity Chef Mathew Kenny consulting Thailand Resorts.

Her marketing initiatives have had news video coverage from CNN and BBC resulting in millions of views.

She is now Managing Partner of Altru Group managing the day-to-day operations. While she is not working, she is in nature trekking the mountains, kayaking the oceans, getting stretchy on a yoga mat or cooking in the kitchen.

April Weathers

April has rural roots but a big city heart. After finishing her degree she spent four years working in operations management at McMaster-Carr in Los Angeles. She traded that big city for a smaller one to pursue operations management for a solar startup in Utah. Throughout her career she’s found ways to motivate other women and people of color to realize their potential and her involvement with SoGal is emerging as her newest way to do that.

Nigeria

Damilola Thompson

Damilola Thompson is a co-lead for the SoGal Nigerian Chapter and is the Senior Counsel, Legal, Compliance and Corporate Development of EchoVC Partners, and has over 10 years of legal experience. Prior to this, she worked for a top-tier law firm in Lagos, Nigeria for 4 years, with core competencies in Corporate, Venture Capital and Private Equity transactions. During this period, she drove seed/early-stage financing transactions for startups, and represented African and international investors. In her years of legal practice, she has gained experience and acted as a legal adviser to a number of companies involved in Microfinance, Oil and Gas, Telecommunications, Mobile money sectors. Ms. Thompson is passionate about startups and venture financing, and providing early-stage companies with much needed mentorship required for scaling. She has a graduate degree from the University of Lagos, Nigeria and is on track to obtaining an LL.M in Business Law from the University of California, Berkeley. She has also completed various post-graduate courses including the Kauffman Fellows Academy’s course on Venture Capital. She is a member of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, United Kingdom (CIArb UK), a member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN) and a part of the leadership team of the SingularityU Lagos Chapter. She provides mentorship to a number of startups and is a mentor with the Unreasonable Institute, Nigeria.

Nigeria

Aima Nwafor-ohiwerei

Aima is a Senior Analyst, Research and Portfolio Management at EchoVC. Prior to joining EchoVC, Aima worked at Singularity Investments for almost 2 years as an associate on startup investments within the Telecommunications, Media and Technology space, where she sourced investment opportunities, managed portfolio companies and Research.

London

Kate Verbiest

Kate is a proud New Zealander who relocated to London in 2018. Kate started off her career in corporate law before moving into financial services. She is also passionate about creativity, having completed postgraduate studies at the University of Arts London where she launched thefashionconversation.com which spotlights emerging creative talents. Through SoGal London, Kate is excited to be working with passionate people in the startup ecosystem.

Nairobi, Kenya

Erica Matagaro

Erica has been a professional accountant for 15 years. She has just bought her first business, fitness center Infinity Fitness, located in Nairobi, Kenya. Her aim is to not only to build it into a strong health and wellness brand, but also to create awareness of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Dallas

Rachel West

Rachel is a management consultant at Credera, where she focuses on digital transformation, product development, design sprints, and structured innovation. Previously, she worked at RippleMatch, an AI recruiting startup, and at Baylor Scott & White, the largest nonprofit hospital system in Texas.

Through her experience founding and scaling a nutrition program for at-risk youth, she became aware of the gap in the self-efficacy of young women. As a result, she became passionate about creating opportunities for women to succeed. Rachel forwards this mission through serving as SoGal Dallas Chapter Lead and mentoring formerly-trafficked women in the community.

Bangalore

Karina Shah

Karina is currently the chapter lead in Bangalore. Most recently, Karina was an Associate at 3one4 Capital, an early-stage VC based in Bangalore, where she was involved with deal sourcing and due-diligence. Before that, she worked in the Valuation team at PwC and the International Tax team at EY. While earning her bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Karina also qualified as a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Although a Chartered Accountant by qualification, her professional journey so far has been in allied areas of finance and investment.

Karina is also involved in drafting a startup manual for The Good Food Institute in India and hopes to be involved in cutting edge production techniques of the future in the context of clean meat and plant-based protein.

South Bend, Indiana

Nicola Brown

Nicola Brown is a resourceful problem solver and analytical thinker. Nicola is the co-founder + CEO of Main Street Match, a SaaS that provides easier loan approvals by connecting qualified small businesses in small towns with small lenders. She is also the founder of KOKORO, a well-being company for business owners and founders created to support leaders as they take care of their staff and build their company.

An alum of the University of Florida and the University of Georgia, Nicola is an expert at translating complex concepts in highly regulated industries to enable companies to scale operations, forge community partnerships, and believes that business have the power to drive change in communities.

Hong Kong, China

Elayna Li

By day, Elayna is an experienced strategic marketer working at a high growth unicorn startup. Her passion is to help more entrepreneurs establish their global network, especially between the United States and China. She has working experience between New York and Silicon Valley in the internet/technology and venture capital industries. Ms. Li holds a master of science degree from Columbia University.

Richmond, VA

Kendra Cabler

Dr. Kendra identifies first, as a Black woman. The only child of parents in ministry, she is a fierce advocate of social justice and equity without walls. She is a second generation college student, committed to creating space for current students to bring their full selves into the learning environment. Her academic research and interests focus on the development of cultural competence in higher education professionals and implications for university communities. She holds a Ph.D. in Adult Learning and Organizational Leadership. As a learning and development professional, she specializes in the intersection of leadership and diversity, equity, and inclusion in communities and organizations.

Manila, Philippines

Vera Lummis

I’m focused on the impact sector–helping social enterprises and organizations use data and evidence to measure their social impact, business models, and the preferences and needs of their target customers and beneficiaries. I specialize in designing and administering rigorous surveys. Hit me up for anything related to this or impact investing. I’m interested in the Southeast Asia and China markets.

Miami, Florida

Victoria Hajjar

From New York to Shanghai, Miami and beyond, Victoria has travelled the world working for ambitious start-ups and fearless leaders. She has been quoted by CNN for her marketing acumen and has had the pleasure to launch remarkable brands that serve a higher purpose.

Victoria is obsessed with sales-focused marketing strategies that help bring more revenue into businesses. She works as a fractional Chief Marketing Officer and is committed to supporting visionary leaders of socially conscious businesses. She supports her clients by learning their business inside and out to develop actionable, ROI driven marketing plans and managing the team to execute them.

She also loved traveling, her family, and a great piece of chocolate.

Taiwan

Caren Chen

Caren has an MBA from USC’s Marshall School of Business and a BA in Journalism from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. Post-MBA, Caren was recruited into a highly selective Commercial Leadership rotation program at GSK, bringing her to brand management, supply chain, and Chief of Staff positions in New Jersey, Beijing, and Taipei, respectively. Prior to business school, as employee #2, Caren helped to scale a startup in the water management industry from the ground up – VivoAquatics is currently the leading water management SaaS platform and service provider in the US. Early in her career, Caren worked in the education space, helping to fundraise and create programs to help underserved students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She brings this passion for education into every aspect of her life. Caren is now heading up the Taiwan chapter of SoGal Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to supporting diverse entrepreneurs and investors around the world.

Boston, MA

Carla Luna

Carla Luna is a first-generation Dominican-American and a student at Harvard Law School. Now in her second year at Harvard, Carla participates in various student organizations, including the Harvard Law Entrepreneurship Project and the Harvard Business Law Review. Her interests include emerging technologies and community development. Carla was also selected for the Honors Program at the Securities and Exchange Commission and currently interns at the Boston Regional Office during the school year.

Prior to starting law school, Carla worked in finance and professional services. During her first summer of law school, she worked as a summer associate at DLA Piper in Chicago. This summer she will be working as a summer associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York.

Carla is a New York City native. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, visiting museums and trying new restaurants. She is an alum of the Posse Foundation and a graduate of Babson College, where she studied Business and graduated summa laude.

Sarasota, FL

Shannon Rohrer-Phillips

Shannon is the Founder & CEO of the Voice + Visibility Women’s Summit (VVWS) in Sarasota, FL. The VVWS convenes diverse, cross-sector female leaders with a mission to empower women, expand networks & opportunities, and elevate the voices of diverse women.

She is a social entrepreneur with three decades of experience in public and private sector collaboration, fundraising and diversity and inclusion work. Shannon is the Co-Founder of Visible Men Academy, (VMA) a public charter school for low-income boys in Bradenton, FL. At VMA, Shannon created the Whole Child and Family Program, Women SHINE Gender Equity Curriculum and lead organizational advancement. Shannon is a Board Member of the Women’s Resource Center.

Shannon’s early career was in social work in academic medicine. Shannon received her BA from Colgate University, and earned a Master’s in Social Work from Smith College School for Social Work.

She lives with her husband Neil, two teenage sons and a growing tribe of pets in sunny Sarasota. Shannon’s TEDx Talk is Failure & Forgiveness in the New South.

Houston, TX

Sruti Ramaswamy

Sruti in one sentence – “A polymath – live passionately curious”. Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote.

Her career has spanned various industries: automotive technology, biofuels and recently S.T.E.M. education. She has spearheaded new product and program launches with her innate program management and system integration skills while thinking “outside the box” with lots of moving parts. Sruti’s natural strength lies in problem solving and bringing unconventional strategies to a launch. As a people’s person, building lasting relationships is key to getting things done.

Today, she is active in the Houston startup community, consults with various startups. She also has her own business, provides S.T.E.M. based leadership program for kids  using her favorite tool -LEGO.  Being a women engineer, she sees so few around; she enjoy sharing her story hoping it empowers girls to choose a S.T.E.M. field.

Montreal, Canada

Jessy Santana

Jessy Santana is a mother, wife and creative. A previous learning and development professional she’s balancing career transition and consulting with her newfound venture, The Way We Work, an online platform that seeks to help companies in transition create the #futureofwork through an inclusive lens.

Hyderabad, India

Pooja EA

Pooja is a computer science engineer with an MBA. She has experience with both Product & Project management and is a creative problem solver.

She is also a digital solutions consultant for tech applications, products & services.

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Erna Šošević

Erna Šošević is an entrepreneur, founder and CEO of provider of a digital B2B market overview Bizbook.ba and one of the women pioneers of the tech startup scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After 11 years of work experience in the real sector, she launches Bizbook, a tool that introduces digital economic transformation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and has won the title of Best B&H Startup for 2018, as well as a regional “Runner Up Award” for achievement in the field of digitization of companies, 2019. Erna is a speaker at many local and regional and European startup and entrepreneurship conferences, a mentor and advisor to startups, a judge at start-up competitions and an advocate for greater involvement of women in entrepreneurship. In 2019, she received recognition from the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Bosnia and Herzegovina “Strength of Excellence” for her achievements in the field of entrepreneurship. She was the first to digitize three trade fairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bizbook is on the radar of many investors and accelerators.

Indiana

Macy Troyer

Recently awarded Michiana’s Forty Under 40, Macy Troyer works closely with business owners and investors as a commercial real estate broker in Indiana. Macy is also the founder of Blossm, a social media marketing and consulting agency pioneering the way to elevate businesses on social media and strengthen the way organizations are seen and communicate on social media.

Kampala, Uganda

Judith Otala

Judith is passionate about influencing capital flow to Small & Growing Businesses in East Africa. She is an Investment Advisor at SHONA, a consultancy organisation working with early stage entrepreneurs in East Africa. She is the co-founder of The Signal Ug, a resource to discover and support Small Businesses in Uganda. Her expertise is in Business Analysis, Financial Analysis, Financial Modelling, Community Building & Relationship Management.

Baltimore, MD

Jade Dai

Jade Dai, a co-founder of GL Capital. As the controller of the company, Jade manages investor relations, secures investments, and works with CPA teams for tax strategy on all existing properties. GL Capital has more than 100 investors, including individuals, family offices and private equity institutions.

Prior, Jade was the co-founder of Zoom Venture Partners, investing in early- to mid-stage companies with high potential for exponential growth. Jade’s team provides financial and intellectual support to boost their value.

Jade is also founder of Elite Education, an education company, supporting high school and college students through homestay support, internship opportunities, mentoring, consulting, personal growth programs, leadership coaching and summer programs. Jade is also president of World Youth Value Society, where Jade’s team runs various youth charity and educational programs in China, Kenya and the United States.

Hong Kong

Bauhinia Lee

Bauhinia absolutely believes in bridging the gap in diversity in entrepreneurship. Having spent her previous career in Finance, she is now Head of Sales for Hong Kong & Taiwan region at Glints, a Singapore-headquartered growth startup in the HR & Recruitment vertical.

Before moving back to Hong Kong, Bauhinia co-founded and co-led the SoGal London chapter. In addition to SoGal, she is passionate about coaching and mentoring the next generation of fearless women!

Bauhinia holds a joint honors degree in French & Hispanic Studies BA (Hons) from King’s College London.

Hong Kong

Grace Shao

Grace is a former business journalist, now media consultant for tech companies and VCs. She previously reported for CNBC in Singapore, focusing on tech, trade and geopolitics throughout the APAC region.

Grace has also reported for CGTN, based in Shanghai and Beijing, where she covered business, trade and tech in Greater China. Her work has also appeared in S&P Global Market Intelligence, South China Morning Post, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, NBC News, Asia Times, and RealClearPolitics.

Grace holds a B.Comm. in Finance from the University of Alberta, an M.A. in Communications from Tsinghua University and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University.

Hartford, Connecticut

Delanea Davis

Delanea is the co-founder of a mindfulness technology & services company that is trailblazing in mHealth and telemedicine. The Cloud 9 Online digital platform provides an at-home healing tool to patients/employees and predictive analytics to medical providers to improve wellness outcomes. This white labelled platform improves doctor/patient compliance while reducing use of pharmaceuticals. Currently in phase one clinical trials, Cloud 9 Online combines Science-Powered, Clinically Designed Meditation Therapy with cutting-edge technology.

Delanea is also the co-founder of an international management consultancy and a newly minted author. With more than 20 years of expertise building and leading teams, Delanea has a passion for innovation in the insurance and healthcare industries. Her first book personal wellness book, Rune Reading Your Life, is now available at your favorite bookstore or online retailer.

Berlin, Germany

Alexis Evans

Alexis is big on inclusion, innovation, and interviewing. After just a few months in the city, they fell in love with Berlin’s startup scene and wished to see more diversity in entrepreneurship.

Alexis uses their skills that they have developed as a recruiter to build the SoGal Berlin network and identify the needs of founders, which are translated into events!
In their spare time, Alexis tries to learn German and listens to an embarrassing amount of ABBA.

Berlin, Germany

Vedanti Shinde

Vedanti is currently pursuing her Masters in Business Psychology from the HMKW University of Applied Sciences, Berlin and certification in Design Thinking. She is passionate about Virtual Work, Leadership, Innovation and User Experience. She will soon be writing her thesis about Virtual Leadership. Her research on LGBTQ+ Diversity and Inclusion initiatives in Indian MNCs was recently published in an international journal (ISSN: 2394-7926).

Los Angeles, California

Ashley Girard

Ashley is an executive leader with 15+ years’ experience having worked at companies like PUMA and K-Swiss and members only sites like RueLaLa and TechStyle (JustFab, ShoeDazzle, Fabletics), to startups like Markett/Kickback App and Unreal Candy (organic, cpg). She has robust experience in digital marketing and social media, ecommerce and business development roles — and has an innate growth mindset with a scrappy, innovative mentality.

In her most recent role as Vice President of Business Development and Operations at Markett, she took the company from $400k in annual revenue to $4.4m (first year of company profitability), within 12 months of hire through the management and execution of the Sam’s Club and Airbnb Ambassador and Influencer programs.

At PUMA, she created facebook.com/puma, growing the community from 200,000 to 4 million organically within 12 months. At K-Swiss she restructured internal resources and agency relationships to increase Global online revenue 30-40%YoY, managing a $M Global P&L, during aggressive brand turnaround within 3% accuracy and 4x ROI minimum on paid marketing and affiliate efforts.

Ashley is passionate about diversity, inclusion and closing inequality gaps. As Los Angeles Co-Chair of the SoGal Foundation, the largest global platform for the education and empowerment of diverse entrepreneurs and investors with over 50 chapters internationally, she leads events, workshops and pitch competitions to close the diversity gap in entrepreneurship and venture capital.

In her spare time, Ashley loves writing and is contributing writer for Boss Babe, where she writes about Branding, Marketing, and Women in Leadership. She’s a big believer in the #humanpotentialmovement and living on purpose, with purpose!

Brazil

Jéssica Galvani

Jéssica is an experienced business lawyer and mediator. For the past two years she has also been an entrepreneur after founding her own startup called Elas Resolvem, thought to promote social transformation through collaboration and gender equality.

Toronto, Canada

Melissa Chung

Entrepreneurial, forward-looking fashionpreneur with more than 11 years of financial experience, Melissa made the pivot to start her own company after completing her MBA at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Business in NY, where she discovered 3D-printing to help prototype her first solutions for high heel protector.

Melissa is the founder of krippit, which focuses on 3D-printed fashion wearable solutions for women’s daily wear. Krippit is based out of Toronto’s DMZ Fashion Zone at Ryerson University. She has recently expanded globally to participate in the Foundry FashionTech incubator in Paris, France, after two successful showcases during last year’s London Fashion Fashion week.

Melissa also enjoys consulting early-stage startups on growth strategies and new market opportunities and identifying IP protection areas. Melissa also holds a Masters of Law in Innovation and technology from the University of Toronto (UofT).

Melbourne, Australia

Gillian Ong

Gillian is the co-founder of Ai on Spectrum, a startup building socio-emotional education apps for children with disabilities. She is also an early childhood educator & psychology graduate with a deep passion for making the world a more equitable place.

Bengaluru

Pooja Srivastava

Pooja leads Partnerships at Verloop, a conversational automation startup based in Bangalore, India. She has been closely associated with Corp dev functions with multiple startups throughout her journey and has worked for the Indian Angel network fund. She has completed her bachelors in Physics from Delhi University

Washington, D.C.

Clare McLeod

Clare McLeod joined Updata Partners in 2020 and is a Senior Analyst. Prior to joining Updata Partners, Clare worked in the Customer Success department at OpenSesame, a Portland-based technology company that provides an online marketplace for e-learning courses. Previously, she participated in Life Changing Labs, a startup incubator. Clare graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations.

Tel Aviv, Israel

Ilana Liberman

Ilana worked at EY Tel-Aviv with several of the largest venture capital funds in Israel, specializing in analyzing and reviewing venture capital portfolio companies’ valuations, as well performed M&As for the largest companies in Israel. She has extensive experience working with start-ups and global corporations, in building financial strategies to meet companies’ targets. Prior to that she was assistant office revenue director at the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection and an analyst at the Israeli Ministry of Finance. Ilana served as head of the External Relations department of the student union at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem working with business leaders and strategic corporate partners such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, P&G and many more, as well executing delegations of young adults from Singapore interested in learning about the Israeli ecosystem in order to make impact in business, tech and entrepreneurship.

Ilana is an active Mentor in several accelerators in Israel, advising on issues such as business plans, execution, strategy and more. She is also the Tel Aviv.

She holds a B.A. in Accountancy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) certified by the Auditors’ Council of the Ministry of Justice of the State of Israel. She also holds an MBA in Management of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the Tel Aviv University Coller School of Management and Fuqua School of Business.

Charlotte, North Carolina

Macie Mata

Macie Mata is a passionate, Angel Investor and Business Consultant based in Charlotte, NC. Her financial career started 10 years ago with Wells Fargo. Her drive to succeed and coachable personality helped her climb the corporate ladder at a rapid pace.

At 21, she was moved to Nashville, TN to assist in the market conversion from Wachovia to Wells Fargo. During this time Macie was able to take countless underperforming Retail Banking Centers and turn them into a “success story” with team averages over 150% to goal. Furthering her career, she moved to Charlotte, NC as a Business Consultant.

She spent three years partnering directly with over 40 Retail Banking Centers and 250 Business Bankers to help drive financial success to companies generating $150K to $10M in revenue. In 2017, Macie then expanded her consulting experience to technology companies and began thinking beyond her financial career.

Stepping away from Wells Fargo, she went on to become the Founder and CEO of a startup, MAZE Services and successfully published a mobile application on Apple and Android thus providing a platform connecting clients to beauty services professionals. Macie spent two years building her company and team before executing a successful technology acquisition. MAZE put Macie in many spotlights as The Woman Defining the Beauty Industry and was a highlighted female founder on multiple panels at companies such as Microsoft and Neiman Marcus to name a few. She and her co-founder were the only female representatives on the main stage pitching at Seed the South in 2019.

Since her technology exit, Macie has been using her experience to coach Founders in the development of proprietary business practices that drive the raising of capital as well as the overhaul of business models in preparation to scale, resulting in $6.25 million in total fundraising for startups within the Charlotte Market.

Williamsburg, Virginia

Michelle Li

Michelle is a current sophomore at the College of William & Mary double majoring in Finance and Data Analytics. As a leader, strategist, and artist, she has experiences in consulting, data science, classical violin performance, and financial analysis and is passionate about the intersection of finance and technology.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Cheryl Mann

Cheryl Mann is a marketing lead with Invest Puerto Rico, the Island’s economic development organization. Cheryl is responsible for brand advertising, which includes product marketing, web development, email communications, lead generation, brand design, and content marketing.

Ms. Mann has more than 30 years of marketing communications and advertising experience. Prior to Invest Puerto Rico, Cheryl spent 20 years as the principal/Chief Marketing Officer at New Venture, a marketing, communications, and graphic design boutique, where she successfully led client engagements with nonprofits and small businesses from across the United States.

Ms. Mann received her BA in English from Spelman College and her MS in Integrated Marketing from New York University. Cheryl has served as president of the National Alumnae Association of Spelman College-Los Angeles Chapter, was an active member of the NAASC’s New York Chapter, and served as a mentor with Women Who Create. Cheryl Mann is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, is a Board Director with Oko Urban Farms, Inc., and is the SoGal San Juan Chapter Lead.

Mexico City, Mexico

Natalia Goitia

Natalia is Co-Founder of Curativa.io, a health e-commerce based in Mexico. Also, she is currently working as an intern in a financial company. Natalia is an architecture student and volunteers as a high school teacher, where she talks about social problems, such as inequality. She has a big interest in sustainability and FinTech.

Brazil

Jéssica Galvani

Jéssica is an experienced business lawyer and mediator. For the past two years she has also been an entrepreneur after founding her own startup called Elas Resolvem, thought to promote social transformation through collaboration and gender equality.

Edmonton

Judith Pila

Judith was born and raised in a small town in Nigeria, she moved to Canada in 2014.

She enjoys helping people protect the things that are most valuable to them through insurance. She is an Insurance Broker and founder of Insure Africa, a platform creating insurance awareness and educating Africans, to help them make informed and smart insurance decisions.

When she is not working or looking for ways to make a difference in the world, she can be found spending time with her husband and their three daughters.

Renata Kobek

Originally from a small town in Santiago, Chile, Renata Kobek is a passionate Managing Director and Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant at Kobek Immigrations.

As an immigrant woman, she’s well acquainted with the difficulties faced by newcomers, especially when it comes to migrant women who may have not been encouraged to be entrepreneurs and or leaders. Having studied at 4 different Canadian institutions and with over 10 years’ experience building and managing businesses, she’s a firm believer in the Canadian dream and her main goal as a #Sogalboss is to encourage others to pursue their goals through active engagement and leadership.

Aside from immigration law, business consulting, and other philanthropic projects, Renata maintains the free Viaja a Canadá blog where she volunteers to answer questions about settlement in Canada. Her dedication and love for business got her featured in the Profiles of Excellence business magazine and her aspiration is to advocate for immigrant rights while encouraging them to follow their dreams.

When not working, she can be found hiking any mountain Canada has to offer.

Tel Aviv

Adi Geron

Adi is a chapter leader for SoGal Israel Tel Aviv. In addition, Adi is a lawyer specializing in the capital market and corporate law. In her legal career, she has worked with some of the largest firms in Israel and has been instrumental in fundraising efforts for a wide range of companies. Adi is currently pursuing an MBA in Management of Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at Tel Aviv University.