Named as one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 100 Powerful Women in Business, Shelly Bell is a computer scientist, system disruptor and business strategist who moves ideas to profit while empowering people to live to build and foster better relationships. She connects entrepreneurs, investors, and corporations in order to diversify their talent pipeline, increase equity, and grow their brands.

Shelly is among the nation's most sought-after transformational speakers in the DC Metro area with features in Forbes, Fast Company, The Washington Business Journal, NewsOne, Entrepreneur Mag, People of Color in Tech, and on Politico Live. Her organization, Black Girl Ventures (BGV) is a culturally converging ecosystem igniting economic security, civic engagement, and hyperlocal infrastructure at the intersection of STEM education and entrepreneurship for Black and Brown woman-identifying founders, funders, and veterans. Since 2016, BGV has funded 41 women, increased access to social capital for 168 program participants, and launched their efforts in 10 cities. As a one of 8 Google Gurus across the nation and an Ecosystem Builder, she engages audiences from grassroots to government. Through Shelly’s Return on Relationship (R.O.R) Method she is teaching intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, and wantrepreneurs how to hold the ladder for others and/or how to find the person they need to hold the ladder toward moving to the next level of success. She has trained over 5,000 entrepreneurs, held over 300 events for empowering leaders, managed multi-million dollar contracts, and helped to scale over 200 businesses. 

Aubrey Blanche is The Mathpath (Math Nerd + Empath), Director of Equitable Design & Impact at Culture Amp, and a startup investor and advisor. Through all her work, she seeks to question, reimagine, and redesign the systems and practices that surround us to ensure that all people can access equitable opportunities and build a better world. Her work is undergirded by her training in social scientific methods and grounded in the fundamental dignity and value of every person.

Her professional expertise covers a broad range of equitable enterprise operations, from talent lifecycle programs and accessible product development to event design and communications & media. She is the inventor of the balanced teams approach to building proportional representation and a culture of belonging in the workplace, as well as the Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment in the Atlassian Team Playbook. She works to open source these methods for all practitioners and business leaders, and releases thought leadership and tools to create positive change at aubreyblanche.com.

She is an advisor to a variety of groups seeking to build a more just world, including Aleria Research and Joonko. Her work has been featured in Wired, the Wall Street Journal, the Australian Financial Review, USA Today, Re/Code, First Round Review, and more. She also has previous academic affiliations with Stanford and Northwestern, and an appointment at the Equity by Design Lab at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Despite the accolades listed here, she asks that you engage with her work to judge her competence: traditional proxies of merit and/or competence help reinforce the systems that keep incredible people from the opportunities they deserve.

Cecile is the Head of Impact & Sustainability at Pitango Venture Capital, Israel’s largest VC, where she is responsible for adapting the worlds of ESG and the SDGs to the framework of mainstream venture capital. Cecile has extensive experience in the combination between the impact and technology worlds for almost 20 years. Previously, Cecile was the Founder and Managing Partner of Impact First Investments, Israel's first impact investing company.

Cecile recently founded and is the chairperson of GITA (the Global Impact Tech Alliance) – a global non-profit organization aiming to serve the impact-tech community worldwide and help it scale through community activities, data aggregation, training and consulting.

Michel Buffet is a senior client partner at Korn Ferry, a global organizational consulting firm. He works with senior executives in Consumer, Life Sciences, and Financial Services industries in the areas of leadership assessment, development and succession. His areas of expertise include top team effectiveness, resilience, and executive coaching. He leads the design and delivery of cutting-edge programs with global organizations as well as high-growth startups.

Prior to joining Korn Ferry, he was managing consultant and head of Leadership Resilience at YSC. Prior to this, he was an owner and managing partner at Fisher Rock Consulting, and a partner at Oliver Wyman Delta. He started his career as an Officer Psychologist in the French Navy. He is the former president of the Metropolitan New York Association of Applied Psychology, and a member of the HR Board Committee at the French-American Chamber of Commerce in New York.

Michel holds a PhD in organizational psychology from Columbia University and a doctorate in clinical human sciences from the University of Paris.

Carton is one of Ireland’s leading wellbeing advocates and has been recognized as having launched a “digital mental health revolution”. Following a suicide attempt, she has used her pain and recovery to found Europe’s fastest growing wellness platform KeepAppy, the wellness app that acts as a gym for your mental health. Aimee is also the co-founder of the largest umbrella mental health network, the PCSRC, in response to the COVID Pandemic in America and assisted in developing the technology to support individuals in accessing crisis care during this uncertain time. She is the co-chairwoman of the Irish Graduates Network and an active participant in the Family Business Network.

As a startup co-founder, entrepreneur and now managing director at RareBreed Ventures, Conwell specializes in startups, business development, sales and early stage startup mentorship. Conwell is also a Digital Harbor Foundation board member and Osmosis advisor.

Amanda Elam, PhD is a Diana Research Fellow at the Diana International Research Institute at Babson College where she conducts research on gender and entrepreneurship in the United States and around the world.

She is also CEO/Cofounder of Galaxy Diagnostics, an early stage medical diagnostics company in Research Triangle Park, NC (USA) where she leads an exceptional team of scientists advancing clinical lab services for flea and tick-borne diseases implicated in serious chronic diseases.

Dr. Elam holds a doctorate in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation was recognized by the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division for innovative thought leadership and was published as a book called Gender and Entrepreneurship: A Multilevel Theory and Practice. Her current research focuses on the funding and impact of women’s entrepreneurship across industries and regions.

Dr. Elam serves on the editorial board of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and has published numerous articles in top academic journals, global reports, and chapters in edited volumes.

Finally, she also advises several innovative small businesses in the life sciences and appears regularly on panels and podiums at industry and global research conferences.

As Vice President of Marketing at Chronus, Lydia uses the art and science of strategic storytelling to showcase the incredible power of mentorship in developing employees, transforming organizational culture from the inside out and ensuring every employee feels connected to and supported by their organization.

Prior to Chronus, she served in a number of marketing roles at PayScale – most recently Vice President of Corporate & Product Marketing – growing it from a disruptive startup to the market leader in the compensation data and software vertical. Previously, she led digital content teams at About.com and MSN.

Lydia is also a strong advocate for creating more accessible paths to power for women, people of color and other historically marginalized groups in the labor market and economy. She has been a frequent speaker and media commentator on this topic and has contributed related content to various publications including Harvard Business Review, Money, Fortune, TechCrunch. Additionally, she served as an advisor to the Female Founders Alliance, a startup community and accelerator.

Lydia holds a BA in Journalism from Central Washington University.

Alana Fulvio is a 13-time world record holding athlete in Skydiving and 16-year top Silicon Valley in-house Talent Advisor and Recruiter turned global Hiring, People and Profit Strategist and Advisor focused on ensuring companies and their non-HR hiring teams, in any industry, get hiring right. She is disrupting the market and eliminating one of the world's biggest profit and culture draining blind spots with her innovative "plug-and-play" solutions that offer the market what it never has before.

She's the Hiring Thought Leader who has cracked the code on how to get Talent Acquisition and retention right, earlier. Alana and her team empower businesses with what they need to hire high performing cultures of retained and profit-driving employees with the least spend and time, with the highest ROI. She sees things far deeper and faster than most in her industry which gives her clients the upper hand.

Karen Jaw-Madson is principal of Co.-Design of Work Experience, author of Culture Your Culture: Innovating Experiences @ Work (Emerald Group Publishing, 2018), founder of Future of Work platform A New HR, and instructor at Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program. Jaw-Madson specializes in leadership, culture, talent optimization, and change. She has worked with numerous startups as a consultant and executive coach on founding team dynamics as well as establishing and scaling up culture.

Vanessa Liu is the VP of SAP.iO, a global organization responsible for building an ecosystem of startups around SAP. In her role, she is overseeing SAP.iO’s North American Foundries in New York and San Francisco, including programs devoted to women and diverse-led B2B enterprise tech companies.

Vanessa was most recently the Chief Operating Officer at Trigger Media Group, a $22MM digital media incubator. In her role, she co-founded, incubated and oversaw business operations and strategic initiatives of Trigger’s portfolio companies: InsideHook (the essential digital lifestyle guide for adventurous and discerning men) and Fevo (SaaS technology bringing friends and networks together for group experiences at live events). Vanessa currently serves as a board observer of Fevo and is an advisor or investor in start-ups including Bounce Exchange, Grata Data, GroundSignal, Knotel and Narrativ. She mentors female founders through Declare’s Lead Program.

Previously, Vanessa was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company’s Media and Entertainment Practice, based in Amsterdam, London and New York. In this role, Vanessa was responsible for serving clients in a variety of media and high tech sectors including online advertising, magazine and newspaper publishing, television, video content production, and information services, particularly on issues of digital media strategy, emerging market strategy, growth and innovation. Vanessa graduated magna cum laude with an AB in psychology from Harvard University and cum laude with a JD from Harvard Law School. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Universiteit Utrecht in the Netherlands where she conducted independent research on the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice. She serves as Vice President, College Alumni Affairs, of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Paul is a co-founder and partner in 11-11 Ventures which is one of the most active venture capital firms in the Southeast US investing in and growing early stage technology companies. He also serves on the board of TiE Atlanta. TiE is the largest non-profit global organization focused on entrepreneurs with 15,000 members at every stage of business in 60+ chapters across 14 countries.

As an entrepreneur, Lopez was a Co-Founder and Managing Principal for ten years at Element Funding, a residential mortgage lender with branches across the Southeast. In his prior corporate career, Paul was EVP at a regional bank and worked in high tech for 20+ years at IBM, Xerox and Moore/R.R. Donnelly. He has been a faculty member at the business schools of Kennesaw State University and California State University and has lectured in Europe and Asia in the area of leadership.

Lopez holds a doctorate in business administration from Louisiana Tech University, an MBA from the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calcutta, India.

Lisa passionately tackles real-world problems with innovative and impactful solutions. After several years in the financial services industry, she gained extensive entrepreneurial experience holding key positions on the founding teams of funded and acquired technology startups. Over the years she has been recognized for her commitment to community and the impact of her efforts focused on mentorship, education and creating opportunities for women. Currently she leverages her passions and expertise to help take the guesswork out of diversity & inclusion as Co-Founder of Aleria and ARC.

Lauren Maillian is a change agent committed to diversity, innovation and inclusion. She is the CEO of digitalundivided, the social startup that leverages data and advocacy to catalyze economic growth and success for Black and Latinx women entrepreneurs. She is also the Founder and CEO of LMB Group, a strategic marketing and brand advisory company driving consumer connection and innovation. A pioneer in the tech space, Lauren was the first Black woman to start an early-stage venture capital fund, as a founding partner and managing director at Gen Y Capital Partners. She serves as an advisor to Pipeline Angels and she is the founder of Straight Up and Successful, a personal and professional development community. She wrote the best-selling memoir, The Path Redefined: Getting To the Top On Your Own Terms.

Jocelyn founded Him For Her, a social impact venture aimed at accelerating diversity on corporate boards. She has over two decades of technology experience building iconic global mobile apps and market-leading software products at some of the world’s best local, consumer, and marketplace companies, including CitySearch, Ticketmaster, OpenTable and Snagajob. Jocelyn currently serves on the boards of Papa John’s International, Inc. (NASDAQ: PZZA), ChowNow, an online food ordering system and marketing platform, and is an advisor to Homebase, a platform to help local businesses manage hourly work. Jocelyn was honored as a member of the 2016 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute, was a global ambassador for the Vital Voices Global Partnership, and was one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business” in 2015.

Loretta McCarthy is Managing Partner, responsible for the Golden Seeds angel network nationwide, including member cultivation, orientation and engagement. She is a frequent speaker – in the United States and internationally – about early stage investing, women entrepreneurs and gender diversity. Prior to Golden Seeds, she was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at OppenheimerFunds, a leading asset management firm, as well as Vice President of Marketing at American Express. She brings to this role deep experience in strategy, marketing, product development, public affairs and corporate communications. She has extensive experience serving on boards of directors of corporations and non-profit organizations.

James Oliver, Jr. is the CEO of the ParentPreneur Foundation, which empowers Black ParentPreneurs to be the best parent and entrepreneur possible. He is the founder of WeMontage.com, which turns your photos into removable wallpaper, and author of The More You Hustle, The Luckier You Get: You CAN Be a Successful Parentpreneur.

Ovil-Brenner is a serial entrepreneur in the high-tech industry for over 15 years. Named top 100 influential people in the hi-tech industry in 2015, Hilla started as a lawyer in Israel and NY and went on to co-found 3 companies, one of which is listed on TASE, and then went on to be a mentor and an investor. She is also the founder of "Yazamiyot", the largest female entrepreneurship organization in Israel, and created Campus for Moms, the first "baby-friendly" startup school at Google. Hilla is a true believer in innovation and team spirit and is currently the Managing Director of Techstars Tel Aviv Accelerator.

Mahavir Sharma, a serial entrepreneur is part of umpteen businesses and social organizations and exudes passion in idea and early stage angel investing, leadership and mentoring.

He is the current Chairman of TiE Global board of Trustees (www.tie.org), the first Asian to achieve that position. He is also the Chairman of TiE’s new initiative for investing in idea and early stage startups across India, the TiE India Angels (TIA) and also the Chairman and co-founder of Rajasthan Angels (RAIN- www.rainjaipur.co.in ) and has been a very active angel for early and idea stage companies for the last many years.

A prolific speaker, who has had the honour of being the Chairman of the Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC- Under the aegis of the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India) and the privilege in the past to have been on TiE Global board for 7 years during which has chaired various committees and initiatives including being the Vice-Chair for the year 2019.

In addition to be an active Angel investor he is also in the Business of Carpets, Jewellery, Marketing and Branding in a career spanning 30+ years. And in his philanthropic activities has been supporting the performing and visual arts of Rajasthan by leading in many non-profit initiatives for the last over 2 decades.

I've been doing startups since long before they were cool. My passions include startups, data science, and coffee.

My latest venture, Board++ breaks glass ceilings, diversifies startup boards, and develops our next generation of leaders by placing corporate executives from underrepresented groups on startup boards. I founded the Startup Grind Princeton chapter in 2014 and live in downtown Princeton.

Wardell was appointed chairman of the board in 2019. She has been president and CEO since 2016 and has been a member of Adtalem’s board of directors since 2008. She is the only African American female chairman and CEO in the S&P 400 Index. During her tenure, Wardell has overseen the strategic repositioning of Adtalem’s portfolio, successfully acquiring and integrating companies in Adtalem’s financial services vertical, and leading turnarounds and divestitures of Adtalem’s non-core assets. Under her leadership, gender and ethnic diversity has increased at the Adtalem board to 67%, and within Adtalem’s senior leadership to 75%. Wardell has also led the higher education sector in implementing new standards in transparency and financial literacy, and in cultivating quality partnerships to fill critical global workforce needs. Her strategic and mission-focused leadership positions Adtalem’s global community for sustainable success.

Prior to her current position with Adtalem, Wardell was executive vice president and chief operating officer for The RLJ Companies. As COO, Wardell was responsible for managing The RLJ Companies portfolio, including strategic partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, business strategy, operations and finance. Prior to joining The RLJ Companies, Wardell was a principal at Katalyst Venture Partners, a private equity firm that invested in start-up technology companies, and a senior consultant for Accenture in the organization’s communications and technology strategic services practice.

Wardell earned her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and her law degree from Stanford Law School. She earned her MBA in finance and entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Wardell serves on the Board of Directors for Lowe’s Home Improvement (NYSE: LOW), a Fortune 50 company, as well as THINK450, the innovation engine of the National Basketball Players Association. She is also a member of The Business Council, the Executive Leadership Council, CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion and the Fortune CEO Initiative. Among numerous recognitions, she was selected by Black Enterprise magazine as one of the “300 Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America” (2017) and has been featured on Savoy Magazine’sTM “Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America” and “Most Influential Women in Corporate America” lists from 2016 to 2020.

Mahavir Sharma, a serial entrepreneur is part of umpteen businesses and social organizations and exudes passion in idea and early stage angel investing, leadership and mentoring.

He is the current Chairman of TiE Global board of Trustees (www.tie.org), the first Asian to achieve that position. He is also the Chairman of TiE’s new initiative for investing in idea and early stage startups across India, the TiE India Angels (TIA) and also the Chairman and co-founder of Rajasthan Angels (RAIN- www.rainjaipur.co.in ) and has been a very active angel for early and idea stage companies for the last many years.

A prolific speaker, who has had the honour of being the Chairman of the Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC- Under the aegis of the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India) and the privilege in the past to have been on TiE Global board for 7 years during which has chaired various committees and initiatives including being the Vice-Chair for the year 2019.

In addition to be an active Angel investor he is also in the Business of Carpets, Jewellery, Marketing and Branding in a career spanning 30+ years. And in his philanthropic activities has been supporting the performing and visual arts of Rajasthan by leading in many non-profit initiatives for the last over 2 decades.