Monica Wheat is a Strategist, Educator, Investor, and Venture Developer. Monica is Founder and Executive Director of Venture Catalysts, a non-profit venture, and ecosystem development group focused on investor/founder education, innovation hub, and large-scale entrepreneurial initiatives for over 40,000 attendees. She is the Techstars Startup Programs Lead leading programs nationwide and Founding Co-Director of Startup Boost, a global Pre-Accelerator. She served as a Consultant for Backstage Capital, co-producing their multi-city live investment tour and was the Managing Director of the Backstage Capital - Detroit Accelerator, a 4-city, global tech accelerator investing 3 months and $100,000 each in scaling startups for underrepresented founders.

She is a global speaker, judge, and consultant. Past clients have included Fortune 10 corporations, non-profits, school districts, tech accelerators, venture funds, and start-ups. She regularly speaks and consults at corporations & conferences on topics of emerging ecosystems, venture capital, digital innovation, and women in technology.

Her work has been featured in Crains, Huffington Post, Black Enterprise, and Forbes.

solutions@monicawheat.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/monicawheat

Twitter: @mwheat14

Instagram: @mwheat14

www.venturecatalysts.co

www.monicawheat.com

Candice Matthews-Brackeen is the Founder and CEO of Lightship, the Cincinnati based portfolio service firm and fund whose family of companies include entrepreneur education programs Hillman and NewMe. Lightship companies work together in support of tech driven startups led by underrepresented entrepreneurs.

As CEO of Hillman, the first entrepreneur education program in the Midwest providing support exclusively to WMBEs, Candice has influenced state policy around economic inclusion in addition to establishing meaningful partnerships with companies like Procter & Gamble, Kroger, and Chase in support of Hillman’s work.

Candice has over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience including co-founding Hello Parent, a national safety technology partner of the Brady Campaign to Reduce Gun Violence, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. She later founded the Cincinnati Chapter of the Black Founders Network (BFN), to address the need for increased diversity and inclusion efforts in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Candice currently serves on the board of the Cincinnati Squash Academy, the Advisory Board for the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Northern Kentucky University, and has recently served on the Board of Directors at Beech Acres Parenting Center where she chaired the Parenting Innovation and Technology Committee. She also holds a Director seat on the board of the Justin T. Wright Suicide Prevention Initiative and Depression Research Foundation. She is a recipient of both the Venture Ohio Catalyst of the Year and the Cincinnati Business Courier Women Who Mean Business awards, and maintains a busy fundraising schedule, working diligently to identify and develop transformative tech startups. She sits on the Advisory Board of the Global Accelerator Network and also serves on the Cincinnati Squash Academy Board. Candice holds a BA Economics from the University of Cincinnati where she was a Hewitt-Kautz Fellow.