TECH EQUITY HUB

Noelle Acosta is the founder of Noula, an early-stage startup focused on making prenatal care more affordable and accessible for all. Noelle has held numerous positions leading sales and business development teams, shepherding high growth for SaaS and digital health startups including Elastic (NYSE: ESTC) and Maven Clinic.

Karen Bhatia is Senior Vice President at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, leading Creative and Applied Tech strategies to promote economic development and entrepreneurship throughout the city, including initiatives related to blockchain strategy, responsible AI and data use, and broadband expansion. As an attorney, she was the principal of her own law firm, advising tech startups on corporate issues, financing, and business strategy. As an entrepreneur, Karen founded ActionCam, an educational platform explaining public policy issues, as well as Stanford Startups NY, a business network of over 800 Stanford entrepreneurs and investors in the region. She is an advisor to several tech organizations and also on the Board of Trustees of Mott Hall, a middle school in the South Bronx.

Maryam Casbarro, CIPP/US and an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine, concentrates her practice on cybersecurity and privacy litigation. She helps her clients through counseling and advising on cybersecurity best practices, drafting incident response plans, overseeing the legal response after a breach has occurred, and assisting clients with privacy litigation strategies, government investigations, and regulatory compliance.

In addition to her role as the Managing Principal of Five Mile Advisors, Janet DeFrino is a Venture Partner with 1843 Capital, and with over 25 years’ experience as an equity investor and sell-side analyst. Beginning her investing career as a sell-side analyst at Morgan Stanley, Janet later moved to a Bass family office, and subsequently to Eachwin Capital, a long-only asset management firm where she was responsible for the firm’s consumer investments. She serves on the boards of ROAR.io, a Golden Seeds company; Shindigz, a $50MM privately held online party supply company; and the Women’s Business Development Council in Stamford, CT. She is a mentor at the Founder Institute and CT Next accelerators and is an advisor to several early-stage companies.

Kaitlyn Fallon, an associate in Davis Wright Tremaine’s Employment Services Group, and represents employers in all aspects of their labor and employment law needs, from providing employee training and conducting internal investigations to representing clients in state and federal court, administrative agencies, and in arbitrations. Kaitlyn represents employers in a variety of industries in disputes alleging discrimination, retaliation, harassment, wrongful termination, restrictive covenants, and breach of contract, and conducts internal investigations into complaints of alleged wrongdoing.

Whitney Heaps is the Director of People Operations at Unreasonable Group. In her role, she oversees the end-to-end employee experience from recruitment to culture, performance, development, compensation, and benefits. Whitney joined Unreasonable six years ago, bringing with her an educational background with a tailored focus on business sustainability strategy, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and sustainability reporting and disclosure.

Jenevra Georgini is a lawyer, startup advisor, and angel investor. She is the founder of Spark + Sterling, a legal and business consultancy that helps entrepreneurs negotiate lasting relationships with large companies. Before starting her own company, Jenevra spent 20 years as a manager and in-house counsel at American International Group, Inc. (AIG) where she built and led a legal group that closed $50-$100 million worth of deals each year. She has advised C-level executives on matters including contracts, process improvement, and online marketing. A frequent speaker and writer on startup law topics, Jenevra mentors early-stage companies through Project W and the Hudson Community Incubator.

Lenore Kantor is the President and Chief Growth Officer of Growth Warrior. She is a recognized branding and launch expert who guides individuals and organizations through change: go-to-market, repositioning, and scaling. Lenore has launched hundreds of products, won multiple industry awards, and managed marketing and communications for two publicly traded companies, an IPO, and ten M&A transactions over three decades of running a business and as a corporate marketing executive at leading financial technology companies (Thomson Reuters, FXall, Morgan Stanley, ISE and BNY Mellon). Lenore is an advisor, mentor, and judge for startups and accelerators (including Columbia Startup Lab, the Columbia Venture Competition, RISE, Galvanize, Startupbootcamp, and StartEd among others).  

Katie Lawler is Senior Vice President and Global Chief Ethics Officer at U.S. Bank, a position she has held since 2017. Since joining U.S. Bank in 2002, Katie has served in multiple leadership roles within the Law Division and Human Resources, including Deputy General Counsel, Senior Vice President and Director of Inclusion, and Employee Relations and Human Resources Chief Risk Officer. An active member of the Twin Cities community, Katie serves on the board of trustees of Wallin Education Partners, the Jeremiah Program, and Scholars of Finance. She is a member of the Financial Advisory Committee of the St. Louis Park Public School District and is on the advisory board of the Center for Ethics in Practice at the University of St. Thomas. 

Lauren Maillian 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. As a founding partner and managing director at Gen Y Capital Partners, Lauren was the first Black woman to start an early-stage venture capital fund. 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 is also the author of The Path Redefined: Getting To the Top On Your Own Terms.

Shelly Malik is an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine who concentrates her practice on corporate transactions and focuses on representing emerging growth companies throughout all stages of their lifecycles. She has experience in drafting and negotiating corporate documentation pertaining to mergers and acquisitions, venture financings, corporate debt and equity financings, and securities matters for a host of startup companies across the globe. Shelly often acts as outside counsel to her clients and advises them on general corporate governance matters.

Nicole Negowetti is a leadership coach and consultant to changemakers and their organizations. Over the past 15 years, Nicole has served as a social justice lawyer, law professor, nonprofit founder, mentor, and entrepreneur. She has worked at organizations including Harvard Law School, Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy, and the Good Food Institute. Nicole draws from her expertise in leadership, systems thinking, education, and advocacy, to help her clients amplify their impact.

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Lorine Pendleton is a seasoned business development executive and attorney with extensive experience in the legal, technology, and entertainment industries. She was recently named by Marie Claire as one of the “50 Most Connected Women in America,” and by Crunchbase as “39 Black Women Investors Inspiring a New Generation of Investors.” Lorine is an active angel investor who invests in and advises women and diverse-led companies. She is on the Board of Directors of the Angel Capital Association (ACA) and ACA’s first African-American board member in its history.

Salonee Shah is a Senior Portfolio Development Manager at M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, where she accelerates startups’ growth by advising on partnerships, product integrations, and GTM strategy. She also oversees M12’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, calling on her experience creating access and opportunity through technology as a former Title I middle school educator in the Mississippi Delta. Salonee joined M12 from Microsoft’s HR organization, where she supported internal talent movement and rewards distribution to the high-performing team behind the office of the CTO. Prior to joining Microsoft, Salonee was a campus director for education nonprofit Citizen Schools, leading a staff of 20 and a program for 300 students in Houston, Texas.

Shashi Srikantan is an investor at Level Up Ventures, where she heads their Venture Lab and invests in early-stage, tech-enabled startups led by Black and Latinx founders. Shashi is also the founder of Project Two.Eight, an accelerator providing support to female entrepreneurs through the earliest stages of creating a company. Prior to Level Up, Shashi worked on the design and launch of Fitch Ratings’ ESG product for Asset-Backed Securities and is well-versed in sustainable finance and ESG-related themes. Shashi’s interests lie in supporting startups working on solutions to societal or environmental challenges.

Jennifer Richard is a Principal at Bonfire Ventures. Prior to Bonfire, Jen sourced and executed seed stage investments at Vitalize VC and Cross Culture Ventures. Before beginning her career in venture, Jen was a founding member of three venture-backed startups and saw two of them through successful acquisitions. She has been responsible for building e-commerce platforms from the ground-up and has scaled online commerce to reach over 30 countries worldwide. Her expertise revolves around technical product management, global supply chain, and (most importantly) a deep understanding of customers across a variety of verticals and geographies.

Danielle Toaltoan is Counsel at Davis Wright Tremaine and teams with her clients – from young start-ups to large companies – to safeguard their most important asset: their intellectual property. Specifically, she has handled more than a dozen trademark and copyright infringement cases and has significant experience in trademark enforcement and prosecution. Danielle also has developed a commercial litigation practice where she assists clients with breach of contract disputes.

Latoya Tyson is an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine and develops innovative strategies to help defend her clients’ intellectual property. Her experience includes managing worldwide intellectual property portfolios, preparing terms of services for technology companies and startups, and conducting pre-trial litigation in multimillion dollar trademark infringement cases. Latoya’s practice also focuses on counseling her clients with matters relating to IP licensing, brand identity, copyright issues, and federal and international protection of trademarks.

Melanie VanSlavens is a corporate and transactional attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine, with a focus on the restaurant, food and beverage, and technology industries. She represents companies and investors in equity financings, mergers and acquisitions, private tender offers, corporate restructurings, and other complex strategic transactions. Melanie also regularly represents emerging and established companies—including family-owned businesses—in various industries, advising them on matters such as formation, corporate governance, and general commercial matters.

Pratibha Vuppuluri is the Managing Director on the Unreasonable Team overseeing the global portfolio of 200+ high-growth impact companies, and leads on facilitating capital introductions for the venture base. With nearly 20 years of experience in banking, she has expertise spanning a variety of industries including renewable energy, industrial technology, and sustainable agriculture.

Luke Wippler is Senior Vice President and Treasurer for U.S. Bank. He has operated in numerous finance and treasury capacities during his 18 years at the Company. In his current capacity, Luke oversees the Asset and Liability management for U.S. Bank’s $550 billion balance sheet through the measurement and distribution of Capital and the management of Liquidity and Interest Rate risk across the Company.

Luke spent the first 8 years of his career in the Business Line Reporting and Planning function within the CFO organization, which concluded with him serving as Corporate Finance Director.

He earned his MBA from the University of Minnesota and his B.A. degree from the University of St. Thomas.

Megan Zoback is a Startup Partner Lead at Stripe where she works with investors and accelerators to support the next generation of startup founders in their earliest days. She is a 15-year veteran of the technology industry, having worked at Uber prior to joining Stripe, spearheading Uber’s international expansion and later serving as Director of Business Development.

Luke spent the first 8 years of his career in the Business Line Reporting and Planning function within the CFO organization, which concluded with him serving as Corporate Finance Director for Corporate Support Groups.

He earned his MBA from the University of Minnesota and his B.A. degree from the University of St. Thomas.