Faculty

Lisa is the Executive Director of HearstLab, providing investment and resources for early-stage, women-led startups that innovate across media, data and technology. At the Lab she identifies prospective startups to invest in and supports the portfolio companies in residence, including advising on data science and product. Lisa built data science teams at multiple startups before founding AdMass, a startup that leveraged social media data to help brands understand and connect with their customers online. She holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree (S.M.) from MIT and B.S. from Duke, all in Mechanical Engineering. Lisa volunteers to support women in business and STEM through BridgeUP, GirlCode, WiTNY, NYU Summer Launchpad and NUMA, and is on the Advisory Board of Duke University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.

Nancy has been an active angel investor since 2014 and has a portfolio of 23 initial investments in companies with female founders and 13 follow-on investments in some of those companies. She serves as a mentor to women entrepreneurs by providing feedback on their strategy and pitch deck, advising them on how to present to investors, and providing introductions where appropriate. She has also taught Introduction to Angel Investing and How to Present to Investors and is a frequent panelist and pitch judge. She serves as mentor/advisor for several accelerators and women’s entrepreneurship groups. She was a senior executive of the IBM Corporation for almost 20 years and subsequently was CEO of two social services nonprofit organizations, Dean of the College of Business at San Francisco State University, CFO of that university, cofounder of a rewards-based crowdfunding site, and Managing Director of the Golden Seeds angel group Silicon Valley chapter for three years.

Cheryl has over 30 years of executive management experience and an excellent track record across a diverse set of positions. She is experienced in many areas of the financial services industry, including asset management, mutual funds, private investment partnerships and broker/dealers. Her background includes serving as a Chief Financial and Operations Officer, with responsibilities encompassing finance, operations, administration, information technology, corporate governance, risk management and compliance. Cheryl has also been active in vendor, industry, community and not-for-profit boards and has assumed leadership roles in those activities. In 2017, Cheryl became a Managing Director of Golden Seeds, an angel group that invests in early stage women led companies. In that role, she is actively involved in selecting and mentoring Golden Seeds companies. She also serves as a mentor at ERA, a New York based accelerator for startup companies, and has served as a judge of pitch competition. 

Elizabeth is a serial-entrepreneur and Founder of AppLand, Inc. and a Partner at Refinery Investments. Previously she was Vice President, DevOps Security at CyberArk (CYBR) responsible for CyberArk’s DevOps business strategy and execution, including launching the open-source GTM strategy for dev-focused tools and technologies. She founded Conjur (acq. CyberArk) which was the first product in the market to address Privileged Account Security gaps for DevOps, cloud and container-native software. She was also Chief Data Officer Generation Health (acq. CVS Caremark) and held national leadership positions in research at the Department Veterans Affairs during her 14-year tenure, and held academic positions at Harvard, Tufts and Boston University. She is a data scientist and programmer by training and holds a doctorate and a masters from Boston University.

Senofer is a Founder and General Partner of Mendoza Ventures, a Boston based pre-seed FinTech, AI, and Cybersecurity venture capital firm. After having a career in enterprise sales and hospitality design, she began Mendoza Ventures to address the growing funding gap in the pre-seed investment stage. The firm was launched in January of 2016 and invests internationally in the Cybersecurity, AI, and FinTech space. She is a published author, innovator, and thought leader in the technology, startup, and venture capital space with a passion for equity and diversity.

Jules is an investor, 3-time entrepreneur, corporate executive and ‘intrapreneur.’ She is Partner and US Lead for Mindset Ventures, investing in seed – Series B enterprise tech startups. Previously Jules co-founded IBM Blockchain Ventures, launched and ran two IBM Blockchain Accelerators with Columbia University and was head of the IBM Blockchain Garage for North America. Prior to that she was a partner at LunaCap Ventures, a venture debt fund investing in diverse founders, and was COO of gender lens investing pioneer BRAVA Investments. Jules co-founded and led two legal tech companies: Evolve Law (acquired by Breaking Media/Above the Law), a digital media and events company for legal innovators, and Hire an Esquire, a venture-backed tech startup providing attorneys on-demand to law firms and in-house legal teams. She also founded Carbonado Group, an environmental sustainability consulting firm, and spent seven years as an ‘intraprenuer’ helping companies, including EY, Salesforce.com and Tiffany & Co,. to launch and grow new business units around environmental and social responsibility.

Roselle is Founder and CEO of KeyCaliber, a startup that enables cybersecurity executives to develop data-driven strategy. Previously she was the Entrepreneur in Residence at Lytical Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage cybersecurity companies, and the President of Rosint Labs, a cybersecurity consultancy to security teams, leaders, and startups. Prior to that Roselle was the co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup Uplevel Security, which was acquired by McAfee. Before her entrepreneurial work, Roselle led cybersecurity operations at the Executive Office of the President during the Obama Administration, directing the tactical, operational, and strategic work of the Security Operations Center that protected and defended the White House’s network. Previous to that, she worked at the Department of Homeland Security’s US-CERT where she led two cybersecurity analysis teams and was an ‘intrapreneur’ as the product owner for a platform that was used by cyber analysts at US-CERT as well as 50 federal departments and agencies.