Micah brings more than twenty years of startup experience as a serial founder, mentor and ecosystem supporter. While steeped in all things startup, Micah joins us from Amazon Web Services, where he developed and operated the AWS Connections program, which helps enterprises identify and collaborate with tech startups.

Serena Glover is an independent angel investor and board advisor to start-up mobile, cloud service, and AR/VR companies. In 2004 she co-founded Twango, an innovative media sharing web site and technology platform. She negotiated Twango’s acquisition by Nokia in 2007. As Director of Communities at Nokia, Glover ran a global organization leading the effort to bring media-related web services to mobile devices. Prior to Twango, Glover spent 9 years at Microsoft in various management positions, where she led product teams, managed websites and helped complete several corporate acquisitions. During the 1980’s, Glover was part of a research team at the University of Michigan that built some of the very first database and graphical design tools. She received a B.S. in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Sarah Imbach is an active angel investor and start-up advisor. Before locating to the northwest in 2011, Sarah was an early operating executive at three of the most well known companies to come out of the valley in the last 20 years: PayPal, LinkedIn and 23andMe. As the #2 at both LinkedIn and 23andMe her responsibilities spanned broadly across product, sales, operations, finance, and engineering.

Since moving to Seattle, Sarah has shifted from running start-ups to investing in them. Sarah has made over forty investments in early stage companies. Her primary investing focus has been consumer, marketplaces and SaaS software companies. Sarah currently serves on three boards and advises several other companies.

Kirby is a seasoned startup operator and angel investor, and is currently the Investor in Residence at AI2, a research and engineering facility dedicated to the field of artificial intelligence.

Early in his career, Kirby was a founding team member and operating executive at back-to-back tech IPOs, with Go2Net (GNET) and Marchex (MCHX).

He is also a two-time venture capital-backed CEO, with AdXpose (DFJ, Ignition) acquired by comScore (SCOR), and most recently Dwellable (Maveron, VersionOne) acquired by HomeAway (AWAY).

Kirby has invested in dozens of technology startups, and served as a Board Director of the real estate CRM platform Sharper Agent (sold to LEDR/Z), and the in-store customer experience platform Spectrio (sold to Bertram Capital).

He currently serves as a Board Director at Bean Box, the premier Direct to Consumer gourmet coffee gift and subscription brand, and Keepe, the leading vetted, on-demand contractor network for property managers. Other notable investments include Wrench, Crowd Cow, Visual Vocal, Attunely, Inspo, PacketSled, Stackery and Blume.

Kirby serves as Board Chair at Special Olympics of Washington, where he helped bring the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games to Seattle. He is a Board Member at the University of Washington’s Haring Center Capital Campaign, and Board Advisor at the Friendship Circle of Washington. In his free time, Kirby coaches youth sports, and enjoys running, tennis, and traveling with his wife, son and daughter.

Rodrigo Prudencio works on the Amazon Corporate Development team for the Alexa Fund where he works on the venture capital team inside Amazon investing in and supporting startups that are building products with voice and expanding the reach of Alexa Skills and AVS capabilities. Additionally, Rodrigo runs the Alexa Accelerator.

Prior to his current role, Rodrigo worked as the Director of Investments and New Business at GS Shop where he led the US based venture capital strategy for GS Shop, a Seoul Korea-based multi-billion dollar consumer products channel with presence in home (TV) shopping, e-commerce, and mobile. Rodrigo has 15 years of startup experience including CEO work, raising venture funds, and serving on the Board of Directors for several companies. In 2013, Rodrigo founded his own startup, Shuddle, that developed the first transportation network to focus on families and the safe transportation needs of kids.

Rodrigo has a BA in International Relations from Middlebury College and an MBA from Haas School of Business at the University of California – Berkeley.

David is a bootstrapped founder turned angel investor turned operator. He has invested in 15+ seed-stage startups since 2015. David is the founder of TypeFrag.com, a value-added reseller of client-server based voice communication technology popular among groups of online computer game players. Bootstrapped the company to several million in recurring revenue within a few years. At its peak, TypeFrag served millions of gamers who spent a combined 9.6 billion minutes connected to our services each month.He currently serves as COO of venture-backed startup Gamesight.io.

Arry is a 20-year industry veteran, serial founder, and strategic operator with expertise in scaling technology businesses with a consistent track record building high performing teams. Key strengths include:
1. Management/leadership organizational change, design, and strategy experience, in addition to high visibility leadership in the technology and blockchain community
2. Delivering product (both enterprise and consumer) with high quality and highly engaged customers
3. Building communities/partnerships
She is founding Chair of the Cascadia Blockchain Council and Board Member with the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA). She also serves as the Managing Director of Yellow Umbrella Ventures advising and investing in technology companies with six companies in their portfolio to date. Her entrepreneurial experience begins in 1999, and includes:
· As a first-time CEO and co-founder of GiftStarter, Arry raised $640,000 in angel funding in 2015, while also 8 months pregnant. She and her team of five, onboarded several partnerships like B&H Photo Video, butter London, and Providence Health. Together, they built one of the largest databases of products and brands globally, where people could go to the destination site and find/search for any product sold online to purchase it with multiple payment methods.
· Arry led the $32 mm Storm Token Initial Coin Offering (ICO), building a global crypto-community for Storm in less than six months. Co-Founder and COO/President, she took the team from original two founders to over 25 employees globally. An innovator, inventor and writer, she is widely published: Forbes, CNN Money, Huffington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Puget Sound Business Journal, Geekwire, Retailing Today, and Seattle Times. Additionally, over the years, Arry has worked regularly with both investors and development across four continents to launch the products
o In addition to investing in Tenta Browser, Arry did an analysis of their roadmap/strategy with strong recommendations to adjust focus and messaging. This led to investment by Consensus/Joe Lubin, as well as more attention to product marketing as a focus in the three months following Arry’s analysis.

A native of Seattle, Rudy graduated from Franklin & Marshall College (BA Economics ‘91) and attended law school at the University of Washington (JD ’94). He started his legal career as an associate at Perkins Coie, the Northwest’s largest law firm, from 1994-1999. In 1999, he joined Amazon.com as its fourth lawyer, eventually rising to the position of VP & Associate General Counsel for New Technologies, Intellectual Property and Business Development. Rudy left Amazon in May 2005, and after a short stint as a principal at Beacon Law Advisors, moved to Palo Alto to become Facebook’s general counsel and 46th employee in January 2006. After the birth of his first son in 2008, Rudy returned to Seattle and took on the role of VP, Business Operations at an internet startup, Evri Inc., which he left in July 2010. From 2010-2018, Rudy was one of the most active angel investors in the Seattle area, investing in dozens of local technology companies. Most recently, Rudy joined Seattle-based venture capital firm Founder’s Co-op as a general partner in its third fund, and is presently a venture partner in the fourth fund. He is also the co-founder of Denkyem Co-op, which provides financing and other support for community-focused black entrepreneurs in the Seattle area. Rudy serves on the boards of multiple Seattle-area startups as well as the University of Washington Foundation, and is a former trustee of Seattle Country Day School.

Technologist with more than 20 years cross functional experience with the design, building and management of software products.

Currently advising startups working on mobile and market place solutions.

Especially interested in challenging solutions involving technologies touching every day life. Loves to grow teams and create scalable solutions that make a difference.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Mark Twain

Full time individual angel investor and member of different angel groups in Seattle (Grubstakes, Alliance of Angels, SWAN Venture Fund).

Amy McCullough is a Managing Director and member of Trilogy’s investing team. She joined Trilogy in 2007 after four years in the investment bank of JPMorgan Chase in New York. Amy was an equity research analyst covering the Small and Mid Cap Applied Technologies sector which included more than 35 companies with a combined market capitalization of over $70B. Prior to being an equity analyst, Amy was an Assistant Treasurer in the Treasury and Security Services division of Chase where her primary responsibilities included derivatives and equities consulting services for clients of the firm. A Seattle native, Amy began her career in Microsoft’s Treasury department working with the Treasury Operations team and the Portfolio Management Group.

As Managing Director, Hope identifies and leads new investments, provides strategic and operational advice to Madrona portfolio companies, and fosters corporate and strategic business development relationships with larger companies and investors. Hope led Madrona’s early investment in The Riveter while a Venture Partner and also spearheads Madrona’s leadership in the OnBoarding Women program which is focused on a business first education for prospective women corporate board members. Hope serves on the boards of three public companies, Hasbro, Inc, MongoDB and NewRelic.

Julie Larson-Green is known for her mantra “people first, technology second”. It is the foundation in her role at Qualtrics as the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) and her position as Chief Experience Officer over many application experiences in 25 years at Microsoft. At Microsoft she built product teams that now touch more than a billion people every day! Her passion of building technology, that gets out of the way so you can focus on what matters most, is very obvious in her builds including Microsoft Office, Windows, Internet Explorer, Xbox, and Surface. She believes that as a leader it is important to create a culture where the best ideas can come from anyone and anywhere. She does this by always having an open door and embracing everyone’s individual perspective, personality, style and abilities. This has earned her a reputation as an even-handed, experienced executive who is widely respected and trusted. She is excited to bring these experiences from her career to a company like Qualtrics. Here, she is uniting universal listening with meaningful action across the company and then in turn having a greater impact with Qualtrics, an Experience Management platform, uniting experiences across employees, product, brand, and customers, in over 8500 companies around the world! Outside of Qualtrics, Julie advises multiple startup companies and is on the board of Goleadoras, a non-profit that seeks to battle gender disparity by empowering young women in personal and intuitive ways. Julie was recently named as a top most powerful female engineer in 2018 by Business Insider and lives in Seattle Washington with her family. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter to find out more about her impact on global experiences.

Todd Bishop is co-founder and editor of GeekWire, a longtime technology journalist who covers subjects including cloud tech, e-commerce, virtual reality, devices, apps and tech giants such as Amazon.com, Apple, Microsoft and Google. A native of Orland, Calif., he has worked as a reporter for publications including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Puget Sound Business Journal and Seattle P-I.

Jessie Woolley-Wilson is the President, CEO, and Board Chair of DreamBox. She has worked in K-12 educational technology for nearly 20 years, and she has worked at DreamBox Netflix and Facebook since 2010.

Dina Bass is a Technology Reporter and the Seattle Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News, where she covers Microsoft and the broader software industry.

Lisa founded Simplicity Consulting in 2006 to provide a better way for clients and consultants to thrive in the changing workplace. Building business is her passion. After 14 years of managing and growing strategic multi million dollar accounts for corporations she found herself at a career crossroads and wanted to create more flexibility in her life and leverage her skills to add value to business. The result was founding Simplicity Consulting with the vision of helping people find significance and success at work. She loves facilitating the matchmaking process including coaching professionals who choose to maximize their expertise and transition to project work and helping companies achieve their goals faster and with greater impact than traditional models. She writes about what she has observed over the years and is passionate about making a difference and helping professionals succeed at work. Her first book, “Be You: Five Steps to Ignite your Personal Brand”, guides people to understand and communicate their unique skills and passion. Her second book, “Navigating the Talent Shift”, shows managers how they can easily build on-demand teams.

Dan Levitan has over 25 years of collective experience in venture capital and investing, specializing in leading consumer and retail businesses. Eager to help innovative companies realize their full potential, Dan launched Maveron, in 1998, with Howard Schultz, former CEO and Executive Chairman of Starbucks Coffee Company.

Kate Clark is a reporter at TechCrunch covering venture capital. She’s interested in diversity & inclusion, e-commerce, transportation and more.
She previously wrote about VC for PitchBook News.
A Seattle native, she graduated from the University of Washington in 2016 after completing a double major in Journalism and International Studies.

Rajeev Singh is Chief Executive Officer at Accolade, the leading technology-enabled consumer healthcare engagement services company for large employers, payers and provider organizations.

Founder & CEO of Reverb. Author of Female Firebrands: Powerful Advice for Women at Work (and Their Male Advocates), coming in 2019.

Annie is a startup ecosystem and community leader. She’s built and run 15+ accelerator programs globally with deep knowledge of startup communities across the US, Europe and Australasia.
She’s invested in hundreds of startups through these programs and has lost count of how many entrepreneurs she’s worked with over the years.

Annie joined Microsoft earlier this year as the global head of their Startup programs, based out of Sydney. This role covers the broad market offers Microsoft provides to the startup community, and also the ScaleUp initiative. The ScaleUp program works with later stage enterprise startups to help them get ready to sell to a large customer audience. Based in 8 cities globally, the ScaleUp programs offer a genuinely unique opportunity for startups not only to grow in their home markets, but into international locations as well.

Prior to Microsoft, Annie held a number of roles in the startup ecosystem covering early stage co-working space Fishburners, as well as a number of accelerator programs. Annie co-founded muru-D – Telstra’s startup accelerator program with 5 locations in Australia and Singapore.
Annie was also Head of Operations for Wayra, Telefonica’s startup accelerator program which had 7 startup hubs across Europe.

Annie also co-founded Techfugees Australia a global movement connecting the technology ecosystem together with newly arrived refugees in Australia to help solve some of the problems they face. Through Techfugees, companies have been created, jobs found and most importantly lives changed for the better.

Passionate about diversity and inclusion, and helping wherever she can, Annie is an active angel investor and mentor and loves helping founders achieve their full potential.

Diane lives in Portland, Oregon and has been a Partner with Voyager Capital since 2007, focusing on software and digital media investments in the Pacific Northwest, particularly Oregon. Diane is on the boards of Act-On Software, Stackery, TiE Oregon, University of Oregon Seed Fund Advisory Board, the Oregon State University Advantage Accelerator, and Providence Child Center. She is also a board observer of Chirpify, Lytics, and SheerID, She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University in Biomedical Engineering, and received an Executive MBA from Insead in Fountainebleau, France.

Amy LaMeyer is a partner at the WXR Fund supporting early stage companies in spatial computing and artificial intelligence. She is also an investor and advisor to start-ups in cybersecurity and music tech. Amy is on the board of ARVR Academy which promotes diversity in emerging technologies through education. She writes for Virtual Reality Pop on topics such as Concerts in VR and created EnteringVR.net to assist others to learn about the potential of AR/VR across industries.

Amy has over 18 years of experience in a high growth technology industry in corporate development and operations. As a Senior Director of Corporate Development at Akamai Technologies Amy led global, cross functional teams in acquisitions valued at over $1.4B through the diligence process, closing, and integration. Her experience also includes strategic partnerships, divestitures, international expansion, profitability modeling, financial and product operations and engineering scale. She also managed a cybersecurity start-up accelerator in partnership with Microsoft Ventures.

9+ years of integrated brand marketing experience • Passionate about the science and art of advertising • Disciplined in brand strategy, consumer marketing campaigns & leading cross-functional teams • Advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion

I am a passionate strategic marketer and problem solver with full-service advertising agency experience. I enjoy leading teams of creatives, media planners and data scientists to connect clients to their most important audiences in meaningful ways. My strengths include consumer marketing/communications strategy, building consensus among stakeholders and developing and executing integrated traditional and non-traditional campaigns including digital, social, mobile, print, broadcast and outdoor media.

Current and past clients include: Seattle Goodwill, Amica Insurance, Seattle Aquarium, Seattle Center, Visit Seattle, Challenge Seattle, Iceland Naturally, Levi’s, Amazon, Toyota, Microsoft, Urban Outfitters, Chase Bank, City of Seattle and Snoqualmie Ice Cream.

By combining creativity and commerce, we are determined to do great work, make a difference, and have fun at C+F.

Rebekah Bastian is Vice President of Community & Culture at Zillow Group, leading efforts around Equity & Belonging, Social Impact Products and Cultural Engagement. Rebekah was one of Zillow’s first employees, coming over from Microsoft in 2005, and spent her first 12 years leading product development across many areas of the company.

Rebekah’s first book, Blaze Your Own Trail, will be coming out in February 2020 with Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Rebekah serves on the Board of Directors of Bellwether Housing and the Advisory Board for the University of Washington School of Mechanical Engineering. She is also an advisor to technology startups, a respected thought leader and community partner. She writes articles in multiple publications including Forbes.com, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and community events. She has been recognized in the Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40, the Inman 33 People Changing the Real Estate Industry and the Female Founders Alliance Champion Awards.

Rebekah earned her Masters of Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington. She is also a mentor, a mother to two boys and an aerial acrobat.

Public Relations specialist for 15+ years with consumer and high tech PR expertise. Media Relations Specialist. 

Currently, I am Marketing Lead at Pioneer Square Labs overseeing market validation and growth strategies for companies in the PSL portfolio.

Previously I was a Product Manager at Steller (Mombo Labs, Inc) with over 10 years experience in all aspects of product management, with strong qualifications in UX, focusing on user growth and acquisition scenarios. Previously, I was at Cheezburger, where my teams have consistently hit product milestones and created ROI for one of the largest media destinations in the world. Prior to Cheezburger, I was a Group UX Manager at iLink-Systems Inc, on assignment at Univar, the leading chemical distributor in the United States. iLink won Microsoft’s ‘Partner of the Year’ Award for both Mobility and Public Sector PSNS Partner of the Year.

Specialties: Extensive experience in developing and executing communication and advertising strategies (Above the line advertising, evaluation of media plans, advertising testing, consumer promotions). Skilled in advertising processes such as generating insights, targeting, developing key propositions and generating advertising ideas. Wide-spread experience in consumer research (planning, methodologies, research tools, stimulus development) across markets such as US, South East Asia, Australia and India.

Fran Dunaway is a media executive-turned-fashion entrepreneur and co-founder of TomboyX, a Seattle-based gender neutral underwear and loungewear brand launched in 2013. The brand started as a passion project in collaboration with her wife and co-founder Naomi Gonzalez to create the perfect button-up shirt, pivoting to focus on underwear based on the overwhelming demand for their first boxer brief for women.

Fran and TomboyX are driven by a belief that brands can be a force for positive change, and their messaging promotes a human agenda to inspire conversation about gender, confidence, acceptance, and inclusion.

As CEO, Fran has led TomboyX to doubled YoY growth and industry recognition that has included a listing on Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing companies and being named Small Business of the Year for King County and Fastest Growing Minority-Owned Company by the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Prior to founding TomboyX, Fran spent over 15 years in media production including Director-level roles with political consulting firms. Her work included managing multi-million dollar budgets and large teams in production of TV/radio ads and animations for congressional candidates and social causes. She has also produced TV episodes for PBS and independent films, with festival showings at Sundance and DigiDance.

Co-Founder & COO of an incredible Inc. 500 company that’s at the forefront of changing gender conversation and gender parity in this world. It was brought about by a desire and responsibility mandated by our customers to create community around services, products and issues that address real needs in the world. Needs that address fit, function, quality in clothing. Needs that address changing the norm of who we see in media representing women, trans & gender fluid folks as well as plus size people. Our brand mission has become my passion and I love the journey I’m on with our incredible team.

As your organization grows and scales, what kind of communication strategies and tools do you have in place to influence people and succeed?

I help business executives get their story straight, clarify their message, and mobilize people to achieve outstanding results.

Confusing messaging will make you lose.

IT and Business Operations/Strategy Leader with expertise in the following areas:
• Enabling the Azure Onboarding of startups and partners across various industries/technologies
• Architecting for the Cloud, Edge, Hybrid Scenarios leveraging AI/ML/IoT/Big Data/Analytics/Blockchain
• Managing Global Cross-Functional teams
• Supply Chain Program Management/Consulting, Multi-Phased Roadmaps
• Speaking at International Conferences, Roadshows, Partner Events

Paul currently leads the Industry Experiences team at Microsoft, focused on helping Microsoft partners with their move to the cloud. He is based in Seattle, where he lives with his wife and two boys.

Paul is a proven leader in the technology field, having extensive industry experience acquired across a variety of roles, with a passion for technology. He is a strategic thinker, who can look at the big picture, or complex problems and distill into actionable output. 

Paul started his career behind the code as a Software Engineer, through to most recently as General Manager at Microsoft. He has extensive experience of leading, building and growing global diverse and distributed teams. Paul has delivered mission-critical software products to market in multiple industries. He has a demonstrated ability to work across geographies and organizations to achieve success. Paul has been involved in helping some of the largest companies worldwide moving to the cloud. He is in popular demand for consult on digital transformation strategies and guidance on moving to the cloud.

Recent key accomplishments:
• Involved in building some of the largest scale cloud solutions existing in the market today.
• Recognized by CIO Review magazine as key cloud Influencer.
• Showcased in Profile Magazine covering career accomplishments.
• Built world-class Product Engineering teams, and most recently delivered to market one of the world’s largest cloud, big data and business intelligence solutions: transformative state-of-the-art financial and risk management platform all running in the cloud.

I’m a seasoned storyteller with a successful track record of bringing brands to life and building brand awareness through strategic, audience-focused marketing, communications, and PR. I move seamlessly between strategy and execution and play well with others. I’m an organized, motivated leader who can effectively juggle multiple projects and competing priorities.

Passionate, results-producing product marketer with significant experience leading the definition of foundational product positioning and delivering that to market via air cover, lead generation and CRM marketing. Strong track record working with diverse, cross-functional teams to build and refine great products and create demand for those products through compelling story-telling and rock solid execution.

Co-founder and Director of The Madhouse Project, one of the largest non-profit organizations supporting The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Experienced marketing professional with a demonstrated history of working in emerging technology categories. Strong media and communication professional skilled in Digital Marketing, Crisis Communications, Corporate Communications, Management, Online/Offline Events and Social Media.

Product & Marketing director with over 10 years of experience in customer engagement, product management, marketing, analytics, and technology consulting & research. I manage cross functional teams toward best in class customer engagement, long term retention, and monetization results for a digital portfolio of apps.

P&L responsibilities. Product and financial planning. Extensive experience launching and operating live apps.

WW strategy & execution of Azure Sponsorship programs (Microsoft Partner Network, MVP’s, Education, Azure Government, Philanthropies, and Microsoft Research) to increase consumption and conversion for Azure.

End-to-end planning and execution for 1st party events like Build, inspire, etc and 3rd party industry events like NRF, Hannover Messe, etc.

Pogo is changing how innovative cities, schools and parents get students to school and activities. We create trusted, flexible carpools so parents can drive as much or as little as they want. Tapping into the 60 million extra seats that drive to and from school every day, we connect parents to the wealth of rides available from trusted people in their own neighborhood.

If you’re a city, school or district looking to provide transportation choices to the 50% of parents that drive to school, get in touch. We’d love to partner with you to bring clean, shared, and affordable mobility to your families.

Tech is awesome. Geeking out over everything from elegant industrial design to bleeding edge sensor fusion to hyperscale computing infrastructure is just plain fun. I get to spend my days doing exactly that, and then putting it all in context – looking at how tech fits in our ever-changing cultural and behavior landscapes, and figuring out what we can do with it. And I get to do that across organizational boundaries, with partner organizations big and small, because no one person or company should have to go it alone. Neat.

Michael B. Tannenbaum is the CFO at Brex. Formerly, he served as the VP, Mortgage and Chief Revenue Officer at SoFi. He initially joined SoFi as the VP, Finance way back in 2014. Prior to this, he was private equity associate at Hellman & Friedman. He also worked as investment banking analyst at JP Morgan Chase.