Founders, we're creating spaces for you to build your most powerful network. Join us!
Boston • Atlanta • New York • Seattle • San Francisco
• Los Angeles
Founders, we're creating spaces for you to build your most powerful network. Join us!
Boston • Atlanta • New York • Seattle • San Francisco
• Los Angeles
The Female Founders Alliance Access Tour is designed to help founders move their business forward by fostering meaningful connections with the people and organizations that are most difficult to access for underrepresented founders.
Through a combination of panels, 1:1
coaching, founder AMAs, and facilitated networking, our guest speakers and coaches will meaningfully support founders in their area of business expertise. Founders will leave with new connections and newfound wisdom in an area of their business.
Sample program:
*Workshop: How to Navigate the Fundraising Process
*Founder Ask Me Anything (AMA): with founders who have bootstrapped, raised angel, or venture capital
*Panel with investors located in the region
*Keynote with influencer from the city
*1:1 meetings with investors and other influentials
Farah Allen, CEO and founder of The Labz, created a collaborative workspace that provides automated tracking, rights management, protection—using Blockchain technology—of your music files during and after you create them. As an IT management consultant, Farah has been developing software solutions for 14 years; she specializes in Enterprise Collaboration and Data Management.
Nilanjana brings a rigorous focus on B2B tech to her role as Converge Founder & General Partner drawing on her 23 years as a venture capitalist, investment banker and operating executive.
Prior to founding Converge, Nilanjana was a General Partner at Longworth Venture Partners where she led the firm’s investments in enterprise tech. Always on the hunt for the bleeding edge, her investments span big data, advanced analytics, storage, software defined networking, cybersecurity and cloud dev-ops. In addition to her current board responsibilities, prior investments and portfolio involvements at Longworth include Stitch (acquired by Talend), Jibe (acquired by iCIMS), Trackvia (acquired by Primus), Symform (acquired by Quantum), Viewfinity (acquired by CyberArk), VKernel (acquired by Quest), Softricity (acquired by Microsoft), and Thor Technologies (acquired by Oracle). As an investment banker at Broadview (now Jefferies), Nilanjana led the bank’s research publications of market maps on middleware, application and security software, and honed her ability to assess emerging tech markets with massive potential. She executed numerous M&A transactions of leading enterprise tech companies. After publishing her graduate dissertation on object-oriented class libraries, Nilanjana was recruited to Object Design Inc., the leading object-oriented database and INC 500, #1 private Company in 1994. There she held several positions through the company’s fast growth from venture-backed to IPO. She ran the professional services organization for the Americas, and delivered one-third of the company’s annual revenues.
Nilanjana received her B.Eng. in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology, her M.S. in Computer Science from University of South Carolina, and her MBA from INSEAD.
Laser focused on the long game, Nilanjana is a distance runner and her portfolio CEOs’ first call, be it at midnight or 6AM.
Bobbie Carlton, founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights and Innovation Women, has been called Boston’s Innovation Den Mother, and the Startup Fairy Godmother. She’s an award-winning marketing, PR and social media professional with a soft spot for the under-served and under-represented in the high-tech community. She speaks regularly on PR, social media, community building, product launches, public speaking and women’s issues.
Previously, in addition to working with a number of Boston-area PR and marketing firms, she headed global PR at Cognos and PTC, both publicly-held enterprise software companies. In 2006 she switched gears, joining a startup focused on supporting self-esteem and positive role models for preteen girls through a social network and book series.
In 2010 she was named one of the “Ten Bostonians who have done the most for the startup community”, and in 2011 she was a recipient of a Mass High Tech All-star award. In 2015 she was named a Boston Business Journal Woman to Watch. PR News called her a Gamechanger in 2017.
Bobbie featured in articles/interviews
Follow Bobbie on Twitter as @BobbieC @MassInno @WomenInno or @CarltonPRM
Jasmine Crowe is an award-winning social entrepreneur who is working to make the world a better place one cause at a time. Jasmine’s goal is to foster change and create awareness about the leading socioeconomic issues and challenges of today, including poverty, food waste, and hunger. In 2017 after years of feeding people experiencing homelessness from her own kitchen, she launched Goodr, a sustainable waste management app that leverages technology to combat hunger. She has been featured on CNBC, Oprah Magazine, Inc., Forbes, Fast Co., NY Times, and was named by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the top 100 influential female founders. Under her direction, Goodr has redirected over two million pounds of surplus food from restaurants, event centers, airports, and businesses to the millions of people who are food insecure. Goodr clients now include SAP, Netflix, Hartsfield Jackson Airport, Georgia World Congress Center, and many more.
20 years of media and marketing experience with in-depth Google knowledge, digital & traditional media experience, and relationships across the industry. Advisor for both performance marketers and brand marketers.
Seasoned travel expert with comprehensive knowledge of industry trends and business drivers with over 12 years travel experience, focused on cruise & hotel.
Thought-leader with proven success in creating national best practices, providing product feedback, and serving as a trusted advisor for my team and clients.
Detail oriented, self motivated and self directed.
Monica Delores Hooks is Executive Director of Atlanta’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative. She is responsible for innovation policy, entrepreneur workforce programs, financial capacity building, as well as entrepreneur retention and development as it pertains to women’s entrepreneurship throughout the City of Atlanta. Ms. Hooks has over 20 years of experience in content marketing and brand management. She built her marketing expertise at Sony Music Entertainment with front line P&L experience in Product Management, International Marketing and Business Affairs roles. At Sony, Ms. Hooks was responsible for brands focused on youth culture and early social media influencers. Since Sony, Ms. Hooks has focused her work on innovative new media, entertainment and technology startups. Her marketing expertise has been applied to projects across all territories including Africa, Canada, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Ms. Hooks is also Founder and CEO of m-oracle LLC d/b/a The Marketing Oracle, a marketing innovation agency offering strategy services and market research products enabled by technology. The Marketing Oracle approach leverages content and social media marketing data to garner partnerships with companies like Reservoir Media, Epic Records, I Am Other, Grand Hustle and William Morris Endeavor; and placements with brands like NBA.TV, Samsung, Playstation, and Disney Interactive. m-oracle LLC is a graduate of the City of Atlanta’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative (WEI) inaugural class and winner of the 2017 Microsoft Innovation Bots and Cognitive Services Award. The Marketing Oracle mission is to connect business, media, technology and culture.
Ms. Hooks received her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in Government where she earned the Dean’s Award. She received her M.B.A. from The Wharton School with concentrations in International Marketing, Finance, and Entrepreneurial Management. She is currently Atlanta Chapter Co-Lead for Black Women Talk Tech and a member of Radcliffe Presbyterian Church in Atlanta GA.
Lucienne (Lucie) Ide, M.D., Ph.D., a healthcare innovator and founder of Rimidi, Inc., brings her diverse experiences in medicine, science, venture capital and technology to transforming the delivery of healthcare. Dr. Ide founded Rimidi with the purpose of improving the health of people living with chronic diseases and the healthcare system as a whole. Prior to starting Rimidi in 2012, Dr. Ide worked as a physicist at the National Security Agency, Raytheon Systems Corporation and Monarch Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. She holds a joint M.D. and Ph.D. (pharmacology) degrees from Emory University, and completed her medical training at the University Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Ide serves on the Steering Committee for the Connected Health Inititive which advocates for health policy reform as it relates to technology adoption and payment models. Dr. Ide was named one of the Most Influcential Women in Health IT by HIMSS in 2020. She also serves as a Trustee of Middlebury College in Vermont. Dr. Ide lives in Atlanta with her husband and their four sons.
Deb Kemper is a partner at Golden Seeds Venture Fund, focused on investing in early stage enterprise B2B and medtech companies. She formerly led the Boston Forum of Golden Seeds, a national angel investor group. Prior to launching Golden Seeds Venture Fund, she built a portfolio of over two dozen early stage investments via Libra Global Partners, LLC.
Previously, Deb was a consultant with McKinsey & Company where she served clients in the energy, utility, electronics, and healthcare sectors. Her functional experience spans manufacturing, product development, operations and strategy. She has provided leadership support to organizations in China, Peru and the United States.
Deb was the founding organizer for TEDxShanghaiWomen in 2012, which was the first TEDxWomen event in mainland China. She speaks at various events on women in leadership and early stage venture investing.
Deb earned her MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College where she was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Cornell University where she graduated With Distinction and was a member of the Varsity Women’s Crew. She repatriated to the United States in 2013, after living in Peru and China for 8 years.
Umama Kibria is passionate about connecting people through fitness. After working out at 400+ gyms and playing recreational sports for 10 years, she founded SweatPack. The app connects people to group workouts and sports leagues.
Umama knows exactly what it takes to build brand-loyalty, traction, and impact. Her clients include Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, Mercedes Benz Stadium, Lululemon, F45 Training, Equinox, LA Fitness, Bumble,and others.
With more than 100K members across her Instagram, Youtube, Twitter and LinkedIn channels @smallandstrong.fit, Umama has connected the health and wellness communities across the nation with her event series, Sweat With US.
She was named to Forbes 30 Under 30, Atlanta Magazine’s Best Fitness Influencer, 11 Alive’s Community Spotlight Leader, and one of the 39 Atlanta Female Leaders to Follow on Social Media by Startup Sisters USA
Ann Leamon is the Chief Operating Officer and a Co-founding Partner of Bella Private Markets, a boutique consulting firm that provides actionable insights for groups involved in private capital markets. Previously, she was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Business School, where she worked with Josh Lerner and Felda Hardymon to redesign and create the material for the Venture Capital and Private Equity class, one of the most over-subscribed offerings in the second-year curriculum. During the same time, Ann served as Director of Communications for Bessemer Venture Partners, a top-tier global venture capital and growth equity investment firm. In this position, she attended the firm’s Investment Committee meetings over a decade, which gave her a thorough applied understanding of the venture capitalists’ perspective. At HBS, she also co-founded and ran the Center for Case Development, designing its offerings and teaching HBS’s case writers their craft. Ann started her career as a forecaster, first in the electric power industry and then for L.L. Bean, the catalog retailer, and had previous experience as a pastry chef and bicycle mechanic.
With an MA in Economics from University of Montana and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars, Ann tries to strike a balance between left- and right-brain thinking. She has judged pitch fests for the Maine Center for Enterprise Development and published poems in such journals as The Lyric and The Barefoot Muse. She has co-authored more than 125 pieces of teaching material for Harvard Business School and, with Josh Lerner and Felda Hardymon, three editions of Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook, along with the textbook, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and the Financing of Entrepreneurship (Wiley, 2012). She bicycles, knits, and writes in Gloucester Massachusetts, the country’s oldest fishing port, with her supportive husband and a squirrel-crazed golden retriever.
Amy Love leads the technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship efforts for Invest Atlanta. She leverages Invest Atlanta resources to support a robust innovation ecosystem where technology companies can launch, scale, and locate in the city, and create tech talent opportunities and community impact so all Atlantans can thrive. Amy has spent the last decade focused on technology-based economic development, most recently at the South Carolina Department of Commerce as the state’s first-ever director of innovation, and at the Georgia Institute of Technology Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), where she grew ATDC’s statewide program to serve technology startups across Georgia. She holds a Masters in PR and Journalism from the University of South Carolina, and a BA in English from Furman University. Amy is a South Carolina Liberty Fellow, part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Jennifer Lum is an entrepreneur, angel investor and startup advisor.
Jennifer co-founded Forge.AI and Adelphic (acquired by Time). She was an early team member at Quattro Wireless (acquired by Apple), m-Qube (acquired by VeriSign) and WebHosting.com (acquired by AT&T). Jennifer previously worked as a management consultant with financial services and technology companies.
Jennifer is an angel investor and an advisor to startups and venture capital firms. She is an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Harvard Business School and she is an advisor to student entrepreneurs at MIT.
Jennifer has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, TechCrunch, and the Boston Globe.
Jessica is an experienced angel investor and advisor to several early-stage companies throughout North America. In addition to her role at MooDoos, she is also member of Boston-area Launchpad Venture Group. Jess’s experience spans many different sectors, including manufacturing, IT, medical devices, and consumer goods. She is an observer or serves on the board for several portfolio companies, including 3Play Media, CPL, KnipBio, and 99Degrees Custom, as well as various non-profits. Jessica holds an M.Ed from Harvard University.
Kathryn Minshew is the CEO & Founder of The Muse, a career platform used by over 75 million people to research companies and careers. In 2018, The Muse was named one of Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World and #3 Most Innovative Company for Enterprise.
Kathryn has spoken at MIT and Harvard, contributed to the WSJ and HBR, and appeared on TODAY and CNN, among others. Kathryn worked on HPV vaccine introduction in Rwanda with the Clinton Health Access Initiative before founding The Muse, and was previously at McKinsey & Company. Her first book, “The New Rules of Work: The Modern Playbook for Navigating Your Career” (Crown Business, April 2017), was a Wall Street Journal national bestseller.
Baiyin Murphy is a Founder and Principal at Pulse Ventures, which focuses on early growth stage, enterprise tech-focused VC that leverages a high conviction and collaborative model of investing in and partnering with entrepreneurs to build emerging market leaders. This was launched with the partners at Ascent Venture Partners. Prior to that she worked at OpenView Venture Partners and ClearSky Power & Technology Fund, both B2B technology investors with a focus on helping companies post-investment. Outside of her work, she focused her efforts on leading Net Impact, a non-profit organization focused on sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility. Baiyin is a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts and on the board of the New England Venture Network (NEVN), a professional networking group of Boston investors.
Susan is a Co-Chair of the new Atlanta chapter actively attracting investors and qualified entrepreneurs within the vibrant metro eco-system. GoldenSeeds is an investment firm that funds early stage women’s led companies. Founded in 2005, GS has invested in over $100 million in technology, health care, consumer products and media.
Golden Seeds is a leading force in focusing on women’s leadership, gender diversity, entrepreneurship, and job creation. Investments are made through its national angel network and venture funds.
Hitha Palepu is a multi-hyphenate – an investor, author, and passionate reader. As CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, she oversees fundraising, partnerships, and strategy for the company’s lead product, RHO-11. She is the author of How To Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip and an investor in 10+ women-founded companies. She shares #5SmartReads every weekday on her Instagram and every weekend via a newsletter, and hosts the podcast 1 Smart Thing to explain the things you wish you knew more about. Hitha also serves on the boards of Youth Represent and Feminist Press. She lives in the Upper West Side with her husband and two boys. When she’s not chasing her kids or reading, you can find her needlepointing, cooking, or sleeping.
If there is one thing Tiffanie Robinson knows, it is how to be a progressive businesswoman and entrepreneur. Her current roles include CEO of Lamp Post Properties, Founder and active Partner at The JumpFund and Board Member at the Hamilton County Board of Education, School Board District 4.
Her main focus right now is on developing Second Story Real Estate Management, an extension of Lamp Post Properties which she founded and serve as president. Second Story is the region’s only full-service commercial real estate organization to specialize in offering comprehensive property management for mixed-use property
Previously, Tiffanie served as Head of Operations for Lamp Post Group from 2013 through 2015. During that time, she founded WayPaver, the talent innovation lab focusing on recruiting and retaining Millennial talent to Chattanooga. In addition, she successfully advocated for Chattanooga to join the global entrepreneurship network, Sandbox.
I believe that data empowers humans: it’s what gives us the ability to solve problems and change the world. With data, we can close gaps and remove boundaries to become more interconnected with each other.
I am a technical and strategic leader with 15+ years of experience and passion for analytics and data-driven decision making, innovation, and proactive guidance for small to mid-sized to Fortune 100 companies across multiple industries (retail, hospitality, healthcare, financials, telecom, insurance). My strong analytical skills span both development and management in numerous segments, including healthcare, software sales (Sales Support and Sales Operations), manufacturing, and government.
I am passionate about calculated risk-taking, data science, fostering an entrepreneurial spirit, leveraging human ingenuity and thought, learning from mistakes to guide strategic thinking, and harnessing data to make better and more competitive business and sales decisions. I am very energetic about team building, mentoring, and inspiring others, and I take great pleasure in the success of others. I pride myself on my grit, tenacity, and drive! My motto is: “If it doesn’t CHALLENGE you, it doesn’t CHANGE you.”
Monique is based in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to joining Mucker, she founded ModernCapital, a community of startup founders and ecosystem partners committed to company building in the Southeast (#BuildInSE).
Earlier in her career, Monique was on the founding team as Head of Investor Relations for Velos Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm in Los Angeles and Singapore. Following her time at Velos, Monique ran programming for the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) Greater Los Angeles, which included Startup Summer, an accelerator for middle and high school students from low-income communities. Most recently, she worked for Core Innovation Capital, a fintech-focused venture capital fund in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Her love for company building began over 10 years ago at TOMS Shoes, where she helped to launch the company’s first pop-up store, supported finance and inventory management for a cross-country Vagabond Tour, and ran a university campus rep program spanning 30 college campuses in 5 states.
Monique holds an interdisciplinary BA in Humanities and Arts from the University of California at Irvine, with a focus on visual media in convergence culture.
Monique can be reached at monique at muckercapital dot com.
Access is designed for founders who have a broad understanding of business fundamentals. We focus our content to give founders an in-depth look into the fundraising process and what it takes to scale a venture-backable company.
We are industry agnostic and our programming is broad enough for companies in all industries to learn. Access is applicable to both B2B and B2C companies.
Different people have slightly varying definitions, but the general consensus is that a company is designed and intended to scale — in other words, to grow its revenue substantially and relatively quickly. We look for companies with large specific addressable markets (generally $2B in annual revenue or larger), and business models that achieve substantial economies of scale (in other words, the relationship between person-hours and revenue is not linear).
25 minutes. Prepare to talk about you and your company in the first 2 minutes (or less) so that you can get the most out of your meeting!
You can use this meeting for mentoring, developing a relationship, and/or receiving feedback on your pitch(deck)/company. We recommend that you know in advance what you want to get out of the meeting.
If you are pitching, please note that this is not a formal pitch for investment. We recommend exchanging contact information if there is a mutual fit. If you’d like feedback on your pitch deck, bring two printouts (full page, black and white recommended).
Please bring business cards, or exchange emails in person as we will not reconnect you with the investor afterward.
