DazzleCon 2017 Speakers
KEYNOTES
CAROL SANFORD, REGENERATIVE BUSINESS LEADER
@CAROLSANFORD
Carol Sanford is the Executive Producer of The Regenerative Business Summit & Prize, Producer and Host Business Second Opinion Podcast & Blog, Multi-award Winning Author of The Regenerative Business: Redesign Work, Cultivate Human Potential, Achieve Extraordinary Outcomes; The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability & Success; The Responsible Entrepreneur: Four Game Changing Archetypes for Founders, Leaders and Impact Investors— 3 books of stories of extraordinary change, working side-by-side with Fortune 100 to new economy leaders; Senior Fellow of Social Innovation, Babson College, Executive in Residence, Babson. Lifetime Achievement Award for Thought-Leadership in Trustworthy Business Behavior; Creator of and Regenerative Change Agent Development Community.
TIFFANY SHLAIN, FILMMAKER
@TIFFANYSHLAIN
Tiffany Shlain is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founder of 50/50 Day. Her new film “50/50: Rethinking the Past, Present & Future of Women + Power” is the launching point for a 50/50 Day, global day of screenings and discussions on the importance of a more gender balanced world. Tiffany’s films and work have received over 80 awards and distinctions including a Disruptive Innovation Award from Tribeca Film Festival and NPR’s list of best commencement speeches. Four of her films have premiered at Sundance, The US State Department selected her films for the The American Film Showcase to represent America at embassies around the world. As a speaker, Tiffany has presented at Harvard, NASA, and was the closing speaker for both TEDWomen and TEDMED. Her original series “The Future Starts Here” has received over 40 million views. While Tiffany loves technology, for the last 7 years, she turns off all screens with her family for what they call their technology shabbat.
SHEEZA SHAH, FOUNDER, UpEFFECT
@SHEEZAAHMAD
Sheeza Shah is the Founder and CEO of UpEffect, a crowdfunding and support platform for companies dedicated to improving lives and the planet. The platform has launched products ranging from solar cookstoves to clean drinking water systems, and from ethical fashion brands to eco-friendly carry bags. Sheeza combines her Computer Science background with her passion for social entrepreneurship to work with revolutionary founders tackling today’s greatest challenges. To date, UpEffect’s enterprise-solution approach and campaign-consultant model led by Sheeza has driven their 100% success rate at securing funding for their campaigns, raising over £160,000 to launch products and impact lives across ten countries.
GABRIELLE MOTOLA, PHOTOGRAPHER
Gabrielle is a versatile photographer, focusing on long-term projects which examine a social element or issue. Gabrielle also guest lectures internationally on photography and film, having studied psychology, film and photography at the University of Miami and the Spéos Institute in Paris.
Her specialism is, however, in photographing people – whether they are aware of her lens or not. Her work, she says, is about creating visual inspiration by translating emotion and thought into imagery.
Gabrielle will be presenting work and insights from her book, "An Equal Difference," which studies how and why Iceland has ranked first for gender equality the past seven years. She'll share how Icelanders conceive of gender equity in business, government and civil society.
Lindsey Murphy, The Fab Lab
Lindsey E. Murphy i s the creator , executive producer , and host of The Fab Lab With Crazy Aunt Lindsey, YouTube’ s #1 kids science web series that takes everyday science concepts and turns them into fabulous DIY projects . Since launching in 2010, the show has garnered partnerships with the likes of Scientific American Magazine, the New York Academy of Sciences , been published in countless family publi cations around the nation and internet, and is beloved by thousands of fans . As a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) advocate and science communicator , she champions accessibility, diversity, and inclusion in education. Lindsey is also the CEO of startup media company, MurphMedia, and a voice with a clear point of view on content, commerce, business development, marketing, and advertising in the digital age.
Mara Zepeda, switchboard
Mara Zepeda is the co-founder and CEO of Switchboard, an online community building platform often described as a non-creepy Craigslist. Mara has spent her entire life working in organizations and higher education at places like Harvard University, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; as a reporter with National Public Radio; and as a board member of arts organizations, neighborhood associations, and her alma mater, Reed College.
Mara graduated with honors from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism with a focus on digital media, and received her B.A. in Russian from Reed. She grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico and loves meeting new people. So get in touch.
JENNifer brandel, Hearken
Jennifer Brandel has been experimenting with media and journalism since the early aughts. In 2011 she founded and produced the award-winning WBEZ’s Curious City series and is taking the model she pioneered there to media organizations via Hearken. The bulk of her reporting experience has been for public media, having reported pieces for WBEZ, NPR, APM, PRI, and playing with fiction on the CBC’s WireTap and Radiotopia’s Love + Radio. Prior to radio, Jennifer started a women’s workout happening called Dance Dance Party Party, managed the 2010 Third Coast International Audio Festival Conference, and worked a variety of odd jobs like psychometric test developer in Montreal, grape picker in Tasmania, ghostwriter for an exotic dancer and the late John Hughes. Her multimedia work has been published in The New York Times and Vice. She is on the advisory board of the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Brandel lives out of a suitcase, but when a dresser is available she prefers it to be in Chicago. Her life collaborator is Aaron Wickenden.
Astrid SCHOLZ, Sphaera
Dr. Astrid J. Scholz is the CEO of Sphaera, a for-purpose tech company dedicated to accelerating the pace of change. By making it easy and rewarding to share, innovate, aggregate, measure, and finance solutions to the big problems of the 21st century, Sphaera and its partners are harnessing the competitive advantage of collaboration. Astrid was previously President of Ecotrust, where Sphaera was incubated in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, the Island Institute and other likeminded organizations. She has served on several advisory bodies for public-private partnerships for conservation and social outcomes, including the State of California’s Marine Life Protection Act Initiative. Astrid is a founding board member of the XXcelerate Fund, a revolving loan fund created for and by women entrepreneurs piloting in her home state of Oregon, USA. She serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations, and is a speaker on social innovation, the business of philanthropy, and the role of technology for change. Astrid holds degrees from the University of St. Andrews, the University of Bristol, and the University of California, Berkeley.
ANIYIA WILLIAMS, FOUNDEr, TINSEL
FOUNDER, BLACK & BROWN FOUNDERS
@OPERAQUEENIE
Aniyia's background is in the arts and tech, with over a decade of training in classical music and opera. She's held roles in marketing, community management, business development and non-profit fundraising. She started Tinsel in 2014, in response to the lack of tech products developed with women in mind. After coming up with the idea of an audio accessory that doubles as a beautiful piece of jewelry, she left her role in marketing at Voxer to pursue it fully.
Alongside building Tinsel, she served as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) with CODE2040 and Google for Entrepreneurs. During this residency, she started Black & Brown Founders and through this organization, she continues to spend time working to provide resources and access to underrepresented founders in tech.
Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman's Deli
What impels a corner delicatessen with less than 10 employees to grow into a community of 10 businesses with over 700 employees and almost 60 million dollars in revenue? What keeps that business consistently in national press for its food, customer service, and radical business practices?
If you asked Ari Weinzweig, CEO of the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, he would tell you that it’s many things and that number one amongst those things is having an inspiration and strategically sound Vision. At Zingerman’s, they teach Visioning to every level of their organization, and use it to define success for events big and small- from opening a new business, to planning a wedding, to getting a new dishwasher for the office.
Join us for a conversation with Ari. Ari will tell you why he thinks Visioning is key, how they define Visioning at Zingerman’s, and how they use it to get to greatness. You’ll leave with a “recipe” for writing your own Vision and itching to define your version of greatness.
Ahmed Kabil, the long now foundation
Ahmed Kabil is Editor at The Long Now Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. Prior to Long Now, Ahmed was Head of Video at Timeline, a media startup providing historical context to the news. He also helped launch GoPop, a platform for visual conversation (acquired by BuzzFeed), and Zeega, a pioneering web platform that anticipated the next generation of interactive, multimedia communication.
Ahmed was part of the inaugural class of entrepreneurs at Matter, a startup-accelerator for media innovation. He was a Fellow at metaLAB (at) Harvard, an idea foundry, knowledge-design lab, and production studio experimenting in the networked arts and humanities. He received his B.A. in History from Reed College. Ahmed grew up in Texas and Egypt, but these days prefers the cooler climes of California.
MONEY
STEPHEN GREEN, TOWNSQUARED
Stephen is a recovering banker & venture capitalist. He got the entrepreneurial itch early on, starting his first business as a junior in college. His career has been spent in finance in Portland, Oregon helping firms big and small figure out the stuff they don’t know, that they don’t know. PitchBlack is a pitch competition he started in 2015 to highlight black founders in regions across the country. Spreadsheets are his super power and sneakers are his kryptonite.
>He serves on a number of boards & commissions including the Oregon Growth Board & the Oregon Small Business Advisory Cabinet.
ARLAN HAMILTON, FOUNDER + MANAGING PARTNER, BACKSTAGE CAPITAL
@ARLANWASHERE
Arlan is an emerging venture capital fund manager, and tour manager to Atlantic Records recording artist Janine & The Mixtape. Having founded and published the internationally distributed indie magazine INTERLUDE, and toured extensively as a live music production professional, she enters the venture investing world from an unconventional path. Arlan is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are of color, women, and/or LGBT. When she’s not writing about herself in the 3rd person, she enjoys yelling at teenagers from her porch, writing the ‘L Word’ fanfic twitter page @ModernLWord, and watching the hell out of some ‘General Hospital.’
Julianne ZIMMERMAN, Reinventure capital
Julianne started her professional life as an aspiring astronaut with degrees in aero / astro engineering from MIT and University of Maryland. Over 14 years, her first career included multiple “firsts” and professional honors, including being a finalist twice in the NASA astronaut selection process. Continuing her dedication to deploying technologies serving the greater good, she turned to her second career; this time as an entrepreneur. As a co-founder, advisor, consultant, mentor and board member, she has guided startup and established companies to reinvent and innovate in varied industries, including telecom, healthcare, defense, power, and social services. At the outset of her third career, still putting technology to work for the greater good, she co-founded a seed-stage venture practice in which she made four investments circa 2013/2014; all four companies are still alive and thriving. She is now Founder and Managing Director of Reinventure Capital which is raising a $50M fund to invest in companies led by women and people of color, to deliver both social impact and financial return. Deeply committed to the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, Julianne has spent more than a decade cultivating the community in the US and internationally, and frequently speaks on a variety of related subjects. She also teaches Innovative Social Enterprises at Tufts University, mentors through the MIT Venture Mentoring Service, and serves as a judge for the MIT$100k, Tufts $100k, MassChallenge, and other competitions.
Martina Welkhoff, convenevr
Martina is a serial entrepreneur who launched her latest venture, ConveneVR, a virtual reality special event production studio, in early 2017. Moreover, she is a founding partner of Women in XR, a venture fund focused on women-led companies in virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Prior to ConveneVR, Martina was the CEO and cofounder of Zealyst, a mobile gaming app that strategically connected employees, which was acquired by the University of Washington. Martina is the board president of Seattle Women in Tech, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, a board member of Seattle Angel, and a Venture Partner at Jump Canon Ventures.
Chloe Sladden, #angels
Chloe advises start-ups, invests in early stage companies, and is a board member at Gannett (NYSE: GCI, publisher of USA Today and over 100 local media organizations). As a founding partner of #Angels, she seeks out teams and products that can have disproportionate impact. Some of her investments include Color Genomics, eero, Mystro, Prefer and uBeam.
At Twitter (2009-2014), she built media partnerships and strategy from the ground up, and oversaw Twitter’s growth from a few dozen celebrities and journalists to daily participation by tens of thousands of the world’s most high profile individuals and media companies. She was responsible for the quality of Twitter’s content across news, music, TV, sports and politics and ensured Twitter was indelibly woven into traditional and new media. By 2013, Twitter was integrated on-air in over 60% of primetime programming across top-rated networks. In 2015, Twitter won an Emmy for innovation in TV engagement.
JENNY KASSAN, SECURITIES ATTORNEY
@JENNYKASSAN
Jenny has over two decades of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-
driven enterprises. She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-
aligned investors and raised over one million dollars for her own businesses. Jenny is
certified as a coach by the International Association of Women in Coaching. Jenny co-founded the Force for Good Fund, which invests in best for the world companies led by women and people of color. She is the author of the forthcoming Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul (Berrett-Koehler, October 2017). Jenny earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and a masters degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. Jenny Kassan Consulting is a certified B Corp and member of 1% for the Planet.
Delilah Panio, Fortuna funding
As the founder of Fortuna, Delilah is passionate about helping women build their dream companies and achieve economic independence through entrepreneurship. Through HER one-on-one consulting and soon to be launched online courses, Delilah works with clients on their business and funding strategy to get investor-ready.
she is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of We Are Enough, a non-profit that educates women on why and how to invest in women-owned businesses and/or with a gender lens.
Delilah is very active in the LA entrepreneur community, including as a frequent speaker and pitch coach for organizations such as the Women Founders Network. she is the former Co-Chair of Women in LAVA (Los Angeles Venture Association), and was the L.A. Lead for SheEO's 2016 Radical Generosity program, an innovative new model funding model that calls upon women to commit $1,000 each into a perpetual fund to invest in women-led ventures.
Natalia OBERTI NOGUERA, Pipeline Angels
Dubbed "The Coach" by Marie Claire, Natalia (aka Ms. Oberti Noguera) is Founder & CEO of Pipeline Angels. Pipeline Angels is changing the face of angel investing and creating capital for women and non-binary femme social entrepreneurs. Natalia is also Creator & Host of Pitch Makeover, a podcast on pitching and investing that spotlights startups launched by women, non-binary people, and men of color. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature & Economics from Yale, as well as an MA in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. Natalia serves on the boards of Walker's Legacy, Women 2.0, and iRelaunch.
Inc. Magazine selected Natalia as one of "The Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs of 2016," Latina.com included her in their list of "25 Latinas Who Shine in Tech," and Women's eNews recognized her as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century for 2012. StartOut, a network of LGBTQ entrepreneurs, honored Natalia with the 2017 Nixon Peabody Trailblazer Award, "recognizing an entrepreneur whose pioneering approach or vision has set a trend for an entire industry."
Jon Sotsky, Knight foundation
Jon Sotsky is a champion for data-driven strategy in the social sector. He has worked with dozens of companies, funders and social enterprises to increase their impact through research, evaluation and strategic planning. Presently, Jon serves as the Director of Strategy & Assessment at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a private foundation supporting civic innovation, journalism and the arts. He had led research concerning the civic tech landscape, voting and public engagement, and local journalism. Jon previously was a consultant at Mission Measurement where he advised Fortune 500 companies, national foundations and nonprofits on social impact strategy and measurement. Prior to that, Jon worked at IBM as a business services consultant in their media practice. He serves on the boards of DataKind, an organization harnessing data science for good, and Media Impact Funders. Jon graduated from Cornell University with a degree in applied economics.
Penelope Douglas has spent the past two decades as a social entrepreneur, pioneer in community development investment, co-founder and CEO of Pacific Community Ventures, and Chair of the Board of Mission HUB LLC and SOCAP. Her earlier career was in a succession of executive management and operating positions at Wells Fargo Bank, the law firm Morrison & Foerster, and the consumer products company Odwalla. Most recently, she has been developing CultureBank, an initiative to foster a new investment paradigm for community investment, and serves as its Director. CultureBank has been incubated at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Throughout her career, Penelope has been committed to building bridges across banking, community development finance, social enterprise, impact investing, and the arts. She has served as Strategic Advisor to RSF Social Finance and is a Visiting Scholar at Federal Reserve Bank Community Development Division. Penelope is an appointed Director of the Board of Opportunity Finance Network. She is a Director of New Resource Bank; she also is on the Board of Startgrid, a technology platform for innovation networks.
Aner Ben-Ami, CANDIDE GROUP
Aner is Managing Director at Candide Group where he provides high-touch support for clients with a deep commitment to social and environmental justice values. As an investor, Aner actively champions alternatives to the VC model, and has led multiple investments using alternative deal terms.
Previously, Aner was a Project Leader with the Boston Consulting Group in Chicago, where he advised clients in the energy and transportation sectors on a wide range of strategic challenges and opportunities. Earlier in his career, he worked at Israel’s leading project finance and strategy consultancy.
Aner holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BA in Economics and History from Tel Aviv University. He also served as an intelligence officer in the Israeli Defense Forces.
COREY FORD, Matter
Corey Ford is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Matter, a start-up accelerator for entrepreneurs building scalable media ventures that create a more informed, empathetic, and inclusive society. Matter invests seed capital and provides intensive support through a human-centered, prototype-driven start-up accelerator in San Francisco. Prior to Matter, Corey built Runway, a pre-team, pre-idea incubator forentrepreneurs at Innovation Endeavors. He also taught design thinkinginnovation at the Institute of Design at Stanford University, also knownas the d.school. Corey began his career in public broadcasting managingthe production of 17 films for the PBS/WGBH series FRONTLINE, winningan Emmy and a duPont-Columbia Gold Baton Award. He earned an MBA at Stanford and was a Morehead Scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Derek razo, Purpose economy
Derek Razo is an entrepreneur, investor and facilitator with a passion for social change. He is a cofounder and partner at Purpose Ventures, an investment firm and think tank which helps companies stay independent and mission driven for the long term. Purpose is organising entrepreneurs, investors and legal practitioners to create new and better standards for governing and financing companies.
Previously, Derek worked with the the world's largest NGOs to pioneer new models for funding innovation, and helped build technology products used in democratic uprisings and grassroots efforts around the world.
CULTURE & ETHICS
JENN ARMBRUST, SISTER
@FEMININEIST
JENNIFER ARMBRUST is the founder and director of Sister. She cultivates teaching and tools for the feminine economy, practices embodied business, and runs Feminist Business School. Her work explores the collisions and collusions of art, business, gender, embodiment and economics.
Formerly the owner and director of a fine art gallery, founding partner of an online arts magazine, managing director of an arts nonprofit, and principal of a small design studio, Armbrust has long been interested in the intersections of business and art and more recently, business as art.
She holds a degree in Critical Theory from The Evergreen State College with continuing studies in small business administration (Portland Community College), interactive design (Pacific Northwest College of Art), and healing arts (Lotus Lantern Healing Arts). She lives in Topanga Canyon, California, where she is lovingly devoted to surfing 3-foot right point breaks, while dreaming of the elusive left.
Jerry Michalski
Jerry Michalski is the founder of REX, the Relationship Economy eXpedition, a private, collaborative inquiry into the next economy. More broadly, he is a pattern finder, lateral thinker, connector and facilitator. He loves public speaking, is two degrees from Kevin Bacon (took an urban design course from Kevin’s Father, Ed) and has a unique claim: the world’s largest published Brain (online and in an iOS app).
Three decades of exploration into the interactions between technology, society and business made him realize the word “consumer” made him itch. Paying attention to the word gifted him the thesis that we are entering a Relationship Economy: We are rediscovering trust, interdependence and meaning through movements as varied as open source software, pattern languages, the sharing economy, microfinance, unschooling, traffic calming and workplace democracy.
VANESSA ROANHORSE, ROANHORSE CONSULTING
@VRROANHORSE
Vanessa is an inclusive solutions-driven problem solver committed to empowering all peoples and delivering impactful mechanisms for social, environmental and economic change. She launched her company Roanhorse Consulting in order work with unheralded populations to achieve and aspire their self-determination through forging communities of practice, creating equity through entrepreneurship, and encouraging economic empowerment from within. Vanessa works with Indigenous founders and founders focused on Indigenous solutions to access resources. Current projects are Cultivating Coders, Changing Woman Initiative, Native Women Business Summit and the Small Business Resource Collaborative. Before moving back to the four corners area, Vanessa was the Senior Manager at an environmental non-profit, Delta Institute, overseeing their energy efficiency, green infrastructure and community engagement portfolio throughout the Great Lakes Region. She is a big fan of tacos, specifically Al Pastor tacos and is a Chicago Bulls fan for life.
TODD KHOZEIN, MANAGING PARTNER, SECONDMUSE
Todd Khozein, a pioneer in systems innovation based on biological models, is a managing partner at the innovation and collaboration agency SecondMuse. At SecondMuse, Khozein has founded initiatives such as Random Hacks of Kindness (in collaboration with Google, Microsoft, HP, NASA, the World Bank and Yahoo!), and LAUNCH (a collaboration with U.S. Department of State, NASA, USAID, Nike and IKEA).
Khozein’s interests lie in creating collaborative frameworks in which incentive structures, technologies, and human resource development initiatives align to enable innovation across hierarchies. He holds MD and BA degrees from the University of New Mexico.
JILL FELDSTEIN, Penn Center for Community Health Workers
Jill Feldstein is Chief Operating Officer of the Penn Center for Community Health Workers, which works to improve health in high-risk populations through the effective use of Community Health Workers (CHWs). More than 5,000 individuals have received IMPaCT, the Center’s evidence-based CHW intervention which improves patients’ post-hospital primary care access, mental health, and chronic disease control while reducing hospital admissions. While serving as the Center’s inaugural director, Jill quadrupled the program’s reach and expanded to new locations. In her current role, she helps other healthcare organizations build effective, sustainable CHW programs. Previously, Jill led policy efforts at the local, state and federal levels to increase access to affordable housing and education. Jill first learned about the effectiveness of community health workers as a Fulbright Scholar in Peru, where she evaluated a CHW program to reduce maternal mortality. She earned her Master's degree in Public Affairs from Princeton University and her Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
JAKE shAPIRO, Matter ventures
Mr. Jake Shapiro serves as the Founding Partner and Advisory Board Chairman at Matter. Mr. Shapiro is the founding Chief Executive Officer and served as Executive Director at Public Radio Exchange. He is an advisor to a variety of media organizations, funders, and internet startups. Mr. Shapiro served as a Member of Board of Advisor of StyleFeeder, Inc. He served as Board member of Open Source Media. Mr. Shapiro is a Fellow and former Associate Director of Harvard Law's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He is an Ashoka Fellow.
FOUNDERS
TARA REED, FOUNDER, APPS WITHOUT CODE
@TARAREED_
As a non-technical founder, Tara Reed built Kollecto’s app without writing a single line of code. Tara frequently blogs about how to ‘build without code’ and has inspired hundreds of non-technical to founders to launch their own apps, using what she calls a ‘code-free toolkit’.
Tara Reed is a Detroit based entrepreneur & the CEO of fast-growing startup, Kollecto. Prior to launching Kollecto, Tara drove software marketing initiatives at Google, Foursquare, & Microsoft.
LUKE KANIES, fOUNDER, PUPPET
@PUPPETMASTRD
Luke Kanies is a design and strategy-oriented entrepreneur, speaker, advisor, and writer. He’s researching how to build better companies, especially in unfundable markets targeted by unfundable people. He’s interested in software productivity, business strategy, new startup funding models, improving entrepreneurs, and including more people in the software revolution
FRIDAY SESSION
Michael Giotis, Booming collective
MICHAEL GIOTIS IS CO-EXECUTIVE MEMBER OF BOOMING COLLECTIVE—THE EDUCATIONAL CORE OF THE BOOMINGROUP ECOSYSTEM OF HEART-POWERED COMPANIES—AND THE ORGANIZER OF THE NORTH BAY MAKE-A-THON, AN ALL AGES, MULTI-SKILL LEVEL, MAKER PROJECT-GRIND THAT BRINGS TOGETHER PASSIONATE YOUNG MAKERS WITH PIONEERS IN THE MAKER COMMUNITY. AS A SOCIAL-ARCHITECT-FOR-HIRE, HE DESIGNS CUSTOM GAME WORKSHOPS THAT HELP ORGANIZATIONS SOLVE COMPLEX PROBLEMS. HE WAS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SOCO NEXUS, A CALIFORNIA INNOVATION HUB WHICH INCUBATED COHORTS OF 40 COMPANIES IN A 30,000 SQ FT SPACE THAT INCLUDED MEDICAL DEVICE TESTING AND PROTOTYPING LABS. HE IS THE FOUNDER OF BIG.LY, AN APP IN DEVELOPMENT THAT TEACHES CRITICAL THINKING TO PRIMARY AGED CHILDREN THROUGH GAME PLAY.
WITH DEGREES IN CRITICAL THEORY AND SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE, MICHAEL SPEAKS ON TOPICS LIKE ‘NEEDS DRIVEN PRODUCT DESIGN’ AND ‘HUMAN SCALE DEVELOPMENT.’ AT HOME, HE PLAYS MUSIC AND BOARD GAMES WITH HIS TWO SONS, WASHES A LOT OF DISHES, AND WRITES LOVE POEMS TO HIS SPECIAL LADY FRIEND. HE AND HIS FAMILY LIVE IN PETALUMA, CA.
Loren Hadassah, Boomingroup
At 16 Loren Hadassah began working within the non-profit sector. She went on to become a professional organizer focused on protecting the environment and issues of social justice. After years of fighting against what does not work, Loren realized her desire to place more attention on healing and creating and cultivating a positive future. With this in mind she began her graduate studies in Somatic Psychology and has been in private practice since 2010.
Today Loren is combining her passions for social change and personal growth as Co-Executive Member and Program Architect of Booming Collective – the educational core of the Booming Ecosystem of Heart Powered Companies. She is dedicated to building this business greenhouse and community of purpose driven go-getters. She facilitates ongoing groups in the Booming Model, a strategic approach to building values-based businesses through personal development and business acumen.
Katherine Silveira, BoominGroup
Strategist. Advocate. Igniter. Katherine is a practical dreamer, passionate about helping people articulate and realize their vision through the discipline of business. Katherine founded BoominGroup to create a space for fellow practical dreamers to join forces and take action in building a new, generative model of business together.
She started her first profitable business at 16. Drawing on her extensive experience as an entrepreneur and international banker, and her curiosity for human development and the role of them in business, Katherine dedicates her time to collaborate with business owners to construct sustainable and profitable business models and organizational structures embedding the aspect of human development in the needy greedy of the day-to-day of business practices.
She has partnered with 50+ entrepreneurs globally, helping to develop and implement strategic plans and manage projects to completion. When she is not architecting businesses, you can find her on the soccer field, studying the human brain, in the kitchen cooking up a storm, or playing somewhere in the great outdoors.