Deborah Adler Deborah Adler LLC
Katie Armour Matchbook Magazine
Malene Barnett Malene b
Ayah Bdeir littleBits
Jen Bekman Jen Bekman Gallery, Hey Hot Shot! and 20×200
Doni Belau Girls’ Guide to Paris
Red Burns Chief Collaborations Officer, ITP, NYU
Lindsay Campbell Bright Red Pixels
Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D.Dean, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Sara Chipps Girl Develop It
Nina Darnton Moderator, Art Makers
Anne Dwane Zinch.com
Shana Fisher High Line Venture Partners
Allison Floam TheFix.com
Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan Apartment Therapy: The Kitchn
Janet Hanson Moderator, Investors Panel
Jessica Harris Moderator, Change Makers
Nancy Hechinger Festival Co-Chair, ITP Faculty
Amanda Hesser Food52
Jennifer House Red Rock Reports
Arianna Huffington Huffington Post
Jennifer Hyman Rent the Runway
Sarah Elizabeth Ippel Academy for Global Citizenship
Joanne Lang AboutOne.com
Caren Maio Nestio
Joy Marcus DFJ Gotham Ventures
Emily McKhann The Motherhood
Tereza Nemessanyi Honestly Now
Erin Newkirk Red Stamp
Rie Norregaard Omhu
Emily Olson Foodzie
Barbara Pantuso Hey, Neighbor!
Despina Papadopoulos Moderator, Makers
Nancy Peretsman Allen & Company
Diana Rhoten Moderator, Knowledge Makers
Britta Riley Windowfarms
Hilary Rosenman Madison Harding
Pooja Nath Sankar Piazza
Elena Silenok Clothia.com
Rachel Sklar Moderator, Taste Makers
Chris Tardio Moderator, Community Makers
Sarah Tavel Bessemer Venture Partners
Edwina von Gal Azuero Earth Project
Jane Wells 3 Generations
Joanne Wilson Festival Co-Chair, Gotham Gal
Kathleen Wilson Rikaroo
Deborah Adler
Motivated by a desire to make lives easier and safer, Adler delivers new directions in products, packaging, identity and information systems through her multi-disciplinary design studio. Always at the heart of her work is the belief that design can change people’s behavior. Her studio innovates their own projects as well as pioneers design solutions for clients such as Medline Industries and Johnson and Johnson. Prior to forming her firm, she designed a comprehensive system for packaging prescription medicine, which resulted in a completely reinvented pharmacy experience. She brought this innovation to Target, and together they developed the ClearRx system. Adler worked closely with Milton Glaser for five years as his senior designer. She has been featured in New York Magazine, Glamour Magazine, NBC Nightly News, and her work is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Katie Armour
Katie Armour is the Co-Founder and Editorial Director of Matchbook Magazine. She grew up on California’s central coast. After studying Art History at Franklin College of Switzerland, she worked in high-end residential interior design in San Francisco and New York. Her design blog, The Neo-Traditionalist, has been recognized by The San Francisco Chronicle, Glamour Magazine, Refinery29 and others. She currently resides in San Francisco’s East Bay with her husband and two pugs.
Malene Barnett
Malene b is built around the authentic image and talent of its principal designer, Malene Barnett. Malene b is a Brooklyn, NY based carpet designer with a multi-disciplinary background in textile arts, painting and illustration. Her unique carpets, inspired by her international travels, boldly interpret cultural icons, landscapes and rituals in an entirely fresh and personal way. Malene’s passion for all things cultural stems from world travels to places like Dakar, Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur as well as her African-Caribbean heritage. She personally designs each carpet to fit perfectly into your residential, commercial or hospitality environment. Her signature style incorporates the use of three dimensional hand sculpting techniques resulting in varied surfaces, pile heights and textures.
For more than a decade, Malene b has been creating carpets for industry professionals and private label brands. Now, with the launch of her own company, Malene b, her collection’s are showcased in showrooms across the US and Canada. In addition, her work has been featured in several national and international magazines such as Interior Design, New York Magazine and Hospitality Design. It is important for Malene b to be socially conscious in all her endeavors. To that end, she proudly supports Goodweave and Aid to Artisans in their quest to eliminate child labor practices, provide education and preserve handmade crafts in Africa, Asia and South America.
Ayah Bdeir
Ayah Bdeir is an engineer and interactive artist who does not believe in boundaries set by disciplines or cultures. With an upbringing between Lebanon, Canada and the US, Bdeir’s work uses experimental tools to look at deliberate and subconscious representations of identity.
Bdeir received her masters degree from the MIT Media Lab and undergraduate degrees in Computer Engineering and Sociology from the American University of Beirut. Her work has been exhibited at MoMA (New York) and is part of the museum’s collection. Other exhibitions include her first solo show “Identities in Motion” which occurred in September of 2009 at the Peacock Visual Arts gallery in Scotland, as well as the New Museum (New York), Ars Electronica (Linz), the Royal College of Art (RCA, London) and Location One (New York). Bdeir has been featured in the New York Times Magazine (2011), Elle Oriental (2010), Art Asia Pacific (2009), among others.
In 2008, Bdeir was awarded a fellowship at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center and taught graduate classes at NYU and Parsons. She has lectured extensively and taught numerous workshops to get non-engineers, and particularly young girls, interested in science and technology. Bdeir was a mentor in the regional reality tv-show Stars of Science (initiated by Qatar Foundation) promoting science and technology innovation in the Middle East.
In 2010, Bdeir was granted a fellowship with Creative Commons in recognition of her work, including spearheading the first Open Hardware definition and co-chairing the Open Hardware Summit at the New York Hall of Science in September of 2010 and 2011. Just recently, Bdeir was selected as one of 25 innovators in the world and received the highly prestigious TED Fellowship for 2012.
Bdeir is the creator of littleBits, an award winning kit of pre-assembled circuits that snap together with tiny magnets, now in production. She is also the founder of Karaj, Beirut’s lab for experimental art, architecture and technology.
Jen Bekman
Jen Bekman is a New York City gallerist, entrepreneur and writer. After building a successful internet career with companies including New York Online, Netscape, Disney and Meetup, Jen turned her internet experience and fresh perspective on to the art world. She is the founder of Jen Bekman Projects which encompasses three ventures: her eponymous gallery in NYC (est. 2003), Hey, Hot Shot!, a photography competition (est. 2005), and the pioneering e-commerce fine art print site, 20×200 (est. 2007). 20×200′s launch was entirely bootstrapped, and it quickly grew into a profitable, million dollar business. This early success attracted the attention of the venture capital community, resulting in an investment of $2.9M, led by True Ventures.
Jen was named one of Forbes.com’s Top Ten Female Entrepreneurs to Watch, as well as Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology, and she has been profiled by The New York Times, TechCrunch and American Express OPEN forum: Small Business Rules, among others. The founding editor of the design blog Unbeige and her blog, Personism, Jen maintains an active presence on both Twitter (@jenbee) and Tumblr (at jenbee.tumblr.com).
Doni Belau
Doni Belau launched Girls’ Guide to Paris www.girlsguidetoparis.com in September of 2009, a travel website about everything Paris. Before the travel business overtook her life, she was for a fundraiser, an activist, and a political and not-for-profit consultant.
In 2006 Doni encouraged her young friend Whitney Johnson to start Ubuntu Africa and together they conceived of an organization that would help, assist and empower children and young adults who have HIV/AIDS in South Africa. www.ubafrica.org
Previous to her not for profit and political work, Ms. Belau worked professionally in media and advertising, producing television commercials for approximately 8 years.
She has taught at the Women’s Campaign School at Yale and currently serves as a Democratic district leader in Bedford, NY. She was a former board member of Riverkeeper, a not for profit environmental group and currently is a board member and co-founder of Ubuntu Africa.
Doni Belau grew up in the small town of Fremont, Nebraska. She is married and has two children in college. She attended UCLA and she divides her time between Bedford Corners, New York, her house near Bordeaux and Paris, her favorite city.
Red Burns
Red Burns is the Founder and new Chief Collaborations Officer of the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She was named Tokyo Broadcasting System Chair in 1997.Most recently, Professor Burns received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Canadian New Media and was an honoree at the Exploratorium’s 32nd Annual Awards Dinner honoring Women in Science. In 2005 she was added to the New York Women in Communications, Inc. Matrix Hall of Fame, In 2004, she was honored with a Distinguished Leadership Award for achievement in technology from the New York Hall of Science and in 2002 was a recipient of the Chrysler Design Award. In addition, she has received a number of other awards including the 1997 Matrix Award (the first in the “New Media” category), and in 1998, the Crain’s All-Stars Educator’s Award, and the Mayor of New York’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology. She was also inducted into the Art Director Club’s Hall of Fame in 1998 with the “Special Educator’s Award.” She has been listed on Richard Saul Wurman’s “Who’s Really Who 1000, The Most Creative Individuals in the USA 2002.” “Crain’s” cited her as one of the “Top 100 People Who Will Shape New York.” Interactive Week picked her as one of the “Top 25 Influential People on the Net,” and she was named one of Newsweek’s “50 for the Future,” New York Magazine’s “New York Cyber Sixty,” Silicon Alley’s 100 and “Crain’s New York Business” listed her both as one of the 100 top leaders of New York’s economy, as well as one of the top 100 most influential women in business.Professor Burns serves as a board member for the Charles Revson Foundation, and has served on the boards of The Art Director’s Club and Creative Capital. She has served on “Seminars on Science,” a program of The National Center for Science, Literacy, and Technology, which is part of the American Museum of National History Advisory Board, and has been a mentor to the Ross School in East Hampton, New York. She is also an education advisor to the New Museum of Contemporary Art.Professor Burns has served on the New York Times Digital Company Advisory Board, IVREA Institute (Italy), The Visual Media Task Force, The Convergent Media Group, Electronic Neighborhood, and ProBono.net Boards. She was a founding member of the Media Lab Europe Board and the Board of Directors of the New York New Media Association (NYNMA).Red Burns has served as a juror for the On-Line Journalism Awards, the National Magazine Awards, and the Webby Awards. Most recently she served on The National Design Awards, The Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowship Panel, as a juror for the Creative Capital Grants, as well as The American Institute of Graphic Arts “365: AIGA Annual Design Competitions.”During the 1970′s, as head of NYU’s Alternate Media Center, she designed and directed a series of telecommunications projects including two-way television for and by senior citizens, telecommunications applications to serve the developmentally disabled, and one of the first Teletext field trials in the United States (at WETA in Washington, D.C.). She also created a CD-ROM on chaos theory.This innovative research center set the stage for the creation of the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU in 1979. She continues to research and teach, and was the Principal Investigator on two major research projects, funded by Intel and Microsoft.
Lindsay Campbell
Lindsay Campbell is probably best known for her pioneering work co-creating, hosting and producing the humorous financial web series Wallstrip (which was acquired by CBS in 2007) and for co-creating the Webby-nominated news and politics web series MobLogic shortly thereafter. So deeply did Lindsay fall in love with web video that she’s continued to work almost exclusively in the medium, telling stories online with companies like American Express, Next New Networks, AOL (on the experimental online “morning show” Daybreak) and, most recently, Business Insider. Lindsay’s web video production company, Bright Red Pixels, is based in NYC and makes multi-platform video for CBS, Credit Suisse and hopefully someday for you. Lindsay herself is based in Los Angeles where she spends her weekends trying to make her unwilling toddler the world’s youngest pro-surfer.
Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D.
Mary Schmidt Campbell was appointed Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts in 1991.
Under her stewardship as Dean, the Tisch School has tripled the number of applications it receives, cut its acceptance rate in half, and increased the percentage of under-represented students studying there. She has initiated major renovations of the School’s film facilities; inaugurated new programs in Art and Public Policy, Film Preservation and Archiving, and Recorded Music; and is currently leading the School in a $70 million capital campaign to build a new performing arts center in the middle of lower Manhattan’s theater district. As Associate Provost for the Arts at NYU from 2004 to 2007 she provided guidance and leadership in the arts resulting in a multi-school game center. She currently serves as chair of Tisch Asia, the Tisch School’s degree granting program in Singapore.
In September of 2009 Dean Campbell was appointed by President Barack Obama as the Vice Chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities which is a non-partisan advisory committee to the President of the United States on cultural matters.
Previously, she was New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs from 1987-1991 in the Edward I. Koch and David Dinkins administrations. She came to city government after having served as executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem from 1977-87. Prior to that she was guest curator and assistant curator at the Everson Museum of Fine Arts in Syracuse, NY, contributor to the Syracuse New Times and co-founder of the Community Folk Art Center in Syracuse, New York. Dean Campbell was also the Chair of the New York State Council on the Arts from 2007-2009.
She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and sits on the boards of The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival and the Harlem School of the Arts. She holds honorary degrees from The College of New Rochelle, Colgate University, City University of New York, Pace University, Maryland Institute College of Art and Swarthmore College. She has given numerous lectures, authored many papers and articles, and is co-editor of Artistic Citizenship: A Public Voice for the Arts, (New York: Routledge, 2006 and co-author of Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987) and Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare Bearden, 1940-1987 (New York: Oxford University Press & The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1991). She is currently working on a book on Romare Bearden for Oxford University Press, (2011 expected publication date).
Campbell received a B.A. degree in English literature from Swarthmore College, an M.A. in art history from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in humanities, also from Syracuse.
Sara Chipps
Sara Chipps is a JavaScript developer in New York City. She has a focus in browser extensions, organization specific frameworks, and early stage startups. In 2010 she started an organization called Girl Develop It which teaches low cost web development classes geared towards women. Girl Develop It has had over 600 students in New York City, and now has six chapters around the world. She likes speaking to and meeting with diverse groups from the Girl Scouts to straight up code junkies. Her goal is to inspire more females to see that being a developer is fun and glamorous.
Nina Darnton
Nina Darnton is a journalist and author. She has worked as a foreign correspondent, writing stories for The New York Times from Nigeria, Kenya, Poland, Spain and London. She was a Special Correspondent for Newsweek in Warsaw during the Solidarity period from 1979-1982, during which time she also reported for National Public Radio’s “All things Considered.” Back in the States, she wrote on cultural issues for The New York Times, was chief Movie Correspondent for The New York Post and contributed on-air essays to the McNeil Lehrer show. She was a General Editor at Newsweek for 7 years, specializing in covering the fashion industry. Viking published her first novel, “An African Affair” in July and she is currently working on a sequel. A lifelong devotee of the theater, she currently serves on the board of the Rattlestick Theater. Ms. Darnton is married to the journalist and novelist, John Darnton. They have three children and four grandchildren and live in New York City.
Anne Dwane
Anne is CEO of Zinch. At Zinch.com, 3.5 million students have built profiles to be matched with colleges, scholarships, internships, study abroad programs and graduate schools. Over 850 colleges and universities recruit students on Zinch. Zinch was acquired by Chegg in October, 2011. Chegg is a digital ecosystem helping students save time, save money and get smarter.
Prior to Zinch, Anne co-founded Military.com to connect service members and veterans to benefits, including GI Bill and career networking. Military.com, founded in 1999, was acquired by Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) in 2004. At Monster, Anne led several businesses as GM, Affinity Networks. Previously, Anne was in business development at Paul Allen’s Interval Research Corporation in Silicon Valley and in brand management for Nabisco. Anne holds a bachelors degree in Marketing & International Management from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She is a member of the 2010 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute.
Shana Fisher
Shana Fisher is the Managing Partner of High Line Venture Partners, a NY Based venture fund formed in 2011 focused on early stage investments. From December 2003 to June 2010, Ms. Fisher served as IAC’s Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning & Mergers and Acquisitions, and prior to that as the Senior Vice President of Business Operations for IAC. Previously, Ms. Fisher served as Vice President and Director, Media and Technology Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance for Allen & Company, LLC. Prior to Allen & Company, LLC., Ms. Fisher was a program manager for the Microsoft Corporation. Ms. Fisher received her B.A. from Hampshire College with a triple major in Sculpture, Philosophy and Linguistics and attended the Master of Arts program at New York University’s ITP.
Allison Floam
Allison is an entrepreneur who is currently the Co-Founder and President of TheFix.com, the leading addiction and recovery multimedia site launched in March 2011. Previously, she co-founded MicroDialogue, a next-generation market research firm specializing in social media intelligence and analysis. Allison also invented the SunSak, an innovative consumer product which was sold on the QVC shopping network and in other retail channels. She previously worked in Equity Research and Investment Management at Morgan Stanley. Allison holds a B.S. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan
Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan is a food writer based in New York City. She is the founding editor of Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn (www.thekitchn.com), an award-winning cooking website. Published daily since 2005, TheKitchn.com now reaches about two million unique monthly readers. In addition to her online work, she has written and done recipe development work for Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, House Beautiful, O, the Oprah Magazine, and Muscle & Fitness and the Wall Street Journal.
Sara Kate is most recently the author of Good Food to Share: Recipes for Entertaining with Family & Friends (2011) and also The Greyston Bakery Cookbook: More Than 80 Recipes to Inspire the Way You Cook (2007).
Janet Hanson
Widely respected as a leading entrepreneur, Janet Hanson is recognized as a unique voice and champion for women globally. As CEO and Founder of 85 Broads, Janet has built a global network community of 25,000 trailblazing women who want to leverage their best personal and professional relationships to create greater success for themselves and each other.
Launched in 1997, the “founding members” of 85 Broads were women who worked for Goldman Sachs at 85 Broad Street, the firm’s NYC headquarters. Today, students and alumnae of the world’s leading colleges, universities, and graduate schools are invited to join 85 Broads from every corner of the globe and from every possible career path. Together, these women make up the most powerful, intellectually savvy network of women in the world. As a multi-cultural, multi-generational network, 85 Broads members live, work, and study in 82 different countries and work for thousands of for-profit and not-for-profit companies worldwide.
After graduating from Wheaton College and Columbia Business School, Janet joined Goldman Sachs in 1977. In 1986, she became the first woman in the firm’s history to be promoted to sales management. Following her 14-year career at Goldman Sachs, Janet founded Milestone Capital Management, a $2 billion institutional money management company. From 2004 to 2007, Janet was a Managing Director and Senior Adviser to the President of Lehman Brothers.
Janet is a member of the Kellogg Executive Women Steering Committee. She is a member of the Forbes Executive Women’s Board. She is a former member of the Board of Trustees of Wheaton College and a current member of the Board of The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. She is an Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale University and serves on the Advisory Board of The Center for Work-Life Policy’s Hidden Brain Drain Task Force. She has received a number of awards and honors, including an honorary degree from Middlebury College in 2007.
Janet’s greatest passions are her two spectacular children. Meredith is a recent graduate of Wheaton College and Christopher is a junior at Dartmouth College.
Jessica Harris
Jessica is the producer and host of “From Scratch,” a radio show about the entrepreneurial life that airs weekly on NPR (NPR’s podcast, NPR’s Sirius/XM channel, NPR Worldwide, NPR Berlin) www.fromscratchradio.com. The show features interviews with leading business, social, and cultural pioneers. Prior to launching “From Scratch,” Jessica was a documentary filmmaker who produced and directed a critically acclaimed documentary film about WWII, called On Common Ground, that was released widely on DVD and television (PBS). Jessica formerly worked with Woody Allen on his film Sweet and Low Down.
Jessica is a board member of Jacob’s Pillow and the Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School foundation, located in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, and the Civilians Theater Company, located in New York City. Jessica is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Business School. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Jessica lives in New York City with her husband and two children.
Nancy Hechinger
Nancy Hechinger is on the full-time faculty at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program. She has a diverse background in education — including multimedia and film production, the development of interactive museum exhibits, and publishing– and in the strategic uses of information and telecommunication technologies, focusing particularly on how technology might make science more accessible, and also promoting the teaching and learning of essential twenty-first-century skills . She was the founding Director of the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Prior to that she was a founding partner and the Director of Technology for the Edison Project, a private company that manages public schools using a comprehensive new school design with technology at its core. She was on the Senior Design Team of Apple’s Multimedia Lab(1988-1990).She received her B.A. in 1969 from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MFA in Writing (Poetry) in 2009. Her poems have been published in several journals, including, Gargoyle, The MacGuffin, RiverSedge, Salamander and Red Wheelbarrow. A chapbook, Letter to Leonard Cohen, was published in March 2011.
Amanda Hesser
Amanda Hesser has designed a seventeenth-century-style herb garden at a French chateau, developed the Twitter app Plodt, and appeared in Julie & Julia, playing herself. Hesser has been named one of 50 women game-changers in food by Gourmet. She is now the co-founder and CEO of FOOD52.com.
As a longtime staffer at the *New York Times*, Hesser wrote more than 750 stories and was the food editor at the *Times Magazine*. She has written the award-winning books *Cooking for Mr. Latte* and *The Cook and the Gardener*, and edited the essay collection, *Eat, Memory*. Her latest book, a New York Times bestseller and the winner of a James Beard award, is *The Essential New York Times Cookbook*. Hesser lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Tad Friend, and their two children.
Jennifer House, PhD
Dr. Jennifer House, Ph.D. is President of RedRock Reports, an education funding services company. A noted education market leader, Dr. House is a former teacher, reading specialist, school district administrator and educational technology innovator. In addition to heading up the Curriculum Department for the Cupertino Union School District in CA, she also led engineering education and marketing programs for Hewlett-Packard, managed K-12 marketing programs for Apple Computer, held executive positions with Tenth Planet, Classroom Connect, and other leading K-12 organizations. Dr. House also has served on
the Board of Directors for the Software Information Industry Association, the International Society for Technology Education and the Association of Education Publishers.
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is the president and editor-in-chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and
author of thirteen books.
In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely-read, linked to, and
frequently-cited media brands on the Internet.
In 2006, and again in 2011, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.
Huffington has made guest appearances on numerous television shows, including “Charlie Rose,” “Oprah,” “Nightline,” “Real Time with Bill Maher,” “Hardball,” “Good Morning America,” the “Today” show, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” and “The O’Reilly Factor.”
She serves on the board of EL PAÍS and the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Jennifer Hyman
Jennifer Hyman has been the Chief Executive Officer of Rent the Runway since the company’s inception in November 2009. She is responsible for all areas of the business including technology, fashion, sales, marketing, operations, customer service, and team management, while also serving as the company spokesperson. Most well-known within the entrepreneurial and fashion communities for her phenomenal marketing abilities, Jennifer was named as the Chief Marketing Officer of Fortune magazine’s “Executive Dream Team.”
Jennifer co-founded Rent the Runway with her Harvard Business School classmate Jennifer Fleiss. After receiving approximately $31 million in venture capital from Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, they have quickly built the company to include 1.5 million members, over 60 employees and 150 designer brands. Rent the Runway is a members-only online fashion community that builds customer loyalty for designer brands by enabling women to rent dresses and accessories for all the special occasions in their lives. As the “Netflix for fashion,” Rent the Runway encourages women to live the life they dream today.
Within only two years of business Rent the Runway has been honored with numerous recognitions, including Time Magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2010,” Forbes’ “15 Names You Need to Know in 2011,” Fast Company’s “10 Most Innovative Fashion Companies of the Year” and Newsweek’s “Best Ways to Save in 2011.” Additionally, Jennifer and her co-founder were named as Inc. Magazine’s “Top 30 Under 30”, Fashionista’s “Fashionista 50: The Most Influential People in New York Fashion”, and the New York Daily News “Fashion Week Top 20 People Cutting a Bold Figure in New York Fashion.”
Prior to Rent the Runway, Jennifer was the Director of Business Development at IMG where she focused on the creation of new media businesses for IMG’s Fashion Division. She also ran an online advertising sales team at WeddingChannel.com and was an in-house entrepreneur at Starwood Hotels, creating Starwood’s first wedding business which was recognized on the Oprah Winfrey Show for its innovation.
Jennifer received her BA from Harvard University and MBA from Harvard Business School. She currently resides in New York City where she enjoys the entrepreneurial lifestyle, neighborhood restaurants, and socializing with her friends and family.
Sarah Elizabeth Ippel
Sarah Elizabeth Ippel is the Founder and Executive Director of the Academy for Global Citizenship, a Chicago Public Elementary School that opened in 2008, on the city’s underserved Southwest side. AGC’s mission is to empower children to become active global citizens by positively impacting their community and the world beyond.
The Academy for Global Citizenship was founded with an ardent commitment to environmental sustainability and is internationally recognized for its model green school initiatives which include daily organic breakfast and lunch, a 5 kW solar learning laboratory, schoolyard habitat and vegetable garden, rain barrels, composting, yoga, nutrition education, a faculty wellness program, walking school bus and comprehensive sustainability curriculum. The most recent addition to the Academy for Global Citizenship was a green roof chicken coop, housing three rescued hens, located next to the school’s wind turbine.
Sarah Elizabeth’s life mission is education reform. Throughout her career, she has traveled to over 80 different countries across 6 continents, extensively examining educational philosophies and world languages, as well as creating international alliances that have contributed to the design and culture of the Academy for Global Citizenship. In addition to studying the application of the International Baccalaureate approach in various cultural contexts across the globe, her earlier initiatives included the development and implementation of globally cooperative literacy programs for orphan children in northern Tanzania.
Throughout her five-year term as Vice President of Education on the governing board of the United Nations Association, Sarah Elizabeth fostered broader implementation of The Growing Connection, a globally collaborative organic gardening initiative established to cross-culturally connect children and educators. She has also served on the United States Green Building Council Green Schools Advocacy Committee for the Chicago Chapter, Chicago Public Schools Environmental Action Plan Taskforce, and the Steering Committee for Climate Cycle. Sarah Elizabeth’s additional leadership and civic contributions have included executive board memberships with Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 2010, Sarah Elizabeth was recognized with Chicago Magazine’s Green Award and was selected as a United States Delegate to Terra Madre, where she met with representatives from over 60 nations to discuss the sustainability of our local and global food systems. When she is not traveling around the world sharing the Academy for Global Citizenship’s vision for systemic change, Sarah Elizabeth enjoys working on her plans to build a net-positive energy home in Chicago.
She holds an M Phil, University of Cambridge, England and BA, Trinity College.
Joanne Lang
Joanne Lang is the founder and CEO of AboutOne.com, an online family management system.
Ms. Lang has 15 years’ experience in the software industry of repeatedly executing go-to-market and business development of significant new software product launches. Prior to founding AboutOne she was one of the early cloud innovation team with SAP Labs, with global responsibility for an industry strategy, product design and go-to-market concepts for a disruptive SaaS application.
Ms. Lang volunteers her time at a therapeutic riding school for autistic children, is an AWE Fellow, and was Forbes Ten Female Entrepreneurs To Watch
Ms. Lang is certified by the Product Development and Management Association in “New Product Development Design, Management & Launch”, is a Chartered Accountant, and holds a degree in Business Information Technology.
Ms. Lang was born in England. She and her husband, Sam, have four sons.
Caren Maio
Caren Maio is the CEO and Co-Founder of Nestio, one of the eleven companies in the first TechStars NYC class. Having become deeply acquainted with the nuances of apartment hunting, Caren and her co-founders created Nestio, the easiest way for renters to organize and share their apartment search. Prior to Nestio, Caren lent her business expertise to corporate sales positions at powerhouse brands Nike and The Wall Street Journal. Caren graduated from New York University with a dual-degree in Brand Building and Publishing. She was recently named one of the 10 Female Tech CEOs To Watch by the Huffington Post.
Joy Marcus
Joy Marcus joined DFJ Gotham Ventures as a Venture Partner in May 2011. Prior to joining DFJ Gotham Ventures, Joy was General Manager, US for video website Dailymotion, from its US launch through its acquisition by Orange (France Telecom) in January 2011. During her tenure, Joy more than quadrupled the site’s US audience and made it a partner of choice for content owners and advertisers.
Prior to Dailymotion, Joy was SVP Global Marketing at Time Warner where she worked closely with major advertising clients on integrated marketing campaigns across AOL, Turner, Warner Bros. and Time Inc. An industry veteran, Joy served as VP Business Development of Barnes&Noble.com, which she helped take public in 1999, and was VP International Business Development at MTV Networks, facilitating the launch of new channels around the world. She began her career as an M&A lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton.
Joy was named to the Digital Power 50 by the Hollywood Reporter in 2009 and 2010, and is a regularly featured speaker at industry events including OMMA, NATPE and Digital Hollywood.
Joy serves on the Advisory Board of MeeGenius, an ebook company. She is also a member of the Boards of Directors of Young Audiences New York, a non-profit that promotes arts education in New York City public schools and of Hoops4Hope, which teaches life skills to children in South Africa and Zimbabwe. She is a graduate of Princeton University and New York University School of Law. Joy lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
Emily McKhann
Emily McKhann is an entrepreneur, author and blogger who believes deeply in the power of moms online to change the world. She is co-founder of TheMotherhood, an award-winning web community for mothers and an interactive agency that teams influential social media moms with brands for creative, original campaigns. Clients include American Eagle, P&G, the ONE Campaign, Gilt Groupe, Kellogg, Hershey, National Wildlife Foundation, Unilever and many others. Before launching TheMotherhood, Emily was Acting Commissioner to the United Nations and Director of International Business for New York City. She ran public relations firms in New York and Dallas, and co-authored the bestselling book Living with the End in Mind, published by Crown Books and featured on Oprah numerous times. She lives in Larchmont, NY with her husband and two daughters.
Tereza Nemessanyi
Co-Founder and CEO of Honestly Now, Tereza Nemessanyi is a seasoned media and technology entrepreneur with core expertise in communications and social networking. Companies she has worked with, at senior levels, include PwC, IBM, The Walt Disney Company and Interpublic Group. Tereza has an MBA and MA from The Wharton School and the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies. A major voice for women in technology, she has blogged for Reuters and Huffington Post. Tereza was inspired by her mother, a Czech immigrant who started a beauty career at age 40, to launch HonestlyNow.com, a platform that enables people to get to the bottom of life’s thorniest dilemmas. She lives in New York with her husband and two young daughters.
Erin Newkirk
Erin Newkirk is the CEO and co-founder of Red Stamp, a tech company on a mission to make relationships stronger by elevating everyday correspondence with style + grace. {Yes! There’s an App for that!} Founded in 2005, Red Stamp has served thousands around the world and has been featured in dozens of media outlets such as Daily Candy, O, The Oprah Magazine, USA Today, and the Today Show.
In conjunction with Red Stamp, Ms. Newkirk is an active speaker + advisor to women entrepreneurs and is also a member of several women in business/technology groups in both Minneapolis + New York City.
Prior to Red Stamp, Ms. Newkirk was in Brand Management at General Mills, a Fortune 500 company and home to great American food brands such as Cheerios, Pillsbury, and Betty Crocker. She received the coveted Chairman’s Champion Award for her work in developing Brand Champions, the company-wide brand building program. Ms. Newkirk began her marketing career at Kaplan Educational Centers, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company.
Ms. Newkirk received her MBA in Marketing + Operations from Indiana University Kelley School of Business and has a Certificate of French Studies from the Université Paris Sorbonne.
She tweets @redstamp_erin + maintains a personal blog at erinredstamp.tumblr.com. You can find the Red Stamp App in the iTunes App Store.
Rie Norregaard
Rie Norregaard is the President of Omhu. “I want to make it easy and maybe even fun to find things to help people live a better life. Whether you’re buying a walker for your father, a cane for a friend or a bath chair for yourself, you should be able to feel good about it. And beauty heals.”
Rie founded Omhu in 2009 after searching in vain for well designed products for relatives and friends who needed help with simple tasks such as walking, bathing, or reaching overhead. By creating more exciting choices of things that help, Omhu aims to change the way we think and feel about aging and disability.
Rie has worked as a creative director at leading design firms such as Smart Design, Organic and frog, creating design solutions for well-known consumer brands such as OXO, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung, Microsoft, Nike and Sony Ericsson.
Emily Olson
Co-founder of one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Food Companies, Foodzie.com. Foodzie helps you to discover the best products from small foodcrafters across the country through a monthly Tasting Box subscription and online marketplace. At 27, Emily has spent over 10 years in the food business and has helped small producers grow from just getting started to over $50,000 in monthly sales. She aims to connect people and deliver happiness through good food. A game-changer in the food industry, Emily has been named Inc Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs, Businessweek’s Top 30 Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30, and Food & Wine Magazine’s 40 Big Food Thinkers Under 40.
Barbara Pantuso
Barbara Pantuso is an idea person who loves creating things. After graduating from Cornell University, Barbara started her career creating delicious desserts and then went on to build two interactive companies where she created ideas and products for many industries. Her experiences honed her intuition, creativity, and ability to spot a ripe idea. While working at Frog Design, a global innovation firm, Barbara had a bright idea that led her to start Hey, Neighbor!
Hey, Neighbor! is an online platform that connects neighbors who may or may not know each other and creates a new marketplace for neighborly sharing. Barbara was named as on of Fortune Magazine’s Startup Idols in 2011 and she has also spoken at numerous conferences, won many awards, and is published in several magazines. And she’s a fanatical traveler and food lover.
Despina Papadopoulos
Despina (Director, 5050ltd) is an interaction designer and consultant specializing in developing concepts and inventing new applications for a wide range of fields. Her approach is interdisciplinary, resulting in collaborations with large corporations, fashion designers, R&D labs and museums. She recently spend a year in Kabul developing products and product development cycles with a team of local artists and designers, generating sales of $700.000. Her work in Afghanistan has led to her course “Principled Design: Method & Practice” and a continued investigation of appropriate design methodologies for international development. She has been an adjunct professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications program where she teaches Thesis, “Personal Expression and Wearable Technologies”, “The Softness of Things: Technology in Space and Form” and “Principled Design: Method and Practice”, classes she has developed.
Despina has experience in systems design, prototyping interfaces and large scale production development. Her wearable device, Moi, is available in fashion and museum stores internationally and she recently launched with Zach Eveland a set of open source electronic building tools under the name fabrickit.
Her work has been shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Holon Design Museum in Israel, NEMO: Amsterdam’s Science Museum, Postmasters Gallery, NY, Limn Gallery, SF Museum of Modern Art, The American Museum of Natural History and Liberty Science Center in NJ. She has lectured internationally including Jan Van Eyck Academie, The Netherlands, Parsons School of Design, New School University, Interactive Design Institute in Ivrea and the International Symposium on Wearable Computing.
Nancy Peretsman
Nancy Peretsman, Managing Director at Allen & Company LLC, has served as advisor to many of the world’s largest media, communications, and consumer companies including Amazon, Google, Time Warner, Sony Corporation, CBS, Washington Post Company and Weyerhaeuser. She has also served as an advisor to many special committees of boards of directors (i.e., Estée Lauder). Prior to Allen & Co. in 1995, she worked as a Managing Director at Salomon Brothers, heading the worldwide media investment banking practice.
Nancy has worked in the internet sector since 1997 as an inaugural investor in priceline, on whose board she continues to serve. Other internet companies she has represented include Groupon, IAC, NexTag, Ask Jeeves, The Knot, TripAdvisor, eHarmony, eHealth and drugstore.com. Ms. Peretsman advised Activision (gaming) in its sale of a majority interest to Vivendi, NewsCorp in its purchase of The Dow Jones Company, Google in its strategic investment in AOL, and the private equity sale of Getty Images. Nancy also provides advice and capital in the education online sector.
Ms. Peretsman serves on the boards of trustees at Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study, and Teach for America. She received an undergraduate degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in 1976 and earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management in 1979. Fortune has named her among the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business numerous times.
Diana Rhoten
Diana Rhoten is Senior Vice President for Strategy in the education division at News Corporation, where she is responsible for developing the corporate strategy and leading corporate transactions in the education market.
Prior to this role, Diana cofounded and codirected Startl, which is a social enterprise dedicated to accelerating startups in the education technology and digital learning markets. By recruiting young entrepreneurs, immersing them in a rigorous product design and development process, and helping them to build socially responsible and fiscally sustainable new ventures, Startl seeks to build products and companies that are both learning-rich and market-smart. Diana was also the founder of the New Youth City Learning Network, which helps youth-serving institutions across New York City (e.g., New York Public Library, American Museum of Natural History, Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, YMCA) design new technologies and develop digital experiences that connect in-school education and out-of-school learning.
Previously, Diana founded and directed the Knowledge Institutions Program at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), where her research and consulting focused on the transformation of organizations engaged in the production and dissemination of scientific and cultural knowledge. Her portfolio of work including projects that addressed the mounting fiscal challenges to public higher education; evaluated and designed new models for scientific education, innovation and collaboration; and, created and implemented international partnerships across governmental and non-governmental agencies. While in her role at the SSRC, Diana was recruited by the National Science Foundation to serve a two-year appointment in the newly formed Office of Cyberinfrastructure as director of the Virtual Organizations and the Cyberlearning programs.
Diana has published in numerous academic journals, including Science, Minerva, Thesis Eleven, and The Annual Review of Law and Social Science. She has also co-authored several manuscripts, including Knowledge Matters: The Transformation of Public Research University (Columbia University) and Digital Media and Technology in Afterschool Programs, Libraries and Museums (MIT Press). At the same time, her work has been featured in more popular venues such as The New York Times, Nature, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and the PBS special Digital Media – New Learners Of The 21st Century. For both her theoretical contributions and practical applications in the area of organizational design and innovation, Diana was named a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer (2005 – 2007), an award that honors individuals at the leading edge of science.
Diana lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the author and journalist John Heilemann. Prior to coming to New York, she was the cofounder and research director of the Hybrid Vigor Institute in San Francisco, an assistant professor at Stanford University School of Education, and a policy analyst and advisor for former Massachusetts Governor William Weld. She has a Ph.D. in education and policy and an M.A. in sociology from Stanford University, as well as an M.Ed. from Harvard University and a B.A. from Brown University. Diana has lived, studied, worked, and traveled extensively in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
Britta Riley
Britta Riley is a technology designer, social entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Windowfarms. Her environmental design work has been shown at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Smithsonian, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, and MoMA. Windowfarms makes personal scale systems for growing produce organically in windows of homes, schools, and restaurants. Over 22,000 Windowfarmers around the world participate in the Windowfarms opensource online community. Britta wants the billions of people who live in inner cities to have the experience of innovating, living with nature, and being farmers . . . in their own habitats.
Hilary Rosenman
Hilary grew up in NYC where she attended the Nightingale Bamford High School and focused her studies on art. After graduating from Skidmore College she spent a few years working at a small local magazine climbing the ranks from Editor in Chief’s assistant to Market Editor. She took the knowledge she had learned as a Fashion Editor to her next venture, working for a long time friend from high school, Charlotte Ronson’s clothing line — aptly named Charlotte Ronson. During these four years, she not only helped grow the company into a multi-million dollar company that included a contemporary clothing line and eventually a shoe line, but learned how to start a business and grow one her own. She then partnered with an old friend from college, Barri Budin, to start her shoe line, Madison Harding. The girls’ mission statement was to fill the gap between high end designer shoes and low end knock off brands. They essentially designed a line for girls like themselves: fashion conscious with a distinct sense of style who don’t need to break the bank to express it. The name Madison Harding represents the designers’ roots, Hilary grew up on Madison Ave in New York City and Barri on Harding Drive in New Jersey. The distinctive line presents an array of effortlessly cool styles and silhouettes — all fusing vintage charm and downtown edge together. Madison Harding has quickly become a favorite among fashion-forward celebrities, hipsters and socialites such as Chloe Sevigny, Rihanna, Leighten Meester, Whitney Port, and Lake Bell. Madison Harding is available at specialty stores nationwide including Blue & Cream, Free People, Anthropologie, American Rag and online at Shopbop.com, Bloomingdales.com, Nordstrom.com and Piperlime.com.
Pooja (Nath) Sankar
Pooja (Nath) Sankar is the founder and CEO of Piazza, a social platform for students and teachers. She has worked at Oracle, Kosmix, and Facebook, and has degrees from IIT, the University of Maryland, and Stanford. The genesis for Piazza and Sankar’s passion for social learning came from her experience as one of a handful of women in the computer science program at IIT in the late 1990s. Sankar started Piazza while studying for her MBA at Stanford, where she failed a class in entrepreneurship because she was too busy running the business.
Elena Silenok
Elena Silenok is a Founder & CEO of Clothia, a fashion technology platform. Clothia is an Internet startup that is productizing motion detection and augmented reality technology developed in St. Petersburg, Russia. Clothia users can virtually try on clothes using augmented reality via their webcam, mix-n-match items to create outfits, and share their looks with friends. Elena is a guest lecturer at Columbia University and General Assembly. She is also a contributing writer to Business Insider and a root member of Hacker Union. Elena holds a MS in Computer Science from University of California, San Diego, where she focused on Network Security. Elena has also worked at San Diego Supercomputer Center researching Internet topology and trends, and in several startups doing large-scale data mining and project management.
Rachel Sklar
Rachel Sklar is a writer and social entrepreneur based in New York. She is the co-founder of Change The Ratio, which increases visibility and opportunity for women in tech, and Charitini, which encourages group giving around events. A former lawyer who writes about media, politics, culture & technology, she was a founding editor at Mediaite and the Huffington Post. She has written for outlets like the New York Times, Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and she speaks widely at conferences, on panels and on TV. Rachel is a TechStars mentor and an advisor to several startups, including Hashable, SBNation, Siftee, Lover.ly, The Daily Muse & Honestly Now. She was named to the Silicon Alley 100 in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Follow her on Twitter at @rachelsklar.
Chris Tardio
Chris’s view of the business world has been shaped by a unique career path that spans a television revolution, an iconic brand and two industry-changing companies.
As a Producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show and then the VP of Publicity and Promotions for HARPO Productions, Chris helped guide the development of a local Chicago talk show host into the most powerful media personality in the world.
Turning her attention to advertising, Chris became Manager of Broadcast Production at DDB/Chicago with responsibility for overseeing all media production on the agency’s McDonald’s and General Mills brands. While working on the McDonald’s account, Tardio met her future business partner, and husband, Charles Day.
In 1995 they left the agency and founded a film editing company based in Chicago. Over the next decade they carefully crafted an evolution that encompassed both national and international expansion. And cultivated a talent base that became the most recognized and awarded in the world; working on many of the most memorable television commercials and leading feature films of the decade. Along the way The Whitehouse redefined the way internationally networked companies should work.
By 2005 having achieved all of their dreams for their company, Chris and Charles sold their interest in the business. Two years later, utilizing their combined strategic, operational, marketing, talent management and business expertise they formed The Lookinglass Consultancy.
Today The Lookinglass Consultancy advises creative businesses of all sizes: from small entrepreneurial-led design shops through international advertising agency holding companies. They are business architects, partnering with companies to balance the needs of creativity with the demands of business while helping them minimize the risk of implementing the changes their businesses are facing. Under the auspices of the consultancy, Chris also has a thriving practice in the area she loves most: business and career coaching for women.
Sarah Tavel
Sarah Tavel, a Senior Associate at Bessemer Venture Partners, joined Bessemer in 2006. After spending five years in Bessemer’s New York office, she made the move west to Menlo Park.
She focuses on the software and Internet sectors and has been closely involved in investments with Convertro, Cornerstone OnDemand (IPO), CPower (acquired by Constellation Energy), KupiVIP, Metalogix, MindBody, Onestop, Yodle, Quidsi (operator of Diapers.com and Soap.com, acquired by Amazon), and classifieds-provider OLX (acquired by Naspers).
Prior to joining Bessemer, Sarah was a consultant for The Kerdan Group, a strategy-consulting firm, where she focused on the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. Previously she founded a general-contracting business, which she ran for two years while in college and grew to 20% net margins. She began her professional career in local-ad sales.
While earning a degree in philosophy cum laude from Harvard University, Sarah captained the women’s rugby team and was a Harvard Scholar. She blogs at www.Adventurista.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/sarahtavel.
Edwina von Gal
Edwina has been principal of Edwina von Gal + Company, landscape design since 1984. Her work has increasingly focused on issues of environment and sustainability. Her work has won many awards (ASLA and AIA) and has been published in major magazines. Her book “Fresh Cuts” won the Garden Writers Quill and Trowel Award. Edwina was a founding member and Board chair of The MetroHort Group, founding member and treasurer of The International Bamboo Foundation, is on advisory committees for a number of public gardens and worked on fundraising events for numerous non profits. Edwina is currently working in Panama as designer of the park for BioMuseo (Museum of Biodiversity) designed by Frank Gehry, sustainable master planning with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and president of the Azuero Earth Project.
Jane Wells
Jane Wells is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, journalist and Founder and President of 3 Generations, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that uses film to tell the stories of human rights abuses.
Jane produced the award-winning documentary, The Devil Came on Horseback, about a military observer who witnessed the genocide in Darfur. She was also the Location Producer for all the Africa footage and co-developed and implemented the outreach campaign that grew out of the film. The film premiered at The Sundance Film Festival and was shown at SXSW, Tribeca, Silver Docs, Hot Docs, and numerous National and International Festivals. It was nominated for 3 Emmy Awards, a Gotham Award and won numerous film industry and advocacy awards. Shown on National Geographic Television and the BBC as well as across the globe, it was seen by over 6 million people.
Jane’s work has primarily focused on those gravely affected by genocide and crimes against humanity. She has produced and directed multiple short films that document atrocities across borders and generations. She has also written extensively about her experiences among survivors from Sudan, Chad, Rwanda, Kenya, Botswana, Uganda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and South Africa, with pieces appearing in British Vogue, Diversion, Weston, Aspen Magazine, The Paris Review Daily and The Huffington Post.
Joanne Wilson
Joanne has had several careers starting out as a buyer at Macys to running a company in the rag trade eventually leading to spearheading sales for a start-up magazine/e-zine/events company called Silicon Alley Reporter. On to the non-profit world where she chaired MOUSE (Making Opportunities in Upgrading Schools in Education) an organization focused on technology in inner-city schools. She has sat on a number of profit and non-profit boards and has been involved with a variety of real estate transactions from beginning to end.
Joanne has been blogging since 1994 under the name Gotham Gal. She is involved with the start-up community as an angel investor and adviser. She has been a champion of women in tech by starting and co-chairing the Women’s Entrepreneurial Festival with ITP at NYU. Many of the companies she is working with are owned or started by women. The tech companies are Food52, Catchafire, Dailyworth, Editd, Editions 01, Nest.io, Red Stamp, Curbed (Eater/Racked) as well as Ricks Picks, Gotham Gym, The Moon Group and Cacao Pietro. She also sits on the board of Hot Bread Kitchen and the Highline.
Her most successful venture is being married to her best friend, Fred and raising her three kids, Jessica, Emily and Josh.
Kathleen Wilson
Kathleen Wilson is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Rikaroo Film Collective, an online aggregator of quality independent films. Through an ongoing jury process, Rikaroo.com provides independent filmmakers with a place to exhibit films in search of exposure and indie film loving audiences a place to find “the best films they’ve never seen.” Kathleen is on the adjunct faculty of ITP at NYU/Tisch. She has over twenty years’ experience in the digital media industry, in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, working on strategic planning and development for media entertainment companies like Viacom and Paramount and spearheading the design and development of experimental digital products at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Maxis/EA, and Bank Street College of Education. Kathleen has a doctorate from Harvard University in Human Development and Psychology, a global MBA from TRIUM (HSE-Paris, LSE-London, NYU-Stern), and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.