NYU Stern MBA Student passionate about start-ups and innovative uses of technology.

Entrepreneur and change agent obsessed with making innovation scalable and life-sustainable. XX Combinator, Honestly Now, JustFamily...and more.

co-founder, NY Tech Meetup

Worked in the music industry for many years...National Director of Artist Development for A&M Records and then went on to run the creative end of Isolar which is David Bowie's company. Took a twenty year nap to raise my two children...enjoy traveling with my husband ...but as am empty nester I am looking to find the next chapter in my life !!!

Linguafile. Global business strategist, storyteller, playwriting candidate (at Columbia). Currently spearheading all things Entrepreneurship at the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College.

Alison has always subscribed to the credo that life is worth savoring. Building upon her advertising and catering experience, she combines her passion for cooking, entertaining and all things food with the launch of Artisan Kitchen, a website dedicated to food artisans from around the country and the growth of their small businesses. While juggling a creative business and family life, Alison scouts new food trends, researches local food artisans in markets nationwide, while discovering the most delicious products made by people you don’t know.

Susan Shaffer Solovay spent 25 years on Wall Street. She began trading commodities in 1981 and worked at EF Hutton, Prudential Securities and Fimat Bank. In 2001 she became an advisor to M.Safra & Co. where she helped build a successful portfolio of hedge fund investments. In 2006 she formed Pomegranate Capital, a fund of funds which invested solely with women managed hedge funds. As a result of the credit meltdown, Pomegranate was closed at the end of 2008. Susan is also passionate about education. In 2002, she formed and managed the P.S. 6 Alumni Foundation which raised over $800,000 and effected the renovation and refurbishment of the library and playground of PS 6, of a New York City public elementary school. Susan currently acts as an advisor and mentor to startups and is fascinated by entrepreneurship, education, creativity, technology, marketing and branding. She has two children, Sarah (18) and Harry (16), a mini labradoodle named Lola (2) and a supportive (and funny) husband, Michael.

Leonna Sylvester has an innovative minds that bringing forth new and creative ways to advance how we progress. Her simplistic yet detailed approach yields a new vision for our every day lives. With a lengthy background in fields such as Customer Care, Product Development & Branding, Web Development, Moderator and Management, Leonna is investing her time in developing a new and innovative alternative to the online shopping experience; She currently has 2 Apps ThenTagIt and xLock in the App store and is currently working on a 3rd App. Leonna received her Bachelors in Business Administration & International Business from the New York Institute of Technology, and has recently completed her Masters in Technology Management & Innovation from Polytechnic Institute of New York University. She is the owner of Brooklyn Freecycle Organization a group with over 24’000 members and an investor, volunteer and fundraiser for Verizon Foundations HOPELINE, TOOLS FOR SCHOOLS and SHOWER FOR THE SHELTER. Leonna has a passion for seeing the dreams of tomorrow become a reality today and with ambitions of opening the gateway to a better and simpler life, she dedicates herself to just that. We can expect much more to come from this bright and innovative mind in the near future. http://www.linkedin.com/in/leonna

Ellen is founder of Friends of Tilonia, Inc. which takes its name from Tilonia, a small village in India that is home of the Barefoot College. Ellen and a team of Barefoot e-commerce managers from Tilonia have developed an online enterprise, Tilonia.com, to market artisan products directly to international buyers. With a direct-to-buyer model, these artisan producers earn a greater percent of product sales than through traditional export channels and are empowered to build and manage their own enterprises. Ellen has over 20 years experience in developing new businesses and web-based financial services delivered to major financial firms. She is a member of Investors’ Circle, and mentors enterprise start-ups at New York University’s Stern School of Business and Pratt Design Incubator. She is a graduate of Stern and the University of Minnesota. She lives in Brooklyn when not on the road in India.

Lisa Duggan is the owner and founder of American Woman Publishing LLC, a media company dedicated to serving contemporary families using all available means of communication including print and digital publications, online communities, educational programs and all forms of broadcast. We produce The Modern Village, a Continuing Education series for parents, and publish TheParentduJour.com, an online book about contemporary parenting. Lisa’s writing can also be found at TheMotherHoodBlog.com. She is proud to be a WE Festival Alum of 2011 & 2012.

We're clearhealthcosts.com, and we're telling people what things cost in health care, a traditional mystery. Shouldn't you know that your MRI could cost as little as $400 or as much as $3,500 here in New York? Your birth-control pills, $4 or $50? Shouldn't you be able to know other health costs, too? We're here to help. The health-care marketplace is the biggest remaining opaque market, and it is ripe for transparency, just as airline ticket sales, real-estate sales and car sales were once ripe for transparency. Rising health costs are perhaps the biggest problem facing us as a nation. We have recently won $54,000 in grants, one from the Tow-Knight Foundation at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (Jeff Jarvis of "What Would Google Do?" and "Public Parts," was my lead professor for the first grant); from the Ford Foundation via the International Womens Media Foundation, where Nadine Hoffman and the rest of the team are among our strongest supporters; and from the McCormick Foundation, via the J-Lab, where Jan Schaffer has moved mountains to help us. We're using tools like shoe-leather reporting, crowdsourcing, curation and sourcing of pricing databases and cool data visualization and interactivity. The site is up in beta, relaunched in September. We're now about to conclude an amazing partnership. We're also building the team, looking for other partners and potential funders, and improving the product. Now that the Affordable Care Act is being put into effect, this information is more important than ever. I'm the founder/CEO, and I won these grants after volunteering for a buyout from The New York Times three years ago, after almost 25 years there as an editor, reporter and exec.

I am an entrepreneur dedicated to transforming energy markets. I am also a family person and a mother. I always feel best when I'm creating something great that has never existed before. I have enjoyed being part of the WEF community; it has helped me as I have developed and launched my latest business venture. I am looking forward to the next Festival. The Megawatt Hour is a B2B subscription platform that saves businesses time and money on their energy purchases. Like Kayak.com or mint.com, it brings complete transparency to opaque, broker-driven energy markets. In the past, businesses have spent a lot on energy and receive little to no actionable information to help them save money and time. The Megawatt Hour changes all that.

Reshma Saujani is the founder of Girls Who Code and a candidate for Public Advocate of New York City in the 2013 elections. As Deputy Public Advocate, Reshma brought together public and private sectors to encourage entrepreneurship and civic engagement across NYC. Today, she has galvanized industry leaders to close the gender gap in STEM education and empower girls to pursue careers in technology and engineering. In 2010, Reshma became the first South Asian woman to run for Congress, promoting smarter policies to spur innovation and job creation. Advocating for a new model of female leadership focused on risk-taking, competition and mentorship, Reshma is the author of a new book entitled, Women Who Don't Wait in Line, to be released by Amazon Publishing in 2013.

A senior editor at national magazines, author of two books and columnist for newspapers and national magazines, I've always written for food. in 2007, I was compelled to become an entrepreneurial-journalist when confronted by the lack of good women's content. Now there's too much to keep track of, so I've built a big-momma site to bring it all together--a front page for women online: Vitamin W. It's about crowd-funding women's journalism and women's organizations at the same time--lifting and rising. In 2008, I started an oped section called Women Make News. In my 20s, I developed the first mid-life magazine for women --which eventually turned into Living Fit. A graduate of Wellesley College, I come from a long line of feminists--my college-educated great grandmother was deemed the woman in Georgia who contributed the most to the suffrage movement.

Christine Doempke is a recent ITP alumna. She has been a math/science/college test-prep educator for over 10 years, as well as a choreographer and yoga teacher. She interested in the development and education of the whole person and breaking down the barriers between mind-body learning. Prior to coming to NYU, she studied Dance/Theater Arts and Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University.

Suzanne Seggerman is an award-winning new media thought leader and public speaker on games and media for social impact. Founding the award-winning non-profit Games for Change (G4C), she has served as an advisor or consultant on a wide variety of social impact projects including The President's Innovate To Educate STEM Initiative, Michelle Obama's Healthy Kids Campaign, Microsoft's Imagine Cup and the Scholastic National Art and Writing Award. Suzanne served as catalyzer and primary evangelist for a new movement, giving talks at events around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, PDF, NTEN, PopTech, and the Harvard Human Rights Conference. She has been featured in a wide variety of press including the New York Times, Time Magazine, ABC News, The Korea Times, Newsweek, The Guardian, and was a winner of the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Award. Suzanne is also the Co-founder of PETLab, a public interest design and research lab at the New School. Since the fall of 2012, Suzanne has been working on her new startup, ThreeSay, which is an open public opinion platform. This week she launched her online prototype. Her third time at WEF, she is looking to learn a lot from her peers, and maybe even find new partners or team members for ThreeSay. Suzanne is also a nationally rated Scrabble player. For more information, please see:www.suzanneseggerman.com.

Monica Rawicz is the Founder of ContagiousGood which, through the sale of cause inspired t-shirts designed through crowdsourcing, empowers and inspires individuals and nonprofits to come together to raise money and awareness for the causes they are passionate about. Prior to ContagiousGood, Monica ran a freelance graphic design business, managed projects for various community organizations, founded a local women’s learning community, graduated from NYU’s ITP program, lived abroad and, along with her husband, is raising 4 always wonderful and more than occasionally complicated children.

Enterprising and tenacious marketing professional providing 20 years of progressive success across traditional, digital and social media marketing channels within media, entertainment and technology sectors. Track record includes increasing customer revenue, driving new market penetration, generating qualified leads and generating significant cost savings for clients and employers alike. Expertly identify business goals to develop and align results-oriented marketing campaigns. Hands on, out-of-the-box thinker who conceives of big ideas and leads large-scale campaigns, while administering and maintaining adherence to multimillion-dollar budgets. Adaptable and dependable, thrives in challenging, pressure-filled environments and excels at forging connections. Specialties: E-mail, Digital Online & Social Media Marketing, Customer Segmentation, Market & Consumer Research, Marketing Strategy Development & Execution, Program Management, Strategic Marketing Consulting, Strategic Offer Planning & Implementation, Planning & Budgeting, Team Leadership & Mentorship, Brand Positioning, Competitive Analysis, Collateral and Sales Tool Creation, Copy/Proposal Writing, Relationship Development, Strategic Partnerships, Entrepreneurial Mindset/Approach - across B2B/B2C segments.

Adrienne Meisels (CEO & Founder) brings broad experience in operations, technology, business development and law. As head of AOL’s innovation team, she was responsible for creating leading-edge, Internet-scale technologies and incubating large digital startups such as AOL’s Blue String and AOL Pointe. She is the inventor on six location-based services patents. Prior to AOL, Adrienne was an associate at Shearman & Sterling doing complex, cross-border financings, and a technology consultant at Lotus Development Corp. and Accenture. J.D.—Fordham Law School; B.S.Ec—Wharton; B.A.—University of Pennsylvania.

Aimee Norwich is a musician and visual artist. She plays multiple instruments (Hybrid Bass/Guitar, which she invented (illustration on website), Fretless Electric Bass, Piccolo Bass and Electric Bass, along with various FX pedals and loop stations); she composes and produces music, and draws. She works as a soloist, and collaborates with various musicians on recording projects and live shows. Aimee is currently finishing her Masters in Music at New York University, as well as playing shows and launching her T-shirt design business and Music Production company.

Alana Widdess spent the first nine years of her career in new business development within the advertising, marketing and media industries. Alana's true passion, however, has always been in closely following the fashion and retail industry, and it was while she was working on her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business that she conceived the idea for StyleFiles, an interactive platform created for retailers that enables their sales associates (i.e. personal shoppers) to build strong personal relationships and loyalty amongst their client base. After completing her MBA she joined Sears Holdings in their Senior Leadership Program in order to gain practical knowledge of the Retail Industry. In addition to working on the launch of StyleFiles, she currently is Director of Online Merchandise Operations & Strategy for all of the e-commerce softlines businesses. Alana holds her B.A. in Organizational Studies from The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and her MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Founder and owner of Citytri Racing Inc. Multisport event organizer in New York and New Jersey. USAT Certified Race Director. I love participating in sports as much as I love organizing them. ITP Graduate 2003.

My background is in photography and cinematography. I am currently a graduate student at ITP interested in expanding my skills in the design, programming, and user experience fields. In the future I would like to open a design and technology consulting firm. I am also passionate about the idea of creating communal work environments that support and create networks for women who choose to have kids in the midst of their careers.

Ali j is working on her own startup and consulting about product development. Previously she has 10 years experience as a Program Manager at Microsoft working on Mobile Devices, including Windows Phone and KIN, Messaging and Advertising. She specializes in designing and bringing new products to market. She has a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and holds twelve patents. She is currently working on finishing her EMBA with TRIUM.

A passionate scientist and creative dedicated to new ideas, craft and integrity. Alison is a product development consultant in the skincare and fragrance industry with expertise in natural and bio-based ingredients and technologies. With over 15 years of experience, she has worked with clients such as Kiehl’s, Naturopathica, and Thymes among many others. A firm believer in ‘hands-on’ experimentation and creation, Alison works out of her laboratory and studio in Gowanus. In addition to chemistry, her creative work also includes scent installations and a jewelry collection which will be featured this Spring at MoMA design stores worldwide. For the past 2 years she has been developing her own skincare line, CUTLAN, which takes a revolutionary approach to skincare. She is searching for funding and support to bring that revolution to the people.

Amanda Hope Macari started her career as an early childhood arts educator and program developer in lower Manhattan with The Children’s Museum of the Arts (SoHo) and with Church Street School for Music and Art (TriBeCa). From 2006 through 2012, Ms. Macari worked in children's educational television for the world-renowned show Sesame Street. Ms. Macari was the production coordinator on Sesame Street’s international, award winning co-productions in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. In 2012, Ms. Macari traveled to Pakistan on behalf of Sesame Workshop to produce Sim Sim Hamara, the local adaptation of Sesame Street. Ms. Macari is currently the Assistant Director of Programming for Church Street School for Music and Art, where she worked for many years as an art educator. Ms. Macari was born, raised and currently resides in New York City.

Amik has been starting companies for the last 13 years. At the University of Kansas, while earning two B.A. degrees in English and Japanese Language and Literature respectively, he created an e-commerce sales platform for neutraceuticals, and moved $24K in product to 3 different continents each month. He used the revenue to expand the company and pay for his undergraduate education. Following KU, Amik helped to create a start-up in the highly restricted sector of stem cell bio-technology. He supported all technological operations and overcame multiple regulatory and political hurdles regarding experimental stem cell therapies in the United States, as well as challenges facing off-shore operations in Costa Rica juxtaposed to medical tourism and favoritism for home grown operations. Despite this, he expanded the online identity of Medistem Laboratories, Inc. from research facility to fully functioning clinic: this allowed revenues to increase from zero to more than $250K/month, leading up to an IPO in 2005. Finally, as an independent consultant, Amik secured series-A funding for a middle market investment banking group in the Middle East. He took full creative responsibility for developing culture specific prototypes to demonstrate the opportunity to investors in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. A designer at heart, Amik has also spent significant time working within the world of data and design. He is currently a second-year master candidate at NYU ITP where he creates experiences that are disruptive and have emotional impact. His visualization work in the field earned him recognition as the Visualized 2012 Data Communications Fellow. And on the corporate side, while at Razorfish, he designed solutions for Mercedes-Benz and UNIQLO; the latter leading up to the launch of the world's first UNIQLO e-commerce experience.

Amy Millman is a passionate advocate for women entrepreneurs building Big Businesses Starting Small. In 2000, she co-founded Springboard Enterprises, a non-profit venture catalyst which sources, coaches, showcases and supports women-led companies seeking equity capital for product development and expansion. Springboard has assisted hundreds of women entrepreneurs in raising billions in investments and connecting with thousands of expert resources. The successes of Springboard entrepreneurs include 10 IPOs, legions of high value M&As and a community of accomplished serial entrepreneurs. During her career in Washington, DC, she served as a representative for several industry groups and was appointed as Executive Director of the National Women’s Business Council during the Clinton Administration. She served on the boards of many organizations including her current service with JumpStart Inc. and Enterprising Women Magazine. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and holds a Masters degree from The George Washington University.

I am the founder of Lady & Lara, an online store for luxury pet accessories, based in New York. This venture combines the love for animals with my passion for luxury and fashion. I graduated from Wharton with a double major MBA in Marketing & Operations and a concentration in luxury retail. My previous working experience includes Unilever, Giorgio Armani, and start-ups like Bet Trade. I am Greek and before coming to the US, I have lived in London and Paris. After a few months in my start-up, I came to the conclusion that entrepreneurship is not a skill or accomplishment but a lifestyle.

Andrea Pappas founded BrunchCritic.com, New York's All Brunch Resource, to address the growing brunch trend in New York. She realized a need was not being met in the online space to provide quick, accessible and comprehensive information on brunching throughout the City. In addition to proving brunch information and restaurant reviews online, BrunchCritic hosts signature events for its community and has partnered with brands such as Sam Adams, Hendricks Gin, Lillet, Mionetto and Spring44 Vodka. BrunchCritic plans to expand to other major urban cities and grow its multimedia offerings in 2013. Andrea is a proud New Yorker, a member of WeWorkLabs co-working space, and received her B.A from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

I formed Outthink Inc in June 2012 to build mobile apps where kids can master and connect with the fundamental concepts and principles at work in the world around them. We want to unleash the next generation of innovation superstars. The previous 15 years were spent driving sales in digital and online markets, with leadership roles in online sales, merchandising, marketing, and digital product development while working with companies such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google and Apple. The 8 years before that were in education as a classroom teacher, curriculum designer and workshop leader. I am passionate about people (especially kids- I have four) , ideas, travel, exploring, learning, reading, making connections, and working hard at creating lasting value.

Andrea Turner Moffitt is the Founder and CEO of Wealthrive, a start-up committed to offering an engaging, empowering and digestible wealth advisory solution for women and their families to better manage their financial lives – to be protected, create wealth and have the impact they want. For five years, Andrea has served as an advisor to the Center for Talent Innovation, a globally recognized think tank publishing cutting edge research on diversity and women in the marketplace. She is currently co-authoring a report on women, wealth and the untapped market of the female financial consumer. As part of this research, Andrea has interviewed affluent women globally and deeply understands the challenges and frustrations women investors are facing today. Andrea has over a decade of experience working on Wall Street in investment banking and asset management. She held a number of positions at Citi where she worked with global institutional clients. Andrea began her career in investment banking at Robertson Stephens. Andrea earned her MBA with honors and a Master in International Affairs from Columbia University and received her BA from Tulane University.

Anna Curran is the founder of a print-on-demand startup CookbookCreate.com. CookbookCreate.com combines the best of Web 2.0 and print-on-demand technology delivering a fun, easy to use tool to make your own custom cookbooks. Prior to founding her startup, she was selected by Startup Weekend as the New York co-founder of The Startup Foundation sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation. Current and past client work as a digital strategist includes Lama Surya Das, a national best selling Tibetan Buddhist author; America: Now and Here, a cross-country journey of art and artists with Eric Fischl, Paul Simon and Chuck Close; and Personal democracy Forum— the leading conference on politics and technology. She is formally trained artist, printmaker, and dancer. Anna is a Pipeline Fellow in the 2012 New York cohort and is the driving force behind Startup Weekend's Partnership Series that brings together Fortune 500 companies who want to forge strategic partnerships with startups. You can keep up with her on Twitter @AnnaCurran.

Annaliese Wiederspahn is a writer and multimedia journalist based in New York City. A former political press flack, Wiederspahn is interested in the intersection of media, technology and politics. With her co-founder Lorena O'Neil, Wiederspahn is working to create a community online where women can read about and discuss how politics, career, and the economy affect the modern working gal. Wiederspahn is currently pursuing a masters degree at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

I currently am the CEO and Founder of Roomscaper, a product discovery site and marketplace for local, independent furniture designers. Roomscaper is part of the NYY-Poly Dumbo Incubator. I have spent over 15 years working in digital marketing strategy at a variety of media and technology companies, including the company that I founded. I have seen the dot-com boom and bust and the resurrection of the industry through the emergence Web 2.0 and social technologies. I have worked at Ziff-Davis, Infoseek (a not so successful first-generation search engine), Disney, and Google (a quite successful second-generation search engine). Through my time employed at various interactive agencies, I have designed online initiatives for well-known entertainment, fashion, beauty and lifestyle consumer brands. Running away from corporate life, craving autonomy, I have experienced the hardships and joys of entrepreneurship. It's been quite a bumpy and exciting ride so far. Feel free to email me at anna@roomscaper.com

I am an interaction designer interested in many processes and experiences. I am only interested in creating solutions, and working with talented people or people who strive to better themselves. I like working collaboratively in every engaging interaction designs (ixd), and love challenges to complex problems (creating process or information systems), and love flipping antiquated processes to improve them. I <3 innovation!

Anya juggles many jobs, including being a full-time mom, running US operations for a global service provider, and designing and making jewelry. Anya’s creative ambitions took the lead and now she focuses on establishing and growing her Shkatulka Jewelry Designs company, a one-woman show with Anya designing, making, and selling her creations. Anya’s goal is to further develop her brand and find the distribution channels for her products.

New Yorker by way of Montana. Style maven by way of gallery girl. Renovator, artist, sometimes TV personality. Lover of found things, founder of Mode Marteau (an online shop for discovering rare vintage and timeless designer fashion).

Ashley Feinstein has worked in the financial services industry for 4+ years and currently works in a corporate finance capacity at Argo Group, a property and casualty insurance company. She graduated with a BS in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2008 and is currently enrolled in the iPEC (Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching) program for coaching. She expects to complete her certification in May 2013. Ashley founded The Fiscal Femme to share what she knows and is learning about personal finance and living well within one’s means.

Autumn Adeigbo is founder and creative director of her eponymous fashion label and who has 10 years of fashion industry experience including: working as a celebrity fashion stylist, working at high fashion magazine W, and working at the New York headquarters of clothing label Paul Smith at some capacity, in all Paul Smith’s divisions. Autumn’s background includes a BA in economics from Spelman College and a degree in fashion design from Parsons, The New School of Design. Autumn Adeigbo’s collection has been placed in over 30 top-tier fashion publications like Vogue, Glamour, WWD and Marie Claire. This was all accomplished with no assistance from a publicist. The collection has also recently gained a celebrity following.

Ava Zydor is the President and Founder of Seventh Reach Media, a mixed media start-up focused on film and web products with a social impact message. She is also a member of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of NY, an angel investor group, and serves on the Board of HBSCNY Community Partners (an HBS alumni program providing pro bono consulting services to nonprofits in the NY area) and the Board of Games for Change (a non-profit organization that fosters the creation of social impact digital games for humanitarian and educational purposes). Previously, she advised global clients at international law firms in New York and Washington, D.C.

Belinda Di Giambattista is the cofounder and CEO of Butter Beans, Inc., a food service company focused on providing healthy meals and nutrition education to school children and teachers. An executive with over 15 years of professional experience, Belinda’s expertise covers small business lending, business development, business plan writing and execution, new product development and project management. Belinda’s financial services experience includes working as a credit analyst at BB&T Bank in North Carolina, and managing global new product development and sales process projects for Moody's Investors Service in New York. Her time as a management consultant for a California-based technology consulting firm provided Belinda with first-hand experience in implementing new business initiatives in a start-up environment. Ms. Di Giambattista launched Butter Beans, Inc (www.butterbeanskitchen.com) in the Spring of 2008. Belinda led the upstart Butter Beans, Inc business to a first place prize in the NYU Berkley Center Business Plan Competition in May 2009. Ms. Di Giambattista earned her BSBA from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Beth Rosenberg is an educator who has spent over 20 years working with students, teachers and families in community centers, schools and museums on arts and technology-related curricula. She is currently on the faculty in the Department of Technology, Culture & Society at NYU-Polytechnic Institute and at The Dalton High School. In 2010, she founded Tech Kids Unlimited as she has a passionate interest in working with special needs kids and technology. Techkidsunlimited.net will receive its not-for-profit and LLC status in 2013. She can be found at edubeth.net. She has two amazing kids, a daughter who is a freshman at Oberlin College and a son who has special needs and attends The Summit School in Queens. She enjoys blogging for womenyoushouldknow.net, looking at art, watching movies, playing with her two furry cats and is looking forward to the final season of Breaking Bad.

Brenda Coffee is an experienced entrepreneur of start-ups, skilled at focusing on the big picture and planning for worst case. Ms. Coffee was a board member and managing consultant of a public company until its sale to a pharmaceutical company. She also co-wrote the business plan for the Company’s private placement and subsequent IPO. She's been President of a credit services company, CEO of an art business and COO & Marketing Director of a greenhouse manufacturing company. A frequent speaker at women's health conferences and Digitas' Internet week, her website, BreastCancerSisterhood.com, reaches over 100,000 women and their families a month. With no topic off limits, BRENDA'S BLOG has repeatedly been voted a “Top 10 Breast Cancer Blog.” Coffee's been called the Carrie Bradshaw of breast cancer, and her sassy dry wit has been compared to Erma Bombeck. She produced over 100 original videos for the site and is author of Husbands & Heroes and The Breast Cancer Sisterhood. She was the first journalist to drive and fire the Army’s M-1 Abrams tank; has flown in an Air Force fighter jet & a Huey helicopter; experienced a cable arrested landing and catapult takeoff from an aircraft carrier; a submergence and extended stay on the maiden voyage of the USS Dallas nuclear submarine and profiled the ultra secret SR-71 “Blackbird” reconnaissance plane. For 10 years she raced Porches on the SCCA Solo I and Hill Climb circuit. In 1988 Ms. Coffee survived an involuntary stay in the jungle at the hands of the Honduran Military Commandos.

Busayo Olupona is the Founder/Creative Director of Busayo NYC. An apparel/accessories company which utilizes traditionally African textiles/fabric dyeing techniques to create contemporary fashion for the modern American woman. Prior to starting Busayo NYC, Busayo Olupona was a corporate finance associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. Busayo Olupona earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley.

For more than 20 years, through boom-and-bust cycles, I've worked with high-tech companies and venture capital firms, to help them develop and implement effective communications strategies. Whether they're early-stage and scrappy, or industry leaders striving to stay relevant, and whether they're based in Silicon Valley or other innovation centers, they all have great stories to tell. I've been intrigued over the course of my career, watching as technology has transformed nearly every industry. More recently, I've watched the food world, for which I have great interest, impacted both by technology but also by social media. In 2013, I hope to merge my personal interest in food with my work at TENOR, and build an avenue of our business that focuses on food-related businesses. Before founding TENOR with my partner and husband, Matthew Stotts, in 2005, I was a Vice President with Waggener Edstrom. I've also held positions in public relations at Microsoft, WebTV, Adobe and Sun Microsystems. I began my career in NYC, working at Mademoiselle Magazine.

Carrie Norton is Founder and CEO of Green Business BASE CAMP, a global entrepreneurial education company serving early stage green business and cleantech entrepreneurs and corporate intrapreneurs. Carrie’s strategic career choices have allowed her to appreciate a range of perspectives in sustainable business and entrepreneurship, including roles at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Garage Technology 
Ventures and Idealab. Most recently, Carrie spent 8 years as an executive in the commercial solar power industry, where she served early-adopting clients including Google, Sony, and British Telecom among others. Carrie is a Catto Fellow of the Aspen Institute, Class of
 2010. She co-founded the Sustainable Business Council of Los Angeles, and
 her community leadership includes work with Grid Alternatives, the
 Clean Economy Network and Net Impact. She has served as adjunct faculty
member at the Graziadio School of Management at Pepperdine University.
She earned an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA
 from Trinity University. Carrie speaks, consults and advises on topics
 related to innovation, entrepreneurship and the triple bottom line.

Catalina’s infectious laughter is such a force of nature it even precedes her way before she shows up at a shoot. Which brings us to the fact Catalina is a photographer. One that finds joy in everything that has to do with a camera and a subject. Whether it is David Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Los Amigos Invisibles, The Rolling Stones or Donald Trump (just to mention a few), being in front of her lens is always an opportunity to experience her energy and huge drive. The latter, must be said, inversely proportional to her tiny frame. Catalina lives in New York. But she’s always ready and willing to travel all over. Good thing she speaks five languages. For her, that famous phrase by Chaplin about a day without laughter being a day wasted takes on a new meaning. Catalina likes to think a day without taking a photograph is also a wasted day.

Live & Let Live, founded by Catherine M. Zadeh, is a socially responsible company that celebrates the power of individuals to make a positive difference in the world. With a unique blend of social networking and distinctive jewelry, we offer a dynamic new way for charities and the people that support them to connect, share, raise money and build awareness for their cause. Catherine M. Zadeh, the engine behind Live & let Live, is a jewelry designer based in New York. Inspired by all her past lives, in Iran and in Paris, her collections are impressions reincarnated as sculptural shapes with emotional underpinnings, designs with intellectual presence. Her work is presently sold at Barneys and she has partnered with 24 charities so far.

Charlie O'Donnell has been an active member of the NYC venture capital and startup community for ten years in roles ranging from institutional fund investor to venture capitalist to entrepreneur--with a little product management in between. He has venture experience at two of the top venture capital firms in the country, Union Square Ventures and First Round Capital, and sourced First Round's Investment in GroupMe, which sold to Skype in 2011. The investments he sourced at First Round Capital also include Refinery29, chloe + isabel, Backupify, SinglePlatform, Salescrunch and Docracy.

A seasoned media executive and strategic thinker, Cindy blends her business savvy with a strong creative instinct. She is adept at collaborative content creation from concept through production across a range of medium, including television, DVD, books and music. Over the years, Cindy has worked to develop and extend both new and established entertainment properties across multiple platforms. She holds a J.D. and M.B.A. from Emory University. Hailed “Best of the best,” by Entrepreneur.com along with business partner Lisa Mercurio, the award-winning team is the first to recognize bedtime and sleep as a new marketing, entertainment and wellness frontier. They believe that the secret to a good night’s sleep lies in what you do at bedtime. Together, they have created "Bedtime Beats" the music brand, a "Bedtime Beats" series of iHomes, they are the founders of BedtimeNetwork.com. Cindy has a very big dog named “Titan.” A gentle giant and "rescue" from Tennessee, his crate is the size of a small condo and he enjoys sleeping there at night. Now that her kids are away at college, Cindy has many extra bedrooms. Formerly an excellent sleeper, Cindy is now on a quest for the ideal bedtime ritual. At her husband’s request, she does not have a television in her bedroom and she is working hard not to let in her smartphone or iPad. She relishes the hunt for all things sleep-related and can often be found scouring flea markets, antique shops and home goods stores around the globe for that special something.

Claire is a master’s candidate at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, working on projects in various mediums at the intersection of interactive design, technology, art and science. Prior to NYU, she was the Head of Creative Development for New York-based VFX / Content production company, 1stAveMachine and founded Context Is Meaning. She's passionate about fostering collaboration between artists and scientists, and the potential for the use of new media as a vehicle to bring research to a broad audience.

Claudia Reyes is an integrated art director with over 10 years of experience with advertising agencies and clients in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. Her experiences have allowed her to design, direct and lead projects ranging from brand identity, interactive design, systematic platforms, iPhone apps, evergreen social campaigns across devices, restaurant design, and web start-ups. Claudia's passion lies in the collaborative consumption movement. She also prefers to approach projects collaboratively. Claudia is a huge crafter. She owns 5 sewing machines, enjoys making jewelry, leather bags and is currently learning how to make shoes. She also hearts fish tacos, making homemade granola, bourbon, hammocks, her bike and dog... Claudia is always interested in working on smart projects.

Colette Ellis is an author, executive coach, and motivational speaker who empowers clients to get “instep” with their health so they can focus on what’s most important. Her book, Focus on Your Vision, presents an easy, 4-step process to help readers achieve greater work-life balance. With over 10 years experience helping visionaries deal with change, she creates a safe space for clients to explore new opportunities without compromising their values. She is certified in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities, and Coping with Work & Family Stress™, a research-based wellness curriculum. As founder of InStep Consulting, Colette guides entrepreneurs how to transform their lives and realize results faster through insightful coaching and interactive seminars on leadership and employee wellness. A featured eHow.com contributor on Workplace Morale, her tips and advice have appeared in Real Simple Magazine and online at CBSNews.com and CNN.com.

Colleen is a socio-ecological artist working at the intersection of culture, science, and the environment. She has over 25 years of art and design experience, including developing and fabricating age-specific interactive exhibits with and for kids at Children's museums, creating custom jewelry, making original mixed-media and site-specific art installations, and crafting precise armatures (ball-and-socket skeletons) for stop motion animation in films (e.g "Coraline," LAIKA, Inc.) and commercials. For the past 8 years, she has focused her creative attention on collaborative coral reef restoration projects- Living Sea Sculptures- and her interactivist alter egos, Miss Snail Pail and Amphitrite: transforming herself into conversation pieces to playfully embody critical environmental concerns and resourceful adaptations. Colleen was in the inaugural class of TED Fellows (2009) and TED Senior Fellows (2010 -'12). Colleen has a B.A. in Design from UCLA and a post-bacch. degree in Metals from the Oregon College of Art and Craft. With a one-way ticket, she embraces the WE Festival as her landing pad into New York. Exciting east coast chapter begins!

My entire career has been devoted to starting, growing and supporting successful entrepreneurial ventures. Currently, I'm the senior associate director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at NYU, where I oversee the development and implementation of programs designed to nurture entrepreneurial talent at NYU. Each year, the Berkley Center serves more than 800 students, alums and other aspiring entrepreneurs through its $200K Entrepreneurs Challenge Venture Competitions, extensive Venture Mentor Network, conferences, speaker series and startup assistance programs. I'm also an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at NYU Stern. My course, Launch!, guides students through the thrilling ride that is the entrepreneurial startup process. In addition, I am the instructor of Strategic Steps for Growth, an innovative nine-month capacity building class offered for women and minority owned firms in partnership with NYC's Department of Small Business Services. Prior to joining NYU Stern, I was cofounder & executive vice president of KIP Communications, a b-to-b marketing and media company. Our flagship publication, the award-winning KIP Business Report newspaper, provided in-depth reporting on the business and economic issues impacting urban entrepreneurs. We also co-produced KIP Business Report Success Stories, a weekly television segment profiling entrepreneurs, which aired on WCBS-TV, and co-hosted The KIP Business Report on WLIB radio, a popular morning drive-time program focused on small business issues.

I'm the cofounder of AbbeyPost, a brand new (pre-launch) startup where we're building the premiere women's plus-size fashion marketplace and community.

Dana Hork is the Founder and CEO of REFINE, a new type of e-tailer that designs, manufactures, and sells high quality, luxury basics for women -- starting with layering tees and tanks. Prior to REFINE, Dana was a Vice President at J.P. Morgan. She also has experience developing marketing programs in the beverages division of PepsiCo as well as launching the customer segmentation initiative for Bonobos, the largest internet-launched men’s apparel brand in the United States. Dana is also the Founder and CEO of Change for Change, a national non-profit organization that mobilizes young adults to fundraise for local charities via small contributions. Dana holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA from Columbia University, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude, where she served as student body president.

Darcy is a pioneer in Digital Media, as an investment banker advising companies on strategy and financings, as a research analyst identifying attractive opportunities and as a consultant to early stage companies. She has over 25 years experience advising over 200 companies, completing over 70 transactions, and compiling over $2B in financings and mergers. She is a regular contributing writer on Forbes.com and has been interviewed on both television and publication by CNBC, The Economist, Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal, etc and has been recognized as a forward-thinker regarding technology trends. Darcy now focuses her time primarily on myFrontdoor, and occasionally consults for other start up companies. myFrontdoor connects people passionate about home remodeling and provides them with the tools to manage the process. myFrontdoor leverages current emerging and growing trends in both online and mobile environments. Darcy earned her MBA in Finance at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and graduated from Brown University with a BA in Economics. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group and currently serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Brown Club of Fairfield County. Darcy enjoys her daughter and her black lab puppy, skiing, tennis and travel.

Debra-Ellen Glickstein has spent her career working to expand economic opportunities for low-income individuals and families. Most recently, she served as the Vice President of Strategy & Program Development at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) where she worked to design and implement NYCHA’s new strategy to support residents in increasing their income and assets. She is a co-founder and served as the founding Executive Director of the East River Development Alliance (ERDA), a non-profit organization that supports public housing residents to achieve economic success through college counseling, financial planning, career training and job placement assistance. She is also a co-founder and member of the ERDA Federal Credit Union – a community-owned financial institution created to provide public housing residents in Western Queens with access to affordable and relevant financial services. Debra-Ellen earned a B.A. with honors from Wesleyan University and her MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business. She is a proud City Year alumnus.

A former corporate climber in the capital markets, I am a first time entrepreneur launching my dream company. Stiletto Dash is a lifestyle brand for women business travelers, designed to ease the pains of business travel. After a decade working for the Toronto Stock Exchange and being a serious road warrior, I took all of my experiences and relationships and moved to Los Angeles to start the company.

Dianne Rosky is the founder and principal of Rosky Legal Education LLC (www.roskylegaled.com), a leading provider of communication training for non-U.S. attorneys working in U.S. firms. Dianne and her associates have led hundreds of group and individual training sessions at major law firms throughout the United States and abroad. Dianne is an Adjunct Professor in the international LL.M. program at N.Y.U. Law School, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a former associate at the law firms Sullivan & Cromwell and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

Elena Gretch is a well-known and respected Pet Expert and business owner in New York City. She frequently appears on TV and in the news with topics ranging from animal care and dog training to pet lifestyle, and entrepreneurship. Recognized by WPIX news as a “Fabulous Female Entrepreneur”, Elena has turned her passion for animals into a thriving and successful business. She is the founder and CEO of It's a Dog's Life NY (itsadogslifeny.com) which was nominated for the NAPPS Business of the Year Award. Her team of dog trainers, dog walkers and pet sitters utilize her Urban Dog Development™ philosophy to provide the finest in-home pet care available. Her clients include many well-known professionals and celebrities. Elena is best known for her work with Portuguese Water Dogs and has made many appearances with her own two furry kids. Her recent media appearances include the History Channel, CNN, MSNBC Today, WPIX news, the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal. Elena is certified by the Certification Counsel of Professional Dog Trainers (ccpdt.org), a Professional Member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, an AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator, and a graduate of New York University’s Stern School of Business. She understands the value of networking and mentorship so she actively participates in entrepreneurial groups. She is a strong proponent of animal rescue, working directly with charities such as the ASPCA and NYC’s Mayor’s Alliance to educate new and prospective dog owners about animal behavior and training. In her spare time, Elena can be found hanging upside down on a flying trapeze or spending time with her two Portuguese Water Dogs, Splash and Diver.

In 2006 I graduated from ITP with an interest to develop and design technology that educates, delights, and improves quality of life. In the past year, I have worked with a cross-discipline team at Johnson and Johnson designing medical devices that help patients better manage their care. Our work impacted many diabetes and Alzheimer's patients, among others. Additionally, I was part of a team that design, managed, and developed several exhibits at the Museum of Math in Manhattan (opened 12/15/12). The aim of the exhibits was to teach abstract math concepts with a hands on approach, and demonstrate that math can be fun. My goal is to start a company and look forward to discussing "what's next" at the WE Festival.

Deputy Director - NYC ACRE at Polytechnic Institute of NYU, Office of Innovation Development at Polytechnic Institute of New York University. Previously, Project Manager at the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Program Office.

I have worked in the financial services industry for the past six years focused on energy project finance. I began my career at a boutique investment banking advisory firm focused on sourcing development equity capital for renewable energy projects After graduating from Columbia Business School in 2011, I joined GE Capital's energy finance division, where I have managed GE's international equity investments in energy projects and now focus on debt financing opportunities in the power sector. I am also an avid health and fitness enthusiast and an aspiring entrepreneur.

Erin Smith is a builder and designer of props, sets, costumes, and miscellany. She was a selected designer for the Ontological Hysteric’s incubator showcase, and has worked in film and television for ABC, NBC, CBS, and Universal Pictures, to name a few. She was chosen for a competitive apprenticeship program at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School, where she studied carpentry and ecological design. She has since focused her energies on sustainable construction, building for reclaimed furniture designer Peter Buley, continuing her work with Isabella Rossellini's ecological series "Green Porno", and designing a short film for Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. She earned her BA in Film and American Studies at Wesleyan University, and is currently studying digital fabrication and new technologies at NYU's interactive telecommunications program.

Esther is a founding partner of Farkas & Neurman, a business law firm focusing on assisting small and emerging growth companies from formation through their lifecycles. Esther has extensive experience working on a diverse range of corporate and financial transactions, including acquisitions and sales of publicly and privately held companies in a wide range of industries; strategic alliances; secured lending arrangements; securities law matters and corporate governance. After graduating from law school, Esther spent more than seven years at a leading New York law firm. Esther has been cited in The American Lawyer in connection with her work on Hewlett Packard’s acquisition of 3Par and in connection with her work on Google’s acquisition of Motorola; The Deal Magazine in connection with her representation of J.Crew in its sale to TPG; and on the Harvard Corporate Governance Blog in connection with an article she co-authored on corporate governance matters. Esther received her J.D. with honors from the University of Michigan Law School, where she worked as an Articles Editor of the University of Michigan Law Review and her B.A. cum laude from Duke University. Esther is bilingual in Hungarian and English.

I'm a digital & creative strategist who, after 15 years in ad agencies, digital agencies, market research and innovation agencies, started The Difference Engine to help clients answer the question, "What do we make to grow our business?" I'm also an advocate for women in tech, women in advertising, lean planning, and usefulness.

Fran has devoted her professional career for the past thirty years to innovation in the field of health care. She graduated from Rutgers University and has a Masters in Business Administration from the Baruch/Mt. Sinai Hospital program in Health Care Administration. Fran is currently President and Founder of MSI Physical Therapy with facilities located in Morris, Union and Essex counties in New Jersey. Fran began her career in health care by spear heading a statewide initiative in Rhode Island to deinstitutionalize hundreds of senior citizens who no longer required residence in a mental health hospital. In addition, in conjunction with the Brown University Medical School, she established the first inpatient comprehensive rehabilitation unit in the State of Rhode Island which cares for spinal cord injuries, brain injuries and other severe handicaps requiring intensive inpatient care. After moving to New Jersey, Fran developed and operated Riverside Hospice, the first free standing inpatient hospice facility in the United States. As an administrator at several hospitals in New Jersey, she developed an inpatient long-term respiratory unit and developed a model for merging underutilized hospitals to decrease excess bed capacity while still maintaining needed care for the community. She remains committed to providing quality care in a challenging environment.

Frida Polli, PhD, is an award-winning neuroscientist from Harvard + MIT. After completing a neuroscience dissertation at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, she went to Harvard Business School to develop commercial applications for the science she was involved in. While at HBS, she co-founded Pymetrics with a colleague and fellow MIT neuroscientist, Julie Yoo, PhD. Pymetrics provides a completely novel, neuroscience-based solution for human capital assessment. It replaces questionnaires with neuroscience games, and statistics with recommendation engine technology to provide the most precise, sophisticated solution available. Pymetrics clients are top-tier technology, professional + financial service firms.

My life’s mission, after caring for my family, is to help families find their path to more healthful living, start more productive conversations around family wellness, and to help raise a generation of empowered, educated, happy children. The LaLa Lunchbox app is the first step to building a lifestyle brand around childhood nutrition and healthy habits. I worked in the public health sector for nearly a decade after receiving my MBA from Columbia University. Before taking a job in the public sector, I started a company called Bones of Steel, a fitness program to help women build bone density and fight osteoporosis. Both my personal and professional lives are dedicated to healthy living and now as a NYC mom of three, these issues feel more important than ever. Prior to business school, my work life revolved around information architecture in the startup world.

Researcher on technologies and innovation. Author of Venture Labor (MIT Press 2012). Professor at the University of Washington on leave at Princeton and NYU.

Grace is Co-Founder of Lean Startup Machine, an innovation education company that has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and individuals from organizations including Google, Salesforce, News Corp, Intuit, and others, start hundreds of new businesses on five continents. As the youngest thought leader on Lean User Experience (Lean UX) in the world, she has been a featured guest speaker for the White House’s Innovation Fellows, Princeton University, and an instructor for Singularity University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Gretchen Brigden is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Office of Macro Intelligence 2 Partners, LLC, an independent advisory firm to hedge funds and other institutional market participants. She has over 20 years of related experience on Wall Street primarily in securitization and lending to finance companies. Prior to founding MI2 Partners in 2011 with her husband, Julian, she worked at The Liberty Hampshire Company, a division of Guggenheim Partners, Ambac, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and First Union Capital Markets. Gretchen holds an MBA from Duke University and a BA in economics from Dickinson College. She is passionate about skiing, education, building opportunities for women, and incorporating more laughter into life

Hallie Sara, an apparel industry veteran with a flair for the edgy and unique has a sophisticated design aesthetic that has been admired and acquired by retailers and their customers since 2000. Hallie launched Hallie Sara Designs, a bespoke luxury goods atelier in NYC that offers original designs crafted from the highest quality and finest materials sourced globally to a fervent following of savvy clients in 2010. After an impressive debut at Aspen Fashion Week in 2011, Hallie Sara Designs broadened the individualized, customized and unparalleled design experience available to its clientele to include fine jewelry, home furnishings and interior design. Hallie now seeks to leverage the company’s cult following among fashion insiders and tastemakers into a global lifestyle brand with the launch of a flagship store in 2014 alongside a broader wholesale product range for retail placement in exclusive boutiques worldwide. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Hallie has merged her background in finance with her passions for entrepreneurship, art and fashion into a career in design. She has worked in every aspect of fashion design development and production, domestically and overseas, with her own contemporary womenswear brand and with private label work for international retail giants. Hallie’s keen eye for trends for many years led her to be engaged in forecasting and refining fashion trends for product development and large volume production for major retailers including Wal-Mart, Dillard’s, Bebe, Victoria’s Secret and Forever 21. In addition to growing brands for other companies, she also has produced her own well-received contemporary designer apparel collections that were sold in upscale boutiques throughout North America.

Helena is a seasoned fashion executive with 15 years of experience working in management and marketing in NYC fashion, for Chanel, Ferragamo, Zac Posen, Harper’s Bazaar, Bloomingdale’s and others. Helena also has significant experience in start-ups. She has an MBA from NYU STERN, concentrating in finance, accounting and entrepreneurship. She graduated from University of Pennsylvania. Most importantly, Helena is an avid surfer who can’t find a good bikini that will stay on while she’s getting tubed.

After being a stay-at-home mom for ten years, Helen Nurse created TracyChambers Vintage out of her love of vintage clothing and treasure hunting. Named after Diana Ross's character in Mahogany, TracyChambers Vintage carries carefully curated vintage and contemporary clothing inspired by echoes of an era past. TracyChambers Vintage also supports women and entrepreneurship through She Better Mind Her Business, Inc. - "Empowering moms to own their financial destiny." She Better Mind Her Business is a support group for moms who want to start their own businesses and awards micro grants to moms for start up costs.

After working in brand management at L’Oreal for several years, I recently co-founded Beauty Booked with my friend and former colleague Ritika Gill. Beauty Booked is the most convenient way to book appointments with the best salons & spas online. Through the site, members can search for beauty appointments by various criteria including location, date & time, explore editorial content & user reviews and book appointments instantly – even at the last minute. We recently launched in beta in NYC with over 200 top salons & spas. I have a BA from Goucher College and an MBA from London Business School.

In 2006, Ilysse launched ThriveWell LLC as a coaching practice serving wellness professionals with small business development, women in transition, and leading retreats at spas and in the outdoors. Currently, she is redeveloping thrivewell.com into an uplifting community synonymous with helping people feel better, and branded product line to follow. Prior to ThriveWell, Ilysse has been a writer and consultant with 20 years of cross-disciplinary experience working with individuals, agencies, publications and start-ups from NYC to Palo Alto and back again, with clients such as Apple, match.com, Netscape, Microsoft and Kraft. She has coordinated events from the massive Fancy Food Show to custom spa retreats. She is fluent in food, wellness, lifestyle, gifting and motherhood, inspired by nature with a peaceful, sophisticated aesthetic. The first 2011 WE Festival led Ilysse to attend ITP Camp, a recommendation to all.

Jane Hoffer is co-founder and CEO of BrainRewards, Inc. and it’s first site Ohanarama (www.ohanarama.com). Ohanarama is the safe, online place where families connect, learn and play together. Created specifically to connect multi-generational families, Ohanarama (Ohana means “family in Hawaiian) engages extended family members of all ages by tapping into their natural social and competitive spirit through games, quizzes, contests and fun family interactions. Hoffer has been named a Woman of Distinction by The National Association of Women Business Owners, a finalist in Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year® award program, and an Entrepreneur of the Year from the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Hoffer is the immediate past President of the Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE), Philadelphia’s premiere organization connecting, educating and inspiring women entrepreneurs. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network. Hoffer is a summa cum laude graduate of Texas A&M University, holding a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and is the proud mother of three children, ages 18, 16, and 13.

Jean always wanted to combine three passions -- a lifelong love of snacking, a passion for sustainable foods, and a "good" business that practiced integrity. After 10+ years of planning, Pop Karma launched in July 2012. Pop Karma creates irresistible popcorn out of sustainably grown ingredients in classic and seasonal flavors. Our popcorn is perfect for snacking, gifting and events. Jean learned about strategic planning, product management and management consulting in the corporate world. She has an MBA from The Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College and a BSE/BA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jen is a full time MBA student at NYU Stern, specializing in Entrepreneurship and Retail Marketing. After meeting during orientation week, Jen and her business partner co-founded WorkShop - the ultimate online shopping destination for the modern career girl. Upon graduation this Spring, Jen looks forward to the full site launch of WorkShop.

Jennifer Baum is the president and founder of Bullfrog & Baum, an award-winning, nationally-recognized agency specializing in hospitality, lifestyle and consumer public relations and brand management with offices in New York City and Los Angeles. Under her guidance, the agency has had a hand in turning chefs like Laurent Tourondel and Michael Psilakis into internationally recognized brands while strategizing for well-known culinary luminaries like Bobby Flay and Wolfgang Puck. Beyond chefs and restaurants, the agency’s consumer products and lifestyle division does as much to keep established brands and products top of mind as they do to bring “the next best thing” to the marketplace and into the homes of consumers. Baum began her career far from the restaurant world, cutting her teeth amid blue chips and the Fortune 500. Following undergraduate work at Union College, she received her MBA from New York University, and became enamored by the business of hospitality. Combining her corporate savvy with a keen eye to make a restaurant successful, Baum carved out a niche for herself by building an agency that not only launches restaurants, but brings strategy to the diverse array of needs that figure in their success. She is known and respected in the industry as a creative, energetic thinker who values honesty and integrity above all else. These principles and beliefs are imparted daily to her staff, which now numbers over 30. During the last twelve years at the helm of Bullfrog & Baum, Baum has played an integral part in the changing landscape of hospitality public relations. Baum possesses an innate understanding of the role media plays in building a successful brand and has worked closely with journalists, clients and employees alike to address the constantly evolving demands of the hospitality industry. She continues to take an active role in mentoring her staff as well as women looking to break into the profession by identifying their unique talents and skill set, fostering their growth. Baum is a member of Women Chefs & Restaurateurs, Les Dames d’Escoffier, City Harvest Food Council, International Association of Culinary Professionals, The James Beard Foundation, International Foodservice Editorial Council, and actively participates in City Meals on Wheels programs. In addition, she has been an Adjunct Professor and guest lecturer at New York University’s Department of Nutrition and Food Studies and is a guest lecturer at The Institute of Culinary Education. Baum has been featured and/or quoted in The New York Times, The New York Post, Forbes, PR Week, and CNBC, among others.

Currently, Ms. Ratner is the co-founder of VSDox, a software start-up focused on workflow and digital signature solutions. After years of working in financial services, she and her partner experienced first-hand the frustration of trying to wrangle a Director’s signature or the late night FedEx’ing of documents. As a result, they created VSDox to tackle work flow inefficiencies by allowing users to securely sign and edit documents across devices. Designed to be cost-effective and user-friendly, VSDox products utilize patented technology to meet the financial and productivity needs of enterprises to go paperless. Ms. Ratner has worked with technology companies as an investment banker for Bank of America’s corporate finance and M&A team. After earning her MBA from Wharton, Ms. Ratner leveraged her finance skills as an Investment Officer for a microfinance investment fund, collaborating with various federal agencies and multi-laterals. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.

Jessica is a licensed Acupuncturist in New York starting a mobile Acupuncture clinic and creating an integrated mobile clinic geared towards corporate wellness. Jessica holds a Bachelor's in Biology and a Master's in Oriental Medicine, she draws from both her Eastern and Western medicine background to deliver a truly integrated approach to healing and wellness. She is dedicated to making healthcare more efficient and accessible...medical technology has evolved in leaps and bounds, it's about time medical administration catches up!

Jess Ostroff is the Director of Calm at the new virtual assistant and content management agency, Don’t Panic Management. She has worked with several of the top social media marketing and PR agencies to keep their back end operations and content strategy running smoothly. She currently lives in New York, although her team is spread around the country.

Serial entrepreneur. Co-Founder, gloss48. Before starting gloss48, Jill founded and ran MiniLuxe, the Boston-area chain of nail and beauty lounges, which she founded while a Partner at The Cue Ball Group. Prior to Cue Ball, Jill was the first female Partner at The Parthenon Group, a strategy consulting boutique. Prior to Parthenon, Jill was at Monitor Company, which she joined after completing her MBA at Wharton. Jill is a Board Director at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design.

gloss48 co-founder.... and serial entrepreneur, customer experience maven, beauty addict, online shopping expert. Leadership roles in several startups - AnyDay.com (through Palm acquisition), EFI (through IPO), Tikatok (through Barnes & Noble acquisition). Once upon a time software developer and UI designer. MS in Interaction Design from CMU. Oh, and mom, dog-lover, foodie, wanna be yogi.

Joni is the founder and CEO of the Guud Group. Guud believes that consumers can make better choices on what to buy through gaining new information, peer recommendations and the sharing of what others think is Guud. What’s guud for u is good for us. Joni has an extensive background in the Internet, mobile and software industries and has held executive positions in marketing, PR and Investor Relations at companies such as Microsoft, AT&T and InfoSpace among others.

Kate is the founder and editor-in-chief of Magnifeco.com. Where ethics meets aesthetics, Magnifeco.com is the digital source for eco-fashion and sustainable living. Dedicated to bringing together ethical designers and conscious consumers from all corners of the globe, Magnifeco.com publishes stories about small artisans and corporate retailers who are focused on producing garments or products in ways that won't harm the earth, yet still offer stunning visual appeal and longevity. A graduate of the University of Toronto, Kate posses a decade+ of online marketing experience. Having worked for Canada's largest newspapers and it's largest directional advertising agency, then moving to Europe and working for the largest performance marketing network from the Netherlands and Germany, when she found herself living in Tokyo, without sufficient language skills to work in her field- it was time to launch something that melded her two passions: digital publishing + fashion. Voil
a - Magnifeco!

I help entrepreneurs who are stuck find creative answers to their problems so they can prosper. I'm also managing director at Tillett Lighting Design Inc. and founder/director of Community Theatre Internationale.

First hire of NYC-based startup, QFive, a web and mobile application providing a social platform for the athletic community. Developed and implemented the marketing strategy for the company. Formerly the Director of Marketing and Business Development at a commodity hedge fund. Marketing and digital strategy consultant for startups and personal brands. Masters in psychology and bachelors in journalism. A division I long-distance runner that still logs a significant amount of miles.

Co-founder of Skillcrush.com where you can take your first step into tech. Dog lover. And recently I've been learning to ride my bike in the city!

Kat is the director of business development & client relations at Perch Interactive, a New York-based startup that creates interactive display technologies for use in retail spaces. Perch is a spin-off of award-winning interactive design and technology firm, Potion Design. Originally from Killarney, Ireland, Kat holds a B.A. in English and Graphic Design from the University of Notre Dame, and a M.P.S. in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

I am a 25-yr veteran of Wall Street. I started two companies in 2004 and 2005. The first, Camilli Economics, LLC turned cash flow positive by 2007. The second, Economic Mapping LLC is dormant due to cash constaints. I am in the process of reviving the second company due to new innovations in the field of economic mapping.

Kathleen Wilson is the co-founder of Rikaroo, Inc, a film collective which helps independent filmmakers find exposure for their quality films online by connecting them with film lovers in search of "the best films they've never seen." With Rikaroo, filmmakers get to exhibit their films, find and communicate with their audiences, and share in the subscription revenue. Film-lovers have a place to go online where they can communicate with filmmakers and discover, learn about, and view quality independent films that they can’t find elsewhere. Kathleen has worked in new media design and development for over twenty years, in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, at companies ranging from Viacom, Paramount, Maxis/EA, and Atari to MoMA, Bank Street, and WGBH-Boston. She consults on digital media strategy, reviews apps and writes for children and young adults. She's also on the Adjunct Faculty in the ITP Program at NYU/Tisch.

Kathryn Finney is the founder of digitalundivided, a social enterprise that builds forward thinking initiatives that fundamentally change the digital space by increasing the number of Black and Latino women digital entrepreneurs. Currently, Kathryn is the Editor-At-Large at BlogHer, Inc and CEO of TBF Group, LLC, parent company of The Budget Fashionista brand, based on one of the most popular and influential fashion blogs, The Budget Fashionista. An honors graduate of Yale and Rutgers Universities, Kathryn has been featured in more than 600 media outlets, including TODAY show, Good Morning America, The New York Times, USA TODAY, and The Wall Street Journal. She is considered an expert in building branded, women-centered online properties and is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences such as 92nd St Y, Decoded Fashion, South by Southwest (SXSW), New York Women in Communications, Women’s Funding Network, and numerous colleges and universities. Kathryn has won numerous awards and honors including, AOL’s Top 10 Women in Money, Black Enterprise’s 40 Stars Under 40, Silicon Alley 100, and Essence Magazine’s Woman of Style.

Katie Nadler is the product of an entrepreneurial family and a lover of all things startup. She founded TopShelf Clothes in July 2012 as a member of DreamIt Ventures incubator program. Katie received her MBA from Harvard Business School in May 2012. Over the course of her time there she was the CFO of the HBS Entrepreneurship Club, completed social media and user experience projects for Bonobos and Warby Parker respectively, and spent her summer working for the co-founder of Rent the Runway. Previously, Katie was an Analyst in the Business Development Group at BlackRock Solutions and an Investment Banking Analyst in the M&A Group at Merrill Lynch. She received her BA in Mathematical Economics from Colgate University.

I am the Founder & CEO of VenueBook.com, an OpenTable-like platform for the events world. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for event venues and planners to connect and book space. I also hold an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Williams College.

Kerry McIlroy is Vice President, Business Development at Cooley LLP, a law firm specializing in technology and emerging growth companies. Kerry works with the firm’s emerging company clients on business ideation, investor presentations, referrals to sources of financing and potential partners. Within the firm's NY office, she is responsible for start-up referrals, including potential customers, service providers and key hires. Kerry also manages the firm’s marketing and sponsorship activities in the New York area. Prior to joining Cooley, Kerry managed business development, strategy and operations at a venture-backed start-up in New York. She began her career as a journalist and was an intellectual property lawyer for several years, focusing on copyright, trademark and patent litigation for Fortune 500 companies.

Kimberly Butler is an award-winning photographer whose images of renowned celebrities, prominent world leaders, including four US Presidents, have been featured in publications around the world. Her credits include book covers regularly featured on the New York Times’ best-sellers’ list and her client roster includes foremost companies in film, television, radio, music, publishing, and nonprofit organizations. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the prestigious Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. For 13 years Kimberly Butler has covered photo assignments for People magazine including celebrity profiles, world leaders, major news and crime stories, and World Trade Center survivors. In addition to her celebrity portraiture, Kimberly Butler has traveled extensively in the Middle East and Russia as a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker - particularly in Jordan, Jerusalem, Gaza, Chechnya, and Kosovo. She has photographed and interviewed members of the Jordanian Royal Family, the Jewish Agency, and the Palestinian Authority, among others. For over ten years Kimberly has produced and photographed the American Library Association’s popular “READ” Celebrity Poster series, which appear in libraries and schools across America. A native New Yorker, she graduated with honors from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is a member of the PPA and IFP.

Kimberly Campbell is the head of communications and marketing at AccountAbility, a global corporate social responsibility and sustainability research and consulting firm. In this role, Kimberly is tasked with developing and executing the global internal and external communications strategy for the organization. Previously, she worked as a Public Affairs Manager for Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R), a wholly owned subsidiary of Con Edison, and a regulated electric and gas public utility serving nearly half a million customers in southwestern New York, northern New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. In her capacity at O&R, Kimberly was responsible for managing the company’s relationships with state and local public officials, promoting the company’s programs, plans, and system improvement projects, and advising the company on the direction of its philanthropic activities. She has extensive experience developing and implementing successful communication plans for environmental remediation projects, corporate social responsibility initiatives, education and advocacy programs, and electric and gas infrastructure development. Over the years Kimberly has held a number of positions of increasing responsibility in business, philanthropy, and health and human services development. She currently lives in New York City where she is a member of the Board of Directors for the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the US National Committee for UN Women and 85 Broads, a business networking group for women. Kimberly holds a Bachelors of Science from St. Joseph’s College and a Master’s Degree in Arts, Communication and Leadership from Gonzaga University.

Kine Paulsen is Co-Founder of Ingri:Dahl, a company focused around designer 3D eyewear. She was born and raised in Norway before she moved to Spain and later the US. Kine graduated from University of Southern California with a business degree and emphasis on Finance in May 2011. She has a diverse experience with a background in sales, marketing and investment management. Kine currently resides in New York, where she studies marketing at New York University.

Founder of BeautyRiot.com, the first virtual beauty makeover on the web, sold to Total Beauty Media in 2009. Founder of Kuratur.com, a content curation platform that lets users easily curate customized automated content walls in minutes from Twitter, Facebook and RSS. Kuratur graduated from the Betaspring Fall 2012 accelerator program in November of 2012. 15+ years experience in internet startups.

The founder and CEO of MonkeyWish.com, a universal gift registry that allows members to build lists from any website or store either online or through the use of MonkeyWish.com’s exclusive smart phone application. A wife and mother of three, Kristi’s family was the driving force behind her vision, spurring her to create MonkeyWish, and fill what she saw as a void in the retail market. For the last 17 years, Kristi worked successfully in real estate development, but found her true passion when her real estate career introduced her to the world of technology and innovation. A downturn in the real estate market afforded her the opportunity to pursue her passion. “As a busy mother, I embrace the tools that help make life more efficient. I hope MonkeyWish.com allows all the busy bodies in the world to stress less about ‘what to give’ and instead spend more quality time with their loved ones.”

Lana is one of the Founders of AltModern Music, a rock-focused music publishing house based in the UK, Cyprus, and New York. Prior to moving into the business of music, she worked for over 10 years in structuring and marketing derivatives at both Citigroup and JP Morgan. Originally born and raised in Dallas (TX), Lana moved to New York in 1998 where she graduated from NYU with a Bachelors in Finance in 2002. One of Lana’s most enjoyable pastimes is riding horses and she has competed nationally in Hunter/Jumper events. She is married to a Dutchman (Patrick Hoogendijk) and has a 2.5 yr old daughter, Carolina. Lana loves cooking, travelling, and skiing.

Laura Bronner is the Co-Founder of gloss48, an interactive ecommerce site and mobile app that connects the 44K+ niche beauty brands to the 50M beauty junkies shopping online in a unique, personalized way. gloss48 is paradise for modern beauty junkies - bringing the old school beauty counter into the digital, discovery age. Prior to revolutionizing online beauty discovery and shopping, Laura developed upscale nail and waxing concepts MiniLuxe (Boston) and Nail Bar (Chicago). Back in the day, she also worked for Gap Inc and Ernst & Young. She holds an MBA from Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Duke University. Laura is an avid Duke basketball fan, a new mom, a dog lover (pets and hot), a low maintenance beauty blogger, and a big fan of women entrepreneurs.

As a mother, educator, and graduate student, Laura Gatto is intensely passionate about children’s educational media. She currently studies media-based education as a graduate student at New York University’s Steinhardt School, where she is an M.A. Candidate in the Digital Media Design for Learning program. Ms. Gatto earned her BFA in Film Television, from NYU’s Tisch School, where she graduated with honors. She is also the recipient of the Helena Rubinstein Scholarship and served with AmeriCorps, in partnership with NYU. After graduating from the Tisch school, Ms Gatto pursued a career in video production, holding positions as a senior editor and later as an independent producer. With over 16 years of work experience, Ms Gatto has edited, recorded, and directed many full-scale projects. They include corporate training videos, special events videography, and promotional video pieces. Among her notable works is a self-produced project, titled “Nurturing Artistic Development in Young Children”, featuring the artist, Peter Max. Ms. Gatto credits this work as being one of the most satisfying projects to date. She is constantly engaged in educational processes that push traditional learning styles. She continues to work as an independent video producer while exploring the possibilities of new media forms, in particular children’s educational videogames. Ms Gatto applies her seasoned expertise in media composition and narrative to the production of educational video games, and modern approaches to children’s education in music. As a mother of two young children, ages five and three, she maintains a natural interest in early childhood education. Ms Gatto credits her children for being an extension to her own education and for being the source of inspiration. She has developed a rough IOS prototype entitled, BeeBop. BeeBop is a musical jazz App that introduces young children to basic musical concepts of beat, improvisation, instrumentation as well as to the history of American Jazz. She is looking to take her concept to the next level and is looking forward to learning from the other attendee's at this year's WE ITP Festival.

After 18+ years in Fashion and Technology, Laura founded WYSWYG, llc., a digital agency. WYSWYG provides guidance and support to organizations of any size seeking in depth knowledge and experience to help execute online business concepts. Past engagements include advisory roles and interim CXXO positions including CEO, COO, CMO and CTO and SVP product management. Services evolve around product and business needs and goals including design, development, business planning, strategic introductions and start up coaching. Products developed include websites, mobile applications, software applications, marketing programs, social media delivery and graphic design and UX. With a specialization in fashion, retail and consumer products, WYSWYG’s design and product development strategies are supported by our deep understanding of strategic business models required to scale high growth businesses. Clients include: Down etc, Marketingpilot, Stylesight, Lapiluv, Shopsy, Suburban Momma, Art Alliance, Eat What Ya Got, bobbloom.net, Susan Grant Design, Sue Kagan Design, PLM bootcamp, Zweave, Gelato Giuliana NJ, etc. Laura is an author and frequent speaker on the topic of entrepreneurship, PLM, product development and sourcing for the Fashion Industry. She has been featured in Inc, the Wall Street journal, Success, Fortune, Entrepreneurs, Apparel Magazine and WWD. Laura was selected to participate in Make Mine a Million, Astia and Springboard. She served as President of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization (YEO) NYC Chapter and chaired YEO’s first NY University, a program teaching management skills to entrepreneurs. Laura is a graduate of MIT’s “Birthing of Giants” and Leadership America. She has served on the Advisory Board of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization, and the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Laura holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Design from Parson’s School of Design (NY and Paris). She is multi-lingual and multi-cultural, having spent her childhood in Paris, France.

Laura grew up in Texas, after spending seven years in Brussels, Belgium eating her way through waffles and moules frites. The middle sister of three, she continually vied for the title of best “mix it yourself” soda dispenser creations among her siblings. Channeling this inner competitiveness, she graduated from UT Austin and spent the next 7 years on Wall Street. She worked as Manager Research's Assistant Vice President at Barclays Wealth Americas researching and covering alternative investments in the U.S. and Europe with a focus on long-short equity, CTAs, credit and fund of funds. Prior to Barclays Wealth Americas, she was responsible for private equity and hedge fund research and distribution at Lehman Brothers Investment Management. She graduated magna cum laude with a B.B.A. in Finance and Business Honors from the University of Texas at Austin (first in class). During her time in NYC, discovering new food and drinks spots became Laura’s passion. Cup & Compass is an opportunity to employ her business background to create healthy and natural thirst quenchers for everyone, with her sisters’ approval of course.

Full time Googler, part-time NYU Stern MBA candidate graduating May '13, serial entrepreneur interested in helping other women build their businesses. Currently working on building a community that celebrates inspiring workspaces through Office-Envy.com #HappinessatWork

One would think that a successful 14-year-run in the ruthless world of the restaurant business would be the highlight of Lauryn Small’s journey from South Florida to New York City. But knowing Lauryn you can always expect bigger, more ambitious plans for her to conquer. Lauryn moved to NYC to join the prestigious Ford Modeling agency at 17, where she used her proceeds to underwrite a New York University Undergraduate and Masters Degree in Comparative Literature concentrating on Caribbean and South American Literature. Following NYU, Lauryn was asked to join the staff at Match Restaurant, where she worked as manager. It was at Match where she decided to open her own restaurant. At Ideya Latin Bistro, she not only perfected the culinary confluence of Spanish, African and indigenous ingredients that characterizes Caribbean Latin cuisine she also pioneered the Mojito revolution with her fresh, simple recipe. Lauryn functioned as the general manager, and was responsible for all seasonal menu changes, bookkeeping, staff training, purchasing and marketing. Lauryn navigated the treacherous path as sole proprietor of the bustling eatery until November 2012 following the end of the business’ lease. Though owning and operating her own business was a great source of pride in it’s own right, helping her former employees launch their own establishments quite possibly gave her a greater sense of pride. At present Lauryn is on the board of Horizons at Brooklyn Friends, a national endowment for the enrichment of economically disadvantaged children through academics and extra circular activities. In addition she is Chair and Founder of Friendsapalooza , a festival for high school students that includes bands, skateboarders, graffiti artists, at Brooklyn Friends School, an annual fundraiser for Horizons . Lauryn is in the initial stages of a new project that will combine her culinary expertise with her love of education and the teen demographic in a dynamic indoor interactive play space. Lauryn lives in Clinton Hill Brooklyn with her husband Jake and her 8-year-old twins Luella and Iden.

Leah Eichler is an award-­‐winning editor and celebrated columnist. Her weekly Women@Work column takes a fresh look at issues women in Canada and the United States face in the modern day workplace, from lack of representation at the Board of Directors level to the phenomenon of female breadwinners. She offers new takes on ideas such as the “mommy track” and “work-­‐life balance”. Ms. Eichler launched her journalism career in Jerusalem before returning to Canada, where she spearheaded Reuters’ entry into the digital age. She was responsible for developing and growing Reuters’ first mass consumer-­facing website, Reuters.com. The site was a bold initiative for the 150-­‐year-­‐old wire service in many ways, including its commentary section and direct revenue generation. She left Thomson Reuters in 2012 to pursue her dream of creating her own digital media and technology business, called Femme‐O-­Nomics. The company launched r/ally ­-­‐ a mobile social media platform that lets women reach professional goals and build stronger business relationships -­‐ in beta in November 2012. Ms. Eichler is regularly interviewed and asked to speak on issues relating to women in the workplace and entrepreneurship. She has appeared as an expert on the issue on CNN, Newstalk 1010 and in multiple spots in the blogosphere.

I co-founded Mobile Movement, a social enterprise that combines storytelling, crowdfunding and community development through mobile. I live in Venice, which means I now spend a lot of time running, boxing, swimming and occasionally surfing. I also co-founded the Panty Raiders, which is a bunch of girls ambushing the media. I love fiction. I travel a lot, drink too much espresso and will always dance exclusively to Hip Hop. I love my life, but still, I wish I was an astronaut. I graduated from ITP in 03 and yes, I miss NY.

LeeAnn Maxwell is the CEO of Vixen Vodka. She and her two girlfriends started Vixen on a girls trip to St. Simons Island. They noted that there wasn't a vodka out there that spoke to a woman directly. So they decided to start one. None of them had any liquor experience, except they liked to drink it. But they all had advertising, marketing and branding experience. The company launched in the state of GA in Oct 2012 and is poised to launch in other markets. LeeAnn has navigated the murkey waters of the spirits industry with class, sass and a glass half full at all times.

Leigh Ernst Friestedt is the founder of Equity IX LLC, a media holding company for her original screenplays and investments. She was previously an M&A investment banker at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, Lazard and GE Capital. Leigh is graduate of Brown University (1993) and Vanderbilt Law School (1996) where she currently serves on the Board of Advisors.

Founder of Press4Kids Inc, Mother of 3. Obsessed with empowering children with knowledge. Headed the IT Department for Petrobras/Internor in the early 1990s. Former Computer Animator and independent post-production specialist with clients such as ABC, NBC, and Televisa. Former Director of Business Development for Edelson Technology Partners, a venture capital firm; Fashion 500, a high-end e-commerce start-up; and Internet Partnership Group (IPG), a UK-based start-up incubator. Guest writer for Avenue Magazine, Quest, Hamptons Magazine, Revista Manchete and Jornal Globinho. Summa cum laude in Classic Literature from New York University.

Founder of Maxamoo, a mobile entertainment events aggregator that makes it easy for everyday people to discovery, enjoy, share, and remember New York City theater; White House Fellow 2011-12; formerly an attorney at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York City.

I am a native Coloradoan who moved to New York in 2007 to study literature at New York University. I received my BA in 2010 and my MA in 2011, both in literature, and then started to try to figure out what to do with myself. While working for a start-up trust & estates law firm after graduation, I realized that my work with nonprofits, particularly 826NYC (an after-school tutoring and writing resource center in Park Slope), had been the most satisfying. After taking many courses and attending several seminars on nonprofit management and fundraising, I have become enthralled with the concept of social enterprise - using market forces to promote social good. My entrepreneurial blood has caught up with me, too; my mother has run her own municipal-district accounting firm for almost 10 years, and my father has been at the helm of his own small businesses since he was 19, in everything ranging from shoe sales to real estate. Inspired by several bouts with melanoma, I am working toward developing a clothing company that makes fashionable UV-blocking clothes in order to popularize skin cancer prevention. I will be moving to San Francisco in mid-2013 to be closer to the current U.S. nodes of social entrepreneurship innovation.

Recently nominated as one of the top Women of Influence in New Mexico, Lisa Abeyta is the founder of APPCityLife, Inc., a mobile development company which is passionate about motivating people to participate in activities that are good for their community. APPCityLife provides mobile apps for cities with integrated gamification, analytics and social interaction. The company was named one of the 20 Hottest Startups of 2010 by VentureBeat. She is a frequent guest speaker on the topics of mobile innovation and women in technology and works with several nonprofit organizations and educational institutions to provide mentorship opportunities to young women. Before starting her tech company, she worked as a business beat journalist, food writer, humor columnist, and chaired a boatload of PTA committees and community projects. She is exceptionally talented at nurturing any plant capable of providing food while managing to kill off all others and makes a mean triple chocolate amaretto mousse.

Lisa Mercurio is the creative force behind the marketing and development of some of the most successful arts and entertainment events to strike over the past two decades. A former senior entertainment executive (PolyGram/Universal), she developed the launch strategy behind multi-platinum recording artist Andrea Bocelli, Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance, Josh Groban and the world-renowned “Three Tenors” concert (debut version, 1991). She has executive produced many recording and television projects. Hailed, “Best of the best,” by Entrepreneur.com along with business partner Cindy Bressler, the award-winning team is the first to recognize “bedtime” as a new marketing, entertainment and wellness frontier. With women 40 plus as their target, they have created, "Bedtime Beats" the music brand, a Bedtime Beats series of iHomes and alarm clocks and, they are the founders of BedtimeNetwork.com. Mercurio resides in New York City. An avid marathon runner and dog lover, she likes to rise and run with the sun. Complete physical and mental exhaustion is her true secret to sleep!

Lisa will be launching Smitten Films in March of 2013. 7 years in finance, 2 years in film production, and 3.5 years of motherhood have all played significant roles in arriving at this moment. Smitten Films is about bringing family's stories to life. So many new parents take thousands of pictures and hours of video of their children. These incredible moments are left to languish on computers, cameras, or phones and are, sadly, rarely viewed. Smitten takes all of these memories and puts them together into a poignant film that will be enjoyed by families for decades to come. Lisa holds a BA with honors from Williams College.

Dana Karwas is a digital media artist and educator. She is an Instructor of Digital Media at NYU Poly's Integrated Digital Media Program and is the co-founder of BLDG BLOK, a Brooklyn based start-up that is re-imaging the way tourists interface with cities. Since 2008 she has served as the Media Director for artist Maya Lin's final memorial, What is Missing? Dana's artworks have been shown at the Chelsea Art Museum, The Museo de Belle Arts Caracas, The Contemporary Art Museum Caracas, The Boston Museum of Science, The London Festival of Architecture, The DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival, The University Club NYC, Knoll International Paris, The Museum of Television and Radio NYC, and The International Contemporary Furniture Fair NYC. Dana holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the School of Architecture, Design, and Planning at the University of Kansas. She has a Masters from The Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, with a focus on integrating media into architectural spaces.

I grew up outside Boston and graduated from Yale University in 2008. I double majored in English and Film Studies. After graduation, I worked in the film industry for several years. I tried my hand in production offices, on sets, and in editing suites. Then I worked as Art Director for an innovative start-up called Book of Odds. I designed infographics and edited art for the site. I am now a second-year master's student at ITP. I am working on an interactive documentary series about the fascinating and often forgotten stories of cities.

Lydia is CE0 and Founder of GGGrit, an early stage technology start-up where women can harness the power of technology to help them learn, connect and grow their personal capital. GGGrit delivers access, information, and the tools women need to become leaders at work, at home, and in life. Previously, Lydia spent over 15 years as a corporate entrepreneur, creating break-through products and business strategies for companies including Canoe Ventures, a cable joint venture founded by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Brighthouse, Cox, Cablevision and Charter, Paradigm Talent Agency, Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG), Ziff Brothers Investments, and Jupiter MediaMetrix. She began her career in product management at software start-ups VSystems, now Esker S.A., and nCompass Labs, now Microsoft. She serves as 2nd Vice President, Governor& Chair of the Advanced Media Committee of National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY and on the Board of the Fort Tryon Park Trust. She has been published in industry leading academic journals and trade periodicals.

From humble beginnings, Madhura Bhat has blazed a remarkable academic and professional path. A visionary leader, she has now taken on the audacious challenge of using America’s greatest strength—entrepreneurship—to combat one of its greatest challenges– health. By pairing college graduates with a community leader, a medical champion, and private sector, Health for America seeks to leverage entrepreneurial approaches to building transformative public health solutions, while molding the next generation of leaders.

Maggie Zembruski, was born with a passion for fitness and fashion where no stiletto was ever too high, even in her ninth month of pregnancy. After leaving her job in the luxury goods industry, Maggie went on a mission to combine her two passions in life with her newly loved job: motherhood. In October 2010 Me2Roo was born, a collection of effortlessly chic and stylish activewear designed to transition and embrace the body through all stages of pregnancy.

Carbon is a Brooklyn based musician, composer and visual artist. Her work combines painting, sculpture, projection, wearable technology, and sound. As a recent graduate of the ITP program at NYU, she is working to launch "Beauty Bleeds". This is an online site where people go to shop for hand altered clothing and wearable technology, vintage shoes, accessories and much much more.

Marisa Tricarico, an Associate with the NYU Innovation Venture Fund, focuses on the Fund's healthcare investments. Previously, Marisa was a Summer Associate at Lux Capital, interned for the New York Angels, and interned for Agoranov, one of Paris' leading startup incubators. Prior to business school, Marisa worked at Clarion Healthcare, a strategy-consulting firm where she specialized in commercial opportunity analysis, potential indication evaluation, and assessment of new therapeutic areas and companies for client expansion and acquisition. Before Clarion Healthcare, Marisa worked in neuroimaging research at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Boston University Center for Memory and Brain. She has co-authored multiple publications in the Journal of Neuroscience and Gene and has published a first-author abstract for the American Academy of Neurology. Marisa holds a dual-MBA from NYU Stern and HEC Paris. She holds a BA with distinction in Cognitive Neuroscience from Boston University where she was a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate. Marisa is conversant in French and Spanish.

As the founder and CEO of BiblioNasium.com, Where Kids Flex their Reading Muscles, I have had the honor to work with amazing educators and have built a powerful platform that promotes literacy and extends the reading activities for the K-8 age group. I have direct experience and involvement building early stage technology startups from the ground up. In addition, I have years of experience leading technology, and specially web based projects, in large and complex organizations. As an honors graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with a multidisciplinary major in Systems Analysis and Design, I had the privilege of designing my own curriculum across the Wharton School, and the Schools of Engineering and Arts & Sciences. I thrive in fast-paced environments and my passion is to get kids hooked on reading. I am loving this project as I get to wear both a technical hat and also a marketing and sales one. I live in Manhattan with my husband and two fabulous elementary school age children who have been the impetus and are the force behind this new fun venture.

Meera @MeeraLitaTandon has founded Efficient Urban Living, LLC, a company focused on exploring creative solutions to environmental problems in urban settings, including air pollution, over consumption, energy waste, garbage disposal, etc. through quick turnaround proof of concept projects.

Melina Shannon-DiPietro joined Friends of the High Line in 2010 to launch the High Line’s earned income programs. The High Line’s earned income streams include venue rentals, merchandise, and food concessions. Her team is exploring how commercial activity can effectively support the civic engagement and the environmental values of the High Line. She was previously a founder and the executive director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project. The Project transformed the university’s approach to food in the dining halls and in the classroom.

A former consultant at Monitor Group and a digital marketing guru for AmEx, Melissa has always loved connecting people and understanding what motivates them. Having led the redesign of the Amex.com website, she believes very passionately in finding simple, intuitive ways to create engaging and meaningful user experiences. With the arrival of twin girls this past summer, her desire to help new and expecting parents network and share with one another has piqued her interest double-time. Melissa is a graduate of Dartmouth College and received her MBA from NYU Stern. She also loves travel, cooking, and spinning in her free time.

Melissa is Chief Strategy Officer & Founder of UnBuyThat, a C2C online marketplace for the buying and selling of experiences. As CSO, Melissa focuses on building strategic relationships with various partners (e.g. merchants, API developers, charities, etc.) She also heads up investor communications and outreach and development of corporate culture. Melissa came to New York by way of Texas. She’s worked in investor relations, corporate communications and strategic sourcing.

Michele Giordano is the Executive Director of dance4life USA. dance4life is a global movement that inspires and educates youth ages 10 – 25 about their sexual and reproductive health and rights, LGBT issues and HIV/AIDS using music and dance. dance4life has programs in 27 countries including Russia, Indonesia, Kenya, India and Uganda. Using a 4 step model– inspire, educate, activate and celebrate – we mobilize youth in schools and community organizations around the world. dance4life reaches youth by embracing elements of youth culture – such as music, dance, fashion and celebrities. We don’t begin the conversation by talking about sexual health, LGBT issues or HIV/AIDS – we begin by using music and dance - getting youth past their comfort zones. Previous to dance4life Michele served as Director of Global Operations at RockCorps a pro-social production company and led the operations in the U.S., U.K., France, Israel, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. In her early career she shaped numerous public health media campaigns speaking about HIV prevention and stigma and its impact on families. Michele holds a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University and BA from Rutgers University in Women's Studies.

I am currently in the masters program for clinical nutrition at NYU Steinhardt. I am also a social media consultant at Fitmapped, a new website and application that provides an interactive database of all workout studios and gyms in major cities.

Naama Bloom is a marketing and operations professional with extensive experience at Fortune 100s and startups alike. She is the Founder and CEO of HelloFlo, a subscription and lifestyle brand for anyone who menstruates. She is a mother, wife, daughter and entrepreneur. Naama holds an MBA from Cornell University.

Nadine From, (Founder and CEO of K.I.S.S.) has counseled clients as an attorney and business advisor. Having practiced law for eight years counseling clients in the fashion, social media, luxury goods and entertainment industries, Nadine gained extensive experience with the business side of these industries and found that she enjoyed focusing on business consulting with clients. Nadine decided to get back to her artistic and creative roots by founding K.I.S.S. to assist clients with the interplay of brand identity and Intellectual Property Law. K.I.S.S. New York Ltd. provides consulting services to corporations and individuals in the fashion, entertainment, social media and luxury goods industries. K.I.S.S. assists clients with commercial growth, merchandising, branding and long-term planning, as well as partnering with clients to develop products for these industries that are in their initial stages. Nadine received her Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 2003 where she was on the National Moot Court Team and won The Grimes Moot Court Competition. After accepting Nadine, Boston College Law School granted her the rare opportunity to pursue her interest in International Human Rights. She was granted a deferral to work for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees prior to commencing her legal studies. She later attended the International Institute of Humanitarian law, operated by the United Nations and attended by attorneys working for The Hague, ambassadors from several countries and representatives of various United Nations agencies. Nadine has worked abroad and has experience working with international clients both outside the US and those who are active here. She also speaks French and Romanian. Nadine is happy to be back on her old stomping grounds at NYU for the Festival, where she graduated from in 1999.

Nadine, founder and CEO of Stone & Strand, is a former strategy consultant at the Monitor Group and spent five years helping clients with marketing strategy, sales and business development issues. She served as Marketing Director at a healthcare tech start up in the UK and has previously been involved with two other early stage startups in the consumer retail space. Nadine has MBA with Honors from Wharton Business School and an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.

Nancy is the co-founder of Mixee Me, an 3D printing website where anybody can design 3D printed cartoon caricatures of their friends and family. With Mixee Me, her goal is make 3D printing accessible to anybody who wants to create customized goods. Previously, she was a Product Lead at Shapeways (online 3D printing community), where she lead materials and online modeling app development. Before that, she worked as a Management Associate at Bridgewater, a hedge fund in Connecticut. She graduated from Yale in 2008 witha degree in Cognitive Science.

Natalie Gonzalez grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area where she attended UC Berkeley. Her passion for soccer and skydiving made her realize life was too short to simply "work to live". She wanted that same level of passion in the work she did day to day and figured the best way to do that would be to work for herself. In 2003 she started a recruiting company focusing on advertising clients in California, then soon expanded nationwide. In late 2010, Natalie and her husband got an opportunity to relocate to NYC. Realizing the difficulty of keeping her family and friends on the west coast routinely involved in her life, she started thinking about different ways to combine the activities, things and people she loves to maintain those close relationships. She eventually sold her recruiting business and now focuses full time on Chatalog, which combines her love and passion for shopping with her love and passion in staying close with the people she cares about.

Hi there! I'm a software developer and entrepreneur who has worked on many writing, blogging, and publishing tools over the years. My company, 29th Street Publishing, makes selling digital subscriptions through apps as easy as blogging. Most recently, we've launched three magazine apps: Maura Magazine, a brand new title from excellent music and culture writer Maura Johnston; Weekend Companion from the outstanding team at The Awl; and V as in Victor, a sports magazine authored by long-time writer and sports fan Bill Vourvoulias. This will be my second WE Festival, and I look forward to meeting everyone.

Nerissa is the founder of CleverHive, a mobile platform and application that helps teen girls navigate the major milestones of their lives (prom, puberty, bad break-ups) by making lifestyle advice personalized, real time and actionable. The concept is based on graduate work done at Columbia University. Nerissa got her start in children’s media working in creative production for three hit TV properties at Nickelodeon and most recently worked for Callaway Digital Arts, a leading developer of lifestyle and children’s apps funded by Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Nerissa and her team are currently building a prototype and looking forward to the adventure of raising capital this spring.

I began Food Beauty Love in August to express my passion for real food, non-toxic beauty & the planet. I've had the opportunity to interview and write about amazing local businesses that are creating real healthy products - no: GMOs, HFCS, dyes, food additives, etc. I'm the go-to mom in my circle for what to buy when it comes to healthy snacks & sweet treats for our kids because of the knowledge i've gained and my background as a wellness coach. I'm being called to create an online marketplace of healthy snacks & sweet treats. I spent several years as the SVP of media at Clear Channel. I teach meditation and I'm a wellness coach. I love all things health, eco-chic and sustainability.

Nicole Hamilton is the CEO of Feel My Money. Feel My Money is a web site and mobile application that brings complete transparency and control to people in the home financing process. Previously, Nicole was the managing director of Warshaw Group, a mobile application and data analysis company where she was responsible for operations, products, and corporate strategy. Nicole spent the last 15 years of her career in technology product strategy and development in various industries including medical devices, telecommunication software, mobile software, consumer products, and data analytics.

This year I will be launching a global, for profit, social mission Architecture, and Real Estate Development practice that will focus on projects and concepts that embrace urgent, contemporary, synchronistic questions. We want to stimulate change through design of spatial experience. Our mission is to heal through irreverent and compassionate creativity, by proposing ideas that generate peace, equitable lives, health, wellness and unity. A specific example of this is building a center in India for women who experience domestic violence-the intent is to scale the ripple effect of design impact and empower marginalized women inside and outside the project walls. It is spiritual activism through design-a new definition of developer. I currently am the Director of Projects for Shigeru Ban Architects, a global, cutting edge firm, and teach at Cornell University and Pratt Institute Schools of Architecture. In 2012 I co-founded a mentorship collective for women in architecture. Prior to SBA I was an Associate at Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (now H3), and worked internationally for Richard Rogers in London, Renzo Piano in Genoa, and Richard Meier in New York and Paris. My project portfolio includes the Aspen Art Museum, Camper Store in Soho, Metal Shutter Houses Condominium near the Highline, GSA Federal Courthouse in MI, Restoration of Central Synagogue and Radio City Music Hall, Packer Collegiate Institute middle school, subway stations, airports, television headquarters to single family homes. I have had own furniture design firm called ‘Point’ where I developed the table series called ‘Banana Split’, shown at various design shows in NY and Tokyo, featured in numerous international magazines and presented in window displays along Fifth Avenue. Born in Brooklyn, I did my architectural degree in England at the Architectural Association, an innovative, global think tank for architectural ideas. I was a British and American Universities Foundation Scholar and recipient of the Eileen Gray Scholarship. I additionally have a Bachelors of Landscape Architecture from the Urban Landscape program at City College where I was awarded the American Society of Landscape Architects Certificate of Honor. I have been the secret wings under world renowned architects. Sometimes I believed in what I was doing, sometimes I didn’t. While executing others’ visions for multi-million dollar apartments, I was a single mother having a hard time paying the rent. My personal experience, a passion for justice, and a natural talent for innovative concepts are the impetus for this company.

Nina Kaufman is a small business champion—not just your ordinary business attorney. Forbes Magazine calls Kaufman “One of the 25 Most Influential Women Tweeting about Entrepreneurship.” The U.S. Small Business Administration named her their regional Women in Business Champion of the Year in 2011. In over 15 years in business, Kaufman has helped thousands of entrepreneurs in the generation of tens of millions of dollars. As a trusted thought leader, Kaufman reaches over 2 million readers each month on Entrepreneur.com. In keeping with her mission to encourage women to find "true freedom through entrepreneurship," she recently launched her "Business Exponential" series of workshops, designed to show business owners how to get out of their own way to create more leverage and scale in their service companies for a more profitable exit ... and more breathing room in their lives.

Currently, I am in the midst of my career transformation. It has been an enlightening experience that I cherish. I am the oldest of three children and the first to graduate with a bachelor's degree in my family. During my search for a business school, I revisited my entrepreneurial ventures that I had written down some years ago and my current list of ideas and thought it is was high time I try to bring one of them to fruition. I think going through the process even if I do not succeed will be a great way to learn about business aside from academia. However, it has been difficult setting aside time and vetting through information. So I am hoping this seminar will not only provide a great community to exchange support and insightful tips to get my show on the road.

Patrice Peck is a creative chameleon interested in sparking innovative conversations on underreported issues. Through her writing, video and multimedia, she offers a spoonful of sugar to help complex discussions of culture, race, sexuality and gender go down.

Patricia founded a product design studio in London, UK, and acted as the creative director for 10 years. She holds a patent for one of her product inventions - Magscapes, magnetic wallpaper. Clients include: BBC, Bloomberg L.P., The Conran Shop, ITV, Selfridges, Topman. Most recently Patricia launched MOB, an iPhone app to encourage spontaneity, group creativity, play, and purposeful community building. Patricia is an ITP Alum, and adjunct professor.

I am from Monterrey, Mexico and have lived in New York for the past five years. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science, from NYU and I am currently a Master's student at NYU Tisch's ITP Program. I am interested in finding ways to leverage technology to tell stories that need to be told, to improve communities through innovation and to bring about change through education.

Weiner & Associates, Inc. is a retained executive search firm; I began the company 5 years ago. We have a team of people who genuinely enjoy working with our clients to find the best individual to fill a particular position. This requires a strategic understanding of the industry, a deep knowledge of the competitors, as well as how technology and other industry dynamics are changing the business models. We thrive on these challenges to build long term relationships with great businesses and the leaders of these companies.

I’m very excited to be attending the WE3 Festival and am looking forward to learning a great deal from both the panelists and the other participants. My most recent role has been General Manager & VP Global Marketing for NQ Mobile. Headquartered in Beijing, NQ Mobile is a leading provider of mobile Internet services focusing on security, privacy and productivity. Winner of the 2011 Technology Pioneer Award at the World Economic Forum at Davos, NQ was well established as a leader in mobile in China and looking to expand globally. As employee #1 in the US, I established the Silicon Valley office and took the lead in defining the strategy for the company’s entry into the US and Western markets. It was quite a rewarding experience to join a team of creative, entrepreneurial founders who bootstrapped a start-up to a successful IPO on the NYSE, and who also happened to be located on the other side of the world! During my tenure, we saw a 125% increase in registered users in U.S. and Western markets (to ~240 MM users globally), and a 127% increase in revenue. I left the company at the beginning of January, and am now exploring the idea of starting a company myself. I’m so thrilled and grateful to have found this conference and community of women entrepreneurs. It couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.

Rachel Franzblau, Co-Founder, COO Wealthrive Rachel spent over 11 years working on Wall Street. She had a successful professional career in finance yet she felt like her personal finances were being neglected. On top of a demanding career, there were also personal demands on life. Her friends and peers often conveyed similar sentiments. Because of her strong background in finance, friends were often asking for advice around their personal finances and for general information around the markets and economy. This led Rachel to want to provide a true solution to this problem. Women are juggling an increasing number of priorities and managing their own financial life often falls to the wayside. There should be a solution that transforms personal finance from daunting and complicated, to accessible and empowering. Rachel left Goldman Sachs in 2012 in order to create this financial solution. While on Wall Street, Rachel spent years at both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Rachel’s career was always based in Institutional Equities. She advised institutional clients on making investment and trading decisions. The majority of her career was in Equity Trading where her client focus and disciplined approach separated her from her peers. Rachel received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Rachelle Hruska is the Founder and CEO of Guest of a Guest, a site that covers events, people, and places. Since its inception, Guest of a Guest has grown to include a picture database of thousands of people and events all over the world, with concentrations in New York City, the Hamptons, Los Angeles and Washington DC. Hruska was recently named one of the 13 under 30 by the NYPost, and the Most Influential Women In Technology in 2011 by Fast Company. Mother to Maxwell MacPherson.

Rebeca Raney is a NYC based artist. Holding degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design and the School of Visual Arts, Rebeca spends her time drawing, sculpting, and making jewelry in her Brooklyn studio and partnering with The Joan Mitchell Foundation to teach art to children and teens. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan and Miami. Rebeca recently collaborated on a collection of clothing and accessories with fashion brand Madewell.

I recently graduated from St. Mary's College of Maryland with BAs in Studio Art and Biology and am currently working as an intern for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. I am interested in finding new ways to integrate art, science, and technology and would like to expand my knowledge of programming and interactive design. I would like to create a network for artists to share supplies and studio space, collaborate on projects, and share ideas.

I recently co-founded Beauty Booked after years in the beauty industry managing brands at L'Oreal & Coty. Beauty Booked is the most convenient way to book appointments with the best salons & spas online. Members can search for beauty appointments by various criteria including location, date & time, explore editorial content & user reviews and book appointments instantly – even at the last minute. We recently launched in beta in NYC with over 200 top salons & spas. I have a BS from the Stern School at NYU and an MBA from Cornell.

I am a former media executive who has taken my many years of experience of nurturing big creative ideas, into developing and supporting the creation of meaningful interactive experiences and products: both physical and digital. I am currently in my final semester at ITP, where I have been developing and experimenting with a variety of digital and physical products. At WE I am proudly representing the PowerClip, a new product that gives first responders access to potential energy in car batteries. I am looking forward to connecting with other women entrepreneurs who are running small businesses in this arena with the hopes of launching the product in the next year.

Wealthy Women are rarely born that way. Most wealth is created. Robin A. Young creates Money Magnets. It is Robin’s mission to educate and empower women to embody the necessary habits that create wealthy lives. Hence, Women Behaving Wealthy was born.   Over Robin's 13-year career as a Wall Street executive and financial advisor, she managed nearly a billion dollars for over 500 millionaires. She has adeptly integrated the millionaire secrets and strategies into this Money Magnetism 5-Step Program. This financial coaching program is customized and tailored to each of her clients. Robin's unique, unbiased, and comprehensive system address the inner and outer game of money to assist clients in building their vision of wealth. In addition to Robin's extensive experience as an investment trainer, top executive, and multi-million dollar investment manager, she has earned the industry's highest levels of accreditations and certifications needed to advise clients in various areas, including investment, insurance, retirement, and estate planning.   Robin’s holds the following certifications: Accredited Asset Management Specialist (2002), Certified Financial Planner™ designation (2003), Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (2007), and Level 1 Chartered Financial Analyst exam (2010).   Robin has been deliberate and meticulous about the mental resistance that has sabotaged women’s journeys to wealth. Robin, a professional speaker, conducts workshops and seminars, Purse Strings Socials, on the topics of Money Magnetism and Wealth. Specifically, Robin helps people master the inner and outer game of money.   Robin knows that an educated, empowered woman is a wealthy woman.

I worked in Academic Computing at NYU for many years. My interests lie in how technology can be effectively used to help us understand 'how we learn' and help us design learning environments that are scaleable, flexible, and fun. As a graduate student in the Digital Media Design for Learning program at NYU I have been focusing on the value of storytelling in learning. In pursuit of this goal I have been developing a concept for a storytelling environment that would allow individuals to learn about themselves through the experiential stories they tell and share.

As a Partner of Hiho Batik, an experiential retail store and art space located in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Robyn is responsible for building brand recognition and creating partnerships that support Hiho Batikʼs business model and philosophy. Throughout her career, Robyn has focused on building community through her work at traditional print publications, online social media outlets, and most recently running an education-based nonprofit.

Rosie Dorce is the founder of AdYourEvents.com, a one-stop destination for all Advertising Agency & Marketing Industry events in New York City and beyond. An integrated marketing professional with 5+ years of experience in a variety of marketing disciplines, she has managed and implemented national marketing programs by providing clear strategic direction, communication and support focusing on retaining and acquiring new customers. With her experience, background and passion, Rosie hopes to make AdYourEvents.com the number one destination for marketing/advertising industry professionals who are looking to network and exchange ideas. Rosie holds a BS in Marketing from Post University in Waterbury, CT and is a candidate for an MS in Integrated Marketing with a concentration in Digital Marketing at New York University. Rosie lives in New York, NY and enjoys reading, biking, traveling and spending time with her family in Brooklyn, NY.

Ruchika Muchhala, is of Indian roots, born and raised in Indonesia and Singapore, and most recently from Mumbai. She has worked on several documentary projects as an editor and television series as a writer and director. Her directorial debut is “The Great Indian Marriage Bazaar”, a documentary in which she navigates through the complex system of arranged marriages in modern-day India. The film aired internationally on various television channels, including BBC World, and at women's and international film festivals. She has recently completed her second film, "Beyond Bollywood" which will be circulated this coming year. Asides from production, Ruchika has worked on several community media projects and as a new media producer. She is interested in expanding her work in non-fiction storytelling by using interactive design and multiple platforms such as mobile phones. Currently, she's pursuing her MFA in Design for Social Innovation at SVA in New York City.

Sally is a health care industry maven, product developer, and entrepreneur. With almost two decades in the health care industry, Sally has recently been leading teams to build product solutions at a Fortune 50 health care company. She’s also worn several leadership hats in health care start-ups including marketing, business development and operations. Having been in both new ventures and large organizations, Sally loves to create from scratch and has deep experience in bringing products to scale. She’s passionate about new innovations in the fields of health benefits, wellness, nutrition, and healthy aging. She received her MBA in Health Care Management from the Wharton School and a Bachelors degree from New York University. She enjoys living in NYC with her husband and two daughters.

Sally Rudoy, LCSW is a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. She works with children, adolescents, adults and couples. She is on the faculty of the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey and a frequent contributor to the Center's blog, "Free Associations." She is also the editor of the “ IARPP eNews,” the on-line newsletter of the International Association of Relational Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis.

I am a product development strategist and user experience designer with expertise in product development cycle from concept, research and requirements gathering to design and development to product launch. I find simple solutions to seemingly complex problems, and are able to execute through those solutions. Currently I work in The Wall Street Journal. I'm part of the Innovations and Improvements group.

Sara Holoubek is the CEO and founder of Luminary Labs, a consultancy focused on operationalizing innovation. Her firm has helped numerous companies achieve relevancy and business outcome by applying new and agile approaches to people, process, and technology. Ms. Holoubek is also an active adviser and investor. She currently serves on the Pioneer Advisory Group for the Robert Wood Johnson Pioneer Fund, and is a formal adviser to private sector companies WMI, Clickable, Hoseanna, and Achievemint. Previously, Ms. Holoubek served as iCrossing's Chief Strategy Officer, building the firm's New York office and repositioning the iCrossing brand as it raised an early VC round of $13 million. Prior to this experience, Ms. Holoubek held strategy roles with interactive agencies Organic and Blue Dingo. From 2009-2010, Ms. Holoubek served as the President of SEMPO, the global trade marketing organization for the search marketing industry. She currently serves on the New York Board of Directors of the, Step Up Women's Network. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Pepsico WINaward for her contributions to the tech community, including the development of A Field Guide To, a list of high-profile female founders, deal-makers and influencers. Ms. Holoubek has been widely quoted in publications such as The Washington Post, WSJ.com, Adweek, Internet Retailer, Strategies (France) and PropMark (Brazil). She also serves as a frequent guest lecturer on the subjects of technology and innovation. Ms. Holoubek also brings an international perspective to her work, having lived and worked in Latin America and Europe; she is fluent in Spanish and French, and conversant in Portuguese. She holds a B.A. from the University of Iowa and an M.B.A. from HEC in France. She resides in New York City with her husband, bass-baritone Claudio Mascarenhas.

Beauty industry veteran turned natural + organic skincare expert.

Seema Krish is known for her 'modern traditional' aesthetic in the medium of textiles. In her Boston studio, she creates contemporary textile designs that are combined with traditional textile making techniques. She finds inspiration for her unique visual vocabulary in living between two cultures- East and West. seemakrish the fabric line, founded in 2010, is a unique line dedicated to producing artisanal textiles created by a select group of Indian artisans. The fabrics are distributed to the Interior Design trade through showrooms at Design Centers across the U.S. The mission is to enhance the lives of both the users and producers of the textiles. The products are simple, beautiful, environmentally and socially conscious.

Shefali is an electronic musician, and founder of Emotitones, a patent-pending mobile communication platform enabling users to convey emotions through expressive audio and video clips. Emotitones was the subject of her masters thesis at NYU, where she fell in love with music technology. After spending the past few years in Hong Kong (and in an incubator), she is eager to share her experience and learn from others at WE3. *As an art + music + tech entrepreneur, Shefali was chosen for the fundraising platform called Upstart. With her funding term about to close, she recommends the platform to recent graduates as an exciting alternative to taking out a business loan. See her profile here: https://www.upstart.com/upstarts/shefali-kumar-friesen

I live in Chicago and run Expansion and Business Development for Taste Savant, a startup based in New York, under Sonia Kapadia, CEO and Founder. We are a restaurant discovery site designed to help the savvy diner decide where to eat out. As guessed, I'm obsessed with food and dining out. After 5 years in financial services, I was itching for a change and jumped to the startup world. Taste Savant is the second startup I am a part of and I could not be happier or more inspired everyday.

Shelley is an experienced hospital credit analyst who has consistently delivered superior results both in originating new business and in mitigating or eliminating portfolio risk. She maintains strong customer relations leading to exclusive business opportunities and is able to identify underperforming risks within a portfolio before rating agency downgrades occur, thereby deploying early remediation strategies. Since founding Healthcare Analytics, LLC in late 2011, Shelley has worked with a variety of clients to identify appropriate hospital credit metrics and analyze hospital creditworthiness and financial covenant compliance. Shelley has worked with hospital executives and bankers to structure sound capital financing programs and has negotiated legal documents both for new issuances and credit forbearance agreements. While at Ambac Assurance Corporation, she developed innovative financing products in concert with a team of attorneys, bankers and government officials, resulting in lower financing costs for hospitals. She contributed the then highest-ever premium income ($6.3 million) from a single transaction and consistently led the department in income from cross-selling of the firm’s other financial products. At Financial Security Assurance (now Assured Guaranty), Shelley initially performed a dual role as originator and portfolio risk manager, generating $27.5 million of premium income in the first year. During her tenure there, she removed 11 underperforming credits from the portfolio, aggregating close to one half billion dollars in gross principal exposure and mitigated risk in two others with over $250 million in principal outstanding. In Shelley’s role as Principal/Hospital Portfolio Manager for Prudential Huntoon Paige, she worked with existing correspondents and developed new correspondent relationships that led to the origination and funding of 16 loans with $1.3 billion of principal exposure and $8.8 million in servicing and placement income. She directed remedial action for financially challenged credits and led credit training for the firm’s mortgage loan servicing department. The ability to conceive innovative solutions and forge consensus in a group via negotiation are among Shelley’s strengths. She works well both independently and in a group and recognizes the importance of the larger picture while also focusing on the details. Shelley holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from New York University. She is a member of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, the Municipal Analysts Group of New York and the Wellness Council of America.

Kerry is co-founder and Chief Publisher of Hulafrog, Inc., a national web/mobile platform for local community guides for parents. Think “Yelp meets Eventful” for families. Hulafrog helps parents easily discover the local businesses, daily events, and promotions that matter to them most. Kerry has over 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in the online & print publishing industry.

Sonali Chandra is a businesswoman, a performing artist, and the daughter of Indian immigrants. As the Managing Member of Sonali Capital Partners LLC, she creates joint-venture real estate deals within the US-India space, where she helps individuals and firms find space for their businesses, find tenants for their vacant spaces, sell their properties, and find investment opportunities. She is also the Creative Director of Naseeb Dance Group, a South Asian dance troupe she started in college. The team specializes in Indian neo-classical, fusion, and Bollywood hip-hop choreography, with performances at corporate, cultural, and charity events. In addition, she volunteers her time to various non-profits. She has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Rutgers University.

I’m the Founder and CEO of Taste Savant, a highly curated restaurant discovery site designed to help the savvy diner decide where to eat. Taste Savant aggregates and curates content from sources users trust including their friends, critics, bloggers, and other users in the know. I spent my early career at large companies with 5 years at PepsiCo in the US and the UK. I then had the entrepreneurial itch and left Pepsi to join Gu Chocolate Desserts, a CPG startup in London as the Head of Marketing and New Product Development. We sold that business after a year to another private company and I’ve been on the startup road since. I moved back to NY and joined Rent the Runway to lead Marketing Partnerships. And now I am working on building my own business. I have a BA from the University of Pennsylvania ('02) and an MBA from Harvard Business School ('07). I serve on the Board of Directors of Blue Engine, an education non profit startup geared to better prepare students for college. I also write for Forbes about the intersection of starting a family and starting a business.

I am a current MBA student at NYU Stern and will be graduating in May 2013. I am an aspiring entrepreneur and am working with another female to develop a business venture.

I'm Stacy S. Kim, Ph.D., C.E.C., a certified life and career coach helping high-achieving, deeply caring women and parents balance their ambitions, passions, and energy for the people they love. Through individual coaching services, this blog, a newsletter, and workshops, I translate research to concrete strategies in a style that is intellectually stimulating yet fun.

Stacy Rybchin is the founder and CEO of Denslow Digital LLC, an e-commerce incubator. Rybchin is a former senior corporate meeting planner from Ernst & Young with a background in finance. After more than a year of analysis and market research, she found a niche in the adult pleasure product market that she saw as the perfect opportunity for the US market given the current market trends and market potential in the US for the relatively untapped luxury market. About MySecretLuxury.com MySecretLuxury.com is Denslow Digital LLC's first venture. MySecretLuxury.com celebrates the unique passions of every person. We support how you choose to engage in your pursuit of passion and pleasure through a carefully curated collection of products that embody, style, design and functionality. Our mission is to inspire love, romance, and intimate moments one satisfied customer at a time through our line of pleasure products and romance enhancers, which provide the occasion to give and get pleasure, grow love, celebrate intimacy, and introduce fun.

As the chief executive officer of umojawa, Stephanie Jelley leads a company dedicated to promoting and celebrating the successes of non-profit and volunteer work. Using new age media and innovative social media approaches, umojawa provides a platform for non-profit organizations to effectively promote their initiatives and to collaborate on fundraising methodologies. A stream of personal “passion projects” have always complemented Stephanie’s work in the corporate world. She demonstrates strong commitment to building confidence and leadership skills in youth. She has developed and delivered programs to help promote mindfulness and social-emotional learning in projects for teens, with a focus on those in at-risk circumstances. She has just launched “Girls in White” to support girls education and leadership initiatives. As co-founder and volunteer facilitator at the HK Foundations Center, Stephanie is dedicated to empowering students by encouraging creative self- expression through the illustration of the practical importance of literacy, while writing and producing digital media projects. Through the HK Foundations Center, Stephanie co-facilitated the installation of the Mindfulness Without Borders Mindfulness Ambassador Council for Essex County, New Jersey at Rutgers University's Institute for International Peace. Stephanie’s path leading to umojawa, both professionally and personally, served as the perfect preparation for what would become the umojawa “hybrid community for social change.” As chief operating officer for Contour Marketing & Media, a New York based marketing firm, Stephanie worked with clients in both traditional and emerging marketing applications and technology to help them reach their target audiences and objectives. As social media became an increasingly effective way to engage target markets, Stephanie’s own brand of finesse and enthusiasm yielded significant results for client companies.

I'm currently pursuing my masters at NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program. My background is in graphic design and I have worked on mega brands under Proctor & Gamble for 4 years before I came to ITP. I am interested in exploring different technology for creating design.

New Yorker, mother, blogger, lawyer, cyclist, CrossFitter, paleo mentor. Creator of app4Mind, a 4 part mind app for life change, launching in January 2013.

fashion designer and owner at sylvia heisel - a women’s designer clothing brand. artist and co-owner at postmodernproduction.com – we make places, objects and experiences that combine contemporary design, art, fashion, culture, technology and lifestyle. obsessed with new technologies, materials and manufacturing processes. in the early planning stages for a brand of smart wearables.

Tammy A. Hepps is the founder of Treelines.com, a new, story-centric genealogy website merging her life-long interest in family history with her twelve years of experience as a digital media CTO leading technology initiatives across the content, commerce, mobile, and social spaces. Her background spans large companies – like NBCUniversal, where she was CTO of iVillage Properties, and NYTimes.com, where she was Director of Software Development – as well as small start-ups, such as Dow Jones/IAC Online Ventures, where she was founding VP of Technology, and SparkNotes.com, where she was Director of Technology. Tammy received her AB in Computer Science from Harvard College in 2000 and is responsible for all of the architecture and much of implementation of Treelines.com.

Tara is currently working on launching Splitsville LLC- an on-line destination for those who are starting over single in mid-life. Having recently navigated the perils of separation and divorce, it became clear to Tara there are very few resources available for those going through the same. After many years as a devout Manhattanite, Tara has settled in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and co-parents her 7 year old daughter, Fiona and her 4 year old son, Liam. in her "real life ", Tara Averill is the creator and founder of RepresentationCo, representing directors, editors and composers for commercials. As all good stories go, Tara’s path to success was not cookie cutter. Tara, daughter of a Park Service Superintendent grew up in Fire Island, New York and Mount Desert Island, Maine. She went to McGill University for one year before heading to New York City following her dream to study acting in 1991 at William Esper Studio. She rapidly accumulated acting credits including the starring role in an HBO pilot, as well as roles in many Independent films and downtown New York City theater productions. While honing her acting craft from the years 1991-2000, she worked in many fashionable bars and restaurants such as Live Bait, Match, Odeon, Largo, Moomba, Ideya and Pastis as server, bartender and manager. Her experience navigating the media world while acting and her sales knowledge gained through the hospitality industry culminated in her career as a talent representative. Her ascendency towards her own business was a quick one. From 2000-2003, she worked at Astrow Girl as a Sales Representative. From 2003-2008, she became the New York Head of Sales at Anonymous Content (www.anonymouscontent.com) and finally she moved to run New York sales at Epoch Films (www.epochfilms.com) before opening RepresentationCo in 2012 (www.representationco.com). Tara’s clients count on her no nonsense approach to business, sense of humor, warmth and candor.

Tash Wong is an Interaction Designer living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the co-creator of Coastermatic, and also an MFA candidate in Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts. She made her start in architecture, but soon became enamored by the speed and flexibility of the web. After transitioning spatial design skills into user experience and technical chops to code, she’s spent time creating groundbreaking mobile frameworks and product consulting for NY-based tech startups.

Thilmin is an MBA student at NYU Stern studying entrepreneurship and strategy with a keen interest in leveraging her business development and digital strategy expertise to start an online company focused on empowering female professionals. Prior to joining Stern, she was the Director of Search at Profero, a global, digital agency, where she built, grew, and led the Search department. Thilmin won several new client accounts such as Western Union and Mohegan Sun Casino that enabled her to grow her team during her tenure. She received a BA in Communication Studies and Sociology from UCLA.

I'm a co-founder of Lonestar Taco, a restaurant that brings the lively flavors of Mexico and Texas to New York. From our signature house made tortillas to our braised meats, we're dedicated to the slow way of making intense and aromatic food. We create seasonal menu items that showcase the region's bounty through sourcing our ingredients from local farmers and producers. I bring more than a decade's worth of experience in user-centered design and team management for technology firms and publishing clients as well as a commitment to growing a business based on sustainability and community growth.

Valerie is a college Biology professor-turned-entrepreneur who wants to help kids explore the natural world and gain an intuitive knowledge of scientific concepts. Be Naturally Curious was started to make "complex" topics in the natural sciences accessible to young kids by providing mini-courses that combine crafts, stories, outdoor exploration and experimentation. By integrating scientific concepts with creative and explorative activities, we help kids incorporate a love of nature and the scientific process into their everyday world. An avid knitter, Valerie loves to combine science and craft in her free time with her two young daughters.

She’s been living in NYC for the past 20 years. Vanessa started at Grey Advertising and was responsible for the Pantene and Cover Girl accounts. Later at Whitaker International Consultants she helped companies like Renner, Wal-Mart (Brazil), K-Mart (Australia) and Esprit (Europe) with positioning their brand and identifying customer lifestyles. Her work, Brazilian heritage and living in NYC give her tools to spot trends, her real passion.

Wanda has a voracious appetite to explore and learn more about startups and new business ideas. She is passionate about pop culture, classical music, fashion, and food. Wanda is an aspiring entrepreneur. She is a graduate of New York University's Stern School of Business. She currently is an Analyst at Citi Capital Advisors.

Wendy Nguyen is the CEO & Co-Founder of HealthyOut, a mobile-first startup that helps you find and purchase local restaurant food and retail products matched to your health & taste preferences. This is Wendy’s third startup. Previously, she was the second employee at SocialChorus, where she managed product, marketing and tech while working with leading brands like Williams-Sonoma and DVF to launch social media initiatives. In her past life, she worked in emerging market private equity and as a consultant at Bain & Co. Email her at wendy@healthyout.com.

Yulia Sheynkman, MFA, CPCC is a personal and professional coach for women in finance, technology + academia. Yulia is a graduate of Tish School of the Arts at New York University, (MFA), and summa cum laude graduate of Cognitive Psychology Program at NYU (BA). She completed her coach training at the renown Coaches Training Institute and was awarded her Certified Professional Co-Active Coach designation. Yulia's early career spanned fields of cognitive psychology (as a researcher at Princeton University) and technology strategy and user experience strategy in Fortune 50 financials and telecom corporations. A personal development geek slash recovering cubicle- junkie, a hippy mama to two preschoolers.

Zainab Muzaffar joined her family’s firm AMSI Inc after graduating from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelors degree in English and Human Organizational Development. AMSI primarily does business in the Middle East and has several divisions including Medical Equipment, Family Entertainment Centers and Securities. During her ten years at AMSI, she helped to expand her family business but her true passion is the lifestyle brand she started with her sisters. Beautiful and Delicious LLC will launch in 2013 with a leisurewear line. She is also pursuing her Masters in Strategic Communication at Columbia University.