Kathryn A. Finney is an American author, researcher, investor, entrepreneur, and businesswoman. She is the founder of Genius Guild, a $20 million dollar venture fund & studio that invests in Black entrepreneurs building scalable businesses that serve Black communities and beyond. She is also founder and Board Chair of The Doonie Fund, a social platform that provides micro-investment to Black women entrepreneurs. Finney first made her mark as a tech entrepreneur when she sold “The Budget Fashionista” after running the site-turned-media company for 11 years.
Sandra “Sandy” Carter is an American businesswoman, speaker and author. She was a general manager at IBM from 2013 to 2016, vice president at Amazon Web Services from 2017 to 2021 and is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Unstoppable Domains.
Leslie Ann Bradshaw, an American businesswoman, is the former chief operating officer, president and co-founder of JESS3. She received recognition for her work at JESS3, including being named by Fast Company as one of the top female executives in the technology industry. Bradshaw is a partner in her family's vineyards, Bradshaw Vineyards. In January 2013, she became the chief operating officer of technology startup Guide, which has since folded.
Angela Benton is an American businesswoman. Benton founded NewME (acquired), the first startup accelerator for minorities globally in 2011. She is a pioneer of diversity and one of the most important African-Americans in the technology industry. She has helped minority-led tech companies raise over $47 million in venture capital funding.
Lucinda Lee Gallop is an English advertising consultant, founder and former chair of the US branch of advertising firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and founder of the IfWeRanTheWorld and MakeLoveNotPorn companies. According to the TED blog, Gallop's TEDTalk "Make Love Not Porn" was one of the "most talked about presentations" at the 2009 TED conference. She lives in New York City.
Kimberly Bryant is an American electrical engineer who worked in the biotechnology field at Genentech, Novartis Vaccines, Diagnostics, and Merck. In 2011, Bryant founded Black Girls Code, a nonprofit organization that focuses on providing technology and computer programming education to African-American girls. After founding Black Girls Code, Bryant was listed as one of the "25 Most Influential African-Americans In Technology" by Business Insider.
Corvida Raven is an American writer, technological artist, entrepreneur and public speaker who lives and works out of New York City, New York. She has been garnering national attention since the age of 19 for her blog, shegeeks.net, and other projects aimed at making technological skills and information accessible to the public at large, and particularly to youth, people of colour, women and marginalized communities.
Cooper Harris is an American entrepreneur and actress. She is currently the CEO & founder of Klickly, a payments platform, based in Venice, California. Harris had a career as an actress on such TV shows like Young and the Restless and As the World Turns, among others.
Derrius Quarles is a social entrepreneur, human rights activist, recording artist, product designer, and author. Born on the South Side of Chicago in 1990, he is the Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer of BREAUX Capital, an award-winning financial technology company serving Black Men and Million Dollar Scholar, an education social enterprise as well as the Founder of DQ and Partners.
Radhika Ghai Aggarwal is an Internet entrepreneur and India's first woman to enter the Unicorn Club. She is the co-founder of online marketplace ShopClues established in 2011 in silicon valley. Currently, she serves as the chief business officer of the company.
Morgan DeBaun is an African American serial entrepreneur and corporate advisor. She is the Founder and CEO of Blavity Inc., a digital media company for Black culture and millennials.
Sandra Appiah is the co-founder of media company Face2face Africa, where she served as CEO from 2016 to 2020. In 2019, she launched PanaGenius Inc. With Face2face Africa as its flagship brand, PanaGenius reaches over 2 million users each month via its online platforms and engages thousands more via events such as the Pan-African Weekend Conference in New York City and the national 30 Black Stars Conference & Awards.
Gayle Jennings-O'Byrne is a venture capitalist and founder of the Wocstar Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in women of color ("WOC") and diverse inclusive teams in the tech sector. She is best known for her work to empower women of color startups and help build wealth in communities of color and diversity. Her management and consulting company managed the iNTENT Manifesto campaign to mobilize women startups and allies across the globe.
Lisa Gelobter is a computer scientist, technologist and chief executive. She was the Chief Digital Service Officer for the United States Department of Education.
Ryann Richardson is an American political activist, tech entrepreneur, and the 50th Anniversary Miss Black America. She spent 10 years in the tech industry, and held leadership roles at Uber and Victor. She co-founded ExecThread, a networking platform for executives, and founded Ellington Lafayette Co., a tech incubator with a focus on supporting "women, people of color, and other marginalized communities."
Lisa S. Jones is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur, best known for being the founder of Atlanta-based video email company EyeMail Inc. As both a black and woman-owned business, EyeMail Inc. is classified as a Minority Women Business Enterprise (MWBE). Her company began as a start-up, eventually growing exponentially through partnerships with Microsoft, Delta Air Lines, Time Warner, Porsche North America, the Atlanta Tech Village, PepsiCo and, most notably, The Coca-Cola Company, through which EyeMail Inc. got selected by Microsoft as a premier MWBE supplier in digital marketing. Prior to dedicating herself to entrepreneurship, Jones worked in supplier diversity for telecommunications provider AT&T, and continues to develop a career as a thought leader and public speaker in the matter.
Dawn Dickson, also known as Dawn Dickson Akpoghene, is an American businesswoman, inventor, author, and investor. She is the founder of retail technology company PopCom and women's shoe company Flat Out of Heels.
Asmau Ahmed is a Nigerian-American entrepreneur, technology advocate, and beauty expert. Ahmed is an advocate for women in technology and entrepreneurship.
Kat Calvin is an African-American activist, entrepreneur, and author. She is the founder of Spread the Vote and Project ID and the Co-founder of Blerdology. Calvin's organization supports Americans to obtain their IDs for housing, jobs, and voting. Additionally, Calvin advocates for advanced minority representation in the STEM field.
Riana Lynn is a scientist, investor, and Artificial Intelligence patent holder. She is the founder and CEO of the software startup Journey Foods which uses an "in-house automated scientist," JourneyAI that now creates product formulations and plans for global food companies after launching with micro foods as nutrient-dense snacks called Journey Bites. She was also the founder of the former FoodTrace, a Chicago-based technology platform, designed to help food businesses with growth and Supply chain management by providing insight to industry executives on food sourcing origins.
