Executive Coach and Blueprint founder, Debra Bednar-Clark is guiding people through turning points in their careers—instilling the clarity, confidence, and tools they need to plot bold moves and next chapters. Her practice is defined by one core belief: life is most interesting and fulfilling when we give ourselves permission to lead with our truest, fullest selves.
An accomplished CEO, entrepreneur and documentary film executive, Anne Devereux-Mills is the Founder of Parlay House, a global organization that gathers women both virtually and in person to spark authentic conversations and build meaningful, supportive relationships. Parlay House currently has over 10,000 participants that span countries, generations, races, sexual orientation, and more. Anne has been honored by a range of organizations including SHE-CAN, Advertising Women of New York, The All-...
Guest Laurel Mintz is the founder of both the award-winning Los-Angeles based marketing agency, Elevate My Brand, as well as Fabric Venture Capital, a firm whose ESG fund is on a mission to weave together diverse, underrepresented founders with the funding they deserve and the critical marketing strategy they need to ensure success. Laurel shares her founder journey, the strategic thinking behind her expansion, and key startup hacks that helped her bootstrap and grow.
Brooke is the Founder & CEO of Allobee, a managed marketplace, a one-stop business solution for small business owners and startups. She is a technical founder that took her tech skills and experience as a freelancer and business owner and merged them into her idea for Allobee. Brooke went to grad school and got a Master of Science degree in computer information systems, which helped her land a job at Postmates and assist their Southeast region launch. When Brooke became a mother, she realize...
Jessica Hershfield, an entrepreneur and the Founder of Just Enough Wines, is constantly growing and transforming her brand. She knows how important it is to stay competitive, regardless of the entrepreneur's industry. Before Just Enough Wines, Jess worked at some prominent tech companies - which has helped her through her entrepreneurial journey. The journey of building a successful brand requires commitment, self-drive, and the courage to go after your dreams despite all the obstacles you face....
Applauded by Forbes Magazine as "changing the influencer marketing platform between celebrities and startups," Denise & the LMS team build the most effective influencer marketing programs for companies looking to grow & scale. As founder of the LMS Agency, Denise Lambertson pioneered the pairing of celebrities with venture-backed consumer startups by implementing sweat equity compensation for marketing services and capital investment. In 2018, Denise founded Constellation Capital - a nat...
HairDays Founder & CEO Dr. Tiffany St. Bernard knew that there had to be a better way to care for her hair health. Leveraging her background as a Biomedical/Neural Engineer Researcher, she worked to craft a scientific method to analyze hair type, design personalized hair health strategies digitally, and take the trial and error out of hair and scalp care. In 2016 right before she planned to launch the HairDays diary, Tiffany was hospitalized in the ICU multiple times - initially triggered by...
Daniel Dobson-Smith is the Founder and CEO of Soul Trained, an executive coaching and growth leadership training consultancy. He recently released his latest book, You Can Be Yourself Here: A Pocket Guide To Creating Inclusive Workspaces, using the psychology of belonging. Daniel takes us through the journey of writing his book and the importance of the power of belonging through the lens of psychology. Website: https://soultrained.com/
Françoise Girard is the founder, and CEO of Feminism Makes Us Smarter. She is shining the light on incredible feminists around the world and making sure their work is lifted, elevated, and known. Françoise is an author, advocate, and expert on women’s health, human rights, sexuality, HIV and AIDS, and feminist movements. For over 20 years, she has advocated for women’s rights and gender justice in close partnership with feminist activists worldwide. Website: https://www.fmus.org/...
Deborah is the Founder & General Partner at Willow Growth Partners. Willow provides early growth capital to entrepreneurs building the next generation of transformative consumer brands and the disruptive technologies that power them. In 2014, Deborah launched a family office investment vehicle focused on seed-stage consumer brands and enabling tech companies. Website: WillowGrowth.com
Valarie J. McCall is Chief of Communications, Government & International Affairs for the City of Cleveland. She is a sought-after speaker, panelist, political strategist, and legislative expert who has garnered countless accolades for her work. From around the globe to the neighborhoods of Cleveland, McCall lends her expertise to affect change and improve the quality of life for all people. Website: www.cleveland-oh.gov
Jemie is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Psychable, the #1 trusted and comprehensive online community dedicated to connecting those interested in legally exploring psychedelic-assisted therapy with practitioners who can support them. Psychable is now transitioning to a telehealth platform where they connect individuals to ketamine therapy. Website: www.psychable.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/PsychableDotCom...
Kimberly Brooks is a contemporary American artist and author of The New Oil Painting by Chronicle Books. A prolific painter known for her portraits and landscape series, Kimberly explores identity and memory in her work. As an Artist, Hacks take the form of developing your own creative process that works for you. Tapping into her own creativity is a process that she describes as starting with a Vision, having Hope, finally Diving In, and then is followed by a combination of emotions; Excitement,...
Shivani Dallas, a successful owner of a top-ranked mortgage company, has set her sights on the Cannabis startup world in Massachusetts. Hub Craft is a vertically integrated Cannabis company with several celebrity products launching this year. A successful salesperson with a strong strategic bent, Shivani values relationships, authenticity, and providing value in business. A strong network is the biggest hack any business person can leverage. It's a secret capital that greatly returns when you mi...
Katharine McKee is the founder of Morphology Consulting, a digital commerce consultancy that uses algorithms to optimize a company’s GTM for exponential growth. Katharine’s own hacks that have fueled the growth of her business were driven by an acute self-awareness of what living your best life means. A fact many busy founders forget as their company drives their lives. Katharine feels goal setting plays a big factor in that and being clear on what KPIs and personas make sense for your business....
Filipa Carvalho is a Lisbon-based attorney and co-founder of Moss & Cooper, a consulting firm aimed at assisting startups by providing strategic and financial consulting to Portugal-based startups and as well as to those considering moving to Portugal. Filipa's top business hacks are the importance of building, nurturing, and connecting your network to clients to facilitate deal flow. Partnership building is another key hack she feels has a big impact on the growth of your company. Above all...
Kate Miller’s career spanned bud-tending in College to developing entertainment company brand partnership deals before she set off to turn a side hustle into a full-time career as the founder of Miss Grass, a cannabis products platform for consumers. Kate’s bootstrapping hacks are inspired by her early days where brand partnership and affiliate marketing deal-making, accelerated growth, exposure, and reach.
Before launching her Workplace Productivity Consultancy, Wendy Ellin spent years in radio and writing her well-timed NY Times Best Seller, “Working From Home, How’s That Working For You?” pre-Covid. As her book details, Wendy has hundreds of work from home hacks to drive productivity, performance, and peace of mind. She shares those and her own secret hacks that have guided the success of her growing business and kept her sane and happy working from home.
Stephanie Lee is the founder of SelfMade, a beauty brand for consumers committed to well-being. With products such as True Grit Resilience Scrub to combat scalp and Secure Attachment Serum to lower cortisol, the company is a great blend of high-grade beauty products and mental health boosters given its well-being mindset and positive intention mission. Stephanie’s secret founder hacks include energy management and mental health techniques to fuel her productivity.
Actress, entrepreneur, and presentation coach to Fortune 500 companies, Allison McGuire successfully blends her many career tracks to fuel her current passion, coaching professionals and founders on applying acting skills and methods to elevate the business pitch drive the close. Founder of the McGuire Method, her biggest hacks utilize the power of manifestation, a prosperity mindset, and working smarter, not harder.
Lori Bonanni is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Elssus, LLC, multi-disciplined communication consulting firm. Lori’s passion is to build and grow its reputation to increase its brand awareness, business results, and credibility. With a distinguished corporate marketing career that spanned Verizon, Universal, and other major companies, Lori has developed her own mix of startup marketing hacks to further her own business that leverages key resources and time management strategies.
Margot Shapiro is a Managing Director at Spiral Sun Ventures, a venture firm located in Southern California, which invests in early-stage CPG companies that promote a healthier lifestyle in the food, beverage, and personal care sectors. Margot’s other passion and the primary hack is mentoring college students. Her internship program at Spiral Sun Ventures has given students valuable experience with portfolio companies and provided great resources for the company.
Rachel Soper Sanders is the CEO and co-founder of Rootine and has over 10 years of experience at the intersection of health and technology. Rachel’s commitment to health and nutrition has driven her career and passion for optimizing human performance. Balancing motherhood and work during the pandemic was challenging. Still, it inspired Rachel to perfect her own special hacks to ensure she remained productive, competitive, and on her game during her successful launch.
Shang Saavedra is a personal finance entrepreneur and influencer who successfully reached financial independence at age 31 by being strategically frugal, investing wisely, and diversifying her revenue streams. She accomplished this by relying on several life and professional hacks, from mastering a success mindset to capsule wardrobes, recipe-free eating, mastering side hustle revenue streams, and more.
Tawnya Falkner is the Founder & Proprietor of Le Grand Courtâge & Très Chic Rosé. Tawnya’s successful wine business supplied restaurants all over the US. Although the closing of many restaurants severely impacted Tawnya’s bottom-line, she was able to lean into critical bootstrapping strategies to survive and thrive during Covid. She has learned a great deal about the art of pivoting and the power of agility, but her key hack during downtimes was trusting her Founder DNA.
Serial entrepreneur, Jennifer Mercer, founded two software companies. She successfully exited one and is currently bootstrapping another. She is an operationally-focused CEO who strongly believes in establishing processes early on to ensure smooth operations and optimized efficiencies. Her key startup hacks are management and operations-focused. She believes it’s critical to build efficient systems and deep teams early to drive growth and scale.
Serial entrepreneur Dana Loberg has had a variety of startup experiences building and scaling companies. Her most recent venture is an AR company that released LEO AR, an AR mobile application. Dana has mastered a key bootstrapping funding hack—being an active fearless Accelerator participant. A strategic founder, Dana knows how to leverage the best of the startup ecosystem without falling prey to its many funding pitfalls. A hack strategy that few have mastered.
Marissa Waldman, the founder of Leaderology, leadership development and management consulting firm in Southern California, specializes in developing fearlessly authentic leadership. Marissa has wielded a powerful startup hack to fuel her customer acquisition pipeline—strategic partnerships. Her deep HR partnerships provide an endless supply of quality customer referrals because she and her team are committed to delivering value—the best hack of all.
Founder of Scoutlab, a creative agency dedicated to working with purpose-driven brands such as Venmo and Wix.com, Willow started her company right out of college and has not stopped pushing the envelope since. A disruptor by nature, Willow began her career with Red Bull and Airbnb while still in school and believed one of the best hacks founders should master is effectively working with their co-founders.
From consultant to a small business owner to build a large business and then subsequently exiting, Beverly Beattie has experienced what all business owners dream of—real financial success. Along the way, she learned that all hacks are driven by delivering real value for your customer and going the extra mile.
