How to identify and overcome the root, cultural causes and the access to capital by women led VCs and women led businesses

Speakers for this event

• Carol Tarr

  Carol Tarr

  Fellow Included VC and Professor at Nyenrode Business Universiteit

  Carol was born on the Southside of Chicago, Illinois, USA. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where she majored in East Asian Studies and Religious Studies. She has a master’s degree in theological studies (MTS) from Harvard University, where she specialized in World Religions and was a researcher for the Pluralism Project. She is currently a.b.d. (all but dissertation) from a PhD program at the University of Chicago. She has been a lecturer in business schools and worked at The Next Women where she was the architect behind the Fempower Your Growth training, working alongside the major Dutch banks and policy institutions to offer an intense program to train female entrepreneurs on growth strategies while addressing the biases of bankers and investors. Combining these interests, Carol is shifting her focus onto impact investing. As president of The Wominvest Observatory, she wants to highlight awareness of intersectionality and the need to ensure equal access to financial and network capital for all women and their businesses as we shift towards gender-smart funding practices. Carol is an Included VC Fellow (inaugural class), mom to 3 sons and founder of Atomic Spices. She’s President of the Harvard Alumni Club of The Netherlands and an avid amateur soprano and rower. Carol lectures in Sociology, Organizational Management, Research Methods and Entrepreneurship at numerous universities in the Netherlands. She worked in partnerships at The Next Women, developed the “Fempower Your Growth” Program and recently received an Included VC Fellowship through which she is actively pursuing venture capital opportunities. A frequent speaker on the subject of gender, diversity and inequitable investment practices, she is currently conducting research on the business effect of women’s competing for investment via pitch competitions.

  Fellow Included VC and Professor at Nyenrode Business Universiteit

• Christina Calje

  Christina Calje

  Co-Founder, Autheos

  Christina is a seasoned Executive with 15+ years of diverse professional experience in start-up and multinational corporations across New York, London and Amsterdam. Christina has been profiled in such national publications as Emerce, Business Insider, Sprout, Financieel Telegraaf, Silicon Canals, RTL-Z, international magazines FEED TV and Netokracija, and by tech giants Google and T-Mobile. Her company, Autheos, has garnered distinction as a top ‘Startup Disrupting Media’ by EU-Startups and ‘Deep Tech Disrupting Industry’ by EIG Digital. Most recently, Christina was the sole Netherlands participant for the highly competitive Google for Startups Immersion program. The inaugural European cohort consisted of 11 black / brown founders driving change in their industries. Named in 2019 by Inspiring Fifty as one of the Netherlands\’ most inspiring women in tech and by VIVA 400 as an ‘inspiring, ambitious woman who excels in the tech field’, Christina is often invited to speak at international conferences on topics such as marketing innovation, social responsibility within AI and media personalization. Alongside Autheos, Christina has served as a Non-Executive Board Member for multiple artificial intelligence startups, guiding leadership to grow their propositions to increase shareholder value.

  Co-Founder, Autheos

• Elianne Oei

  Elianne Oei

  Co-Founder, Epic Hub

  Since being little I've always said I'd help make the world a better place - I love helping people increase their impact in the world, developing creative solutions and getting stuff done – no matter what the odds are. I started my career in strategy consulting at Deloitte in the Netherlands. Since then, I have worked across countries, cultures, continents and industries on complex (think big and hairy) problems and major turnarounds, requiring organisational insight, strong analytical skills and stakeholder engagement. An adventurer at heart I live to explore and travel, both through work and play. The latest exploration has been in the investment space, where as a nascent investor 6 years ago I learned the dynamics at play and the skewed playing field. The many issues with investment practices and perceptions currently are audacious enough to focus my attention here; where my wish is to create a world where there is enough for all. Therefore we started EPIC - Exponential Positive Impact Capital/ EPIC is on a mission to democratize investment and thereby accelerating impact. We at EPIC bring impact driven startups and investors together for long term and sustainable impact-funding and development, in a collaborative, constructive way, leveraging the revenue based financing instrument, much better suited for more start ups than just the 1% which gets venture capital funding currently. Let's make an exponential positive impact together!

  Co-Founder, Epic Hub

• Galit Bauer

  Galit Bauer

  Co-Founder & COO, Holiday Sitters BV

  Galit Bauer has over 15 years of experience caring to carefully select and place the right people in each right organization. Prior to co-founding Holiday-Sitters, Galit served as a Global Human Resource Manager in different multinational corporates where she gained extensive business experience focused on a range of human resource-related disciplines. Galit is a "people person" passionate about understanding people, connecting people and couching whoever is in need for guidance. In addition, Galit is a dedicated long distance running, kickboxing and Pilates savvy one of the initiators of 'Pilates to the People' providing Pilates classes to people with special needs. Galit moved to Amsterdam from Tel Aviv 15 years ago together with her husband, and they became parents 7 years later. Galit worked at Israeli technology start-up Camelot under the niche of HR, Recruitment and more.

  Co-Founder & COO, Holiday Sitters BV

• Ilse Bakker

  Ilse Bakker

  Investor Relations Manager, Nordic Secondary Fund

  Ilse Bakker studied both Business Administration at the Rotterdam School of Management as well as Law at the Rotterdam School of Law (Erasmus University Rotterdam), obtaining 2 bachelor degrees at the age of 20. She is the Investor Relations Manager for the Nordic Secondary Fund, the first fund in the Nordics that exclusively invests in secondaries, where she is also part of the investment team.

  Investor Relations Manager, Nordic Secondary Fund

• Kelly Keenan

  Kelly Keenan

  Private investor

  Kelly Keenan is an active angel investor, venture capitalist, and producer based in the United States. She funds women-led startups and films through her portfolio company, See Jane Invest. In addition to See Jane Invest, Kelly has served as a founding venture partner at NextGen Ventures, a board member of the Baltimore Angels, and mentor to over 50 companies. She is also a recurring panelist on CNBC’s Power Pitch. As a speaker, she has presented at President Obama’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative, the Japan American Society, Dubai Internet City, Crowdfundx, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and UC Berkely. Prior to See Jane Invest, Kelly helped women run for public office through the nonprofit Running Start and the Women Under Forty Political Action Committee. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, St. John’s College, and the University of Detroit Mercy, Kelly holds a Masters in Business Administration, J.D., Masters in Liberal Arts, and a B.A. in English Writing and History.

  Private investor

• Khaleelah Jones

  Khaleelah Jones

  Founder and CEO, Careful Feet Digital

  Khaleelah Jones is the owner and founder of Careful Feet Digital Agency, the digital marketing agency that created Dime Digital, a SaaS tool that automates social media posting and brand creation for small businesses and solopreneurs. A 2020 WomenInTech 100 winner, finalist for the NatWest everywoman awards and winner of the 2018 Next Women Pitch Competition, Khaleelah has a PhD in emerging media, an MBA and has worked in the marketing industry for over a decade. Before starting CFD and building Dime, she was the head of marketing at WellTok Inc, where she was part of a team that doubled the user base in six months and closed $18m in Series B funding. She is the host of the podcast Dark Feminine, where she discusses subjects important to women of color entrepreneurs and business owners, and lives in London with her husband where she practices yoga, reads and, in her spare time, studies Russian history.

  Founder and CEO, Careful Feet Digital

• Marina Aandieu

  Marina Aandieu

  Co-founder and Director, WIDE (Women in Digital Empowerment)

  Co-founder and Director, WIDE (Women in Digital Empowerment)

• Marina Andrieu

  Marina Andrieu

  Co-founder & Director, WIDE (Women in Digital Empowerment)

  Marina is the Co-founder and Director of WIDE (Women in Digital Empowerment), a non-profit based in Luxembourg supporting girls and women to get into tech. Her organisation focuses on education, coding and entrepreneurship. Marina was also EU Code Week Ambassador for Luxembourg (2013-2017) and is currently the coordinator for the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Luxembourg. She is also an ambassador for the OECD Better entrepreneurship tool. WIDE is also involved in many European projects and collaborations, mainly thanks to the Erasmus + programme of the EC.

  Co-founder & Director, WIDE (Women in Digital Empowerment)

• Melissa Romero

  Melissa Romero

  Tech Entrepreneur, Co-Founder & Chair at Lean In

  Colombian by birth, Dutch by coincidence, citizen of the world At the age of 17, Melissa's family was forced out of Colombia due to the violence, which taught her the meaning of taking responsibility of her own destiny. After graduating in Industrial Engineering at the age of 21, she set on an adventure that took her to living in 7 countries, learning 5 languages fluently, leading a 250 million dollar business in a Fortune 500 company and founding Lean In | Netherlands. Melissa is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence within the Dutch Startup ecosystem, at incubator Antler, where she is developing a #MenopauseTech solution that will help retain more women talent at companies while helping improve these women’s lives.

  Tech Entrepreneur, Co-Founder & Chair at Lean In

• Patrizia Luchetta

  Patrizia Luchetta

  Co-founder, Another Level Creative Group

  Patrizia Luchetta has a 20yr+ international career across industries and economic sectors; in both the private and public sector. After having had the privilege to develop and implement Luxembourg’s national strategy in the field of biomedical life sciences, Patrizia decided to venture back into the private sector and use her international expertise to help start-ups and individuals to refine their strategic goals, especially regarding communication and marketing; but also to pursue her passion for music and create bridges between the entrepreneurial and the musical hemisphere. Currently Patrizia sits on several boards and advisory committees and she has recently by co-founded Another Level Creative Group, a music production and artist management company.

  Co-founder, Another Level Creative Group

• Robbert Fisher

  Robbert Fisher

  President, Knowledge4Innovation

  Robbert Fisher specializes in strategy and policy in the fields of R&D, technology transfer and innovation in general. His key focus is on ICT policy. Since 1st January 2020 he is principal associate investigator at the University de las Campinas in Sao Paolo Brazil, where he focuses on the further development of Big Data and AI for policy analysis, development and monitoring. Robbert is on the board of several start up companies, a trusted expert for the European Commission in the field of big data and AI, and since 2017 the president of K4I. From 2011 to 2019 Robbert was the managing director of the Joint Institute for Innovation Policy, a Brussels based think tank of four renowned RTO’s (TNO, VTT, Tecanalia and Joanneum Research). Prior to that he has founded two companies, from 1989 until 2000 he was a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers. From 1991-1995 Robbert was seconded as an expert to the European Commission DG XIII (now DG CONNECT) in Luxembourg. Robbert received a Master’s degree Law, Leiden University, the Netherlands with special subjects Intellectual property, Information Systems and Business economics. He holds degrees in marketing and public relations. In addition, he is an alumnus of the PwC International Management Development Programme, and has followed executive courses at Darden Business School and Oxford Said Business School.

  President, Knowledge4Innovation

• Solvita Kostjukova

  Solvita Kostjukova

  Co-Founder, CEO, ALINA LLC

  Solvita Kostjukova is co-founder and CEO of venture ALINA. ALINA uses innovative zero waste technology to manufacture ALINA LIFE products, available for interior and exterior architectural paint and coating producers to reduce and substitute hazardous chemicals and heavy metals in readymade products. ALINA company is supported by EIT RawMaterials and is finalist of INNOVEIT 2017, awarded as Start-up of the Year of the German-Latvian Business Award 2018 and ranked among the Top 25 Cleantech Companies in Europe. Solvita's core competencies are deep-science commercialization and product development, 10+ years of science management experience, PhD cand. in mathematical modelling, and 4 years of social entrepreneurship under the LUDE brand.

  Co-Founder, CEO, ALINA LLC