Beyond the Billion

OUR TEAM

Our Team

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

K. Shelly Porges

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

K. Shelly Porges is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women and Beyond the Billion. She is also a Board Member of the Financial Alliance for Women and on the Advisory Board for Cornerstone Capital, Mindshift Capital, Different Funds and Global Invest Her. Ms. Porges also served as President of the North American Jury for Cartier Women’s Initiative for over a decade and as the former Senior Advisor, Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) at the U.S. State Department, a program she expanded to almost 150 countries, under Secretary Hillary Clinton. Before joining the State Department, she had a distinguished career in the private sector, including both corporate and entrepreneurial ventures. She served as executive head of marketing for American Express Canada and as chief marketing officer for Bank of America during a historic turn-around. Ms. Porges co-founded six ventures including Porges/Hudson Marketing; Scudder Weisel Capital LLC, a joint venture between Thomas Weisel Partners and Zurich Scudder Investments; and Global Payments Experts LLC, a payments industry advisory firm. Ms. Porges holds both a BS with Honors and MPS degree from Cornell University.

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Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Sarah Chen-Spellings

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Based in Washington DC, investor & entrepreneur Sarah Chen-Spellings is Co-Founder of Beyond The Billion (launched as The Billion Dollar Fund for Women), the world's first and largest global consortium of over 100 venture funds and limited partner investors that have pledged to invest and are actively deploying beyond $1B towards women-founded companies. In under two years, the consortium has deployed $638M and counting into close to 800 female-founded companies, of which 11 have been recognized as unicorns. Previously, she was on the pioneer team of a corporate venture capital unit within a $13B publicly traded Asian conglomerate, investing in later-stage biotechnology companies. Since then, she has been at the forefront of multi-million cross border investments, structuring and executing commercialization plans with her portfolio companies.

Determined to see more women at the helm, she sits on multiple boards, including 131 & Counting, a bipartisan effort encouraging more women to run for office in the US; and Lean In Malaysia, which she co-founded, a platform accelerating women into leadership in Malaysia. Named Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and Forbes Under 30 VC, Chen-Spellings is a recognized speaker, strategist and commentator on venture capital, startups and women in leadership, having been featured on Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg, Der Spiegel, United Nations et al, and is a celebrated host on the show and podcast #BillionDollarMoves backed by the Hubspot Podcast Network. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Laws, LL.B (Hons.) from King’s College London.

Tune in to Billion Dollar Moves

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Canada Co-Lead(Cycle Capital)

Andrée-Lise Méthot

Canada Co-Lead (Cycle Capital)

Andrée-Lise is the founder and Managing Partner of Cycle Capital. She boasts more than 25 years of experience in venture capital, management and engineering. She has set up Cycle Capital, an impact investor and the Canada’s largest cleantech private investment platform. Today, Cycle Capital manages four funds in North America and one in China and has almost half a billion under management. In addition to serving on portfolio companies’ boards of directors, she is the Founder and Chairperson of the Ecofuel Accelerator and the Co-Founder of the Ecofuel Fund.

She is a member of the Board of Directors and Investment Committee of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC). She also sits on the Board of the Société Québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) and the Institut de Cardiologie de Montréal. She is also a member of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s New Energy Pioneers’ Selection Committee and a member of the Cleantech Group’s North-American Advisory Committee. She co-founded Écotech Québec, Québec’s cleantech cluster and SWITCH, the Alliance for a green economy.

Named an Officer of the Ordre National du Québec, she has been honoured with many distinctions including awards from the Association of Quebec Women in Finance and the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec. She was also recognized as one of Canada’s Clean16, named one of the Top 20 cleantech investors by CleanTechnica and amongst the most influential women in sustainable development and in the cleantech industry by Corporate Knight. She has a Master’s degree in Science from the Université de Montréal and a Bachelor’s degree in Geological Engineering from Université Laval. She also studied atmospheric physics at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

 

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Canada Co-Lead (Loyal VC)

Kamal Hassan

Canada Co-Lead (Loyal VC)

Kamal Hassan is a founding partner of Loyal VC, a fund that addresses bias in VC through eliminating pitching. Loyal's Startup Index Fund has invested in >120 companies in >30 countries globally since 2018. Of those, over 30%, both by number of companies and by dollars have a woman CEO. Loyal is also proud that a similar percentage of their capital has been sourced from women LPs. Loyal starts with small initial cheques, providing non-wealthy entrepreneurs with more equal opportunity, then mentors and diligences each company for months before leading or sharing in seed and A-rounds.

Prior to Loyal, Kamal had a 20-year career as an entrepreneur/CEO, did angel investing for 15 years, and designed and ran programs for Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed accelerator. He has personally advised and mentored almost 500 entrepreneurs. Kamal has also worked as a consultant for Bain & Co, and as an engineer. He has an MBA from INSEAD and did his undergrad in Engineering Physics at Queen's. He speaks six languages, to varying degrees, and has traveled to over 100 countries.

 

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Turkey Co-Lead

Ahu Serter

Turkey Co-Lead

 Ahu Serter is a serial entrepreneur and investor. She is also President of Fark Holding, a 50-year-old family-enterprise specializing in automotive and white-goods sectors, and founder of Arya Women Investment Platform and Fark Labs, a global innovation hub, built to design a better version of the future by transforming legacy businesses. Empowered by her multi-potentiality, as the second generation business leader, she cultivated a dual transformation approach by encouraging new business lines, incentivizing intrapreneurship, and founding a corporate venture capital arm, F+ Ventures. This quickly paved the way for the company to nurture spin-offs, new ventures and strategic partnerships. Guided by her vision, Fark Holding was named one of the 20 most innovative companies in Turkey by Forbes. Ahu is one of Turkey's 50 most powerful women according to Fortune and the recipient of the Enterprising Women Award in the $100 million+ category in the US.

 

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Carol Schwartz

Australia Country Lead

Carol Schwartz

Australia Country Lead

Carol Schwartz AO is one of Australia’s most dynamic business and community leaders with a diverse career across property, the arts, finance, investment, entrepreneurship, government and health. Carol is highly regarded as a public commentator and agitator on issues of gender equality, women’s leadership, governance and business.

Carol has been recognized for her leadership via a range of honors including her 2019 appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia, an Honorary Doctorate from Monash University, induction
into the Australia Property Hall of Fame, and a Centenary Medal. Carol was also named one of Australia’s most influential women in the Australian Financial Review and Westpac’s Inaugural 100 Women of Influence Awards and inducted into the Victorian Women’s Honor Roll. In November 2020 Carol was recognized with the nation’s highest philanthropic honor, the ‘Leading Philanthropist’ Award by Philanthropy Australia. Carol has chaired and participated in numerous listed and private company boards, and has also chaired major government boards and conducted significant inquiries on behalf of government.

Carol’s current board roles include the Reserve Bank of Australia, Trawalla Group and Chair of EQT Holdings Limited. Throughout her career Carol has been a passionate advocate for women in leadership, particularly in business, politics and the media. As Chair of the Trawalla Foundation and the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia, she has catalyzed a range of practical solutions, including the Pathways to Politics Program for Women, the Panel Pledge, and the Women for Media database. Carol is also the Founding Chair of Our Community, a member of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Women’s Leadership Board, and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Advisory Board, Kings College.

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Operational Advisor

Adrian Chong

Operational Advisor

Adrian Chong is an investor at TPG, a global private equity firm with approximately $135 billion in assets under management. There, he has worked on control buyouts and growth equity investments, particularly in the healthcare, financial services and higher education sectors. His investments at the firm include Singlife, Pathology Asia, TE Healthcare, BFI Finance, International Medical University, Asia Pacific University and Jetanin Institute.

 

Adrian is also part of The Rise Fund, the world’s largest private markets impact investing platform with $16 billion of assets under management. A particular focus of his with The Rise Fund has been on expanding access to quality healthcare and education in developing economies. His experience there has galvanised him into contributing to causes that drive capital towards social impact. As a #GirlDad, he feels passionately about promoting gender equity in entrepreneurship. Prior to joining TPG in 2015, he served in Investment Banking at Credit Suisse, focusing on mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions.

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Meghna Choudhury

Venture Fellow

Meghna Choudhury

Fellow

Meghna Choudhury is a freshman at Georgetown University studying economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. 

Her involvement in Georgetown Ventures, a student-run start-up accelerator, first sparked her interest in venture capital and entrepreneurship. This led her to work in a consulting capacity with a social media startup called DreameFactory, and a compost startup named Compost’d. Both have added fuel to her passion for start-ups, mainly for their ability to address emerging global issues transcending past just markets, like climate change and mental health. As fellow at Beyond The Billion, Meghna supports the firm's diligence and platform development initiatives. 

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Canada Co-Lead(Cycle Capital)

Catherine Bérubé

Canada Co-Lead (Cycle Capital)

Catherine is Vice-President, Sustainable Development, Investor Relations and Public Affairs at Cycle Capital Management and Ecofuel. She handles public and government relations, she’s in charge of Cycle Capital’s impact investment practice and is a mentor for the Ecofuel Accelerator. Catherine is also Vice-president of Écotech Québec, Quebec cleantech cluster, sits on the Board of SWITCH Alliance, Clean Resource Innovation Network (CRIN) and is a member of the CVCA’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee (Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association).

Catherine is the coordinator of the “Bioenergy” working group for the Québec Green Economy Plan and was part of the consultation comittee for the Principle for Responsible Investment – Quebec Chapter. Previously, she worked in a municipal political cabinet. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Université du Québec à Montréal and a Master’s degree in Public Communication from Université Laval, for which she also completed an exchange at École supérieure de journalisme de Lille in France.

 

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Daniel Lane

Technical Director

Daniel Lane

Technical Director

Daniel Lane serves as the Technical Director for Beyond The Billion, helping to drive the technical strategy for the organization. Daniel has over 10 years of experience as an Information Technology consultant working in the Government sector for various clients across the Intelligence Community, Department of Defense, and Department of Justice.

He has served in a multitude of capacities across the IT spectrum and is currently a program manager and scrum master for Koniag Government Services, where he leads a geographically distributed IT team in agile software development. Daniel is an active member of the Air National Guard. He is the Commander of the 146th Weather Flight and has over 16 years of military experience as a Staff Weather Officer. Throughout his military career he has gained valuable leadership experience in the tactical, operational, and strategic levels and has exhibited this knowledge in his civilian career. In addition, he has learned the importance of resiliency and adaptability and these have been a driving factor in his success. Daniel earned a Bachelors in Management Information Systems from Slippery Rock University and currently lives with his family in Northern Virginia. Daniel has a passion for people and excels at mentoring, team building, facilitating, and developing lasting relationships.

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Toronto Lead

Jonathan Hera

Toronto Lead

Jonathan Hera has nearly 10 years’ impact investment experience – domestically and within lower and middle income countries – having worked with and for government agencies, multilateral organizations, large financial institutions, venture capital and private equity funds, angel groups, enabling intermediaries (accelerators/incubators), collective impact platforms, and universities. He has led the development of investor relations, impact reporting and investor reporting at Sarona Asset Management; investor relations, due diligence and portfolio construction and management at the Royal Bank of Canada and the Youth Social Innovation Capital Fund; and most recently the investment strategy, due diligence, portfolio management and funder relationships at Grand Challenges Canada. It is here where Jonathan co-led the development of the organization’s gender strategy and its implementation throughout its investment process and entrepreneur supports. He lives in the west end of Toronto with his partner and two young daughters, who helped inspire his approach to impact investing – and Marigold itself. For more on Jonathan’s ‘why’, please see How to invest with a Gender Lens where he shares pieces of his personal journey.

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Turkey Co-Lead

Arzu Tekir

Turkey Co-Lead

Arzu Tekir is a business strategist specializing in urban tech and the immersive tech industry as Founder & CEO of Urbanite Venture. She helps angel investors, VCs, entrepreneurs, technology companies define market opportunities, develop marketing and communication strategies, market development, and start-up fundraising. She is the business and strategy partner of VRAcademi.

Arzu is a published author and a social entrepreneur. Arzu’s articles were published in Forbes and other magazines. She has been featured in various media outlets including, The Guardian, National Geographic Energy Challenge Blog, Jazeera Magazine, Bloomberg HT TV, and NTV-MSNBC. Her most significant work is Your Time Is Now: Lessons Learned to Transform Career, which Elma Publishing House published in April 2021 after completing the manuscript in August 2020. Arzu founded Career Transformation Academy to help professionals and entrepreneurs transform their careers, move on with confidence, and grow their businesses. As a social entrepreneur, she aims to raise funding to support MSc and Ph.D. students studying STEM subjects in her home country, Turkey. She has produced and hosted Out of the Box Talks, weekly live shows, since November 2020.
She serves as the Corporate Communications Director at Arya Women Investment Platform, Advisory Board Member at Farklabs Innovation Center, and a Board Member Social Impact Movement, NGO located in Miami, FL.

 

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Venture Fellow

Ayana Reiner

Venture Fellow

Ayana Reiner is a student at Georgetown University majoring in International Business Political Economy in the McDonough School of Business.

Ayana took a non-traditional journey to Georgetown. She is a veteran of the Israeli military, and has been working for three years at a hyper-growth startup where she helped build teams, develop a growth strategy, and worked closely with the executive team. She continues to work part-time during school. On campus, she interns for Georgetown’s endowment office, serves as the Director of Consulting of TAMID Group, a student group that consults Israeli startups, and is a member of the student investment fund. Hoping to pursue a path of entrepreneurship, Ayana has seen first-hand the gap in female entrepreneurs and in venture capital allocation, and is excited to take an active role in changing that. In her free time, Ayana enjoys gardening, cooking, and hiking.

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MBA Venture Fellow

Hailey Ji

Venture Fellow

Hailey is an Entrepreneur, Marketer, and Believer. Originally from Shanghai, Hailey has spent her first decade in the U.S. in consumer-facing engagements, from supporting the launch of HBO Max and marketing its 40+ streaming programs nationally, to building and growing her first companionship-based IRL social startup HULA from 0 to 1. Hailey has 5 yrs+ of experience and passion in Go-To-Market Strategy & Execution, Growth Marketing, Brand Creation, Product Strategy & Management, and Operations.

Having built her own startup and fundraised herself, Hailey cannot emphasize more how much a lack of support and a systematic process funding environment currently faces for female-owned businesses and female founders. That's why when she first came across Beyond The Billion and met Shelly and Sarah, she knew she needs to be part of this movement and push changes forward.

Hailey is currently an MBA candidate at the Wharton School of Business and holds a B.A. degree in Communications and Marketing from the University of Southern California. As her part-time enthusiasm, Hailey is also well-known for hosting well-attended community events in NYC.

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Venture Fellow

Navya Sethi

Venture Fellow

Navya Sethi is a final year undergraduate studying Business Management at King’s College London. Her previous experiences founding her women’s microfinance start-up in India fuelled her passion for entrepreneurship and venture capital to empower women. Navya has gained professional experience in consulting through summer internships at EY and Deloitte and mentorship programs at Boston Consulting Group and Google. At King’s, she’s heavily involved as the President of KCL Women in Business Society, the largest female-focused society in London, and as Advisory Council Board member at the King’s Business School. As Venture Fellow, Navya is contributing to Beyond the Billion’s funds network, sponsorships, investor research, and marketing efforts.

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Venture Fellow

Yue Ma

Venture Fellow

Yue Ma is a second-year Master of Public Policy student at the School of International
and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She is an impact-oriented communication,
research, and project manager with a track record of experience in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America.

During her Masters', she executed a macro-policy advising project with the UN Executive Office of Secretary-General under the guidance of Jeffrey Sachs, managed Obama
Scholar's micro project in Lesotho, and worked with UNDP and Jed Foundation.

Previously, she worked as a journalist and partnership associate for CGTN, China's largest international news agency. Her working languages are English and Mandarin.

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Venture Fellow

Shravan Potluri

Venture Fellow

Shravan Potluri is a first-year student at NYU double majoring in Economics and Data Science at the College of Arts and Sciences.

Shravan is new to Venture Capital but has extensive experience working with nonprofits. In particular, he has co-founded a nonprofit that helps to spread Economic and financial literacy among high schoolers. He has also worked with an organization to promote speech and debate in underfunded schools.

Currently, Shravan works as a consultant with EmpowerED, which works with education nonprofits in New York City to improve their reach. He is also a fellow for The Sycamore Institute, a national think tank. As a fellow at Beyond the Billion, Shravan works on the marketing and analyst sides of the organization.

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our global advisory council

cheryl alston

Executive Director & CIO, Dallas Retirement Fund

Cheryl D. Alston

Executive Director & CIO, Dallas Retirement Fund​

Cheryl D. Alston is the Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of the Employees' Retirement Fund of the City of Dallas, Texas ('ERF'), a $3.6+ billion pension plan for the City's civilian employees. Cheryl has over twenty-five years of expertise in the financial services industry. She serves on the Board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City and is Chair of the Finance and Investment committee. She also serves on the board of Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, CHRISTUS Health and Torchmark Corporation.

In 2018, Women Inc. Magazine selected Cheryl as one of the most influential corporate directors. In 2011, Cheryl was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Advisory Committee and served two terms. She served as an Executive with CIGNA Retirement & Investment Services and Chase Global Services. Cheryl has an M.B.A. in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern School at New York University and a B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Alston received awards from Institutional Investor magazine, D CEO Power 500 and the Dallas Power 50.

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Anna Snider

Managing Director and Head of Due Diligence, CIO's Office, Bank of America

Anna Snider

Managing Director and Head of Due Diligence, CIO's Office, Bank of America

Anna Snider is a Managing Director and Head of Due Diligence for the Chief Investment Office (CIO) within Bank of America Corporation. In this role, she leads the Due Diligence team and is responsible for manager research and implementation guidance across all asset classes supporting Bank of America Private Bank and Merrill. She is a voting member of the Global Wealth & Investment Management Investment Strategy Committee (GWIM ISC), which sets asset allocation guidance. Anna also co-leads the Sustainable and Impact investing initiative for the wealth management businesses, focusing on investment solutions research and development, metrics and measurement.

Previously, Anna was part of the Alternative Investments group where she advised clients on hedge fund and private assets portfolio construction and became head of research for externally managed alternative investment fund of funds. She was also a

senior analyst in the risk management division at Bank of America Private Bank. Anna offers many years of investment and risk analysis experience, having held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, JP Morgan and UBS focusing on market, credit and operational risk management.

She graduated from Connecticut College. She holds the Chartered Alternative Investment AnalystSM (CAIASM) designation. Anna serves as chair of the board for High Water Women, a foundation based in New York City. She was cited within Barron’s magazine as one of “The 20 Most Influential People in Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) Investing” and is a Aspen Institute First Mover Fellow.

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Paul Conley

CEO, General Inception Venture Studio

Paul Conley

CEO, General Inception Venture Studio

Paul Conley brings more than 30 years of technology, development, commercialization and venture capital experience, including in U.S. national laboratory R&D, technology start-up operations, management consulting and technology venture capital across software, semiconductor and life-science sectors. Since 2007 Paul has been a partner affiliate of venture capital firms that include Paladin Capital Group (PCG), Vertical Venture Partners (VVP), OMX Ventures and Genoa Ventures. Over that time span, he has been responsible for all aspects of investment activities, including deal sourcing, evaluation and diligence, deal structuring and negotiation, and portfolio management. He has been an investor Board Member for more than 40 companies, including QuantaLife (sold to BioRad), Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ: TWST), 10X Genomics (NASDAQ: TXG), Ginkgo Bioworks(NYSE: DNA), HealthTell (sold to iCarbonX), Intabio (sold to Danaher), Verodin (sold to FireEye), Arsan (sold to TA Associates), Inscripta, Menlo Microsystems, Sestina Bio, Nanocellect, Nortis Bio, TOMA Bio, Switchback Systems, Rubryc Therapeutics and many more.

Paul brings a strong track record of investment experience in companies which operate at the intersection of physics and biology. At Paladin, he founded the Digital Biology practice area in 2009 and has since led over a dozen life-science investments with applications in genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and microbial research, as well as therapeutic discovery and diagnostics platforms. Additionally, Paul invests against a thesis that a prior century of advances in the physical and computing sciences is underpinning an 21st century renaissance in the science and engineering of biology. With a penchant for company creation around extraordinary scientists and their discoveries, in 2020, Paul launched General Inception (GI), a venture studio company focused on launching science-based companies. GI is staffed with over 50 fractional executives and enjoys on-demand access to over 500 scientists and engineers with over 120,000 sq ft of lab space in Silicon Valley and Boston.

Prior to beginning his venture capital career Paul spent several years as founding CEO of two venture-backed technology companies. As founding CEO of AppFluent (acquired by Attensity), a pioneer in the in-memory database market, he contributed to the development of patented technologies and led all aspects of defining and executing a commercialization plan, including capital raising, team building and market development through to early sales ramp. As founding CEO of BrightScale, a pioneer in the multi-core embedded processor space, he once again contributed to the development of patented technologies and led all aspects of the business through market entry and early sales ramp.

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Rebekah Woo

CEO, Pioneer Group of Companies & Former Senior Director, CDPQ

Rebekah Woo

CEO, Pioneer Group of Companies & Former Senior Director, CDPQ

Born and raised in Singapore, Rebekah has more than 20 years of investing and business experience, spanning across government, major investment institutions such as J.P. Morgan Asset Management, CDPQ and Fosun and family offices, with her current role as the CEO & CIO of a family office in Singapore.

Rebekah graduated from the UK, US and also has the CFA and CAIA professional designations. With her education and experience, Rebekah also actively contributes to the broader investment and business community by volunteering at various organisations, such as BANSEA as the Vice Chair of the Board, Singapore Institute of Directors (SID) as the Committee member for Diversity and International Relations. Rebekah is passionate about supporting women entrepreneurs and diversity in companies.

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Angela Outlaw Matheny

Director, Investment Staff & Head, Diverse Manager Equity, Crewcial Partners

Angela Outlaw-Matheny

Director, Investment Staff & Head, Diverse Manager Equity, Crewcial Partners

Angela Matheny joined Crewcial Partners in July 2016. She is an integral part of Crewcial’s research team. Angela and the firm’s CIO co-manage the investment team to ensure internal processes are efficient while overseeing the firm’s systematic process for identifying the best ideas for portfolios.

As a Co-Relationship Manager, she ensures client portfolios and advice reflect the firm’s best thinking and account for portfolio/client interests and issues. Valuing human capital, focusing on internal diverse talent acquisition, building a training and development program, and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion industry-wide are other areas of expertise.

Angela also drives the firm’s research process to attract and source diverse asset managers while monitoring the internal protocol for vetting women and diverse asset managers; she facilitates the constant communication between Crewcial and fund managers, assisting firm efforts to build a robust pipeline of this largely under-followed segment of the asset manager community marketplace.

Angela believes a combination of public, private, and philanthropic capital drives meaningful impact when coordinated towards a shared systemic goal.

Prior to joining Crewcial, she spent 23 years at a financial-services law firm, 13 of which as a legal assistant in the investment management group assisting with fund document creation and Blue Sky and SEC filings; ten years were spent working with human resources in the training and development group with a special focus on diversity and inclusion.

Angela received her BA in Psychology from Bernard Baruch College and a Master of Public Affairs and Administration from the Metropolitan College of New York. She also earned a Certificate in Human Resources Management from Villanova University, which included studies in diversity and inclusion.

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Brenda Chia

Director, Paladin Capital Group

Brenda Chia

Director, Paladin Capital Group

Brenda is a Director at Paladin Capital Group a leading, global venture and growth stage investor in cyber security technologies. Paladin is based in Washington, DC , with offices in Palo Alto, London and Luxembourg. Brenda’s responsibilities include identifying and developing new opportunities for Paladin in the areas of LP relationships, investments, co – investments and exits. She is also a sought – after advisor to funds and companies with ambitious growth plans.

From 2007 until 2012, Brenda was a Founding Board member and the first President of the Association of Asian American Investment Managers (AAAIM). She led AAAIM to national prominence as the diversity and inclusion advocate for Asian Americans in the investment industry. Brenda is the current Board Co – Chair for the organization. She provides tangible board leadership in setting the vision and pace for AAAIM, fundraising and building consensus around current key initiatives. She plays a major role in fostering the organization’s key relationships with U.S. public pension funds, endowments, foundations and Asian sovereign wealth funds.

While attending business school at Harvard, Brenda developed the strategy and market approach to commercialize a proprietary technology for reconfigurable computing developed at MIT. The company, Silicon Spice, was funded by Kleiner Perkins, Cisco Systems and New Enterprise Associates, among others. Broadcom acquired Silicon Spice in 2000.

Brenda has broad U.S. and international experience developing and executing business, marketing, and operational strategies for emerging and established companies. She served as a case leader with The Boston Consulting Group in Boston and a project manager for Accenture in Asia and Europe. Brenda has worked abroad extensively in Singapore, London and Jakarta.

She holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science, graduating at the top of her year with First Class Honors from National University of Singapore, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia.

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Carol Schwartz

Non-Exec Director, Trawalla Group & Federal Reserve Bank of Australia

Carol Schwartz AO

Non-Exec Director, Trawalla Group & Federal Reserve Bank of Australia

Carol Schwartz AO is one of Australia’s most dynamic business and community leaders with a diverse career across property, the arts, finance, investment, entrepreneurship, government and health. Carol is highly regarded as a public commentator and agitator on issues of gender equality, women’s leadership, governance and business.

Carol has been recognized for her leadership via a range of honors including her 2019 appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia, an Honorary Doctorate from Monash University, induction
into the Australia Property Hall of Fame, and a Centenary Medal. Carol was also named one of Australia’s most influential women in the Australian Financial Review and Westpac’s Inaugural 100 Women of Influence Awards and inducted into the Victorian Women’s Honor Roll. In November 2020 Carol was recognized with the nation’s highest philanthropic honor, the ‘Leading Philanthropist’ Award by Philanthropy Australia. Carol has chaired and participated in numerous listed and private company boards, and has also chaired major government boards and conducted significant inquiries on behalf of government.

Carol’s current board roles include the Reserve Bank of Australia, Trawalla Group and Chair of EQT Holdings Limited. Throughout her career Carol has been a passionate advocate for women in leadership, particularly in business, politics and the media. As Chair of the Trawalla Foundation and the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia, she has catalyzed a range of practical solutions, including the Pathways to Politics Program for Women, the Panel Pledge, and the Women for Media database. Carol is also the Founding Chair of Our Community, a member of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Women’s Leadership Board, and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Advisory Board, Kings College.

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Geoff David

CEO, Sorenson Impact

Geoff Davis

CEO, Sorenson Impact

Geoff Davis is an entrepreneur turned social entrepreneur and impact investor. He has founded, co-founded or advised more than 25 start-ups and investment funds, sat on 21 boards, and his work has helped more than 10 million people work their way out of poverty. He is currently CEO of the Sorenson Impact Center at the University of Utah, David Eccles Business School. Sorenson Impact combines impact investing, data science, policy and storytelling to drive capital to solve social and environmental problems. 

Additionally, he is currently Chairman of the board of Align17; investment committee member of the MIT Solve fund; board member of Summit Series Social Impact Fellows; board member at Arctaris Impact Capital, and Senior Advisor at Cicero Group. 

Prior to Sorenson Impact, he was the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Cicero Impact Capital, the private equity impact investing arm of Cicero Group, a top 15 global boutique consulting firm. Previously, Geoff led the Perpetual Education Fund and helped build Self-Reliance Services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where his team gave 20,000 higher education loans each year and started 50,000 small businesses per year in 100 countries. Prior to that he was CEO of Unitus, a global pioneer in microfinance, and a founding board member of Kiva.org, a pioneering p2p lending platform. Earlier in his career he worked with Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus and helped launch the Grameen Foundation.

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Co-Founder, Cube Hydro Partners & Former Co-Chair NASDAQ Listing Review Council

Ginger Lew

Co-Founder, Cube Hydro Partners & Former Co-Chair NASDAQ Listing Review Council

Ginger is the CEO of Three Oaks Investments, LLC, an advisory services firm based in Naples, Florida.

Ginger was one of the co-founders of Cube Hydro Partners, and its predecessor company, Enduring Hydro. She served as Managing Director and General Counsel. She guided the company through an expansive acquisition period growing from one 6 Megawatts Western Pennsylvania hydropower plant and five employees to nineteen facilities, 374 Megawatts in five states along ten river systems with 130 employees in less than four years. She provided a broad range of advice and led critical regulatory and financial negotiations throughout the life cycle of the company. In October 2019 Cube Hydro was sold to Eagle Creek Renewable Energy, owned by Ontario Power Generation of Canada. She continues to provide consulting transition services to the new owners. In addition, since 2014, Ginger is a senior policy advisor to I Squared Capital, a $13 billion global infrastructure fund based in Miami, Florida.

Ginger has held numerous roles in federal government. She was the Acting Chief Counsel for the Western United States, Department of Energy. She was appointed by Secretary Vance to be Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia. When Bill Clinton was elected President, she served on the transition team and subsequently joined the White House Presidential Personnel Office with a focus on economic agencies. Ginger was nominated and unanimously confirmed as the General Counsel for the Department of Commerce under Secretary Ron Brown. She was nominated and unanimously confirmed as Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer of the Small Business Administration under Administrator Phil Lader. Ginger worked on the Obama transition team as co-chair of the SBA agency team. She then joined the Obama White House National Economic Council as a senior advisor and focused on small business issues, entrepreneurship and women in the economy.

For ten years, Ginger was a member and Board Chair of the Slovak American Enterprise Fund – a US government authorized investment fund in Central Europe to promote small business and entrepreneurship. She was a managing member and venture partner of two venture funds in Washington DC. Ginger also served on the NASDAQ Listing and Hearing Review Council for ten years as a member and Co-Chair.

Ginger has also served on numerous corporate and not for profit boards including Yo semite National Institute (now NatureBridge), the Meyer Foundation, the Smithsonian Institute Travel Exhibitions, Asian Americans for Advancing Justice, and the East West Center. She is the Co-Founder of the Association of Asian American Investment Managers, a trade organization that promotes diversity and inclusion in the investment industry.

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Independent Investor & Advisor

Valeri Wai

Independent Investor & Advisor

Valeri is an independent Investor and Advisor. Her recent roles included strategy, financing and tactical advice in a complex takeover transaction alongside a family-run business. Valeri was previously a Vice President in the Integrated Strategies Group at GIC, a leading sovereign wealth fund. Responsibilities included identifying and developing opportunities with management teams and private owners in sponsorless direct minority investments and co-investments across the EMEA region and select emerging markets. Her mandate included finding solutions in unconventional transactions by employing a flexible investment mandate across a target’s capital structure. In the past decade, she invested in the education, financial services, consumer and TMT sectors, and backed emerging companies in the technology space. She was an early founding member of the Integrated Strategies Group in London, growing the team and portfolio to its current size. 

Valeri has broad experience developing strategy approaches alongside management teams. She was recently a Board Director of the Brandtech Group, a marketing technology group, Board Observer of Inspired Education, a premium, global K-12 platform.  

Her formative years were spent as a banker at Citi and Houlihan Lokey. Valeri has an LLB law degree from the London School of Economics and was called to the Bar in 2005. She is fluent in both Bahasa Malaysia and Cantonese. 

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Executive Leader & Strategic Advisor

Karen Wawrzaszek

Executive Leader & Strategic Advisor

Karen Wawrzaszek is a Leadership Executive and Strategic Advisor to Entrepreneurs, Family Offices, Private Foundations, and Non-Profit organizations with more than two decades of experience. She is a recognized thought leader in ESG, Impact Investment, and Philanthropy.

Karen has led the regional business efforts and the impact investment efforts for established family offices such as the Pitcairn and Rockefeller Family Offices in Washington, DC. She launched the impact-oriented investment platform for a $5B RIA – which resulted in an attractive sell to a larger firm. More recently, she served on the Responsible Investment Advisory Board and Philanthropy Practice Management Board for BNYMellon Wealth in her capacity as the Regional President.

Karen is passionate about her clients and connecting them to strategies that help them on their journey to integrating purpose driven capital. She accomplishes this by leveraging innovative planning and investment techniques that incorporate the private and public markets, diligence and monitoring tools, and governance and education frameworks. She is a subject matter expert on impact and mission-oriented investing and philanthropic planning and is sought out to write articles, speak on podcasts and at conferences, including the UN Global People’s Summit and the UN Ideagen’s Sustainability Conference.

Karen is active and passionate about community service. She founded Pomona Society, a 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on economic empowerment for women and families in Washington, DC,. Through this organization, Karen mentors female founders to help them prepare their business plans and raise capital. She has provided workshops focusing on communication skills for pitching for capital to entrepreneur members of WBEC.

Karen serves as an Executive Committee Member and Investment Chair of the Meyer Foundation, Vice Chair for Teach for America DC, and a Board Member for Global Impact. She is a Global Advisory Council Member of Beyond the Billion, an organization dedicated to improving venture capital funding for women. Her prior Board involvement includes the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Black Girl Ventures, and Eastside Domestic Violence of Seattle, WA. She is a member of the Washington DC Estate Planning Council, the Family Firm Institute, and the Financial Planning Association.

Karen was named a Washingtonian Top Financial Adviser in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022 and is a graduate and featured member of Leadership Greater Washington’s Signature Program and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Wichita State University. She is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor (CTFA) and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor.

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Partner, Cathay Innovation

Rajive Keshup

Rajive is a Partner at Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital partnership, created in affiliation with Cathay Capital, investing in startups at the center of digital revolution across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. As a multistage fund with over $1.5 billion assets under management and offices across San Francisco, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, Cathay Innovation partners with visionary entrepreneurs and startups positively impacting the world through technology.

Prior to joining Cathay, Rajive played instrumental roles in scaling a number of Southeast Asian startups. Before moving to Singapore, Rajive was a Managing Director at PwC Strategy (formerly Booz & Co.) in New York City where he led the TMT sector for the firm’s Private Equity practice. Rajive started his career at AT&T doing corporate strategy & development in Dallas, Texas. He is also a former-founder having built, scaled and successfully exited a US-based startup in the pet services space. Rajive earned an MBA from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and a Bachelor of Science from Bentley University in Waltham, MA. 

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Alifia Doriwala

Managing Director & Co-CIO, Rockcreek

Alifia Doriwala

Managing Director & Co-CIO, Rockcreek

Alifia Doriwala is a Managing Director at RockCreek, responsible for OCIO and Multi-Asset Class portfolios. She focuses on sourcing, directing, and managing relationships with public and private investments, as well as portfolio management, asset allocation, and investment decisions.

Prior to joining RockCreek, Alifia was an Equity Arbitrage Trader at Wolverine Trading, L.P., where she was responsible for sourcing, analyzing, and modeling equity linked trades together with equity options. She started her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at Merrill Lynch and member of the Financial Sponsor Group assessing the suitability of potential targets for private equity portfolio companies.

Alifia graduated from Georgetown University, magna cum laude, with a B.A. in Economics and English and holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She is a board member of the Georgetown University Global Business Initiative Advisory Board and a former Trustee and Chair of the Investment Committee at The Langley School. She is board member for the Teach for America-DC Region and Chair of the Teach for America Stewardship Committee.
Alifia is a frequent panelist and speaker at investment conferences focused on sustainable investing, diversity and alternative investments, and she supports various non-profit organizations focused on education and women’s initiatives.

 

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Board Member, Asset Mgmt ESG/Impact and Private Funds Counsel

Alexandra Poe

Partner, Hughes Hubbard & Reed

Alexandra is a partner in Hughes Hubbard & Reed’s Corporate Department. She has over 25 years of experience in investment management practice, representing investment advisers and institutional investors.

Alexandra counsels private equity, venture, and hedge fund advisers in all stages of their business, including fund formation, domestic and cross-border structuring, adviser registration, compliance program development, compliance training and advice, governance and fiduciary issues, closed-end fund registration and compliance, placement arrangements, marketing, client relations, side letter and seeding arrangements, implementation of liquidity strategies, blockchain utilization, including NFTs, and day-to-day trading and operations advice. She also advises clients as key or strategic investors in private funds, and in sponsoring or participating in managed account programs or other bespoke investment service platforms. Further, she has represented financial industry clients in connection with mergers and acquisitions, strategic joint ventures, regulatory examinations, implementation of prosecutorial settlement agreements, governance matters and due diligence.

Alexandra also has considerable in-house experience in general counsel and chief legal officer roles, advising boards and C-suite officers on matters of consequence, including responses to government examinations and investigations, investor litigation, and fiduciary and auditor independence issues. She is a co-Founder and Chair Emeritus of High Water Women Foundation and chaired the HWW Symposium: Investing for Impact, in 2013 and 2014.

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LP Investor & MP, Click Ventures

Carman Chan

Founder & Managing Partner, Click Ventures

Carman Chan has 20 years of experience as a Serial Entrepreneur, Tech Columnist, Venture Capitalist, and International Speaker across ten countries. Carman has started to focus on investing in other emerging VC managers as an LP since 2022. 

 

Carman is the author of best-selling accelerated learning books. Her first startup, EnglishStreet (ES) became a business case at the Harvard’s Business Review Database. ES was acquired by the Hong Kong Economic Times (0423.HK). Her second startup, Click Limited, has the first CFO of Tencent, Patrick Tsang and the founder of Cherubic Ventures, Matt Cheng,  as investors. Click Limited merged with Hiiir Inc. and was acquired by FastEastone (4904.TW). 

 

Carman was frequently interviewed by major media such as Harper Bazaar, Wall Street Journal and SCMP. She was in the cover story of Nikkei Asia Review as Top 5 Women-to-Watch in Asian Tech. 

 

Carman founded Click Ventures in 2015 and its first fund became the only seed fund from Asia to make the Top 5 Seed fund (Vintage 2013-2015)  by performance, while its second fund became the Top 1 in the Fund to Watch category by performance in Preqin’s Top Performing Ventures Capital Funds Report in March 2018.  From 2019 to 2021, Click Ventures has been named Consistent Top Performing Venture Capital Fund Manager globally by Preqin! 

In 2022, Click Ventures has launched a Impact Initiative and is selected by World Economic Forum as one of the 17 Top Innovative Funds.

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Vice-Chairman of GITI Group

Cherie Nursalim

Vice Chair, GITI Group & Philanthropist

Cherie Nursalim is Vice Chairman of GITI Group, a diversified group with real estate development, manufacturing and consumer lifestyle presence partnering with world‐renowned brands throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Cherie Nursalim earlier worked as a research associate at the Harvard Business School. She published an award‐winning book on an American‐Chinese Architect, and was among the co‐authors of a book ‘Indonesia Matters’ published by the World Economic Forum.

She serves on the International and Asia Advisory Boards for Columbia University and MIT Sloan School of Management respectively. She is Chairman of the United Nations Global Initiative SDSN in Southeast Asia that will be based in Kura Kura Bali Indonesia, serves on the Global Commission on Business and Sustainable Development and the University of Indonesia Research Center for Climate Change and the Singapore Science Center boards. She is the trustee of the Tsinghua University Institute for Sustainable Development Goals, Institute of Philanthropy and among the founding trustee of the United in Diversity Forum. She is among the co founding members of the Global Philanthropic Circle with Synergos Institute in New York and Asian Philanthropic Circle Singapore. Cherie Nursalim is a recipient of Baiyulan Award from the Shanghai government and won Ministry of National Development award from Singapore government. She initiated initiatives for HIV AIDS awareness in Indonesia for GT organization which won awards from UNAIDS, International Labor Organization and the Indonesian government. A new Orchid species of Dendrodium was named after her as founding board of ‘Gardens by the Bay’ Singapore. Ms Nursalim serves on the Executive Board of International Chamber of Commerce, ICC Research Foundation Board and ICC Academy.

She recently joined as advisory board to Teach for All and the Friends of the Oceans invited by the United Nations Envoy. Ms Nursalim is recently appointed on the advisory committee of One Belt One Road and as co‐chair of the Tri Hita Karana Forum on “Blended Finance and Innovation for Better Business Better World” co‐hosted with the Indonesian government.

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Senior Partner at Capria

Susana Garcia-Robles

Senior Partner, Capria

Susana Garcia-Robles is a Senior Partner with Capria. She is a recognized expert on development finance innovation, an investor in seed and VC funds, and a builder of entrepreneurial ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In 2020, she left the Inter-American Development Bank where she was Chief Investment Officer and Gender Initiatives Coordinator. Today, in addition to her role with Capria, she is also Executive Advisor to the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America (LAVCA).

During her twenty-one years at the Inter-American Development Bank, Ms. Garcia-Robles was the principal architect of IDB Lab’s (formerly MIF/FOMIN) seed and VC investment program as well as its high impact entrepreneurship, angel investment and women’s economic empowerment strategies. She analyzed, coached and trained hundreds of seed and venture capital funds of the LAC region, and invested in ninety of them. She designed programs to strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems in most countries in LAC.

In 2012 she co-founded WeXchange, the first pitch-competition and platform of encounter for LAC women entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors. In 2019 she co-founded WeInvest Latam, a network of women investors. She continues mentoring and coaching entrepreneurs and early stage fund managers.

An avid supporter of ecosystems, she is a co-founder of the Argentinean VC/ PE association/ (ARCAP) and the Colombian VC/PE association/ (Colcapital). She serves on the Advisory Boards of the Brazilian VC/PE association/ (ABVCAP), the Future Perfect Ventures Fund, and the CITES company builder/fund, as well as the Board of Directors of Village Capital and the Investment Committee of Bancoldex Fund of Funds.

Susana earned a Master’s Degree in International Economic Policy from Columbia University and a Master’s in Philosophy and Education from the Catholic University of Argentina.

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Head of Equities & Sustainable Investing, CFI Partners

Perry Hollowell

Head of Equities & Sustainable Investing, CFI Partners

Perry Hollowell has over 15 years in the financial services industry and a passion for investing for profit and purpose. As the Head of Equities and Sustainable Investing at CFI Partners, he oversees public and private equity strategies aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the integration of ESG best practices across all of the firm’s equity and fixed income portfolios.

In his prior role as a Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners, he managed over $750 million in equity derivative strategies. While at Guggenheim, Perry was instrumental in establishing the firm’s Social Justice Initiatives Operating Committee, which seeks to invest in and support minority-owned businesses. Before Guggenheim, Perry was a Vice President and macro portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs in the firm’s internal hedge fund, Principal Strategies. 

Perry has a Bachelor of Science with majors in accounting and finance from Georgetown University and a Master of Business Administration with concentrations in econometrics and statistics from The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. He is a charterholder of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Chartered Market Technician (CMT), Chartered Alternative Investments Analyst (CAIA), and Certified ESG Analyst (CESGA) designations. Perry also has completed the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR) certification and the CFA Institute Certification in ESG Investing. The World Economic Forum has recognized Perry as a Young Global Leader in 2022. He is an alumnus of the Robert Toigo Foundation Fellowship and a 40 Under 40 honoree. 

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Beyond The Billion (The Billion Dollar Fund For Women) Copyright © 2018 - 2023

TBDF Ventures LLC (TBDFV), the organizer of Beyond The Billion (BTB), is a company serving the global consortium of investors pledged to invest beyond $1bn collectively into women-founded technology companies and funds and firms that invest in them. BTB builds on the success of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, the initial campaign co-founded by our founders. BTB is not a venture fund, an investment bank, a broker-dealer, investment clearinghouse, or an investment adviser, but rather a forum in which investors may be educated on aspects of investment and business, as well as introduced to companies for possible investment, in particular, those led by women. Each investor and allocator pledged to BTB’s mission is responsible for his or her own investment decisions, and neither TBDFV nor BTB recommends companies or financial products for investment. Participating funds may be highlighted to various institutional and other investors and managers, with the aim of catalyzing capital towards women-founded companies; but are not guaranteed allocations from any specific fund. The Founders of TBDFV and BTB may hold interests directly or indirectly in featured funds and associated companies. Information is obtained from participant funds, believed to be reliable, but is in no way guaranteed by TBDFV or BTB. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where projections of future conditions are attempted.