Bridget got a B.S. in Political Science and Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. During college, Bridget worked part-time, played Club Lacrosse, and volunteered with the Boys & Girls Club. Her crazy schedule led her on a mission to find a truly tasty, healthy on-the-go snack. Fed up with the options available she began experimenting with the recipe that became the base for 2Betties Rounds. Bridget brought her tasty treats home and got mom on board to launch 2Betties. Bridget obsession with design and health gives her the skills to wear many hats including Chief Product Officer and head of all things to do with branding and marketing. She kicks back in the gym or Pilates studio, in the horseback ring or on the ski slopes, or cuddled up with a good book.

Michael Tennant is the Founder and CEO of Curiosity Lab, a firm that helps organizations build community around their brands, by clearly articulating their purpose and bringing it to life through content, partnership and experiences. In his role, Michael helps values-aligned organizations grow by providing short-term and long-term growth consulting and strategy. Michael most recently served as the Head of Branded Content in the US for PHD Media, where he helped the agency win Ad Age’s 2017 Media Agency of the Year, leading content strategy and execution for brands like Google, Delta Airlines, and the Volkswagen portfolio. Prior to that, he led branded content for the CocaCola company and various brands in the P&G portfolio. Michael began his career in youth entertainment where he held various content, marketing and brand partnership roles for MTV and VICE.In January of 2021, Michael accepted a position as "Entrepreneur in Residence" at Arnold + Havas where he will conduct cultural workshops with all A+HMB leaders and employees with a focus on empathy, collaboration and communication. By applying Curiosity Lab’s proprietary processes and workshops, Tennant will leverage his expertise in empathy to help enable the people of Arnold + Havas Media to create even more effective and inclusive work for clients.

Krysta Lewis is the CEO of Aisling Organics, a revolutionary high-performance organic makeup brand. She was sick for years with chronic migraines and nausea and found out that the culprit was her makeup; the last thing she would’ve expected. When she started Aisling Organics, she was only 21 years old and was told she wouldn't be able to accomplish anything because of her age and lack of experience. Thankfully, she believed in herself enough to ignore those people.Krysta always says, “don't let someone who didn't accomplish their dreams talk you out of yours.” Within two years of launch, she has built one of the most successful e-commerce start-ups and has grown an extensive following to earn the recognition of one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Most Influential Entrepreneurs of 2018 and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. The cosmetics industry is one of the most competitive on the market but she’s been able to succeed in it due to her willingness to learn and be open-minded. Krysta didn't become Entrepreneur of the Year by chance - it took investing in herself, trusting her instinct, being consistent, and building on her strengths.

Alexandra Lebenthal, Cate Luzio, Nancy Beers, Natalie Mackey

Sisters Daniela and Gabriela Apeloig are the founders of Apeloig Collection.  When building their modern home, they were driven by the desire to have ritual objects that reflected their modern aesthetic and could be enjoyed all year long. This meant that each design must have a dual purpose.  The idea for Apeloig Collection was first launched in a Masters Marketing Class. Filled with passion for the ideas that flourished and their love for expressing their creativity, they decided to launch the company with a few products.  By popular demand they added more and more items, embracing modern day design trends in the process. 

Travis is the stoic leader at the helm of Arriste. During his brief stint as a sales manager right out of college, he learned the unfortunate news that due to poor investments and financial mismanagement, his parents' retirement situation was looking incredibly bleak. A man dedicated to his family above all else, he took it upon himself to retire his parents and give them the life he felt they deserved. He realized that no matter how good he got at his current job, he wouldn't earn enough to provide for both him and his parents in the capacity that he wanted to. So, he set off on his own, combining the skills he acquired from his time in quality assurance, his leadership experience as a Boy Scouts of America crew adviser, and his enthusiasm for health and fitness to create Arriste, a premium fitness product brand aimed at helping people in their pursuit of excellence in health, fitness, and life.

Madeleine has built a career in the creative space as a copywriter, art director, and brand strategist. She graduated with a Bachelor's in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Madeleine works full-time as a creative copywriter, but spends her weekends and off hours as the creative director for Aura Bora — collaborating with designers, developers, photographers, and other creatives to build the whimsical world that is Aura Bora. She draws inspiration from her love of nature, sustainability, and haikus to bring Aura Bora to life. You’ll find a plant-inspired haiku on the back of every can.

Frances is the founder/Captain Awkward/CEO of Awkward Essentials, a company that makes products that address the unspoken parts of hygiene. She is also the inventor of the dripstick - an after sex cleanup sponge.  With a background ranging from hula dancing to baking to wedding photography, she never intended to build a company around post-sex cleanup. However, after accidentally launching in the UK a month before she got married, Frances built one anyway. She’s also a super cheerleader for fearlessness, trying new hobbies, and ice cream. 

Casey Felton started her culinary degree post majoring with an Art History and English degree from Pitzer College. Her first kitchen job was working at Providence restaurant, where she fell in love with the elegance and sophistication of French and Japanese cuisine. After Providence, she furthered her culinary education at Red Medicine, honing her understanding for aesthetic plate up and locally sourced ingredients. Taking a break from fine dining, Casey was hired on as a Sous Chef at The Tasting Kitchen. With an itch for travel, she took a year travelling abroad to Sydney, Australia, where under the mentorship of Chef Angie Hong, Casey further explored her culinary love for Vietnamese cuisine. While loving the creative juices of the culinary world, Casey took a short break from the kitchen to work the FOH operations at Otium restaurant. She continues to expand her love for sharing everything culinary with the people she grew up with here in Los Angeles.

Gwen Burlingame is Co-Founder of Beckon, the first and only premium, lactose-free dairy ice cream on the market.  Originally from Springfield, VA, Gwen is a graduate of Villanova University, where she studied Marketing and International Business.  Prior to co-founding Beckon, Gwen held roles at L’Oreal USA in e-commerce and digital strategy for Luxe Division, International Business development for Kiehl’s Since 1851 and Global Brand Marketing, also at Kiehl’s, managing the Lip and Sun product portfolios.

Prior to Bhoomi, Arpit Bhopalkar was a professional Table-Tennis athlete for India, and his coaches and trainers would recommend cane water for its health benefits. When he went to New Orleans for higher studies, he went looking for cane water but couldn’t find it. But, he did find sugarcane is grown on a large scale in the Southern US. So, he bought an extractor, and started making his own cane water. People liked it so much that his wife Elora and friend Shreyas and he started selling it at New Orleans' Farmers Markets. One thing led to another, and that’s how Bhoomi was born.Arpit now lives in Austin with his wife and dog Samwise. He's on a mission to revolutionize sugarcane by partnering directly with Louisiana Black Sugarcane farmers and supporting regenerative practices that restore the planet.

Katie Raeburn has 12 years experience in marketing, e-commerce and management consulting and has her MBA from Columbia Business School '13.Raeburn is a Bay Area, CA transplant originally from New York who loves to enjoy outdoor sports like hiking, biking and skiing. She's a mom of two and homemade food champion; especially fermented + pickled foods and grain-free delicacies.

Danny Taing is the Founder & CEO of Bokksu, a New York and Tokyo-based D2C snack subscription and e-grocer that delivers authentic Japanese food and lifestyle products to over 100 countries. Providing Japan’s traditional makers with a platform to share their goods with a global audience, Bokksu is helping to support, preserve, and promote their craft, while making it easier for the rest of the world to discover, buy, and love authentic Japanese goods.The son of Cambodian-Chinese refugees, Danny was born in NYC and raised in NJ. He received a dual Bachelor's in Psychology and Communication, and a Master’s in Sociology, all from Stanford University. He then worked as a marketing strategist at Google HQ. After that, he relocated to Japan for a position at Rakuten. It was there, during the four years he spent living and working in Tokyo, that he developed his deep love of Japanese food and culture (as well as met his wonderful husband). Following Rakuten, Taing returned to New York to study Computer Science at Columbia University. Inspired by his passion for Japanese culture, Asian-American representation, and entrepreneurship, Taing founded Bokksu in 2015 with $5,000 of his own savings. Utilizing every skill and contact he had, Taing was able to go from concept to launch in just three months, without an additional penny of outside funding. And he sold through his first run of boxes in less than a week. Today, the company is valued at $100M and employs a staff of 50, 80% of whom are BIPOC, female, and/or LGBTQ+; a metric Taing is particularly proud of.In his spare time, Danny is an avid rock climber, fierce board game competitor, and anime binge-watcher.

Sam Madani is the co-founder and CEO of BOMANI Cold Buzz, an alcohol-infused cold brew coffee brand. Born and raised in California to Iranian immigrants, a great deal of Sam’s motivation comes from witnessing the challenges his parents have successfully overcome. This drive combined with his insatiable desire to learn makes Sam a natural entrepreneur.After graduating from the University of Southern California, he moved to New York to work in investment banking. With long workdays leading into happy hour with colleagues or friends, he soon realized there was a glaring gap in the market for a delicious beverage that encompassed both natural caffeine and low-carb alcohol. Returning often to the idea of creating a better-for-you alcoholic beverage alternative, Sam began to conduct research around the idea of marrying cold brew coffee and alcohol from sugar cane, two of the fastest growing categories in the beverage industry – later resigning from his full time job to pursue his vision of BOMANI Cold Buzz with his now business partners Amin Anjedani and Kai Drewry.Launching BOMANI in March 2020, Sam and the BOMANI team are quickly redefining the RTD beverage space through the creation of an entirely new product category, defined by BOMANI’s top-quality ingredients, and best-in-class flavor, and innovative branding. As a natural-born leader and as charismatic as they come, Sam has enjoyed building meaningful relationships within the industry, which is evident in BOMANI's immediate success. Throughout the development of BOMANI, he learned that his purpose in life is to find solutions for others that allow them to live passionately without sacrificing other aspects of their lives. 

Jada Shapiro is a maternal health expert and the founder of boober, where expectant parents and new families find classes and on-demand expert care providers, pregnancy to postpartum. She founded boober to empower parents to positively transform their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences and outcomes through expert education and easy access to qualified maternal healthcare providers. She also founded Birth Day Presence, NYC’s most trusted source for birth worker trainings and expectant parent education, which has supported over 20k parents since 2002. She is a birth and postpartum doula, childbirth educator, lactation counselor, birth photographer, mother, and step-mother. Jada has helped thousands of families prepare for birth, has assisted hundreds of births, cared for first-time parents, A-list celebrities, and everyone in between. She advises leading actors about childbirth and breastfeeding for major films and is a sought-out media expert on pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, lactation, and newborn parenting. Jada graduated from Wesleyan University with a double major in American Studies and Dance and focused her senior thesis on the medicalization of childbirth in America, after discovering a fascinating book about childbirth in the library. Jada witnessed her first birth a few years later when her dear friend invited her (and 19 other people!) to photograph her birth at a freestanding birth center. Jada is a mother and stepmother to 4 girls aged 11-15.

I am one of the two founders behind the Boreal Botanical brand. We are bringing the world's first ready to drink product brewed from medicinal mushrooms to market.  I have worked as a Creative Director and Founder all over Europe and the US, from London and Stockholm to San Francisco and New York. I am now happily settled in Toronto, Canada, with my wife and three kids. I am a voracious reader and a monumental geek; my interests range from distilling to brewing, from baking bread to racing sailboats, from bringing up happy kids to behavioral economics, from yoga to running - to name but a few. 

By the time Dave Samuel was nine years old, he was waking up at 4 AM to deliver the Waterville Morning Sentinel by 6:15 AM. Dave then launched Thriller Designs while in the fifth grade and Sounds Unlimited, a mobile DJ service, in the sixth grade. Dave has been a hustling entrepreneur at heart ever since. After graduating from MIT undergrad and working at Oracle for one year, Dave co-founded Spinner in 1995 (acquired by AOL for $320 million) and Grouper/Crackle in 2004 (acquired by Sony for $65 million). He discovered the beauty of the bidet business and founded Brondell, a developer of innovative, healthy home products that’s #1 in the #2 business. Dave also chairs Toi Labs, which aims to harness data for health analysis before it’s flushed away. When he is OOO, Dave enjoys mountain biking, snowboarding and wakeboarding. Being a dad is cool too.

Steve brings more than 25 years of business, financial and operations management experience in both corporate and entrepreneurial environments to Brondell. His background includes early to mid-stage management in companies such as Craigslist.org and EcoTimber, along with corporate experience at institutions such as Brown Brothers Harriman and Company. Steve has a proven track record of success with a focus on operational development of company infrastructure, development of domestic and international distribution & sales channels, and strategic planning across a variety of products and industries. Steve earned his bachelor's degree in Finance from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

A native of Southern California, Nicholas grew up in a culture focused on living a healthy lifestyle. Outdoor activities, including exercising and enjoying nature, were part of his daily life. After receiving a B.A. in Film and Electronic Arts from Cal State University Long Beach, he moved back to his hometown of Oceanside.This is when Nicholas set out on a corporate path, one that resulted in a career in entrepreneurship. These days, you will find Nicholas in Del Mar, continuing to enjoy the outdoors by surfing, hiking, or gardening, and, of course, drinking tea!

Nick Langan is a co-founder of Cerebelly along with his sister, Teresa. Nick received a BA from Harvard University in 2005. He became a tech trader at Balyasny Asset Management L.P. in New York for 4 years until 2011. Before working as an analyst at Andor Capital Management, he took on his current role at AO Asset Management LLC. At the moment, he currently works as both Principal at AO Asset Management LLC and remains actively involved in Cerebelly.

Jimi Tele, a high-performing business development executive and rising international entrepreneur with 8+ years experience in business & tech. He has specialized expertise in location data intelligence, global business, cross-culture collaboration, B2B growth, and startups. As a global citizen with British-Nigerian heritage, he has advised top fortune 1000 companies on collaborating with African government conglomerates to explore projects across the science, engineering, tech, agriculture, and construction landscape. He is now the founder and CEO of Chekmate, Inc., a dating marketplace centered on promoting safe real-time communication and human connection. He was a decorated England triple jumper on a full university scholarship for track and field when his Olympic dreams were dashed due to traumatic brain injury. After overcoming adversity in his own life, Jimi is passionate about mental health advocacy and encouraging the next generation to fearlessly fulfill their dreams no matter the circumstances. From starting blocks to startups, catch him if you can!‍

Tia Newcomer has a career of leading, building and creating great cultures that drive profits and growth through world class customer experience at companies that care about, and for, humans. She is an experienced board member and commercial go to market (GTM) expert known for driving focus and higher IRR for companies with senior executives and her teams. Tia has created successful GTM strategies and owned $200M+ P&Ls across Global Fortune Ten, Private Equity and VC backed companies primarily in the $467B life sciences industry. Leading commercial value creation has driven two successful exits: one with a 35% IRR, 2.3x ROIC and 15x EBITDA. Tia’s strength is bringing together sales and marketing teams to create exit value through best in class customer experience and purpose driven brands.‍

Candi and Rita started selling healthy-for-you items four years ago at their local Farmers Market in St. Louis, MO, after a life-changing Culinary Nutrition program. Core & Rind’s customers loved Cashew Cheesy Sauce so much that they decided to take a year and a half to perfect a shelf-stable recipe and fill the void in the middle aisles of the grocery store with this pantry staple of plant based goodness. Cashew Cheesy Sauce was born from years of trial and error in their own kitchens- no food labs and scientists involved here! Enjoy dairy free macaroni and cheese, gooey nachos, plant-based or paleo pizza and even on a salad, if that floats your boat.  All without fear of eating chemicals, additives, and unpronounceable ingredients. Core and Rind wants to nourish you, one cheesy bite at a time. Their products are made of real food, always. 

Diane Orley is the Founder of Daily Crunch Snacks and the face behind Diane’s Kitchen. After a career in real estate and years devoted to raising three kids, Orley followed her passion, healthy food, and launched Diane’s Kitchen. She learned the process of sprouting from her sister, who was introduced to the method in India. She was fascinated by their process and loved the finished product – their nuts tasted nothing like raw or roasted nuts we eat here in the United States. Diane began to test out different methods of soaking and dehydrating raw nuts while studying the nutritional properties. She perfected her recipe and began gifting and giving nuts to those in her community every chance she could get. In 2008, her nuts literally sprouted into a homegrown business. Their overwhelming response grew into customers all around the country and the impetus to launch Daily Crunch Snacks. She is committed to the mission of educating people that mental health and overall health & wellness go hand-in-hand, and she’s dedicated to breaking the stigma surrounding mental health so we can all live the fullest versions of ourselves. Daily Crunch Snacks is a supporter of The Support Network. A native Texan, Orley now lives in Oakland County, Michigan with her family, and splits her time throughout the year between Texas and Michigan.

Dan Stephenson is COO and Co-Founder of Daily Crunch Snacks. Stephenson has experience launching startups along with a strong financial industry background. Upon graduating Vanderbilt University (Cum Laude) with a bachelor’s degree in Economics, Stephenson took a position as Chief of Staff for Reagan-economist, Art Laffer, formalizing much of his macro-economic and investment perspective. He later joined the Ingram Barge Company, gaining experience in the finance industry. However, he took his passion for America’s favorite comfort food, macaroni and cheese, and launched Dan’s Gourmet, gaining insight into the start-up business and food world. Dan’s Gourmet originally started as “Mac Pacs” available in the Nashville Farmer’s Market and grew to 6 frozen SKUs at more than 2,500 stores in 35+ states. Known as “Dan the Mac Man,” Stephenson excelled in pitching his brand, scaling up production with co-packers, leading the packaging design and marketing strategy, and charting the strategic direction for the business. In 2012 at the age of 28, Dan was named one of Nashville's Top 30 Under 30. In February 2013, Dan was honored by Mayor Dean as "Entrepreneur of the Year" by the Nashville Downtown Partnership. Soon after, he was named one of Nashville's "Top Forty Under 40" by the Nashville Business Journal.

Scout struggled with her relationship with food at a young age, fighting through an eating disorder and learning that nutrition and whole foods outweight counting calories. Her love for sweets (and strong desire to avoid the crash after a 9am chocolate chip cookie) led her to plant-based baking. She shared her journey as a side hustle while she was a McKinsey consultant and then a Venture Capital Associate. Most recently, she deferred from Harvard Business School to launch DEUX and pursue her passion for foods that taste good AND make you feel good. With DEUX, Scout wants to spread the message that "all foods fit" as an opposition to diet culture and the food rules that come with it.

Susi began building DYO+ in 2019. With the knowledge she gained after a period of study at the International Institute of Naturopathy in Switzerland, Susi started developing a new range of nutritional supplements designed to maximize the effectiveness of their composite parts.Susi has a expansive background in advertising, having founded her own agency, Loup GmbH in 1994 after completing communication design studies at the Ecole d'Art Maryse, in Paris. After relocating to the USA in 2016, the agency was successfully sold, leaving Susi free to apply her expertise in marketing and design for DYO+.Besides that, Susi is a keen cook, a nature enthusiast, and a yoga lover.

Co-Founder & CEO Thai-Anh Hoang has a passion for helping families with skin irritations.Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, it seemed natural for Thai-Anh to have the urge to start her own business -- although being raised in an Asian family she was encouraged to be a doctor or lawyer. ;) Alas, a fear of needles put to rest her desire to become a doctor. Instead, she studied and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in International Business with a minor in the French language (although the most she can read in French currently is probably a Parisian menu).In addition to being an entrepreneur, Thai-Anh is a mom of one (soon to be two) who enjoys gardening, designing, reading, and cooking. She is self-described as “an old person in a young body,” and can often be found pouring over seed catalogues, IKEA magazines, and architectural digests. She also has a slight obsession with van life and tiny homes.Thai-Anh’s interest in the medical field never faded, especially her passion for helping other families with skin irritations, and combining that with her degree, her entrepreneurial spirit, and her love of design, EmBeba has come to life.

After several years of traveling with his father and sister helping children suffering from malnutrition, Kyle decided to bring enspice products to the global market through the launch of first of their kind, micronutrient enhanced, ready-to-use spices and seasonings. Upon graduating the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Economics, where he was a Kellogg International Scholar, Kyle developed the commercialization process to build the business, and also structured the organizational framework connecting enspice with the enspice children’s foundation, ensuring a portion of proceeds go towards the mission of establishing long term nutritional solutions for children everywhere.

Adam’s background is in competitive sports. After being hit head on by a drunk driver in college Adam was forced to walk away from his dream of playing professional baseball. As a result he choose to take his passion and competitive nature he had for athletics and put it into his idea of using plant based oils as a flavoring alternative to natural flavors.

An adventurer, explorer, and entrepreneur, Cason Crane has traveled to over 100 countries on all seven continents and he was first openly LGBT and fifth youngest person to climb Mt. Everest and the Seven Summits - the highest mountain on each continent. He achieved this feat while raising $135,000 for The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention service for LGBTQ youth. While still an active endurance athlete, his most recent adventure has been founding and running Explorer Cold Brew since May 2020, which he brought from idea to sold out in less than 5 months. As the CEO of Explorer, he aims to fuel the world through both their specialty coffee 'super concentrate' as well as their partnership with charity: water, increasing life-saving access to clean water around the world. Prior to founding Explorer, Cason was a consultant at Bain & Company. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2017.

In 1997, Fabius was asked to host a photography exhibition of henna body painting, a trend that had just taken hold in New York. At the time, Fabius and Pascal were running a well known art gallery of contemporary Haitian and ethnic art, in Hollywood. Even though henna body painting didn’t fit their gallery’s profile, she decided to visit New York to see it for herself. Fabius immediately knew something magical was in the air. Drawn on the gallery floor with chalk were henna tattoo designs that were dead ringers for the beautiful Haitian symbols representing the various gods and goddesses of the Vodou religion.Six months later, they opened Earth Henna, the first henna body painting studio in the United States, in the process, helping to jumpstart the global trend of temporary henna tattoos. Heavy media attention followed, and after a couple of months, Fabius was contacted by Random House, who published her book, Mehndi, The Art of Henna Body Painting - the first book on henna in the United States.Today, Fabius (who goes by she) and her husband (he) run both Galerie Lakaye, which regularly hosts changing exhibitions of Haitian art, and Earth Henna, which manufactures their line of temporary tattoo kits. Fabius also spends an equal amount of time writing fiction and non-fiction books, works as a freelance curator for museums throughout Southern California, and was a regular blogger for 10 years on HuffPost until 2018 when they shut down their blogger platform. She is the author of six books. Her most recent book, Short Stories About Us, was published in June 2019.