VentureHue

Brittni Abiolu is a dynamic and accomplished executive with a deep-rooted passion for supporting the growth and success of small businesses and entrepreneurs. With her extensive experience as a capital readiness coach, angel investor, and search engine optimization strategist, she brings a unique perspective and a wealth of knowledge.

Throughout her career, Brittni has been at the forefront of empowering aspiring entrepreneurs to navigate the complexities of starting and scaling their businesses. She has a proven track record of helping businesses secure capital, develop effective marketing strategies, and connect with crucial resources for sustainable growth. Her expertise in business planning and development makes her an asset in driving the success of any business.

Drawing from her diverse background in management consulting, marketing, and advertising, Brittni understands the importance of strategic planning, market analysis, and lead generation. She leverages her technical expertise and entrepreneurial acumen to guide small businesses and provide them with the tools and knowledge they need to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

Brittni’s commitment to continuous learning is evident in her extensive educational achievements and certifications in various areas of business, including SEO, social media management, business plan writing, venture capital, angel investing, and life insurance. Her dedication to community involvement is reflected in her service on company boards and her role as an Appointed Commissioner for local municipalities, where she actively contributes to economic development initiatives.

As a volunteer startup mentor and advisor for renowned organizations like TechStars Detroit, TechTown Detroit, FirstFounders (Nigeria), and an Entrepreneur Trainer for ProsperUs Detroit, Brittni is deeply engaged in fostering innovation and supporting emerging entrepreneurial talent. She understands the unique challenges faced by underrepresented entrepreneurs and is dedicated to bridging the gap and providing them with the necessary resources and opportunities to succeed.

Currently, as the Founder & Managing Director of VentureHue, Brittni is at the forefront of driving positive change in the startup ecosystem. Through her company, she is committed to empowering socially and economically disadvantaged individuals (SEDI), very small businesses (VSB), and African immigrants by providing them with access to funding and crucial support networks.

Program Director

MedTech Innovator

Diane is the Program Director for MedTech Innovator. She has extensive experience
designing and running innovation programs through her previous roles as the
Innovation Manager at the University of Michigan’s Innovation Partnerships Startup
Incubator and as an innovation consultant with The Inovo Group, Diane co-
founded and led Ann Arbor Health Hacks, hosting four hackathons, co-designed
and -ran the HealthSpark Accelerator program at 20Fathoms in Traverse City, MI.
She has lived and worked on three continents, speaks six languages, holds a PhD in
Oncology from the University of Groningen, Netherlands and an MBA from the
University of Michigan Ross School of Business. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan
and enjoys being the designated Eastern Time zone person for the team.

Vice President, Inclusion & Impact

Chief

Trey Boynton has spent her professional career working to create inclusive environments. For nearly 20 years, she worked in university settings driving equity and inclusion for students, faculty, and staff at the University of
Michigan.

She shifted to the tech industry in 2017 when she joined Duo Security as their first head of diversity and inclusion. As the lead for the overall diversity strategy, Trey envisioned a bold road ahead for Duo and implemented company-wide programs and initiatives that positively grew Duo’s magical culture and team. Duo achieved a milestone in August 2018 when Cisco acquired it as a cornerstone of its software-as-a-service (SAAS) cloud security business. In her post-acquisition role as the Sr. Director of Inclusion & Collaboration, Cisco saw tremendous progress and impact that linked fairness and equity to Ciso’s purpose of Power and an Inclusive Future for All. One of the highlights of her career included co-authoring Cisco’s Social Justice Beliefs, which serve as the foundation of their commitment to the African-American/Black Community and communities across the spectrum of diversity.

In her current role as Vice-President for Inclusion and Impact, Trey imagines and executes Chief’s inclusion and Impact strategy for the organization, ensuring that Chief’s mission to change the face of leadership becomes a reality. By leveraging Chief’s ecosystem of the largest network of executive women, she’ll drive widespread actions that demonstrate sustainable and impactful outcomes.

For Trey, inclusion work is deeply personal. She describes it as head and heart work centered on creating space so employees and teams are valued, celebrated, and able to define their success. In short, her ultimate goal is to reduce barriers to brilliance. She has been recognized by Diversity Woman Magazine’s Elite 100 Black Women Leaders in Corporate America (Class of 2022) and Crain’s Detroit Notable DEI Executives (2021).

Originally from her beloved northern California, she studied at Spelman College, Georgetown University, and the University of Michigan. Her most important job is helping her two teen feminist daughters continue to be awesome and giving attention to their needy dog, Toby. In the two minutes she has left to spare, she fancies herself an overly hopeful San Francisco 49ers fan, a budding Lego engineer, and an expert on all things Jane Austen.

For previous conversations with Trey, please check out:

• Cisco’s #BraveConversations – The Black Experience (2021) – Episode 7, Episode 8, and Episode 9
• Dismantling Barriers to Brilliance in Ann Arbor’s Tech Industry – Concentrate Magazine (2021)
• Embracing Diversity & Inclusion in Cybersecurity – (2021)
• Increasing Diversity & Inclusion – The Cackle (2021)
• Fairygodboss Radio Podcast (2020)
• Future of Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace – Scale Up Summit (2020)
• Ann Arbor Tech Talk (2018)
• Facilitating Diversity & Social Justice in Higher Education – Facilitating XYZ (2017)

CircNova, Inc.

Crystal serves as Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder to CircNova Inc. She most recently
served as CEO and Co-Founder at Great Lakes Biologics. Prior to Crystal served as Business
Operations Director for Ocuphire Pharma, Inc., a Michigan Biotech company. With more than 20
years of operations experience, she has served in senior leadership positions with General Motors,
FCA Chrysler and Bank of America. Her accomplishments include the AT&T Excellence in Leadership
Award, as well as Alta Resources Program Launch Frontrunner. Crystal earned her B.A. from the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and her Executive MBA. from Michigan State Eli Broad College
of Business, where she led her team to winning first place in the coveted annual Broad
Entrepreneurship pitch competition.

Founder

Zero To Wear

Kaleena Eugene-Louis led a career in high volume retail for over 15 years. She successfully drove and
increased regional profits for several brands including Macy’s, BCBG Max Azria, and Bath and Body
Works through innovative strategy, and creatively increasing brand loyalty. There, she also catapulted
careers for many of her associates through her ability to teach elevating the customer service
experience through authentic relationship building. Kaleena also volunteered her time to TechTown
Detroit’s Professional Consulting Network where she helped small business owners highlight and
improve their company’s customer experience. While there, she was able to extend her professional
expertise at no cost to small business owners by educating them on best practices to both sustain and
scale their businesses using customer service-focused core principles. It was here where she has also
successfully completed two cohorts targeting women of color in STEM through TechTown Detroit.

Kaleena is now the Program Director at NPower Michigan where helps specific populations to transform
their lives by launching tech careers. Here she is able to marry her talents of enhancing confidence
through talent development alongside the dominant field of technology.

Kaleena is the founder of Zero To Wear, a digital closet app that helps you organize as well as serve as a
styling tool to minimize the time and money women spend on their wardrobes. Zero To Wear is
structured to enhance the confidence of women and their wardrobes. She wants women to know
whether they’re speaking of their self-esteem or their closets—that all they have, is all they need, and
it’s ‘already in there somewhere, she just has to find it!’ She fully intends to change the way we get
dressed by focusing on sustainability when editing our closets through a sustainability lens. If we control
our inventory by investing in wiser choices and strategic shopping; we can deliver healthy habits that
positively impact our time, money, and the environment.

Founder/CEO

Nochi

Natalie Fang is the Founder/CEO of Nochi, a studio creating anime games for women, made by women.
Natalie first started her career in the retail and luxury goods industry, working on household brands as a
global sourcing professional. Wanting to make an impact closer to end-users, Natalie decided to pursue
her MBA at the University of Michigan. At the time, she noticed a lack of quality gaming titles made for
women and decided to pursue a startup that is not only a women-led gaming studio, but also could
challenge the status quo by putting stories and relationships first. Since then, she’s been involved in the
entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ann Arbor and at the University – including programs such as the Desai
Accelerator and the Social Venture Fund.

When Natalie’s not throwing ideas about female gaming experiences at the whiteboard, she’s probably
planning the team’s next virtual happy hour.

Director of K-12 STEM Outreach & Adjunct Instructor

Digital Divas – Eastern Michigan University

Bia is an advocate for Girls in STEM. During her time at Eastern Michigan University, she has
helped build and continually develop on-campus programming for middle and high school
students in various areas of STEM education. One of her programs, the Digital Divas
Conference, has served thousands of middle and high school girls from SE Michigan for 12
years. With the support of her corporate partners and donors, she has developed a multitude of
outreach programs such as the Digital Dudes Conference, STEM Kits for Kids program, after-
school programs, 2 all-girl esports teams located in Ypsilanti and Detroit, and producer of a
television program on PBS.org and the Michigan Learning Channel named the Future of Me. In
2020, Bia founded the Office of K-12 STEM Outreach to standardize and magnify programming
for students from urban and rural communities on the university’s campus. This office’s mission
is to provide an environment of belonging for all students at Eastern Michigan University while
familiarizing them with their educational opportunities.

Bia is also the president of A+ Educational Consulting where she assists educational institutions
and global companies in recruiting and retaining women in STEM.

Bia earned a doctorate degree in Philosophy of Educational Leadership, finding better ways
higher education can recruit and serve all minorities entering STEM majors. In her spare time,
she enjoys reading, traveling, and cooking. Bia lives in Canton, Michigan with her son Yacoub,
and her two cats Bissa and Tiger.

Culturebie

Jasmit Kaur is founder and CEO of Culturebie, a people analytics company that specializes in
understanding employee experience and workplace culture. She brings her experience as a former
HR executive at Microsoft to her work as an entrepreneur, data scientist, and mom. Jasmit applies her
endless curiosity and tireless energy toward advising leaders on HR and business strategy.

Founder

Poisera

Inspired by her own turbulent transition into motherhood, Marianna Kerppola launched
Poisera to validate and support the emotional and mental health journeys of moms. She
began her career in finance at Nationwide Insurance, then switched to sales at Google.
Led by her passion for social entrepreneurship, she launched her first startup, focused
on eco-conscious clothing. Prior to launching Poisera, Marianna spent 5 years advising
early-stage biotech and digital health founders on their go-to-market strategies. She
earned her BA in Economics and International Studies from the University of Chicago.
At the University of Michigan, she earned her MBA at the Ross School of Business and
her Master’s in Science at the School for Environment and Sustainability.

Principal

Detroit Venture Partners

Lindsey joined the team at Detroit Venture Partners in Fall 2021. A native Michigander,
she graduated from the University of Michigan in 2005 with a degree in Industrial &Operations Engineering and a minor in Mathematics.

Lindsey began her career consulting for Bain & Company, then added to her resume
after starting a home-based business with Mary Kay. She balanced both roles, growing
a team of several hundred salespeople and earning the famed Pink Cadillac, before
focusing all of her energy on building a direct selling empire for several years.

In 2010, she was first drawn into the startup ecosystem as one of the first 10 employees
at Trunk Club. There, she led sales and market expansion efforts over 8 years, seeing
the company through a 2014 Nordstrom acquisition for $350mm. Post Trunk
Club, Lindsey consulted for several PE and VC backed companies looking to disrupt
traditional B2C / B2B2C retail experiences, most notably Matilda Jane and 11 Honoré.
In the year prior to joining DVP, she also co-founded Shopflix: a shoppable video
network of founder and brand stories hosted by influencers and industry experts.

Lindsey feels incredibly fortunate and excited to be a material part of the Detroit startup
community.

Founder

She’s Independent

Natalie Levy  is the Founder of She’s Independent, a women-first investment group
offering an entirely new way to support women’s financial independence and
influence through investing and board placements. As a member-led investment
group, She’s Independent marries empowerment and action, with the ultimate
mission of closing the power gap in investing by getting more women on the cap
table, in the boardroom, and into positions of influence. Over the next 12 months,
She’s Independent plans to deploy over $2M of capital collectively and has invested
in 14 deals since its formation in 2022.

An accomplished engineer turned Wall Street derivatives trader, investor, and
advisor, Natalie has over a decade of tech operational experience, a portfolio of 30+
seed through later stage private investments, and has experienced liquidity events
across 3 of the first 4 investments in her growth technology portfolio with an average
return greater than 20X.

She resides in Boulder, CO with her loving rescue pup Beans and is passionate about
gender equity and mental health awareness.

Bamboo

Amanda Lewan is an entrepreneur with a mission to move our region forward towards inclusive
innovation. As Co-founder and CEO of Bamboo, she leads the development and activation of
Bamboo’s portfolio of modern work spaces, supporting 1,000+ entrepreneurs and creators.
Bamboo specializes in spaces that foster innovation and community.

Bamboo started in Detroit in 2013 as a space for new ideas to start and grow. The company has
since expanded to multiple locations in Metro Detroit. Amanda’s work has been recognized by
Crain’s Detroit, the City of Detroit, Fortune Magazine, and more.

Amanda has a Master’s Degree in English from Wayne State University, and a Bachelor’s in
Writing from Michigan State. She has a decade of experience in operations. She often consults
for foundations and Fortune 500 companies on how to build inclusive startup communities,
including New Economy Initiative, Backstage Detroit, and Ford’s Motor Company, helping to
design and build inclusive ecosystems.

Amanda also co-leads the Detroit Writers Collective. As an award winning writer, her work is
inspired by place, class, gender, and identity. She lives in Detroit with her husband Marc
Hudson, their daughter and three rescue pups.

For more on Bamboo: www.bamboodetroit.com,
Connect with Amanda: twitter.com/amanda_jenn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandalewan

Ashley (she/her) as the founding leader of the People and Culture function, scaled Duo Security, a
SaaS information security company founded in Ann Arbor that sold to CISCO in 2018 for 2.35
billion in cash. With a background in Organizational Psychology she partnered with the
founders and team to identify the culture and scale it intentionally over the rapid growth of Duo
to be the most loved company in security, with an industry leading NPS and eNPS. She led the
opening of offices in the Bay Area, Austin and London. She built out functions for recruiting,
training & development, people operations, employee experience, and led internal
communications and events. Ashley launched programs that connected the team, shared
knowledge, created memories and endured the test of time and scale. Later in her tenure, she
also started and led the Employer Brand function within the people team, which was dedicated
to sharing Duo’s culture story externally to attract talent and to continue to guide the scaling of
the culture internally. She is regularly introduced by the CEO and Co-Founder, Dug Song, as
the “Mother of Duo.” Currently Ashley resides in Ann Arbor with her husband and three kiddos
and is active in philanthropy, progressive causes and raising three good humans.

Shine & Rise

Kristina Oberly is a startup people leader passionate about helping companies organize &
operate smoothly so they can focus on delivering incredible products. She believes people are
at the core of any successful org and knows women and other underrepresented groups are
key, but far too often overlooked, contributors. Kristina is insatiably curious about organizational
behavior, non-traditional approaches to management / HR, and (of course!) women in tech. She
is the Head of People at Signal Advisors and Co-Founder of Shine & Rise.

Founding Chair of the Board

Association of Businesses of Color

Ylondia Portis is a wife, mother, local business owner, a non-profit co-founder, and an active participant
in the equitable advancement of people and businesses in the Ypsilanti community.

With a strong background in analytics, research, and strategy, Ylondia has spent most of her
professional career focused on translating human behaviors and attitudes into business opportunities
for fortune 500 enterprise companies across a range of industries.

Today, as the Co-Founder of BrandHrt Evolution, a Creative Digital Agency, Ylondia is using her 25 years
of experience at the top Marketing Research and Advertising Firms to make enterprise-level marketing
more accessible to small and midsize businesses.

As a fellow entrepreneur with a growth business, Ylondia is proud the support Women in Tech.

Senior Associate, Data Science

Good Growth Capital

Aditi is a Senior Associate at Good Growth Capital, where she focuses her time on exploring the
opportunities and cutting edge of data science and AI. Prior to GGC, Aditi was on the
investment team at Invest Detroit Ventures, the most active early stage investor in Michigan.
During her time in this role, Aditi was focused on new deal and KPI development, and cultivating
relationships with entrepreneurs and ecosystem partners across the Great Lakes region. During
her time in graduate school she interned at various venture funds and at CoderPad where she
worked in product and data operations. Aditi started her career at IBM where she worked on
proprietary and open source cloud infrastructure products including IBM Cloud, Kubernetes,
OpenStack and Docker.

Aditi received a BSE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a dual
degree MBA/MS Data Science from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business

Politics on the Go

Arabia is a designer, creative, and entrepreneur with an engineering background She’s passionate
about designing authentic and impactful experiences while using art and technology as vehicles for
sustainable change. Her experience spans from product development to creative direction.

Arabia is the Founder and CEO of civic tech startup, PoGo, where she’s building a non-partisian
personalized voter guide mobile app to simplify election research for Gen Z and Milennial voters.

She’s also the Founder of creative collective, Da Cypher, dedicated to empowering the youth by
bridging the gap between art, fashion, and tech for disadvantaged communities. Arabia is currently a
Venture for America fellow, Future Founders Startup Bootcamper, and Builder + Backer.
She graduated from Smith College with a dual degree in Computer Science and Studio Art. Her work
is driven by storytelling and inspired by their community, culture, and history. She’s enthusiastic
about creating people-driven digital products in Civic tech and the creative fields.

Shine & Rise

Alison is the Director of Platform at Plymouth Growth. In this role, she focuses on providing
support and critical resources for Plymouth’s portfolio companies, as well as leading efforts
across marketing, communications, and overall community building. Prior to Plymouth Growth,
Alison worked as an Ecosystem Development Manager at Bamboo Detroit, creating founder-
focused communities and events for technology and mobility entrepreneurs. She was also the
Managing Director at Cahoots, where she focused on building bridges between entrepreneurs
and the greater technology community. She also co-founded the Desai Accelerator at the
University of Michigan, running the day-to-day programming and mentorship outreach for the
startup teams selected to participate in the 13-week program with $50,000 in pre-seed funding.
Alison’s passion project is Shine & Rise, a support network for women in tech that she co-
founded in 2019 alongside Kristina Oberly.

Co-Founder and Executive Director, Michigan Founders Fund Founding Organizer and Co-Chair, Michigan Tech Week

Trista Van Tine has worked in the entrepreneurial space since 2009. She most recently was the Global Marketing Director of Mootral, a biotech startup based in Switzerland. She was a founding member of AXA Venture Partners first $250 million venture fund in San Francisco, where she sourced, created investment memoranda and worked with the General Partners to structure investments in early-stage InsurTech, FinTech, HealthTech, Predictive Analytics and IOT companies. She worked on investments into four companies as some of the first capital raised, and served as a Board Observer for three of them. (Limelight Health was acquired by FINEOS, Lyric/Wheelhouse raised over $160 million in a round led by Airbnb and Blockstream is valued at over $1 Billion as of 2021).

Prior to working in the venture ecosystem, Trista was a Director for the AXA Group, leading digital innovation teams to transform sales and operational processes within financial services and serving as the operations lead for a $1B M&A deal.

She currently serves as the Founding Organizer and Co-Chair of Michigan Tech Week and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Michigan Founders Fund, MFF is a nonprofit venture development organization that provides unique programming to help high-growth founders succeed with their ventures while connecting them with community needs and providing them with a simple mechanism to ensure a portion of their success contributes to the continued growth and prosperity of Michigan. In three years, MFF has become the largest network of high-growth entrepreneurs in the state with over 100 Members making the MI Pledge.

Since 2020, Van Tine created and launched the state’s first Social Impact Startup Pitch Competition, first and only Founders Retreat for early-stage companies, the first Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Internship Program to pair underrepresented college students with Michigan-based tech companies and VCs and the first multi-day statewide conference dedicated to celebrating high-growth entrepreneurship – Michigan Tech Week. She was named the 2023 top Community Builder by Purpose Jobs, she was a Crain’s Detroit 40 Under 40 Awardee in 2022 and in 2021 she was recognized by Corp! Magazine as one of the state’s Diversity Business Leaders.

She is passionate about the causes of social equity, environment and access to education and media, currently serving on the Board of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, sponsoring aspiring entrepreneurs in the tech industry as a professional advisor/mentor for the MFF Internship Program and University of Michigan College of Engineering, and previously serving as the LA council president of Pencils of Promise, raising money to build schools in developing countries. Trista completed double Masters degrees in Global Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and University of Southern California and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Political Science at the University of Michigan.