This event was presented by Ann Arbor SPARK.
We want to express our sincere thanks to all who were part of this year’s Women in Tech event, a massive success that left us inspired and energized!
From group networking and creating a colorful canvas with encouraging words to our insightful conversations and breakout sessions, every element of the event ignited meaningful discussions and paved the way for new connections.
3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
3:30 p.m. – 3:35 p.m.
Emcee: Hilary Doe, Chief Growth & Marketing Officer | Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC)
3:35 p.m. – 4:05pm
Alison Todak, Co-Founder | Shine & Rise
Sonya Callahan, Vice President | Comcast Business
Ashanté Clemons, Customer Advocacy Manager | Beamery
Khalilah Burt Gaston, Executive Director | Song Foundation
Kelly LaPierre, Co-Founder & Partner | Venture Catalysts
Professionals at any stage in their career can benefit from mentorship— having a sounding board, connecting with key introductions, and learning from other experiences can help to advance skills and spur career growth. Mentorship and sponsorship can take many forms, and in this session, our panelists will explore the pivotal role mentorship plays in career development, the unique challenges women face in STEM fields, and the many different ways mentorship shows up and takes shape throughout a career.
4:10 p.m. – 4:40 p.m.
Jasmine Burns, Chief People Officer | Censys
Christa Chambers-Price, Founder | Entre-SLAM
Jasmit Kaur, Founder and CEO | Culturebie
Ylondia Portis, Founder and Managing Director | BrandHrt Evolution
Women and non-binary individuals continue to be underrepresented in STEM occupations. As a result, finding camaraderie among peers can be a challenge, especially now that more companies have adopted a hybrid or fully remote work environment. Our panel will explore how individuals can engage with peers and colleagues and what organizations can do to cultivate an inclusive and engaging tech culture among team members.
4:40 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Cynthia Wilbanks, Senior Advisor | Peterson Rudgers Group
Maria Thompson, Venture Partner | Arsenal Growth
A candid conversation between former C-Suite tech executives around their experience building a legacy and supporting the next generation of women innovators.
5:00 p.m. – 5:10 p.m.
5:10 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Mingle with the speakers and fellow attendees during the networking reception, complete with delicious food and drinks!
During the networking reception, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in the Rebel Nell interactive mural activity. Based on a prompt, guests will be encouraged to contribute to the mural, creating a collaborative piece of art, sparking conversation, creating powerful connections, and having a great time.
Chief People Officer
Censys
Jasmine Burns is Chief People Officer at Censys, a Series C cybersecurity startup headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has over 15 years of diversified experience in a range of companies from tech unicorns like Duo Security and scale ups like ForeSee. She’s a regular speaker for Venture For America, Hacker Fellows, and enjoys presenting on topics around recruiting and diversity and inclusion. A Pillar HR Innovator Award Recipient, she’s most passionate about evangelizing people-first cultures and optimizing the people function with tools and technology. She graduated from University of Michigan-Dearborn with a degree in Psychology and is a wife and mom of two children and two golden retrievers.
Pillar Award : HR Innovator 2023
Regional Vice President, Heartland Region
Comcast Business
Sonya Callahan is the vice president of Comcast Business in the Heartland Region, which includes Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. She has 20+ years of experience in the telecommunications industry, including nine with Comcast. Prior to this role she served as a Business Development Leader for Comcast’s West Division. In this role, she was responsible for overseeing network expansion projects across 13 states. Throughout her 20+ year career, she has held numerous leadership positions in business sales, operations, and engineering.
Founder and Accelerator Program Architect and Facilitator
Entre-SLAM
Christa’s career journey spans over 25 years. She transitioned from roles including working as an Army National Guard Combat Telecommunications Specialist veteran and FBI Headquarters fingerprint analyst to becoming a brand story builder and marketing strategist. She specializes in challenging founders to recognize and own cognitive biases, sharpen their brand’s focus, and pursue unbeatable competitive advantage, Christa also helps founders master the art of brand storytelling. Under her guidance, founders have achieved remarkable success, including notable acquisitions and securing over $300M in funding across Seed, Series A, and B financing rounds.
Christa is also an accelerator designer and facilitator. She has been pivotal in designing the curriculum and leading training for more than 18 health-tech business accelerators at the American Heart Association, a billion dollar nonprofit. In addition, she is central to designing entrepreneur programs for groups across the country from Destination Crenshaw in Los Angeles to The World Central Kitchen in Washington DC. She’s currently an advisor and mentor for the Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
Christa proudly holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business Leadership and Innovation program, where she further honed her leadership skills and innovative thinking.
Chief Growth Officer
State of Michigan
Chief Growth and Marketing Officer
MEDC
CURRENT FOCUS
As Chief Growth Officer for the State of Michigan and Chief Growth and Marketing Officer for the MEDC, Hilary oversees all growth and marketing efforts for Michigan, combining policy, program, and storytelling work to grow Michigan’s population, economy, and reputation as the best place to live, work, raise a family and start a business.
Hilary leads the Growth Office, which is housed within the MEDC and tasked with implementing the state’s blueprint for growth, a comprehensive strategy put forth by the Growing Michigan Together Council to retain and attract talent. The Office builds on the Council’s recommendations by engaging Michiganders in the effort, launching pilots and programs to spark growth, as well as leading storytelling, research and policy initiatives, all functioning together to grow the state’s population and economy.
She also spearheads the marketing and communication strategy at MEDC as well as the execution of the Pure Michigan, You Can in Michigan and Pure Opportunity marketing campaigns, which focus on engaging people across our state, across the county, and around the world in Michigan’s tourism, talent and business opportunities, as the best place to live, work and play. Hilary is a representative of our state, as well as a key liaison to stakeholder groups, state and local partners, and Michiganders, while leading the team that promotes Michigan as a world-class destination for business, travel and a great place to call home to current and future Michiganders via marketing, digital media initiatives, and special events. The state’s storytelling work, under Hilary’s leadership, builds on learnings from public engagement and research, and evolves with policy changes that advance Michigan’s growth priorities, creating a mutually reinforcing cycle of growth for our great state.
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Hilary has a dynamic background in nonprofits, technology, strategy, and public policy. She served as the national director at the Roosevelt Network, where she led an organization engaging thousands of young people in civic life, public policy, and social change at chapters nationwide, ultimately leading to the organization’s future recognition as a recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. She also served as Vice President of the Roosevelt Institute, where she oversaw strategy and expanded the Institute’s Four Freedoms Center programming, with the goal of empowering communities and reducing inequality alongside the greatest economists of our generations. Most recently, she served as President and Chief Strategy Officer at NationBuilder, working to equip the world’s leaders with software to grow their movements, businesses, and organizations, while spreading democracy.
EDUCATION/PERSONAL
Hilary is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Honors College and received her Masters of Public Policy at the Ford School, and studied political behavior at Princeton before leaving to pursue social entrepreneurship. Hilary is a Detroit resident, mother of two, and proud Michigander.
Customer Advocacy Manager
Beamery
Ashanté is the Customer Advocacy Manager at Beamery, Inc., overseeing the development and execution of Beamery’s customer advocacy programs, customer events, marketing and communications, and customer story content. Her hard work and dedication to growing Beamery’s customer advocacy was recognized last year when Beamery was named an Honoree at the 2023 CustomerX Impact Awards. She is a current and founding member of Beamery 4 All, an ERG on a mission to promote belonging, inclusion, and psychological safety for all Beamery employees.
Prior to Beamery, Inc., Ashanté was a Product Marketer with Nutshell, Inc. where her championing of more inclusive and equitable workforces in the local Ann Arbor tech community grew legs. At Nutshell, she took lead on DE&I initiatives, hosting weekly ‘Empathy Circles’ for supportive discussions and worked with Nutshell leadership on inclusive changes and transparency to hiring processes, employee benefits and promotional policies. Ashanté was also a founding coordinator of the Cahoots Diversity Scholarship and previously a committee member of Shine & Rise, a support network for women in tech.
Founder & CEO
Culturebie
Jasmit is the founder and CEO of Culturebie – an AI-native people analytics platform.
Before Culturebie, she worked for a decade at Microsoft, where she partnered with C-suite
executives to develop data-informed workforce strategies.
At Microsoft, she experienced first-hand the challenge companies face in driving employee
retention and productivity through human factors. Jasmit is passionate about solving for the
human side of business performance. Culturebie is a technology-focused endeavor in that
direction. Jasmit has an MS in data science and UX design, and an MBA with a focus on
Organizational Behavior.
Executive Director
Song Foundation
Khalilah Burt Gaston is the founding Executive Director of the Song Foundation, shepherding its efforts to invest in ideas, people, and organizations that amplify equity, power, prosperity, and joy in Southeast Michigan. A trained urban planner and passionate advocate for equitable communities, her work has been featured in Dwell Magazine, The New York Times, Chicago Public Radio, and the Harvard Family Research Project. Khalilah has held a variety of other positions in the private and private sectors. This includes her prior role as Program Officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where she was the foundation’s lead architect of Hope Starts Here: Detroit’s Early Childhood Partnership and managed a grant portfolio of $500 million. She received a bachelor’s degree in Sports Management and Communication and a Master of Urban Planning degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Partner and Co-founder
Venture Catalysts
Kelly runs her own strategic consultancy around startup ecosystem development, accelerator programming and corporate innovation working with various organizations supporting startups across Michigan. Additionally she is a Partner and Co-founder of Venture Catalysts, a nonprofit focused on building an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem in Detroit through programs and events like Detroit Startup Week (10,000+ attendees), AfroTech (largest black tech conference), and Backstage Capital Accelerator (investing in underrepresented, or rather underestimated, founders). Most recently Kelly was the Head of Founder Network and Operations for Tenney 110, a portfolio of adjacent businesses and venture studio within American Family Insurance. Previously Kelly founded the Desai Accelerator, an intensive program of funding, mentorship, and resources to help early stage ventures scale and succeed. As Founding Managing Director, she recruited and managed investments in 11 tech enabled businesses, including MySwimPro (named 2016 Apple Watch App of the Year), Ash & Erie (featured on Shark Tank) and Companion (recognized by the Today Show, Good Morning America). Prior to that Kelly served as the Director of Marketing and Operations at Detroit start-up Grand Circus, a training institute giving people critical skills for new careers and helping local businesses grow by hiring local tech superstars. Over the past few years, she has worked with a variety of startup companies at the Boston-based investment fund TechStars and at the early stage venture capital fund Invest Detroit Ventures. In 2015 she was named Crains Detroit Business “40 under 40” and “25 Women in Tech.” She has a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Founder and Managing Director
BrandHrt Evolution
Ylondia Portis is a seasoned Consumer Insights and Advertising executive and the Founder and CEO of BrandHrt Evolution, an award-winning agency. With over 25 years of experience, she has advised a diverse range of businesses, from Fortune 500 companies to Main Street enterprises. Ylondia has also played a key role in activating launch initiatives for premium brands such as Lincoln Motor Company, Converse, Nothing Bundt Cakes, United Way, and many more
Venture Partner
Arsenal Growth
Maria Thompson is a Venture Partner at Arsenal and a retired CEO with more than 30 years of experience in business leadership, strategic planning, marketing, finance, government relations, and the commercialization of advanced technologies.
Prior to her role in venture capital, Ms. Thompson was President and CEO of T/J Technologies, Inc., a nationally recognized Michigan company for proprietary alternative energy technologies that she and her husband, Dr. Levi Thompson founded in 1991. While consistently growing revenues, she led T/J Technologies’ acquisition by A123Systems in 2006. Combined, the organizations represented the largest lithium-ion R&D team in North America, with global manufacturing operations. In preparation for A123Systems successful IPO (2009), she and her team worked with the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Energy (DOE), and federal, state and county officials to secure over $249M in DOE grants, a $9M Army contract, and $139M from the state of Michigan to build lithium-ion battery manufacturing facilities in Michigan.
Under Ms. Thompson’s leadership, T/J Technologies attracted national and regional recognition. Her company received awards from the Department of Defense, NASA, the state of Michigan, the Small Business Association of Michigan, Black Enterprise, and other local organizations. In 2008, she was honored by the Washington DC based Minority Enterprise Executive Council as one of 25 Powerful Minority Women in Business. Ms. Thompson was invited to speak to the U.S. House Committee on Small Business as part of the Small Business Administration’s 50th Anniversary.
Ms. Thompson became a Director of the Reko International Group (REKO.V), a Canadian public company in 2016. In 2021, she joined the Advisory Board of Our Next Energy (ONE). She is a member of the University of Michigan Technology Transfer National Advisory Board, the University of Michigan Ross School of Business Zell Lurie Institute Advisory Board, the New Economy Initiative (NEI) Advisory Board and the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan. Ms. Thompson chaired NextEnergy’s Board of Directors for five years. She previously served on Old National Bank’s Michigan Market Board. She served for 6 years on the Advanced Technology Advisory Board for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and is a former member of several non-profit organization boards. Ms. Thompson earned a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Michigan Business School in 1988. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Michigan in Industrial Design. Prior to starting T/J Technologies, Ms. Thompson worked at Steelcase and IBM, where she earned numerous company awards.
Director of Platform
Plymouth Growth
Co-Founder
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.
Senior Advisor
Peterson Rudgers Group
Cynthia Wilbanks, a senior advisor with the Peterson Rudgers Group, is an expert in building relationships that expand spheres of influence for organizations and individuals. With more than 40 years of engagement in public service, Wilbanks has staffed members of Congress, managed a public policy nonprofit, and served as the University of Michigan’s vice president for government relations for 22 years. The breadth of her experience extends to university relations as well. She joined the University of Michigan as associate vice president for university relations in 1995 and later served in interim roles as vice president of communications in 2007 and vice president of development for the 2002–03 academic year. Wilbanks was the university’s longest-serving executive officer when she retired in 2020.
During her time at U-M, Wilbanks leveraged her relationships with legislators across the state to revitalize and renovate campus buildings, including securing substantial investment in the School of Dentistry. She was integral to the university’s efforts on behalf of affirmative action and to gaining permission for embryonic stem cell research. She led the institution’s involvement in the creation of the University Research Corridor, a consortium of Michigan’s three research universities, and served as special advisor to the university president on the development and growth of the corridor, as well as on other economic development activities. Her commitment to creating bridges heightened the visibility of the university and its president.
Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Wilbanks served as a staff assistant for US Representative Marvin Esch from 1973 to 1976, and as a county field representative and then district director for US Representative Carl D. Purcell, from 1977 to 1992. From 1993 to 1995, she was president of Michigan’s Children, a nonprofit organization focused on creating effective public policy for children and families. In 1994, Wilbanks was a candidate from Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Wilbanks holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a secondary teaching certificate. An active member of the community, she has served in leadership roles with nonprofit organizations throughout her career, including her current role on the steering committee for the Center for Michigan, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. She has been recognized with multiple honors and awards, including being named among the 100 Most Influential Women in Metro Detroit by Crain’s Detroit Business in 2002 and Woman of the Year by Washtenaw United Way in 2017.
