President, Democracy in Color

Aimee Allison is a leader, author, champion, and expert on women of color in politics. She is president of Democracy in Color, a national organization on race, politics and the New American Majority. Aimee is also the host of the acclaimed “Democracy in Color” podcast. She is a graduate of Stanford University and lives in Oakland.

Founder/Special Consultant to Gymboree Global Corporation

Joan Barnes is a serial entrepreneur who built two consumer companies from the ground up.  Joan founded and served as CEO of Gymboree, an international network of franchised play programs and company-owned retail stores.  Gymboree was part of the first wave of consumer companies to receive venture capital funding outside the technology sector.  The Gymboree IPO in 1993 returned nearly 20 times investment to the original investors and in 2010 Gymboree went private at a value of nearly $2 billion. Joan now consults to the original Gymboree legacy brand which was purchased by a Chinese conglomerate in 2016.

More recently, Joan was the principal owner of YOGASTUDIO, one of the first studios to showcase different styles of yoga, eco-conscious yoga vacations, and clothing.In late 2008, Yoga Works, a venture backed chain, acquired YOGASTUDIO, an acquisition that propelled Yoga Works to expand to 50 other lifestyle branded studios nationally and recently went public.

Joan is a frequent contributor to community causes. She is an active board member of Project Heal, dedicated to finding a lasting solution for eating disorder. Earlier, she founded Begin From Within, a not for profit series of workshops and groups for women dealing with food, weight and body image issues through the Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco.  She has been a Spiritual Care Partner and Hospice Volunteer at the Jewish Home for the Aged in San Francisco.  She also has devoted countless hours to teaching yoga to women inmates in the San Francisco jail program. She was a Koret Foundation fellow and currently a thought leader with the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center in San Francisco.

Her memoir, Play It Forward, from Gymboree to the Yoga Mat and Beyond, published in 2016 propelled her as a speaker at various forums and mentors/advisor to entrepreneurs. Personally, she is an avid yogi, hiker, proud mother of two adult daughters and three grandchildren.

President and CEO, Delphon Industries LLC.

Jeanne Beacham is President and CEO of Delphon Industries LLC., a materials manufacturing company to the Semiconductor, Aerospace and Medical Industries.  Delphon has Divisions Gel-Pak, TouchMark and UltraTape, with offices in Hayward and Wilsonville, Oregon, Singapore and Taiwan and global sales support.

Jeanne joined Vichem Corporation in 1994 as Vice President of Marketing and Sales of GEL-PAK, responsible for worldwide sales, marketing, and strategic alliances.  In December 1997, she led a management buyout of GEL-PAK and in July 2000, acquired Quik-Pak as a new division of GEL-PAK and merged the assets of Aguila Technologies into Quik-Pak in 2009.  In 2004 Jeanne restructured the company under Delphon Industries to establish a platform to grow the company by both acquisition and organic growth. In 2005 Delphon acquired TouchMark, a high precision Medical Device Pad Printing business serving medical and semiconductor industries. In 2008 Delphon acquired UltraTape, a cleanroom tape manufacturer located in Oregon.  Divested Quik-Pak in 2015 selling the division to Promex.   In 2016 expanded the cleanroom label line through an acquisition of HTG and integrating it in the UltraTape division.

Jeanne was been given the Diamond Leadership Award and East Bay Women of Distinction Award.  Jeanne also received awards from the San Jose Business Journal as one of the most influential women in business in Silicon Valley and Woman of Distinction in Technology.  Delphon was named by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the Top Women Owned business in the Bay Area. She is an active member of SEMI, and sat on the Advisory Board of the Kellogg School of Management’s Master of Management and Manufacturing Program.  Jeanne gave the Commencement address to the Engineering school at Northwestern and for the Women’s Initiative Network graduation.  She has recently been involved as a guest lecturer at Oregon State University for their Entrepreneurship program and the Masters Intern Program at U of O.

Jeanne is a Past President of NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) and a founding member of Semiconductor Women’s Alliance Network, a member of SEMI and an active member of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Board and the C200 organization.  

Prior to GEL-PAK, Jeanne was the Marketing Manager at Tencor Instruments and spent 10 years at IBM in Essex Junction, VT, in engineering and management positions where she received multiple distinguished engineering awards.  Jeanne received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Married with 3 children and 3 Grandchildren.   Jeanne continues her love of soccer coaching and attending Women’s World Cup around the world.   She is also active in promoting science and participates as a Judge for High School and Middle School science fairs in Oregon.   Jeanne is active in the community and giving back thru both her family foundation and the Delphon Foundation with the American Cancer Society Relay for life and Cancer Ski out, Red Cross, Salvation Army, She Can, Food Bank and The Giving Tree.   She loves to travel and enjoys many outdoor activities, including skiing, hiking, boating and still runs half marathons with a women’s running group.

Founder/Executive Producer, Career Girls

While growing up in Connecticut, Linda Calhoun was fascinated with the arts, sciences and technology. Determined to create a career based on these interests, Linda studied hard in school and headed to college, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in communications from Boston University.

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Starting her professional life as a public relations assistant, Linda went on to plan fine art events for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs; develop public databases and policies for the state government of Connecticut; and work as a foreign affairs consultant for The World Bank. 

Thanks to her multi-faceted career, Linda has had the chance to travel across the United States and live around the world. She is the co-founder, along with her husband Ed Calhoun, of the EL Films production company. She is also an established, independent artist.

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Linda’s community involvement activities includes serving on the Board of Directors, Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day Foundation; member Alliance for Girls Advisory Board; as vice chair, International Relations Member Led Forum, Commonwealth Club of California; member of the Board of Trustees, World Affairs Council, San Francisco; and vice president, Board of Directors, Friends of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Strategic Brand Development, E-Commerce, Merchandising, and Marketing Advisor, Bonnie Trust Dahan Consulting

Bonnie Dahan is the Founder of VivaTerra, the premier direct-to-consumer catalog and e-commerce business devoted to distinctive eco/social impact lifestyle products. Previously, Dahan developed the Smith & Hawken brand from a local gardening company to a recognized organic product leader. At Smith & Hawken, she oversaw the rollout of 25+ retail locations, created and produced 12 branded books and brought to market associated, licensed product lines with national distribution.

During her time at Banana Republic, Dahan built 70-person marketing/creative department and led rollout of retail strategy, from 4 stores to over 100, in 6 years. She worked with the founders to translate vision into a world-renowned retail phenomenon. She executed brand strategy and integration with Gap, Inc. 

Dahan developed and brought to market 2,000+ specialty/artisan products across apparel, home décor, personal care, gift and wellness, both mainstream and LOHAS focused.

Principal, Alesco Advisors

As a Principal with Alesco Advisors, Katharine launched and now co-leads their west coast office. She advises and consults with Institutional clients such as corporate retirement plans, non-profits including foundations and endowments and government pensions on their asset allocation, investment selection and spend policy needs. Katharine is also passionate about empowering women and men to increase their financial acumen and economic potential through education programs, webinars and content distribution aimed at clients in bite-sized chunks.

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Katharine is Board President for Alternatives in Action, focused on underserved youth communities in Oakland. She is Board Vice President for Friends of the Commission on the Status of Women in San Francisco focused on promoting gender equality in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, Katharine serves on the executive committee of Bay Area Advisors in Philanthropy, an organization dedicated to connecting professional advisors with the nonprofit community through education on philanthropic giving and serves on The Women’s Impact Network Committee focused on inspiring leadership and action among Bay Area Female Executives.

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For over 25 years, Katharine has held a variety of leadership roles within the financial services sector including FinTech, Asset Management and Brokerage / Custodial:  BlackRock, Barclays Global Investors, mPower Advisors (now Morningstar Advisors) and Charles Schwab. Additionally, she mentored women and men on salary and promotional negotiations at all levels of corporate organizations. She is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles and a San Francisco native.

External Director, Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine

Mary Hentges is currently an External Director for Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, a new medical school embedded in a healthcare system, instead of a university.  Their mission is to graduate a diverse group of physician leaders that are focused on improving the health and well-being of patients and communities.

Mary was previously the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of both YapStone, Inc. and CBS Interactive, a CBS Corporation.  In each role, she enabled global finance operations and worked closely with the executive team on developing their business strategy, executing their operating plan and corporate development activities.  

Mary got her sea legs as a CFO at PayPal, Inc. where she was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.  There, she collaborated with the executive team to enable a tenfold growth in payments over seven years.  At the same time, she led and scaled the global finance team to oversee accounting, billing, financial planning, analysis, strategy, enterprise risk management, tax, treasury and internal audit.  During her time at PayPal, Mary also served as a Director at PayPal Asset Management, Inc. and at PayPal’s international subsidiary, PayPal Europe Ltd.  

Mary started her career in public accounting, where she spent more than a decade in the audit practices of Ernst & Young and Price Waterhouse.  While there she became a Certified Public Accountant in Arizona.  She segued into corporate America as a finance executive at Hewlett-Packard, where she culminated her time with the $6 billion spin-off and IPO of Agilent Technologies, out of Hewlett-Packard.  At Agilent, she obtained some operational experience in her role of global infrastructure and customer operations controller. 

Mary is passionate about helping women, the underserved and enabling diversity.  To that end, she is on the board of Financial Aid – Catholic Education, which provides tuition assistance to Catholic school children; and on the Information and Technology Committee of Beneficial State Bank, whose vision includes providing access to the traditionally underserved.  

Chief Operations Officer, Toyota Research Institute

Kelly Kay is the Chief Financial and Operations Officer at the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) responsible for Finance, Human Resources, IT, Legal/Compliance, Facilities and overall operations.  She leads TRI’s operations team and runs the day to day business of TRI.  Prior to TRI, Kelly served as the Vice President of Business Operations at Lyft, Inc., where she built and led the teams responsible for Regulatory Compliance, Audit & Reporting, Payments & Fraud, and Airport Operations.  She also served as the Chief Operating Officer and President of YapStone, Inc., a leading electronic payments company in the real property space.  Prior to serving as an operational leader, Kelly was an attorney for more than 19 years and held roles as a General Counsel, Associate General Counsel & Head of Compliance, as well as a leader in public policy and government relations at companies such as MasterCard, eBay, PayPal and J.P. Morgan (previously Banc One). Kelly has spent her career designing solutions to bring traditional, highly regulated products and services into the digital age in a compliant and operationally friendly manner. Her key areas of focus include ride-sharing, autonomous technologies regulation, online payments, online financial services, privacy, anti-money laundering, and online auctions.   

Kelly attended The Ohio State University and Capital University Law School where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.

CEO, Jenniferkenny.com, Chair of the Board GWLN, Advisory Board Member Artlery, Industry Fellow Kradyl, Co-Founder iSAW, proud Mom, Kayaker, Hiker, Mad Irishwoman

Jennifer Kenny speaks, mentors, trains and facilitates on the topic of Working Better Together as an innovative practice, with a specific focus on two of the big levers of innovation: technology and gender diversity.  Her work is founded on Systems Thinking and Language Action Design/Human Centered Design.

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Jennifer was CIO at SRI International (Stanford Research Institute). She led the transformation of the information technology organization to drive business innovation.

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Jennifer has served as an advisor to the President and Executive team of Tanri Abeng University, Executive Center for Global Leadership, Jakarta, and visiting faculty for their Advanced Leadership Program. She advised their Top 200 Leadership Program and led preparation for investment. 

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As senior executive with Wells Fargo, she led major process transformation initiatives for commercial banking. She was Head of Global Professional Services at Cisco/WebEx and a senior consultant at Accenture in their Oil and Gas practice, Booz Allen in their IT Strategy Group and while heading up the PMO at the University of California San Francisco, Medical Center, she led management through the prioritization and implementation of 150 different projects as part of a campus-wide operational excellence initiative.

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Jennifer has presented at Stanford University Executive Briefing Program; was Featured Entrepreneur and presenter at the University of Colorado’s Profiles in American Enterprise program; and has lectured at the University of Santa Clara, Leavey School of Business, MBA Program. She has presented at the Northern California Human Resources Council Annual Conference and the WITI (Women in Technology) Annual Conference and spoke at the Irish Female Leaders in Silicon Valley event at Stanford Design School. She has published numerous papers, presented at Stanford Executive Briefings and at conferences in the U.S, Europe, and China. She founded two profitable startups in software and services and won the Intel and DEMO entrepreneurship awards.

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She has written for Women in Technology, International (WITI), Women Mean business (WMB) and The Commonwealth Banks’ Women in Focus. Jennifer is active in women's forums in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly women in STEM. She Chair of the Global Women’s Leadership Network.

Education:

Jennifer has a Masters in Geotechnical Engineering from Imperial College, University of London; a degree in Geology and Chemistry from University College, Dublin; a Certificate in Financial Management for Non-Financial Managers from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Masters in Innovation from The Center for Innovation Leadership at SRI.

President & CEO, Women’s Funding Network

​Cynthia Nimmo is the President and CEO of the Women’s Funding Network.  She leads the network with a focus on collaboration, shared data and best practices, and cross-sector partnerships.  A proven leader with a passionate commitment to systems change, she has consulted for foundations, nonprofit organizations, and Fortune 500 companies wishing to advance social causes. Cynthia first joined Women’s Funding Network as Vice President of Member Services, and then as Chief Operations Officer, providing the strategic direction and implementation of special initiatives.  In her tenure, she oversaw the development of multiple impact tools, including a social change measurement tool which has been used by hundreds of organizations around the world, and was licensed to corporations such as Nike Inc.  Prior to joining the philanthropic sector in 2003, Cynthia helped to develop iVillage.com, the first online network for women.  iVillage.com pioneered the notion of online community during the “new media” era with a membership of over one million women.  Cynthia piloted innovative online tools to support women’s leadership and entrepreneurship, and went on to oversee the development of online communities for dozens of companies.  A passionate advocate of the power of discourse as a tool for change, Cynthia began her career as a Legislative Aide in the United States Senate to Senator Dianne Feinstein during her first term as Senator.  She was appointed to the Sustainabilty Commission for the City of Sausalito, where she served as Chair.  Cynthia is a graduate of Santa Clara University with degrees in Political Science/International Relations, and Spanish.  She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa (national honor socity) and Pi Sigma Alpha (Political Science Honor Society). As the daughter of an immigrant, raised in a bi-national family, Cynthia is  deeply committed to global relationship and dialogue.

CEO and Director of Integrative Health, Age Defy; CEO and Founder, Revercel LLC

Dr. Arlene Noodleman is CEO and Medical Director of Integrative Health at Silicon Valley’s Age Defying Dermatology And Wellness™.  She is also co-creator of Revercel® clinical skin care products and nutritional supplements.

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Dr. Noodleman has held senior management positions at ALZA and Collagen Corporations and was Vice President of Medical Affairs at CV Therapeutics, a Palo Alto-based molecular cardiology company.  She holds BA and MD degrees from the University of Minnesota and received a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the University of California-Berkeley.  She served an occupational medicine fellowship at Duke University Medical Center and is currently a fellow in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona.  Dr. Noodleman was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, at the University of California–San Francisco from 1987-1998.  

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Board-certified in preventive medicine and fellowship-trained in integrative medicine, Dr. Noodleman helps her patients prevent the onset of disease and delay the inevitable age-related decline in health for as long as possible.  An expert in stress reduction, health promotion, nutrition, and lifestyle/behavioral change, Dr. Noodleman works to helps people compress the morbidity of aging and maximize health.

VP Strategic Accounts, Robert Half

Kristen joined Robert Half in 1996 and has worked in varying roles and divisions for Robert Half in the Bay Area for 21 years.

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From 1996-2000, Kristen worked in Accountemps doing temporary and temp-to-hire placements and was promoted to manage a team of eight to build the Oakland East Bay area. Kristen was in their prestigious Chairman’s Club all years but the first, which rewards the top 20 in the world.

Kristen was then promoted to Business Development Director reporting to the Executive Director of Accountemps overseeing Northern California, Washington and Oregon. In this role, she helped in business development, developing teams, and working with management and the executive director to increase sales for Accountemps.

Starting in 2001, Kristen joined Robert Half Finance & Accounting, which handles full-time placements. In this role, she created the mentorship program to help new recruiters and educate about Robert Half. Kristen did full time staffing for 14 years in the Oakland East Bay area serving all types of industries and helping thousands find employment from staff to executive level. Kristen was also in their prestigious President’s Club, which rewards top performers.

From 2005-2007, Kristen was promoted into VP Perm Placement for the Bay Area reporting into the Executive Director of Robert Half. In this role, Kristen helped to oversee all perm operations in the Bay Area working with the field offices, management and our corporate office to grow revenue. Kristen was responsible for the IT, Legal, Office, and Accounting & Finance functions.

Starting in 2015, Kristen was promoted into Strategic Accounts, which oversees and builds relationships with companies going through significant growth usually over $1B in size. Kristen currently works with the field branches, management, legal, contracts, third-party vendors and companies, plus a back-office team of over 100 people to help service our clients while negotiating contracts and terms to better and deepen our relationship and partnership.

President, Strong Legacy Planning LLC

Betsy is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated from University of California, Los Angeles where she earned a BS in nursing. After working as a pediatric nurse, she transitioned to business, becoming a successful sales representative for American Hospital Supply. She later earned her MBA from Golden Gate University. Following the completion of her degree, Betsy was hired by Metropolitan Life to work with health care professionals, helping plan their retirement by saving in their 403B plans.

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She earned her CFP during this time and moved on to Cigna Financial Advisors to expand her financial planning expertise. While at Cigna, now Lincoln Financial Advisors, Betsy learned to advise business owners on a variety of issues ranging from estate planning to business succession and the establishment of complex retirement plan vehicles.  In 2000, she was hired to head The L & L Financial Edge, a financial planning division of Lautze & Lautze, a cpa firm. In July of 2009, Betsy formed Strong Legacy Planning to assist individuals, families and business owners with the challenges of financial planning and the transfer of wealth among generations.

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Betsy is married to Gary Coover and has three step-children, Graham, Gary Jr. and Charlotte. Betsy is an active member of the board of directors of Edgewood Center for Children and Families and volunteers with her daughter Charlotte through a mother/daughter volunteer group - NCL.

She is also an avid golfer, skier and traveler, loves to attend cultural events and try new restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area!

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Betsy is a member of the San Francisco Estate Planning Council, the Financial Planning Association and the Northern California Planned Giving Council.

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CEO & Founder, PrismWork; COO, The 3% Conference

Lisen Stromberg is an author, culture innovation consultant, and widely regarded speaker who empowers people and companies to reimagine the future of work through work/life success. As CEO and Founder of PrismWork, she and her team partner with companies, leaders, and advocates, to ensure women and Millennials thrive in the workplace. She is currently serving as the acting COO of the 3% Movement, committed to changing the ratio of women in leadership in the advertising industry.

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Stromberg is also an award-winning independent journalist whose work can be found in The New York Times, Fortune, Newsweek, and other high profile media outlets. Her book, Work Pause Thrive: How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career, reveals how trailblazing women have disrupted the traditional career paradigm to achieve their personal and professional goals and how forward-thinking companies are capitalizing on their talents.

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An in-demand speaker, Stromberg has been on stage at numerous high profile conferences including SXSW, TEDx, and others. She speaks regularly at, and conducts workshops for, companies ranging from global Fortune 500s to tech start-ups.

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Head, Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Stanford Health Care

Mary Stutts is the Head, Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Stanford Health Care.  Prior to this role, Mary was the Vice President of External Affairs for Comcast NBCU, California.  Committed to the pursuit of excellence, Mary E. Stutts is an author and leadership expert who has been called one of the most powerful and engaging leaders and speakers for this time.  Her style of humor and masterful storytelling keeps listeners inspired and longing for more as she shares practical and compelling advice, examples and perspective on major health care and societal issues. Mary has worked extensively in the health care industry including corporate relations and public affairs leadership positions at Genentech, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Elan, United Health Group and Kaiser Permanente. She is regularly featured at conferences and in broadcast and print media and has authored articles for publications including Leadership Excellence and Entrepreneur magazines.

co-Chair, 2020 Women on Boards; Board Member, Playworks

Vicki Tisdale is seasoned sales professional, who uses storytelling to help leaders solve challenging problems by decreasing their risk and increasing their revenue. Formerly a leader of BDO’s business development organization in the Bay Area, she was known for consistently exceeding sales quota and effectively managing global RFP processes. She expressed her people connecting ability through the hundreds of C-level relationships she developed and maintained throughout the sales process. She was recognized for her storytelling ability at the BDO USA leadership conference in 2016.

Tisdale is the co-Chair for 2020 Women on Boards, where she is committed to increasing the percentage of women on U.S. Corporate Boards. She is currently helping plan and execute the annual 2020 National Conversation event for the Bay Area. She is also a board member for Playworks, where she works closely with the executive team in San Francisco to support their mission of reaching 3.5 million children in the U.S. with the power of play by 2020.

Tisdale graduated with Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Theatre and History from the University of Southern California.

Born and raised in Colorado, Vicki has been skiing and enjoying outdoor sports since the age of 4. After moving to LA for college, she picked up playing the trumpet at 21 and was a proud member of the USC Marching Band. She also discovered a passion for craft beer and homebrewing while traveling all around the United States exploring cities through the lens of the local breweries. With her brewing partner, she has won several homebrew competition awards, and she has also passed the first level of the Cicerone exam to become a certified beer server. Her passion for traveling and exploring other cultures took her on the road for 132 days in 2017 where she visited 8 countries, 10 US states and 26 cities over 23 different trips. Her personal motto is to say yes whenever possible, and to make things happen.

Chief Marketing Officer, Verbhouse

In 2012, while living and working in Singapore, Michelle Waite, a highly regarded international B2B marketing and business development executive, embarked on a new path and career reinvention.

Discovering the world of impact investing and entrepreneurship opened her eyes to an emerging business trend that would soon encompass her life.

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Michelle became a co-founder, investor and marketing executive for ShiftRunner, a for- profit, purpose-driven start up company. Through PANDOO Nation, their online game, forum, animation series and VR app alongside their sister organization PANDOO Foundation, they are providing Gen-Z with the tools and inspiration to change the world.

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After landing back in San Francisco in 2016, Michelle quickly found her community in the local impact and conscious business space in the Bay Area. In February of 2017, she graciously accepted an invitation to join the board of Conscious Capitalism Bay Area as the Chair for local events.

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Michelle is passionate about growing and supporting the community of “startups with a soul” and their ecosystems. She is currently the CMO for Verbhouse, a woman-founded and led start up focused on reinventing homeownership in high cost transient urban markets.

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Her company, TOSO Global is also available for consulting and project work for business commercial strategies, marketing, business development and sales.