Girls In Tech

Adriana F. Gascoigne

Adriana is the Director of Marketing for Social Gold. Social Gold™ is an industry-leading virtual economy platform owned and operated by Jambool, Inc. The Social Gold platform enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, provide an unparalleled payments experience to their users, and optimize their virtual economy using robust analytics. Through innovation in Flash-based payments solutions, a sophisticated fraud management system and an easy-to-integrate API, Social Gold has received recognition as an outstanding platform for powering virtual economies. In her role as the Director of Marketing she provides strategic guidance on digital marketing, SEO/SEM, web analytics, events and corporate branding.

Most recently, Adriana was the Director of Marcom and Global Communications for SGN. SGN’s current network of games commands over ten million downloads of its suite of games on the iPhone and iPod Touch and more than one million game players per day across multiple social networking platforms including Facebook and MySpace. In her role as the Director of Global Communications, she managed strategy and implementation of digital marketing and new media campaigns including word-of-mouth marketing programs, social media initiatives, and digital integration project management.

Adriana was the Director of Global Communications for hi5. Launched in 2003, hi5 is now one of the world’s largest social networks – ranked as a top 20 website globally and the #1 social network in 33 countries across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. According to comScore, more than 63 million individuals every month visit hi5, which is currently available in 50 languages options.

Previously, Adriana was the Vice President of the 360 Digital Influence Group at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide where she spearheaded operations for social media, word-of-mouth marketing and digital campaigns for clients such as Intel, Wells Fargo, Brocade, ACC, Sun Power, Case Logic, YieldBuild and Naked Juice. Prior to working at Ogilvy, she served as the Vice President of FutureWorks Media in San Francisco, managing all aspects of operations including business development, digital strategy and account management. Some of her clients included MeeVee, WooMe, Yojo Mobile, DocStoc, Magnify, Fantasy Sports Matrix, Ujogo, StreetAdvisor, Yoono, HeyCosmo, SayHeyHey, GoBig and YourTrumanShow.

A seasoned Web 2.0′er, Adriana is a vlogger for Mevio, Bubblicious, Revision3, MeeVee, TheWeakSpot, BuzzShout, publishes her own tech lifestyle blog and buzzes around Silicon Valley speaking at industry events such as the Billboard Interactive Music Conference, Streaming Media West Summit, Project Startup, Web Video Summit and Tech Innovations Summit.

In March 2007, Adriana launched Girls in Tech, an organization focused on the empowerment, engagement and education of women in tech. Also, Adriana recently joined a select group of Web 2.0 enthusiasts that are known as the “Intel Insiders,” which serve as brand advisors for Intel. She is an advisor to Involver.com, Change.org and FantasySportMatrix.com. In Spring 2009, she will be launching Smitten With Mittens, a non-profit providing warm mittens and clothing to orphans in developing countries during their respective winter seasons.

Adriana holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Economics from the University of California at Davis, received a certification from El Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico, and was enrolled in Semester at Sea, University of Pittsburgh in 1997. Adriana is also fluent in Spanish and speaks some Japanese and French.

Email: adriana@girlsintech.net

Girls in Tech Corporate Officers

Tommy Jenkins, Director, Chapter Development, NY Co-Managing Director

Tommy Michelle Jenkins is currently focused on bringing her enthusiasm for information theory, business, communication and charity to the web through several internet initiatives and investment activities. She has a background as an associate with a New York investment firm where she has been responsible for investment analysis and management. Her areas of experience include marketing and written communications, visual design, and political PR and strategy. She was educated in computer science and the classics. Her interests include physics, writing, technology, natural health, nutrition, and good company.

Email: tommy@girlsintech.net

Tonia Dinh, Vice President, Business Development and Marketing

Tonia has over 10 years of business development and marketing experience and has worked within financial services, media entertainment, and medical device industries. She has held management and leadership positions for companies such as: KPMG LLP, NBC Universal, New Line Cinema, Fox Entertainment, and Abbott Laboratories, within areas of Marketing Information Intelligence, Sales & Marketing Analytics, International Marketing & Distribution, CRM Management, and Licensing & Merchandising. Tonia currently is based in the San Francisco area. She holds a Bachelors degree from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a specialization in Business Economics. Supplemental concentrations include: Media Distribution, Marketing & Finance. When Tonia is not working on strategic marketing initiatives and exploring business opportunities for GIT, she thoroughly enjoys: running, pilates, food & wine, books (particularly works from 19^th century), photography/art, and travel.

Email: tonia@girlsintech.net

Lucia Giacomantonio, Operations Manager, San Francisco

Lucia Giacomantonio is a communications professional with five years of experience providing public relations, marketing and social media services to technology companies. She currently works as Community Manager for  moneyStrands, a free personal finance service that helps people develop better financial habits. She is passionate about learning and enjoys attending workshops related to new tech and social media, roundtable discussions, and various networking events around Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

Email: lucia@girlsintech.net

Anuranjita Tewary, Director, Girls in Tech Mentorship Program

Anu has a strong interest in the merger of entrepreneurship and technology and loves sharing her passion for technology with students.  She also greatly enjoys teaching everything from physics and math to bollywood dancing.  Anu is currently at AdMob, where she has gained extensive experience in mobile technology and advertising through her work in product management, marketing, and analytics.  Previously, she was a program manager at Microsoft, where she worked with a team to develop novel media-sharing features for MSTV.  She is very excited to be a part of the Girls in Tech mentorship initiative.  Anu holds a PhD in Applied Physics fromStanford University and BS degrees in Physics and Math from MIT.

Email: anu@girlsintech.net

Mandy Kakavas, Director, Girls in Tech University (GIT U)

Mandy is the Director of Girls in Tech University and a member of the Girls in Tech advisory team in San Francisco. Mandy also holds the position of Senior Account Executive at Horn Group, Inc., where she advises a range of online advertising startups and enterprise technology companies on traditional and social media strategies. Most recently, Mandy was with Fleishman-Hillard’s technology practice. Prior to this, Mandy worked in editorial for Glam.com during the company’s successful launch in 2005. Mandy holds a B.A. in Mass Communications from University of California, Berkeley.

Email: mandy@girlsintech.net

Christine Oneto, Editor, Girls in Tech Blog

Christine Oneto is a Marketing professional and writer. Most recently, Christine held a marketing, market research and sales ops position at salesforce.com She has also worked at 3Com Corporation, and Toshiba International.  She is currently involved in an internship doing marketing work for a local sustainability consulting company.  Her passions lie in writing, blogging, reading good non-fiction, most water sports and the outdoors.

Email: info@girlsintech.net

Mel Bolton, Director of Corporate Communications

Mel Bolton has almost a decade of public relations experience, mainly focused on technology and consumer Internet companies. In addition to her duties as a mom (and Mommy Blogger), she is a Web 2.0 enthusiast and blog junkie – both tech news and entertainment gossip – and runs marathons in her spare time.

Email: mel@girlsintech.net

Urvashi Mishra, Managing Director, Minneapolis, MN

Urvashi Mishra is a software developer and has four years of industry experience. She has profound interest in high performance computing and its applications in solving complex problems (in biology) and, developing state of the art applications. She also enjoys developing rich internet applications (mashups) involving high user interaction. She has Masters degree in Computer Science and minor in Bioinformatics from University of Minnesota and is currently working with a startup. She believes in power of creative thinking and innovation, and is passionate about spreading the awareness about computing amongst the women specially young women (college/school) and the world. She enjoys making use of conferences and workshops for this purpose.

Megan Price, Events Coordinator

Megan considers herself a nouveau techie. She’s worked as an Executive Assistant for a SaaS start-up and interned as a Sales & Marketing Assistant for a consumer goods technology company, but what really gets her excited about technology is seeing how many companies are pushing the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility as an industry norm. Megan hopes to bring an eclectic assortment of events relating technologies’ role in social good programs to the San Francisco GIT chapter, and to inspire more nouveau techies to come out and unleash their inner geek!

Email: megan@girlsintech.net

Dhana Pawar, Managing Director, Silicon Valley

Ms Pawar contributes a wealth of experience to the wireless and location industry. She has worked extensively with a list of leading carriers like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and brands like AAA, Rand McNally, Toyota, P&G and Disney among others. Currently as the Co-Founder of Mobmark, Ms Pawar has been instrumental in helping companies launch award winning mobile services like Mizpee, Yojomama,  Limelife Jukebox & Kiwibox Mobile among others. She has been instrumental in growing Mizpee’s usage to over 150, 000 members and 3 million hits in less than a year. Ms Pawar has over 9 years of mobile experience and has been helping companies define their mobile strategy from the concept to go-live stage.

Email: dhana@girlsintech.net

Laurel Kaufman, Managing Director, Los Angeles

Laurel Kaufman has been a member of the California Bar since 2006. She received both her J.D. as well as her M.B.A with an emphasis in
marketing from Rutgers University. During her time on the East Coast, Laurel worked with the D.A.’s office in Special Narcotics as well as in Entertainment Law for Elam Reavis, LLC representing clients such as LL Cool J, King Britt and Jill Scott.  After her return to Los
Angeles, Laurel worked as Executive Vice President and In-House Counsel for Bassett and shortly thereafter began her career as a consultant for beauty, fashion and entertainment companies. Most recently Laurel has founded AK Consulting Group.  AKCG provides business, legal and financial planning for startups and companies in need of restructuring.  She continues to consult for major retail companies such as Bassett, Planet Lulu, Fatsouls Records, Look Daily and many others. She will be stepping in this January as Managing Director of the Los Angeles Girls in Tech Chapter.

Email: laurel@girlsintech.net

Ellen Kwor, Managing Director, Seattle

Ellen started to develop her skills in IT at the end of her high school years.  Throughout her college years, she supported her education by working in high volume; high traffic IT Tech Support at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  After she received her Bachelor degree in Communications, the University hired her as a full time employee in the University IT department.  Ellen moved to the Seattle area in order to seek out the best opportunity to match her IT Tech Support skills with her passion for all technological innovations.  The greater Seattle area offers fertile ground for her to accomplish her goals. While devoting her full energy to comprehensive IT Support at her current job, she spends a majority of her spare time volunteering at several nonprofit organizations.      Ellen loves working with people and dedicates her time to helping people in need.   Her position as a VP of Operations for BEAN (a nonprofit group that seeks to connect busy people with professional backgrounds through Leadership, Friendship, and Service) affords her the chance to combine her passion for online social networking with the chance to meet like-minded people in person.  She is a member of the Delta Society (a nonprofit pet therapy organization) and regularly visits local hospitals with her dog to offer therapeutic services to the patients.    Ellen is an outgoing and people-friendly technology enthusiast with a subdued, geeky personality.  Her passions for social networking match her interest in new adventures in the ever-changing technology world today.  She continually dedicated her time to learning more about the developing area of social networking and how to potentially apply her skills to development in any new, related fields.

Email: ellen@girlsintech.net

Kimberly Kimbrough, Managing Director, Kansas City

Kimberly Kimbrough is a web 2.0 junkie hooked on search engine optimization, pay per clicks and web analytics. As a full-time consultant, Kimberly provides online strategy and project management services to businesses and nonprofits and prides herself on global domination. Kimberly served as the Director of Online Strategies for Missouri Coalition of Lifesaving Cures saving the organization thousands of dollars in online expenditures while turning their website into an online virtual precinct for its constituents of 100,000 subscribers. She was recently hired to consult with upper management at BKV on basic SEO, SEM and social media analytics setup for their existing clients. She has hands on experience with web development, blogging, traffic conversions, social media, and has more than 10 website properties that she singlehandedly manages. Kimberly has a Bachelors of Science in Computer Information Management from William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri. She is passionate about the positive accomplishments of women in technology in the Kansas City metropolitan area and would like to provide mentoring workshops to young girls.

Email: kimberly@girlsintech.net

Michelle Coleman, Managing Director, Indianapolis

Michelle Coleman is the Director of Marketing Communications and Online Sales at Storage Solutions Inc. in Westfield  Indiana .  Over the last 3 years she launched the Online Sales division with an e-commerce site for material handling products. The company began using social media and technologies to expand the business under her direction. Michelle graduated from IUPUI in 2001 with a M.S. in Media Arts and Science from the Indiana University School of Informatics. She was selected as a Governor Bob Orr Indiana Entrepreneurial Fellow.  Immediately after graduation Michelle was employed at Angie’s List and later became the Internet Specialist forMarketing Communications at Marian University. Michelle is a member of the Lacy Leadership Association and is a graduate of the Leadership Education and Development program. She served on the steering committee of Sharp Minds a collaboration group for internet strategists from 2004-2006. Michelle manages a number of web sites coaches club volleyball and assists high school athletes and their families through the college recruiting process.

Email: michelle@girlsintech.net

Emily Stoddard Furrow, Managing Director, Chicago

Emily Stoddard Furrow is a partner at DVQ Studio, a full-service communications shop that works with non-profits and socially conscious businesses. She began writing for a media start-up as a teenager and has worked in communications ever since, with a focus on philanthropy and the non-profit sector. Her love of communications has always mingled with her love of technology, often resulting in efforts that bring the two together to make social change. Girls In Tech is a natural extension of her passion in these areas, and she is eager to grow the Girls In Tech community in West Michigan. Emily lives in Grand Rapids with her similarly nerdy web developer husband Carl, and when she isn’t working or volunteering, she tries to put her English degree to use by writing poetry.

Email: emily@girlsintech.net

Candace Sweigart, Managing Director, Boise

Candace is a Lead Software Engineer and Producer for Wirestone, an independent marketing solutions company uniquely ranked on two Advertising Top 50 lists – as both an integrated marketing services agency and an interactive agency. Candace engineers software solutions for Fortune 500 companies to accomplish Channel Enablement, Customer Acquisition and Retention, Custom Marketing Applications, and Event Marketing initiatives. Candace brings her unique blend of strong technical leadership and web application aptitude with an ability to communicate with technical and non technical client contacts at a high level. When Candace is not engineering a new software solution, she is engaged in social media communities, playing strategy computer games with her family, and teaching her English Springer Spaniel pup some crazy new tricks.

Email: candace@girlsintech.net

Kate Brodock, Managing Director, Boston

Kate Brodock is Founder and Principal of the Other Side Group, a marketing strategy, new media & PR consulting firm located in Boston. She has worked previously in product marketing for Bose, and was part of two start-ups: a technology transfer firm called Ignition Ventures and a Critical Infrastructure Preparedness firm called Priority 5. In addition to her position with Girls in Tech, she is the Co-Chair of the New Marketing Special Interest Group for TiE-Boston and an active volunteer for the Taproot Foundation. She is also a correspondent for, an organization that focuses on empowering individuals and grassroots efforts with digital tools and concepts, and takes part in research efforts through the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to identify whether new forms of citizen journalism can be used in early crisis warning efforts. Kate holds an MBA from Goizueta Business School at Emory University, where she focused on Entrepreneurship and Marketing, an MA in International Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and BAs in History and Political Science from the University of Rochester. On the side, she’s a very non-professional musician, a very non-professional athlete, lover of good food, wine and friends, and loves being outside in any weather, be it hiking, biking, skiing, sailing or just plain enjoying life.

Email: kate@girlsintech.net

Janine Just, Co-Managing Director, NY

Janine Just is a Co-Founder and CEO of the Avid Group.  Ms. Just holds a Bachelor of Science in fashion merchandising from Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). Concurrent to her enrollment at FIT, Ms. Just got her start in the nightlife and hospitality industry by joining the renowned Gabrielle Bernstein as a spokeswoman in her Public Relations Department. Along with working in the PR Dept with Sparkplug, Ms. Just served as a Client Services Representative and Event Coordinator at Del Frisco’s helping them realize annual revenues of $20 million. Ms. Just’s next venture was with the iconic McFadden’s Restaurant, owned and operated by East Coast Saloons. As marketing director, Janine helped grow the company’s revenues to more than $66 million among its 19 nationwide venues. It’s the combination of the aforementioned success coupled with her fondness of the entrepreneurial integrity of New York City that served as the catalyst to launch The Avid Group NYC.

Email: janine@girlsintech.net

Tiffany Odutoye, Managing Director, Columbus, OH

Tiffany Odutoye    Tiffany Odutoye (oh-do-toy) is the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer for Virtual Partner, LLC, a Virtual Assistance and Business Management Practice. She also recently launched a new brand, Talk Social Networking, LLC, to offer social media training and support.    With over 19 years experience in Education, Marketing, Business Development and Administration, Odutoye’s career highlights include staff positions with SmithKline Beckman Pharmaceuticals (Glaxo SmithKline), CIGNA, Wharton School of Business, Arthur Andersen, The Nature Conservancy (NatureServe), and Limited Brands.    Consumed by a need to test out new web 2.0 technology, Odutoye became a social media specialist quite by chance. The rapid development and real-time results of social media soon had her blogging about it.  As ongoing business requests from clients emerged, Odutoye obtained her certification as a Social Media Specialist and now coaches and strategizes with businesses on their social media marketing plans.    Presently, she is the Managing Director for Girls In Tech (Columbus Chapter), the Assistant Organizer for the Columbus Collective and is a talkshow host for Social Media Television. Odutoye is also the author of a newly released book on Social Media called Now What Do I Do? An entrepreneur’s guide to getting to next with Social Media.    A summa cum laude graduate of St. Petersburg State University, with a degree in Education, Odutoye is a resident of Granville, Ohio, where she enjoys community educational work, reading, traveling, cultural dance, and classical music. She describes herself as driven, a visionary, optimistic and a lifelong learner. Above all, she cherishes opportunities for spiritual and family connections.

Email: tiffany@girlsintech

Staci Brinkman, Managing Director, Dallas

Staci Brinkman is ambi(tious/dextrous), a wannabe techie and MBA student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Staci serves as Director of Business Development at Brinkman Financial Company where she employs strategic business, partner and marketing development of BFC and its subsidiaries. Staci recently founded NextBill.org, an advocate for the online (paperless) billing industry. She has lived, worked and studied in Africa, Europe, Asia and North and South America. Connect with Staci via links to her social and professional web sites found on her Google Profile.

Email: staci@girlsintech.net

Kristine Gloria, Managing Director, Austin

Kristine Gloria is the managing director of the GIrls in Tech Austin chapter. Kristine has over five years of public relations experience working with several technology companies throughout the nation. Recently, she has returned to school to work on her Master’s degree in media studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her bachelor’s in journalism from UT-Austin as well.

Email: kristine@girlsintech.net

KT McBratney, Managing Director, Omaha

Kt McBratney manages communications for nationally recognized multi-platform development company Phenomblue. Prior to that, she was in charge of public relations for Nebraska’s second largest postsecondary institution and worked in event planning and marketing for the Henry Doorly Zoo. Kt also works as a freelance style writer for print and web and co-founded and contributes to the blog If I Don’t Know, It Isn’t True. She earned her bachelor’s degree in mass communications with a minor in sociology and is in the process of completing her master’s in communication and technology. An admitted pop culture junkie, Kt has a passion for new technology, anything Marc Jacobs and zombie flicks.

Email: KT@girlsintech.net

Ivo Lukas, Managing Director, Portland

Ivo Lukas is an independent consultant with over 13 years of experience in developing brand marketing, creative and digital solutions for Fortune 500 companies and other industry leaders. Most recently, Ivo served as the Vice President and Creative Director for Waggener Edstrom Worldwide(WE) where she founded the creative communications group which she later helped spearhead into a digital group. While there, she led global creative, digital, technology and brand marketing initiatives from concept development through implementation. Prior to coming to WE, Ivo was Creative Director for ShopNBC, a major e-commerce site and home shopping network. There she helped drive the business through strategic creative concept development, brand vision, and integrated multimedia and user experience. She was responsible for the execution of all internal and external campaigns including but not limited to direct mail and e-mail campaigns, web site, ad banners, search, affiliates, media, and brand identity.  While there, Ivo also helped launch a new “v-commerce” initiative that merged e-commerce and multimedia video, encouraging customers to shop and watch the TV channel online.

Email: ivo@girlsintech.net

Seana Norvell, Managing Director, Santa Cruz

Seana Norvell has been in Silicon Valley’s tech industry for over 5 years. She is currently managing accounts in high tech public relations (focusing on consumer technology) and spends a lot of her time in the Twitter community and surfing the social web. Seana’s background is mostly in marketing and public relations forenterprise software and consumer technology, although she did do a stint in software sales. Seana is from a small beach town in California, Santa Cruz, where she graduated from the local University of California, Santa Cruz. Other then technology, social media and gadgets, she is passionate about traveling and has been all around the world, extensively through Asia and Central America. Her other passions include cooking and good wine.

Email: seana@girlsintech.net

Desiree Michael, Managing Director, Athens, Greece

Desiree is the mother of three currently living in Greece (and freezing during the winters) in hopes of fulfilling her passion of working towards the Cyprus Resolution. With a bachelor’s degree from Lehigh University in International Relations and a master’s in teaching techniques, Desiree spends her past time researching the latest technology trends in education and emerging market economies. As a serial entrepreneur, she helped her children launch their own business Bubble Bunnys to pay their way through college. Currently, she is still hoping to convince educators that the use of new media, mobile technologies and advertising techniques in education could cut the learning cycle of students by as much as 98%. 

Email: desiree@girlsintech.net

Jenny Bai, Managing Director, China

Originally hailing from Shanghai, Jenny left for the States at age three, with her mother, one suitcase and 10 dollars in their pockets. 20 some years later, little did she expect the China bug to bite so strong, but there she has currently landed. Jenny is Founder and CEO of The Red Connect (www.theredconnect.com), a company that focuses on disrupting the traditional definition of cross-border relations, via initiatives and campaigns that enable casual and daily interaction between the U.S. and China. She also runs a business-culture magazine for English-speaking professionals, and is very active in the Beijing media scene. The magazine is called The World of Chinese, and is published by the Commercial Press, China’s oldest publishing house, most well-known for their Oxford dictionaries. Jenny holds a BA in Communications and Philosophy from Vanderbilt University, and her background lies in buzz-marketing, branding and corporate business-culture consulting. A serial entrepreneur at heart, she is extremely passionate about finding innovative ways to connect people, especially in the areas of Web 2.0 and cross-border.

Email: jenny@girlsintech.net

Ritu Uberoy, Managing Director, New Delhi, India

Ritu Uberoy is the Managing Director at Saviance Technologies Pvt. Ltd. She has over sixteen years of experience in the Information Technology industry in the United States and in India. Before moving back to India, she has worked with Silicon Graphics in their CIO’s office at their Mountain View location. She has also worked with Hewlett-Packard in their Research and Development Team. She established the Saviance Center of Excellence for Web and Mobile Applications in Gurgaon, India. Recently she has helped the Centre to launch four SaaS products: Rivinium, iLuminix, SConnect and Viburnix, all of which are creating waves in the Indian market. Saviance figures in the prestigious Inc. 5000 annual ranking of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States and has been awarded as a Top Diversity Business in US. Ritu has a BS degree in Computer Science from Delhi Institute of Technology (now NSIT) and a MS Degree in Computer Science from Santa Clara University in California. She is a Disney Institute alumnus and a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt. She is a Fellow at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Email: ritu@girlsintech.net

Shaymaa Alterkait, Managing Director, Kuwait

Shaymaa Alterkait    Shaymaa Alterkait is a Software Engineer from Kuwait. She is passionate about technology, space and tea. She enjoys web development, social media, and hosting social networking events in Kuwait and the Middle East.

Email: shaymaa@girlsintech.net

Michelle Coleman, Managing Director, Indianapolis

Michelle Coleman is the Director of Marketing Communications and Online Sales at Storage Solutions, Inc. in Westfield , Indiana .  Over the last 3 years she launched the Online Sales division with an e-commerce site for material handling products. The company began using social media and technologies to expand the business under her direction. Michelle graduated from IUPUI in 2001 with a M.S. in Media Arts and Science from the Indiana University School of Informatics. She was selected as a Governor Bob Orr Indiana Entrepreneurial Fellow.  Immediately after graduation Michelle was employed at Angie’s List and later became the Internet Specialist forMarketing Communications at Marian University. Michelle is a member of the Lacy Leadership Association and is a graduate of the Leadership Education and Development program. She served on the steering committee of Sharp Minds, a collaboration group for internet strategists, from 2004-2006. Michelle manages a number of web sites, coaches club volleyball and assists high school athletes and their families through the college recruiting process.

Email: michelle@girlsintech.net

Cassandra Phillips, Producer, Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference

Cassandra Phillipps is the founder of WebWallflower Events. Cassandra has been a startup event producer for over two years, working on and producing numerous conferences, including SNAP Summit, SFBeta, SF MusicTech Summit, Finance4Founders, SWAT Summit, and SWAT Summit.  Most recently, she produced FailCon, the first conference ever to shine a light on entrepreneurial failures and what we can learn, hailed by NBC, NPR, and Wired Magazine as a wonderful success!  Before moving to the start-up industry, she served as a stage manager at various theaters around the country, including the American Conservatory Theater, Court Theater, CalShakes, Marin Theater Company, and Aurora. Cassandra has a B.A in Human Development from the University of Chicago. In her (rare) free time, she enjoys board games, comic book, and building comics for various parties and events.

Email: cassie@girlsintech.net

Arden Pennell, Program Director, Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference

Arden Pennell, Program Director, AlwaysOn, others. Arden creates executive summits on innovation and investing, primarily for AlwaysOn, including OnHollywood, Summit at Stanford, OnMedia, Venture Summit Silicon Valley & Venture Summit East. Her events have been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNET, and Variety, among others. Her goal is to connect people to build productive relationships. Prior to conference programming, she was a journalist for thePalo Alto Weekly, where she was awarded for financial coverage and broke stories on high-tech firms such as Facebook. She received her B.A. from Stanford University with Honors, with Distinction, and completed aDAAD Fellowship in Berlin’s Humboldt University. She also enjoys and has taught meditation, and encourages busy, techy people to check it out.

Email: arden@girlsintech.net