Community & Guest List
Tara is Founder and Chairwoman of Impact Profit, which is a nonprofit dedicated to making entrepreneurship more accessible to Black Founders. Tara has been a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for over a decade and founded Impact Profit to use her skillset to do some good in the world. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her Masters in Accounting and MBA from Northeastern University. She's a New Jersey native, but currently resides in Washington, DC.
Peter Kozodoy is an Inc. 5000 serial entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, and business coach who works with organizations and their leaders to help them overcome self-limiting bullsh*t and use honesty to achieve greatness. His articles on leadership and entrepreneurship have appeared in Forbes, Inc., HuffPost, PR Daily, and more. He holds a BA in economics from Brandeis University and an MBA from Columbia Business School, and he's the author of Honest to Greatness: How today's greatest leaders use brutal honesty to achieve massive success.
Larry is a seasoned financial consultant disrupting the way companies get strategic financial advice. At the same time, he’s changing the way you view a guy (still working) in his 70’s. This "old guy" can certainly tell stories that will remind you of your favorite uncle, while at the same time teaching you how to increase profitability in your business. And in the process, make you hope you have that kind of energy when you are his age.
Mari Millard is currently the owner of Two Maids & A Mop a residential cleaning company servicing Northern Va., Montgomery County and DC. Before business ownership, Mari was involved with numerous start-up companies within the data and research space. Currently, she lives in Arlington, Va with her spouse, two children and two dogs.
Dawn LaFontaine makes cats happy.
Calvin Dark has built his reputation as a creative branding, media, and communications professional for a diverse group of clients & partners. In 2014, Calvin co-founded RC Communications to help clients find their voices to tell complex stories.
Throughout his career, Calvin held several leadership roles where he advised embassies, international organizations, foundations & multinational corporations on their strategic communications, public affairs & media outreach.
Calvin appears regularly in US and international media as a commentator and analyst on foreign affairs, US politics, current events.
Calvin is a graduate of Duke University, a Fulbright Scholar to Morocco, and speaks English, French, Spanish & Arabic.
Throughout his career, Calvin held several leadership roles where he advised embassies, international organizations, foundations & multinational corporations on their strategic communications, public affairs & media outreach.
Calvin appears regularly in US and international media as a commentator and analyst on foreign affairs, US politics, current events.
Calvin is a graduate of Duke University, a Fulbright Scholar to Morocco, and speaks English, French, Spanish & Arabic.
Lauren Dallas is Co-Founder of Future Females, a movement that exists to increase the number of and support the success of female entrepreneurs. Launching in August 2017 in Cape Town, Future Females is now in 40 cities globally, with 70,000 members, and also runs a three month online Business School that has supported over 800 entrepreneurs with tech-based business ideas, to turn them into profitable businesses, bringing expertise from global partners including the UK-SA Tech Hub and Techstars into South Africa. Most recently they have launched the Future Females Founders Club, and one of South Africa's first female-focused co-working space in collaboration with Inner City Ideas Cartel.
Chris Cade is the founder of The Miracles Store (www.themiracles.store), an inspirational online store where you can get uplifting shirts, hoodies, and coffee mugs with positive quotes on them. 10% of the profits help women and children rise up from domestic violence.
Chris is also a certified Firewalk Instructor by Sundoor's Peggy Dylan (she taught Tony Robbins how to firewalk), he's swum with wild dolphins in the Bahamas, bent spoons with The Monroe Institute (have you heard of the CIA “Stargate” program?), left a six-figure job to become an entrepreneur, and he is a grateful full-time single father.
Chris is also a certified Firewalk Instructor by Sundoor's Peggy Dylan (she taught Tony Robbins how to firewalk), he's swum with wild dolphins in the Bahamas, bent spoons with The Monroe Institute (have you heard of the CIA “Stargate” program?), left a six-figure job to become an entrepreneur, and he is a grateful full-time single father.
My name is David Cawley and I'm a CPA and partner at Fraim, Cawley & Company, CPAs located in Roanoke, Virginia. We're an entrepreneur-centric firm as most of our clients are small to medium size business owners. While we complete our clients tax returns, the returns themselves are almost an afterthought to the services we provide. Our background is in business and we ourselves are entrepreneurs, so our approach is not just saving money on taxes but helping our clients grow their own businesses.
Avishek has been heading product and growth teams for the last 3 years. He has driven significant growth for the last 2 products he has managed. He has experience in various industries like e-commerce, SAAS, BFSI, and more. He had co-founded 2 ventures a few years back, one was India's one of the first organic apparel brand called "Indophile" and later rebranded to "Organic Threadz" and the other was an incentive-based video advertising app called Earnbud. He also manages a content platform on ideation and leadership called Idea Toasters.
