Irina Kharina is a certified gemologist and a luxury jewellery concierge. As the founder of Tsarina Gems, she is a millennial female entrepreneur who started her business during the pandemic after spending 12 years in the gemstone and jewellery industry. Irina provides 1:1 private consultations on luxury custom jewellery to clients all over the world. Irina is passionate about empowering women to invest in their own jewellery to celebrate themselves and their wins, without waiting to receive jewellery as a gift. She has lived in 5 different countries and is currently based in Toronto, Canada.
As CEO of Online Optimism, Flynn Zaiger spends his day keeping his employees happy, his clients happier, and the office pups happiest. Flynn started the agency in 2012 by himself with only a laptop and lots of coffee. Over the last decade, he's grown the team to 20 employees across offices in Washington, DC, Atlanta, and New Orleans. They help businesses all over the world with creative digital marketing, including search, social and website design - essentially, anything that touches a screen.
Tonya McKenzie is an author and public relations consultant by trade, a child advocate by choice. Tonya started her career in public relations at the Mt. Diablo Region YMCA, where she needed media coverage to help grow and expand the services provided to the city. After constructing and selling corporate membership packages, she was nominated and elected to the Oakley Chamber of Commerce and appointed to Contra Costa County's Youth Commission by Supervisor Federal Glover. While Tonya serves on the Board of Directors for the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce and as Vice President of the North Redondo Beach Business Association, she to continues helping entrepreneurs, small businesses, and nonprofits gain media attention and grow their brand recognition through the company that she founded in 2014, Sand & Shores PR.
Larissa Uredi is a Digital Strategist currently living and working in Kansas City, MO. She loves mountain biking, running, exploring and has an insatiable love for all things digital. Her creativity and intense curiosity are what drive and motivate her to find and craft the perfect campaign for her clients and she is a master at helping growing businesses organize, mobilize, and maximize their teams to start telling compelling stories. She is the CEO of No-Where Consultants and finds deep satisfaction in helping businesses and communities find their voice through strategic digital marketing and tools.
In 2001, Heidi Magnuson founded New Leaf Design with the mission of listening to the client and putting in that extra effort to create an amazing product. Today the firm boasts national and local clients with a wide range of work. Magnuson’s design has been recognized for its excellence by HOW magazine, the Web Marketing Association, and the Association of Education Publishers.
JeNay Silva Founder of HERCOLLECTIVE Sole is opening up more conversations in the wellness community in a different way through sneakers. Her mission is to cultivate a community for women in kicks by pushing impactful information to become knowledgeable about footcare. She has a acrynom she lives by for herself but for the brand called AIM (Authenitic, Impatful, Mindsetfree). There’s a new part of the sneaker industry as she calls it “Sneaker Wellness”.
Steve is a serial Entrepreneur who grew a tech company to over 300 employees which ended up listing on the Australian Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $315 Million. After leaving operational duties at that business he moved his family to New Orleans and started Home Buyer Louisiana which helps homeowners sell problem properties by buying them direct for cash.
Brandon is the CEO and Founder of Parkes Philanthropy, a social impact consulting firm, managing over 90+ years of collective experience. Parkes Philanthropy is dedicated to equip the non-profits, corporations and individuals with the ideas and resources and support they need to positively impact the world.
He previously served as a Senior Consultant for Bridge Philanthropic Consulting LLC, nations largest African-American fundraising firm. Prior, he was the Nonprofit Engagement Manager at CariClub, an AI tech company that connects young professionals to leadership roles on nonprofit boards.
He has formerly worked in a corporate philanthropic capacity for companies such as Morgan Stanley and Toyota.
Through these professional titles, he gained experience supporting effective philanthropic strategy that increases social impact, external/internal engagement and nonprofit capacity building. He was humbled to be named one of CauseArtists’s “20 Inspiring African Americans Impacting the World Through Social Impact & Social Innovation,” named one of Startup Boost’s NYC 33 under 33, and has been featured in several publications such as Black Enterprise, Blavity, Nonprofit Technology News, and Blacks in Technology. It’s Brandon’s passion to empower any constituent looking to make a positive social impact on the world.
He previously served as a Senior Consultant for Bridge Philanthropic Consulting LLC, nations largest African-American fundraising firm. Prior, he was the Nonprofit Engagement Manager at CariClub, an AI tech company that connects young professionals to leadership roles on nonprofit boards.
He has formerly worked in a corporate philanthropic capacity for companies such as Morgan Stanley and Toyota.
Through these professional titles, he gained experience supporting effective philanthropic strategy that increases social impact, external/internal engagement and nonprofit capacity building. He was humbled to be named one of CauseArtists’s “20 Inspiring African Americans Impacting the World Through Social Impact & Social Innovation,” named one of Startup Boost’s NYC 33 under 33, and has been featured in several publications such as Black Enterprise, Blavity, Nonprofit Technology News, and Blacks in Technology. It’s Brandon’s passion to empower any constituent looking to make a positive social impact on the world.
International Women's Club was created by Sonia Aujla, age 26 from the UK who aims to support women globally. Whether this be women who want to start their own business and are not too sure how to go forward with the idea or in terms of creating a new website for them and increasing their social media presence. It could also be for current business owners looking to gain more clients or for those who are in employment and need inspiration and motivation to connect with other like-minded women. Having lost her sister to suicide at the age of 18 and seeing women struggle with the confidence to unleash their potential throughout her life, completely flipped Sonia's world upside down. She wanted to know, what is it exactly hat makes people genuinely happy, successful and creatively fulfilled? Why do some people struggle while others find a way to thrive, often despite the most challenging circumstances?
Patrice has all the instability of an entrepreneur. She uses the term instability, because this quality represents the journey of the entrepreneur in spirit and the process to the goal. Instability reflects unreliability, uncertainty, unpredictability, vulnerability, and riskiness. These qualities are the key element that separates this group from the majority. Layered along with discipline and process, Patrice has gained the wisdom and full understanding that you fail your way to success.
