Christie serves as the Executive Director for Rock Recovery, a nonprofit that helps people overcome eating disorders and mental health challenges by combining clinical and community care. Having gone through recovery herself, she understands the depth of support needed to recover and is passionate about spreading the message that freedom from disordered eating is possible. She is an active speaker and shares her story with organizations and media outlets across the country. Prior to coming on staff at Rock Recovery Christie worked as a consultant with PwC and served as Associate Development Director for Habitat for Humanity's 7th largest national affiliate in Charlotte, NC. Christie now resides in Washington, DC with her husband, Ryan.
Chandra has built successful and profitable businesses through her boutique consulting and public relations firm, Chandra Gore Consulting, working with entrepreneurs to help them create foundations to ensure longevity and growth. Quietly making strides with placements for small businesses, entertainment, authors, therapists and motivational speaking clients on local and national news outlets she has also been leaving her mark as a publicist in the industry. She is also an author, speaker, podcast host, festival founder and producer.
Cody is a co-founder of Gold City Ventures. He is also the co-founder of the Financial Freedom Summit, owner of Fly to FI, and co-host of The FI Show. He left his corporate banking job at age 22 to pursue entrepreneurship full time and now teaches others how to do the same.
Catherine is the Founder and Head Coach of Unbounded Potential, a personal coaching firm dedicated to helping rising star performers and entrepreneurs who are committed to making an impact in the world. As an executive life and leadership coach, entrepreneur and world traveler, clients have referred to her as a guardian angel for their dreams. Catherine earned her coaching certification from Accomplishment Coaching where she currently supports coaches in training and with their development and personal leadership. She holds the designation of Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation.
Chris Castanes is an award winning insurance agent, speaker and author of “You're Going To Be Great At This!”. As president of Surf Financial Brokers since 2011, he helps his clients with life and disability, and long term insurance. He is originally from Fayetteville, NC and began his career in sales and marketing after graduating from North Carolina State University in 1985. He resides in North Myrtle Beach, SC with his wife and daughter.
Christa was a two-sport division scholarship athlete in Women’s Fast-pitch Softball and Women’s Volleyball at George Mason University. After graduating she played with the Connecticut Brakettes, a Women Majors fast-pitch team. In August 2002 Christa made the Greek National Softball Team which won GOLD at the 2003 European Championships B-Pool. In 2004 she was selected to be an alternate and assistant coach for the team at the OLYMPIC SUMMER GAMES in Athens, Greece. In 2005 she helped the team win an A Pool Silver at the European Championships. In the gym, Christa is known for her sarcasm and her ability to ‘Christa’ people. To be Christa’d is to suddenly find yourself doing something you had no intention of doing. Not a bad trick for a trainer! Christa enjoys spending her time off with Jeff and their son Gordon and her twin girls Eleni & Zephera. She loves anything to do with being outdoors.
Carmen Wilde is a top-rated, Business Breakthrough & Behavioral Specialist who helps entrepreneurs make the SWITCH from sporadic growth to Wilde Success! By age 30, Carmen was an international division head for a billion-dollar organization and a self-made millionaire. She’s a successful multinational entrepreneur, has 20+ years commercial experience and has helped hundreds of business leaders unleash hidden potential and achieve breakthrough results… from doubling growth and building 7-figure businesses in less than a year, to shifting from ‘Setback to Success Track’ and building Magnetic Confidence. She lives on the tropical island of Mauritius, the realization of a teenage dream and testimony to her motto: “You can have anything you want, Just Decide!!”
Christina Baucom is an attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Headquartered in Alexandria, Va, the USPTO is the federal agency responsible for granting U.S. patents and registering trademarks. Throughout her education and career, Ms. Calloway has sought to merge her personal passion for the arts and professional pursuits in public service. She is a Board member of the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association and was recently appointed to the City’s Commission for the Arts. She frequently speaks and/or volunteers in educating small business owners and creatives about their intellectual property. She is the digital content creator of sharpandsound.com focusing on local lifestyle and style inspiration.
Chris Hoffman, Owner and Co-founder of Formula Running Center in Arlington, VA, has always been passionate about running and endurance training. After years of training, Chris continually found himself searching for a place that provided the complete training experience for all runners, a place where runners could train together and grow. From there, Chris worked with a longtime friend and business partner, to create and cultivate the home for runners – Formula Running Center. Chris has competed in numerous marathons, running races and in a variety of triathlons as well and through his running journey he became an RRCA certified running coach and a NASM certified personal trainer.
For close to 10 years, Cheree Warrick helped companies raise millions of dollars as a business plan writer. The most successful fundraisers already had a network of high net worth individuals and could raise millions within a few weeks of Cheree completing their business plan. Her black clients (most of whom had great ideas but didn’t have these relationships) would struggle to receive funding. Cheree has a solution to this massive problem. She's building the largest community of black small dollar investors who want to help fund black businesses.
