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Intelligent Growth in a Down Market with Iris Choi, Partner, Floodgate — April 23, 2020

Iris Choi, WG’04, is a Partner at Floodgate, an early-stage VC. She’ll share her perspective on how startups can navigate a down market

Join Floodgate Partner Iris Choi, WG’04, to discuss what founders should strive for in a down market. She’ll explain Floodgate’s approach to Intelligent Growth and what VCs are looking for in this environment.

Date: April 23rd, 2020
Time: 12 PM PST
Cost: FREE

Event Video

About Iris Choi

Iris Choi is a Partner at FLOODGATE. She leads follow on investing at FLOODGATE and works closely across the portfolio of companies on a range of strategic areas, including business development, partnerships and financings. Iris serves on the board of select companies, including TouchofModern, MangoHealth, Sharethrough, Maker Media, Nirvana and Business Connect China.

Iris also leads FLOODGATE’s efforts to cultivate new and existing relationships with senior leadership at established technology companies that operate in the spaces in which FLOODGATE invests. These relationships afford FLOODGATE an opportunity to gain insights into industry priorities and trends and also partnership opportunities between the larger players and FLOODGATE portfolio companies.

Iris is also responsible for offering a current perspective around capital markets and M&A trends for portfolio companies and best practices in exit scenarios.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

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Brand Strategy AMA with Superkin & Bartlett Brands — April 10, 2020

Join Superkin Co-founders Miriam Williams (C’04 WG’15) and Tara Elwell Henning and their award-winning agency, Bartlett Brands.

Superkin founders, Tara Elwell Henning and Wharton grad Miriam Williams, share their recent rebrand journey and reveal their brand superpowers in this fun-not-stuffy 60min zoominar. Hear why they decided to rebrand, how they came to select Bartlett Brands, what went down—and where their post-COVID-19 journey may go. Award-winning boutique branding agency, Bartlett Brands, lends their all-girl power expertise and provides pointers for this unexpected, constantly evolving and weird time. Cape optional.

Date: April 10th, 2020
Time: 1-2PM PST
Where: Online
Cost: FREE

About Superkin

Superkin is Not a Maternity Brand. Superkin makes high tech, low maintenance clothing for exceptional women. Founded by women who were sick and tired of being asked if they were sick and tired, our wear-everywhere essentials are deliberately designed to dress you—not just your bump. Because when we create the generations of tomorrow, we deserve to be well-dressed and well-respected today.

About Bartlett Brands

Bartlett Brands is an award-winning boutique branding agency. From cosmetics to consumables, we bring the all-girl power to creating brands that challenge the status and cut through the quo.

Our snappy strategies, stylish stories and standout designs attract the attention of even the world’s most distracted humans, engaging and entertaining them for the long haul. We never met a branding boundary we couldn’t break.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

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60 min break with WAFFA — March 27, 2020

Join us for 60 min for our first online event. Take a break from this madness and meet other incredible women and men at this casual yet intimate event. 

Date: March 27th
Time: 5:30PM PST
Location: online
Cost: FREE

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

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Events Past Events

Navigating the CARES Act: A tactical discussion of the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans with CEO and attorney Amy Shah — April 8, 2020

Join us for a tactical discussion on navigating the Covid-19 stimulus bill with CEO and attorney Amy Shah. We will dive into detail for founders, CEOs, and contractors on how to navigate various sources of capital available through the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans to bridge funding gaps. WAFFA’s Marina Glazman will be (virtually) sitting down with Amy Shah, a banker, lawyer, and Southern California-based commercial real estate CEO, to review in detail the available programs, loans, eligibility, and application processes for capital.

Date: April 8th, 2020
Time: 3PM PST
Cost: Free

Event video 

Resources noted during the session

 
https://hellowaffa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-CARES-Act.pdf
https://hellowaffa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PPP-Explained.pdf
https://hellowaffa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/COVID-19-Economic-Injury-Loan-Application-Tutorial.pdf

About Amy Shah

Amy Shah is the CEO of Shah Management, a real estate investment and management firm focused on the acquisition and development of commercial, retail, multi-family, and developable land properties across Southern California. Amyalso ran proprietary lending at Hunt Real Estate Capital, where she managed real estate capital markets executions and lead the structuring and securitization of CLO transactions totaling ~$2 billion. She previously served as a real estate finance and corporate practice attorney, focusing on capital markets with a focus on securitized transactions at Ledgewood Law. Amy began her finance career in 2004 at Sonneblick-Goldman Company, a Goldman Sachs and DLJ principals’ spin-off, closing over $6 billion in real estate transactions, and representing structures including dispositions, debt financings and equity recapitalizations. Amy holds a JD from Villanova Law School, a degree in finance from The Wharton School, and is passionate about mentoring young women in developing financial literacy

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

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Startups and Downs with Mona Bijoor — February 26, 2020

The public imagination is captivated by stories about entrepreneurs–from wild successes to public failures. Founders like Richard Branson and Sara Blakely have become household names. However, the early days in an entrepreneur’s journey happen out of the public eye. In this period, founders struggle with failures and challenges both personal and professional. In her new book, founder and Wharton alumna Mona Bijoor shares her personal insights and learnings along with tactical guidelines on how to navigate the founder journey. 

Start-Ups and Downs: The Secrets of Resilient Entrepreneurs by Mona Bijoor (Partner, King Circle Capital & Founder, JOOR) takes readers through her entrepreneurial journey where she successfully disrupted an industry as a first time founder. Ten years ago, Mona started JOOR—a global wholesale marketplace—raising millions in venture capital and built a software company successfully curing the pain points in retail. Her story, similar to the other founders interviewed is not about the successes, but rather how to overcome challenges with the right mindset. Mona created a guidebook for navigating everything from pitching with power to coping with competition and includes first-hand accounts from 10 respected entrepreneurs sharing failures and triumphs, including founders of: SmartyPants Vitamins, S’well, WTRMLN WTR, Burrow and Flatiron Health. 

Book Reviews

Date: February 26, 2020
Time: 6PM
Location: HSBC: 11th floor of 452 5th Ave
Admission: $5 or $15 with book

About Mona Bijoor:

Mona Bijoor is a Partner at King Circle Capital LLC, an investment firm and is also the founder of JOOR, an online global B2B marketplace for wholesale buying that directly connects brands and retailers. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, Mona lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters. She is a frequent contributor to TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global. 

About our sponsor, HSBC:

HSBC is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations, serving more than 40 million customers through four global businesses. The commercial banking operations cover 53 countries and territories including the US. Through teams of strategically placed relationship managers, HSBC connects businesses to opportunities, helping them thrive and grow. Working with a wide range of customers, from small enterprises to mid-market companies and large multinationals, they provide the solutions needed to operate efficiently.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

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LA Chapter Launch — February 26, 2020

What better way to learn about entrepreneurship than first-hand from female founders who built their ventures from the ground up? Join Wharton Alumnae Founders and Funders Association (WAFFA) for an opportunity to connect with women professionals in Los Angeles. During the panel, you will hear from female founders about everything that happens behind the scenes and what makes it all worth it. All are welcome. 

Date: Wed, February 26, 2020
Time: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM PST
Location: The Cedars-Sinai Innovation Space, 8601 Beverly Boulevard 
West Hollywood, CA 90048  View Map
Cost: $5

Panelists:

Bianca Gonzales, Co-founder and CEO of AMPAworks

Marina Glazman, Founder and CEO of Suitely

Lindsay McLean, Co-founder and CEO of HomeLister

Hannah Diop, Founder and CEO of Sienna Naturals

Moderated by Mavis Yao

Bianca Gonzalez

Bianca  is the CEO and co-founder of AMPAworks, an IoT system that uses computer vision deep learning models to track inventory in hospitals. Bianca has worked in clinical operations and patient care as a nurse practitioner and clinical trials investigator. She created AMPAworks with fellow Wharton classmates to address the pain points of inventory management and reduce overall costs to hospitals and clinics. AMPAworks has several clinics and hospitals on its platform today and has obtained funding from Cedars-Sinai Hospital Accelerator, 500 Startups, First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund, and grants.

Marina Glazman

In 2015, Marina founded Suitely, a digital retail platform providing guided, designer-free interior decor solutions online. Suitely has been recognized by HGTV, The Washington Post, Vogue, and others as a breakthrough solution for its modular suite-based shopping model. Previously, Marina served in corporate strategy, consulting, and competitive intelligence roles at Bainbridge, where she developed growth strategy for Fortune 100 Media and Healthcare clients; and at Dow Jones where she drove revenue strategy for the Europe and Asia editions of the Wall Street Journal. Previously, she also co-founded/ran Olympia Consulting Group, which served retail and lifestyle companies building digital capabilities. She earned her BA at the University of California San Diego in International Studies—Russian Lit, and an MBA from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.

Lindsay McLean

Lindsay is the Co-Founder and CEO of HomeLister, an industry changing real estate tech company that allows home sellers to take properties directly to market using industry tools. Previously, Lindsay founded LMC Advisory Group, where she served as Managing Member supporting growing real estate businesses with key strategic decisions. She also co-founded Ecological Development, a ground up residential development company; and Ecological Group, an energy efficiency engineering and sustainability consulting group improving value of real estate through green management techniques and sustainability planning. Lindsay began her career as a software engineer at Accenture. She earned her BSE in Bioengineering at University of Pennsylvania, and graduated from Wharton at UPenn with her MBA in 2005.

Hannah Diop

Hannah Diop is the founder of Sienna Naturals. Hannah grew up in Minneapolis, MN in a multiracial family that valued a natural lifestyle. She started Sienna Naturals out of a passion for high quality natural ingredient sourcing and a desire to help women care for their textured hair and scalp health. Sienna Naturals is a treatment-focused system of products that restore hair’s health through ingredients from around the world found in nature and proven by science. Sienna Naturals seeks to become the clean beauty authority in the marketplace for women with textured hair. Hannah started Sienna Naturals on the heels of a successful consulting practice at McKinsey & Company where she served a number of clients in the retail and consumer goods space. Prior to McKinsey she completed her MBA at the Wharton. She holds a BA in International Business from Howard University.

Mavis Yao

Moderator Mavis Yao is a financier, investor and entrepreneur. Currently, she serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’s pediatric medical device accelerator program, CTIP (Consortium for Technology Innovation in Pediatrics) She has extensive experiences in the financial arena ranging from investment banking, option trading, equity analysis and alternative investments. Her success stems from her ability to identify strategic opportunities and undervalued assets across various financial instruments such as real estate, stock and option markets. Mavis holds an MBA from The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. from Stern School of Business, New York University. She is the lead for Facebook Developer Circle in Los Angeles.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

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Sex, Love and Leadership Workshop with Michele Taipale — February 13, 2020

WAFFA Valentine’s Special: we are inviting female founders, funders, as well as supporters to join a 21st Century Workshop for success and fulfillment in the bedroom and the boardroom.

Date: Thursday, Feb 13, 2020
Time: 5:30pm – 6:00pm Check In & Mingle, 6:00pm – 8:00pm Interactive Session Time
Location: CANOPY Jackson Square – 595 Pacific Ave, 4th Floor
Cost: WCNC Members: $15; Non- WCNC Members: $20 Register Now

Experience

We are living in the most anxious of times and modern love is stirring more anxiety than ever. Struggling with the perplexities of relationship, we often miss that what stymies us in our most intimate lives is also what stymies us in our professional lives. Get a handle on how to show up as your brightest, boldest, truest self in your most intimate encounters and you will find yourself more powerful, more comfortable and more effective in all the spheres of your life.

In this highly interactive workshop, we explore the nitty gritty of what runs amok in the earliest phases of our relationships and how we can change course. Through a deep dive into the biology and psychology of love and lust, we examine how nature may lead us astray. Through an examination of our own beliefs and baggage, we uncover what keeps us from the fulfillment we long for. From there, we explore how to change the script. We help you move into the glorious wonderful space of generous fearless loving and open the path to becoming the strongest and best version of yourself.

About Michele Taipale

Michèle is a passionate advocate for human potential with 30 years of experience helping high achievers become more powerful, intentional and effective leaders in their personal and professional lives. With a broad range of experience, from entrepreneur to strategy consultant, from animal trainer to mindfulness and positivity scholar, she sees professional and personal challenges from many perspectives and provides unique insights that bring out the best and the bravest in her clients in all realms of their lives. She is a Leadership coach for The Wharton Executive MBA program and The Coaching Fellowship, and a mentor with Women Unlimited, Inc. She is advisor and coach to many young founders and innovators of pro-social companies such as Copia’s Komal Ahmad (Toyota Mother of Invention, Forbes 30 under 30) and Kidogo’s Sabrina Habib (winner of the 2017 Unilever Young Entrepreneur Awards). In addition to an MBA in Multinational Management, an MA in international Affairs and an MFA in Creative Writing, Michèle has been a member of Ellen Langer’s Mindfulness Lab in the Psychology Department at Harvard and is a certified Happiness Advantage Coach. She has also taught many workshops focused on increasing knowledge, openness, acceptance, humor, curiosity and communication in the realm of relating and bonking.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

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From URL to IRL: Building Community as a digitally native brand — March 5, 2020

Hosted by Boss Women Collective & Wharton Alumnae Founders and Funders Association

Join BWC and WAFFA for a panel discussion on how to power digitally native brands in a new retail landscape. On March 5, we’ll hear from incredible leaders at Google Shopping, Rocksbox, Part & Parcel, Birdies, and Re:store about how they form a connection to their brand, how to think about balancing personalization with scaling, what it takes to build a brick and mortar footprint, and how to grow their physical fleet in the evolving retail tech landscape.

Date: Thu, March 5, 2020
Time: 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM PST
Location: Re:store, 120 Maiden Lane, San Francisco, CA 94108
Cost: $15

About the panelists

Meaghan Rose, Founder and CEO Rocksbox

Lauren Jonas, Founder and CEO of Part & Parcel

Marisa Sharkey, Co-founder and President of Birdies

Moderated by Lucy Liu (Strategic Partnerships at Google Shopping)

About BWC

BWC is an organization focused on empowering women through IRL experiences across San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City. Follow us on social to learn more!

About WAFFA

Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association​ is a 501c3 non-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for women founders and funders.

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Annual Dinner –December 3rd, 2019

2019 Annual Celebration Dinner

Let’s celebrate the year over cocktails, dinner, and fireside chats with:
Tina Sharkey, co-founder of Brandless and Penn alumna, and 
Grace Erickson, C0-Author of the Table Stakes Study and leader of Carta’s Table Stakes iniatitive
Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Time: 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Get your ticket here
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How She Built This with Hayley Leibson, Lunchclub—November 12, 2019

HOW SHE BUILT THIS
Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Please join Wharton Alumni Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) for breakfast and conversation with Hayley Leibson, co-founder & COO of Lunchclub.

Lunchclub is an AI superconnector that makes introductions for 1:1 lunch and coffee meetings. Lunchclub’s mission is to power a future of work where making new connections is easy, meaningful, and fun. Hayley is also the founder of Lady in Tech, an award-winning tech and lifestyle blog for women, and writes a column for Forbes that motivates and moves millennial women to enter the tech industry and build impactful products at scale to improve the world.

Lunchclub has made tens of thousands of in-person connections that have resulted in outcomes including hiring, startup and entertainment investments, consulting and advising, new friendships, and co-founders meeting and starting a business.

Lunchclub is invite-only and live in 8 major cities including the San Francisco Bay Area, NYC, LA, London, and Toronto.

For her inclusion and diversity advocacy work, she’s been featured in ABC 7 News, BBC World Service, BBC 100 Women, Tech Forward, and OZY. She was named a “Top Tech Influencer” by IVY Magazine, “Most Influential Women in Tech” alongside Sheryl Sandberg and Katrina Lake, and included in 20 On The Rise 2018.

We hope you can join Hayley for breakfast and conversation moderated by Shannon Grant. As part of this event, Lunchclub is also giving Wharton attendees an invite to try Lunchclub.

Register Online
Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2019Time: 8:30am – 9:30am
Location:
 CANOPY Jackson Square – 595 Pacific Ave, 4th Floor
Cost: $10 Members, $15 Non-Members

Register