Allison has spent her entire career at the intersection of finance, technology, and the future of work. As a General Partner at early stage venture capital fund SemperVirens, Allison invests in technology transforming work, health, and financial wellness. The fund is backed by an ecosystem of 1500+ HR leaders, giving Allison unique insights into the needs and perspectives of industry-leading employers. She is also a contributing writer for Forbes and a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley-Haas.

Prior to joining SemperVirens, Allison worked on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs; was an early employee at General Assembly (which sold to Adecco for $413mln in 2018); co-founded Fresco Capital, a global seed fund; and was an investor at Trinity Ventures.  She holds a B.A. in Economics with Honors, a minor in Film Studies, and a language citation in French from Harvard University.

Angela Lee is a Professor of Venture Capital Practice at Columbia Business School.  She teaches Venture Capital (Foundations of VC, VC Seminar) and Leadership (The Leader’s Voice) courses.  She brings 20 years of innovation, strategy and entrepreneurship experience to the classroom.  She started her career in product management and then moved into strategy consulting at McKinsey.  Angela is passionate about entrepreneurship and has started several companies in the education sector.  She is a startup investor and the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated 15000 startups, invested in 60, and activates new investors through a startup investment bootcamp.

Angela has spoken at the White House and NASA and is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC and Fox Business.  She was recognized by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch in 2017, by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch in 2015, and by Crain’s as a Notable Women in Tech in 2019.  Angela received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and her MBA from Columbia Business School.

Haley is a pre-seed investor at Hustle Fund. After graduating from the University of Virginia, Haley led teams at Apple retail. Apple’s small business program led her to startup customer success leadership roles at I Done This (acquired), Brazen, and b2b SaaS content marketing agency Animalz where she became COO and started angel investing in founders from and/or supporting underserved communities. Haley broke into VC by growing Hustle Fund’s Angel Squad community, on a mission to democratize access to wealth creation through startups for the next 10,000 angel investors.

Emily Achler is the CEO and co-founder of Italic Type - where her vision is to work toward a world where more people are reaching for a book at night than for their phones to endlessly scroll. A first time founder, she’s bootstrapped her way to 10,000 users and a sticky retention rate with the Italic Type web app. 

She believes tech can be a force for good and that entrepreneurship can be a form of protest against the status quo. 

Prior to founding Italic Type, she was the Director of Marketing and Communications for Evergreen Climate Innovations, an early stage cleantech VC in Chicago focused on commercializing university IP and catalyzing economic development in the Midwest. 

With an undergraduate degree in geography, she lived and worked in Washington, D.C. for many years working on issues ranging from gun control policy to healthy dating curriculum with the CDC and on kids educational gaming with PBS KIDS. 

Emily likes hard puzzles, good books, fun maps, and dance parties. Ten years ago she founded and continues to lead Chicago’s Best Fiction Book Club (A Totally Unbiased Opinion)™.  

She lives in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago with her husband Jason and their collection of records, plants, and yes, books. 

Ellie Bahrmasel is the CEO of Further Faster Ventures. Throughout her career, Ellie has leveraged human centered design and systems thinking to advance collaborative initiatives in the private, public and nonprofit sectors with partners domestically and abroad. From venture-backed startups to Fortune 100’s, her prior work includes collaborations with The Kennedy Forum, Comcast, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, The Roddenberry Fellowship, and a number of internationally celebrated startup accelerators. 

Ellie and the Further Faster team spend their days working with today’s pioneers at the forefront of shaping our future through venture creation, helping them build startups, funds, accelerators, and other vehicles for change. Since their founding, Further Faster has worked with over seventy early stage ventures, designed six accelerator programs, and reconstructed one fund thesis.                                                                                            
Previously, Ellie co-founded New Founders, a tech startup and PAC that organized emerging grassroots organizations to coordinate efforts with established institutions to advance democracy.

Outside of Further Faster, Ellie is an adjunct faculty member at the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship at Illinois Tech. She is a member of the BMW Herbert Quandt Responsible Leaders Network, and a delegate to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Young Diplomats Seminar. She was a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Emerging Leaders 2022 cohort. Ellie also serves on the steering committee for the Chicago Chapter of All Raise, an organization committed to achieving gender parity for startup founders and investors. 

Julia Boorstin is CNBC’s Senior Media & Tech Correspondent and has been an on-air reporter for the network since 2006. She also plays a central role on CNBC’s bicoastal tech-focused program “TechCheck” delivering reporting, analysis, and CEO interviews with a focus on social media and the intersection of media and technology. In 2013, Boorstin created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list she oversees, highlighting private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries. She also helped launch the network’s ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative covering the people and companies closing gender and diversity gaps. 

A graduate of Princeton University, she has been a reporter for Fortune magazine, as well as a contributor to CNN and CNN Headline News. She also interned for Vice President Gore’s domestic policy office. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Kim Hill is a communications leader with experience in higher education, business and media. As Chief of Staff and Head of Corporate Communications at ReliaQuest, Kim manages strategic priorities for ReliaQuest CEO Brian Murphy, in addition to executive communications, internal communications, corporate PR and community partnerships. She previously served as Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Communications at the University of South Florida. She started her career as a journalist with the Tampa Bay Times. She has a Bachelor’s of Science in journalism from the University of Florida and an MBA from the University of South Florida.