SBC 2024
ABOUT
PHOTOS
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
MIRIAM RIVERA
Keynote, CEO, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Ulu Ventures
Miriam Rivera is CEO, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Ulu Ventures, a top seed stage venture fund in Silicon Valley focused on innovation across the enterprise, fintech, consumer, health, and sustainability sectors. Miriam is dedicated to increasing diversity in both the entrepreneurial and investment communities. Ulu’s investment thesis is based on the concept
that diversity is profitable, coupled with a data-driven, repeatable process for making investment decisions. More than 75% of Ulu portfolio companies are founded by diverse teams that include women, minority, URM and/or immigrant founders. The firm has more than $200M in assets under management and 10 unicorns in the portfolio. Ulu was the first Latina-led venture fund in Silicon Valley and Miriam is a recognized pioneer in both the tech and Latinx communities.
Before co-founding Ulu, Miriam was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Google, joining in 2001 as its second attorney. Her work to simplify contracts helped Google scale from $85m to $10b in 5 years. Her career has also included experience as a startup cofounder in her own right, as a senior attorney at a top enterprise software company in Silicon Valley, and as a practicing attorney with a leading Silicon Valley firm. Miriam earned AB, AM and JD/MBA degrees from Stanford. She has been a trustee of the university and honored with the Stanford Medal, awarded to fewer than 1 percent of alumni, as well as elected to the Stanford Multicultural Hall of Fame, which recognizes diverse alumni leaders for their exceptional service to the university and society. Miriam is also the co- founder, former co-president and on the board of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, an open-source network of Stanford alumni investors and entrepreneurs.
She serves on the board of the Kauffman Foundation, Acumen Fund America, and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that creates the iconic Sesame Street program. Miriam was formerly an advisor to the Launch with GS Advisory Council, a Goldman Sachs initiative to reduce the investing gap for Black and LatinX founders.
PANEL 1:
Business with a Legal Background
ELYA BRADEN
Founder and President of HaGomel Foundation
From an early age, Elya had a passion for the expressive arts—writing poetry, singing and acting, dancing, and exploring various arts and crafts. However, after earning her B.A. in Religion at Duke University and her J.D. at Stanford Law School, Elya took a detour from her creative endeavors to practice corporate and securities law for 14 years, eventually serving as General Counsel of two public companies in the Seattle area.
Following her legal career, Elya launched and led AWARE™, a networking group for experienced women lawyers, while also serving on boards of non-profit and for-profit businesses. During that time, Elya was drawn to explore her creativity, first returning to singing, then acting, as she performed in jazz, cabaret and rock shows around Seattle, and in musicals, plays, independent films, and TV commercials.
In 2008, Elya returned to her hometown of Los Angeles where she focused on her writing. Her poetry has since been widely published in literary journals and magazines in the United States and internationally and has been nominated for several awards. She is an editor of Gyroscope Review, a contemporary poetry journal, and her first chapbook, Open The Fist, a poetic exploration of her own experience of sexual trauma and healing, was published in 2020.
Following her return to Los Angeles, Elya also studied collage and mixed media, creating works in a variety of mediums, and trained as a NIA dance instructor. She is grateful to have the opportunity to combine these various practices as she develops and leads HaGomel’s multi-modal workshops interweaving poetry, visual art, music, and movement. HaGomel's mission is to provide free expressive arts programs to support emotional and psychological healing for women who have experienced sexual and other trauma. Elya was inspired to launch HaGomel after experiencing the power of the expressive arts in her own healing journey.
MARIA DOUVAS ORME
Managing Director in Morgan Stanley’s Legal & Compliance Division
Maria Douvas Orme is global co-head of legal coverage for the Fixed Income Division, which is Morgan Stanley’s institutional sales and trading business that acts as a dealer and market maker in a wide range of fixed income products, including: currencies; interest rates and sovereign debt; commodities; investment grade and high yield credit; and securitized products.
In her role at Morgan Stanley, Maria is the firm’s representative on the New York Foreign Exchange Committee (NY FXC), which is a committee sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of NY (FRBNY) and comprised of major market participants engaged in currency trading. The NY FXC recommends best practices for the currency market, including the Foreign Exchange Global Code of Conduct, which is a principles-based code adhered to by major foreign exchange dealers, asset managers, corporates and trading platforms.
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Maria is also Morgan Stanley’s representative on the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) and Co-Chair of the ARRC’s Legal Working Group. The ARRC is a committee of private market participants and U.S. regulators that was convened in 2014 by the Federal Reserve Board and the FRBNY following the post-financial crisis LIBOR manipulation scandals. The ARRC was established to identify an alternative benchmark to LIBOR, which was the predominant interest rate benchmark used in an estimated $200 trillion of financial contracts ranging from floating rate debt, interest rate derivatives and institutional and retail loans. The ARRC also recommended best practices for the market’s transition from LIBOR to SOFR, the recommended alternative rate, and was instrumental in the passage of the federal LIBOR Act that addressed legacy LIBOR contracts that could not be amended prior to LIBOR’s cessation on June 30, 2023.
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Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2004, Maria was Assistant General Counsel of AIG Trading Group Inc., a foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives dealing subsidiary of American International Group Inc. Maria started her career as an associate in the business and finance departments of two major law firms in New York City -- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. Maria graduated summa cum laude from Duke University where she received an A.B. (with honors) in Economics and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D. from Duke University School of Law.
SUSAN BIGLIERI
Kleiner Perkins Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Sue Biglieri has been with Kleiner Perkins for 25+ years and has been CFO since 2001. She feels her most valuable accomplishment has been the set of core values instilled in the team for our relationships with investing partners, LPs, and our extended family of entrepreneurs. Susan’s primary role is to oversee the financial management of the firm, including tax, finance operations, legal, and management company operations. Prior to Kleiner Perkins, Susan worked in financial positions at Mouse Systems Technology and Ernst & Young in both audit and tax. Outside of Kleiner Perkins Sue is a lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Law, a member of the NVCA CFO Taskforce, and a board member of the Villanova ICE Advisory Council. Sue received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley and is a CPA (retired).
PANEL 2:
Ethics and Economics
JOHANNA SIXL
Scout Motors Inc.
Johanna Sixl is part of the Strategy Team at Scout Motors Inc., an automotive start-up designing, engineering, and building the next generation of all-electric trucks and rugged SUVs in the US. With prior experiences across the electric vehicle industry at players such as Tesla and Rivian, Johanna is passionate about bringing electrification to new frontiers. Her leadership was recently recognized when she was selected as the youngest recipient of the 2023 Top Women in EV award. Since her graduation, Johanna has offered her time and mentorship to students at her alma mater, Purdue University.
JULIA KORN
Founder + CEO of The Authenticity Guide
Angelica Visconti joined Salvatore Ferragamo in 2002 in the Corporate Induction Training Programme. Since then she has occupied several positions for Ferragamo in Marketing and Retail in various countries such as the US, Greater China, and finally the Europe Region. She is currently the Global Travel Retail and Wholesale Director and is a Member of the Board of Directors.
CLOSING KEYNOTE
KELSEY WILLOCK
Co-Founder & CEO of Aura
After paying off over $150,000 of student debt and overcoming massive financial anxiety, she wanted to create access points for underrepresented investors, so they would not face the journey to financial freedom alone. She is also the author of "Not Your Boyfriend's Investment Advice,” a newsletter that uses humor and storytelling to educate her readers about investing and personal finance.
Kelsey began her career at Goldman Sachs where she was a Vice President in the Global Markets Division serving as a Relationship Manager for the firm’s top hedge fund clients. In addition, she was an Ambassador for Launch With GS, Goldman Sachs’ $1 billion investment strategy grounded in our belief that diverse teams drive strong returns. Through Launch With GS, she aimed to increase access to capital and facilitate connections for women, Black, Latinx & other diverse entrepreneurs and investors. She actively sourced investment opportunities for Launch Lead investors and coordinated West Coast events to grow the ecosystem. At the firm, she held a Series 7 & 63.
Kelsey is also an active member of WISE (Women Investing for a Sustainable Economy), Women in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and an executive committee member of Wake NOW (the Wake Forest Network of Women).
Kelsey has been featured in numerous news publications and podcasts including Nasdaq, WTFintech, 7 Investing, Thinking is Cool, Bull and Bear and more. She also frequently speaks on financial literacy topics and has spoken to organizations such as Eve Wealth, Women in Tech, Columbia Women's Business Society, Kellogg School of Management, World Economic Forum Global Shapers, and more.
SPONSORS
