Robin Chase CEO, GOLOCO Founder & former CEO, ZIPCAR

Robin Chase is founder and CEO of GoLoco, an online ridesharing community. GoLoco helps people quickly arrange to share car trips of all lengths between trusted friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and handles online payments from passengers to drivers for their share of the trip costs. GoLoco's innovative combination of social networks and online payment systems recasts how we think about car travel, making it a time for socializing and with a new emphasis on trip efficiency, in order to reduce per passenger costs.   

Robin is founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world. Zipcar’s use of the Internet and wireless technology enables rental cars to emulate personal cars. Zipcar's disruptive technology gives its members on-demand access to cars by-the-hour, revolutionizing people's relationship to their cars and improving the quality of urban life for all. 

Robin also founded and leads Meadow Networks, a consulting firm, where she is frequently consulted by transportation and planning departments at city, state, and federal government agencies, and NGOs about wireless and mesh networking applications in the transportation sector, and impacts on innovation and economic development. She served on the Boston Mayor’s Wireless Task Force, and the Massachusetts Governor-elect’s Transportation Transition Working Committee.  

Robin lectures widely and has been frequently featured in the major media including the Today Show, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Wired, Newsweek, Time and Businessweek magazines, as well as several books on entrepreneurship. She has received many awards, including the Massachusetts Governor's Award for Entrepreneurial Spirit, Start-up Woman of the Year, Business Week’s top 10 designers, Fast Company's Fast 50 Champions of Innovation, technology and innovation awards from Fortune, CIO, and Info World Magazines, and numerous environmental awards from national, state, and local governments and organizations.

Robin graduated from Wellesley College and MIT's Sloan School of Management, and was a Harvard University Loeb Fellow. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and three children.

Gay Gaddis CEO & President T3 (The Think Tank) Largest independent woman-owned advertising agency in US

Gay Gaddis is president and CEO of T3 (The Think Tank). She started her company in 1989 with a cashed-in IRA and two employees. Today, T3 is the largest independent advertising agency wholly-owned by a woman in the country, with offices in Austin, New York and San Francisco and $260 million in capitalized billings. Organized as a marketing and creative think tank, T3 works with clients including Marriott, JCPenney, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, UPS, John Deere, Universal, Ingenix and Microsoft.

She is an active industry spokesperson and entrepreneurial advocate. Gay blogs for PINK magazine, is a columnist for iMedia Communications, an interactive media and marketing trade publisher, and recently participated in the Global Summit of Women in Berlin, The New York Times Small Business Summit and Harvard’s Dynamic Women in Business Conference. In addition, she’s a member of the Texas Governor’s Business Council’s executive board, the Women’s Leadership Exchange (WLE) national advisory board and the Committee of 200 (C200).

Gay’s dynamic business acumen and corporate culture has led to national recognition. She has been recognized as one of Fast Company’s “Top 25 Women Business Builders,” Inc. magazine’s “Top 10 Entrepreneurs of the Year” and 25 Advertising Working Mothers of the Year by Working Mother magazine. T3’s family-friendly workplace programs have been recognized by the White House, the “Today” show,” The New York Times, Fortune Small Business and most recently, “Good Morning America.” 

Before founding T3, Gay started her career as a copywriter with The Richards Group. She then served as public relations director for Baylor University Medical Center; marketing director for Leadership Dynamics, a national management consulting firm; and a full partner at an Austin advertising agency. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin.

Gay and her husband Lee are parents to three: Sam, a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, Rebecca, a graduate of the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising in New York, New York, and Ben, a graduate of Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. Together, Gay and Lee, who is also the COO for T3, run the Double Heart Ranch where they raise Texas Longhorns and endangered Madrone trees.

Thai Lee CEO & President SOFTWARE HOUSE INTERNATIONAL

Thai Lee is the President and CEO of Software House International Inc (“SHI”), one of the top 10 largest privately held Information Technology companies in America.  With annual revenues exceeding U$2 Billion, SHI is one of handful of companies in America owned and run by a woman entrepreneur.  

Thai was born in Thailand and moved around a lot with her family.   By the time she was 10, Thai had lived and attended local schools in Korea, Germany and the U.S.  For college, Thai decided to apply to Amherst College based on the influence of family members who had also attended Amherst.  While at Amherst, Thai majored in Biology and Economics.   After college, Thai attended Harvard Business School and became the first Korean-American woman to graduate from HBS.   Within four years of graduating from HBS, Thai bought SHI with her now ex-husband.   

From day 1, Thai Lee’s personal contribution to the company’s success was pivotal.   As a new organization established in 1989, SHI produced less than $1 million dollars in annual revenues.   After nearly 10 years of doubling revenue, by 2000, SHI had reached U$1 Billion in revenue, and by 2005, SHI revenue exceeded U$2 Billion.

Thai has served as Trustee of Amherst College and as the first woman president of the Alumni Society for Amherst College.   Thai currently serves as section secretary for HBS and is an executive member and trustee for  Human Rights North Korea, a non profit organization.   Thai is also an active member of Young President Organization and Circle Financial Group.   Thai lives and works in New Jersey and has 2 children.

Stephanie Hanbury Brown Founder & Managing Director, GOLDEN SEEDS Angel Investment Group

Stephanie Hanbury-Brown is an active angel investor in early stage high growth companies. Her portfolio encompasses various sectors, including software, hardware, health care, consumer goods and media. In 2005 she founded Golden Seeds, an angel investor group that invests in women-owned companies.

Stephanie’s 20 year career prior to becoming an investor was in financial services. She has worked in all three times zones - in Sydney, London and New York. The majority of her career was with J.P. Morgan where she headed several global businesses (including positions as Global Head of Futures & Options, Head of International Private Banking, COO of Global Equities and Head of eCommerce) where she grew and managed revenue and expense budgets up to $500m.

Stephanie retains board positions with public company Foster Wheeler Limited, private company Artemis Woman, non-profit Count Me In, and is a member of the Dove brand’s Challenger Board. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney.

Jeanne Sullivan General Partner & Venture Capitalist STARVEST PARTNERS LP

Jeanne has 17 years of private equity experience and has spent 27 years in the technology sector encompassing both extensive operating and investing experience with technology companies. Over the past 17 years as a founding principal of StarVest and previously with Olivetti Ventures, Ms. Sullivan has served on the boards of fourteen private and two public companies and has extensive experience creating “go to market” plans for expansion stage companies. Her expertise also includes strategy, an understanding of the technology landscape and industry trends. She has been a member of all board committees, and has served as the head of several Compensation Committees.

From 1990 to 1997, Ms. Sullivan was an investing principal of Olivetti Ventures the New York City-based investment arm of Ing. C. Olivetti & C., S.p.A., the European computer services conglomerate located in Ivrea, Italy. Ms. Sullivan’s responsibilities included deal flow, portfolio management, and strategic participation in exit strategies. She also served on the Board of Directors of several of the partnership’s technology portfolio companies.

Ms. Sullivan has invested in a wide range of technology companies, including communications products, hardware and software tools, enabling technologies for the Internet, Web-based content, enterprise software, and semiconductors. Olivetti typically co-invested, and in some cases originated investments, with premier venture firms in Silicon Valley and Boston.

From 1981 to 1990, Ms. Sullivan was with AT&T, serving in a variety of product management and business-to-business marketing roles, and was the Product Director for a Bell Laboratories internal venture business unit. The product, a high-end parallel processor with graphics and scientific imaging libraries, utilized enabling technologies that are now part of the Internet. Her prior experience in marketing and advertising with Bozell Worldwide (1971–1978) gave Ms. Sullivan the business foundation for creating and developing marketing programs and plans for many businesses.

Ms. Sullivan holds a BS from the University of Illinois and a JD from Creighton University School of Law. She directed the selection committee as part of the founding group for the New York New Media Association Angel Investors Program. She is active with the Natural Resource Defense Council, a nonprofit New York City-based organization that lobbies for environmental reform, and established the New York area Environmental Entrepreneurs group comprised of business and technology leaders. She is also on the Emerging Enterprise Committee of the National Minority Business Council. Ms. Sullivan is a sought-after industry speaker on the subject of investing in and building technology companies and serves as an adjunct professor of marketing at the graduate level.

Gwill York Founder & Managing Partner LIGHTHOUSE CAPITAL PARTNERS

Gwill has spent the last 20 years in a variety of positions in the venture capital community, the last 17 focused exclusively on structured venture capital investing. She directs the firm's East Coast investment activities, and oversees investment decision making, fundraising, and other operational activities for the Funds. While at Lighthouse she has led the firm's investments in NxStage Medical, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, DataSage, Sirocco Systems, Corvis, Triton, Ontogeny, StorageNetworks, and Bolt Media.

Prior to co-founding Lighthouse in June 1994, Gwill was a Senior Vice President with Comdisco Ventures where she directed and managed East Coast investment activities. She joined Comdisco Ventures in 1988 having been recruited to establish its East Coast presence. While at Comdisco, she led the firm's investments in over 50 companies, primarily in the biotechnology and communications equipment areas including Human Genome Sciences, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Cascade Communications, Appex, and Brooktrout Technologies.

Gwill holds an AB in economics from Harvard University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.