Sam Bright

Impact Through Tech

Sam Bright is a senior operating executive with over 15 years of experience scaling technology businesses and teams inorganically and organically. His career reflects a demonstrated track record of growing multi-billion-dollar P&Ls, executing complex domestic and global transactions, leading teams through turnarounds and times of transition, and leveraging his unique perspective as a multicultural millennial consumer paired with his operating experience to “see around corners” on digital strategy.

Currently, Sam is the Vice President and General Manager of Verticals at eBay. As part of his remit, he has P&L responsibility for all of eBay’s NA vertical business units and also oversees WHI, a software subsidiary providing catalog solutions for the automotive sector. During prior roles at eBay, he oversaw individual vertical business units, executed 70+ partnerships while leading the Strategic Partnerships team, and led four transactions in local delivery, machine translation, and India market expansion during his stint on the M&A team.

Prior to eBay, Sam advised on over $10 billion of tech M&A deal processes at BofA Merrill Lynch and previously, he rose through the ranks to become the youngest industry analyst at Forrester Research advising Chief Information Officers through tech research and consulting. He began his career leading market research for entrepreneurs at a business incubator in Northeast Indiana.

Sam is a member of the Benetech Board of Directors and serves on the Development Committee. He is also a member of the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum Advisory Council and is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and credentialed as an NACD Governance Fellow. He has been named to Black Enterprise’s 2018 “List of the Most Influential Blacks in Technology“ and The Network Journal’s 2018 “40 Under Forty” class and is an active supporter of multiple philanthropic causes.

Sam graduated summa cum laude in 3 years with a BA in Management from Taylor University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School with his elective coursework focused on General Management, Entrepreneurship, and Finance.

Jim Clerkin

Spirits Industry Diversity Advocate

Champion of Change for Diversity & Inclusion in the Spirits Industry

Over his 40-year career, Jim Clerkin has worked for many prominent companies in the wine and spirits industry.

In his current role, as President of Moët Hennessy Strategic Development and Advisor to the CEO, Jim is an Executive member of the Moët Hennessy Operational Committee, carries responsibility for key areas of global strategic development and participates in defining and executing the global Moët Hennessy Mergers & Acquisition strategy. Furthermore, Jim leads the Woodinville Board of Directors.

Jim joined Moët Hennessy in 2008, and prior to his current role, he held the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Moët Hennessy USA and most recently, of President and CEO of Moët Hennessy North America, with responsibility for the company’s portfolio of global brands such as Hennessy, Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon, Veuve Clicquot, and Belvedere, across the USA, Canada and Mexico. Furthermore, Jim represented Moët Hennessy on the board of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

Jim began his career in Ireland, where he rose through the ranks at Guinness, to ultimately become an executive member of the Board of Directors. In 1994, Grand Metropolitan recruited him to head its Irish wines and spirits division. Following his tenure at Grand Metropolitan, Diageo appointed him as EVP and President, assuming responsibility for Diageo’s wine and spirits division in the Western region of the United States, and consecutively, he joined Allied Domecq in 2003, to lead their business in the Americas as President for North America and Canada, reporting to the Global CEO. Following the acquisition of Allied Domecq by Pernod Ricard and Jim Beam, Jim was appointed CEO of the new and enlarged Beam Global Company for Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.

Jim has been an Independent Non-Executive Director of C&C Group plc since April 1, 2017. He currently resides in New York City, and is committed to supporting various philanthropic causes both in the U.S. and abroad.  Jim is the Chairman of Co-operation Ireland in the U.S., which is a nonprofit that promotes peace and a sustained reconciliation in his home country of Ireland.

Wine Enthusiast Magazine announced Jim as the winner of the “2017 Person of the Year” award. This recognition, which celebrates individuals that have contributed significantly to the success of the wine and spirits industry, was presented at the magazine’s 18th annual Wine Star Awards. In 2019, the Committee for Economic Development (CED) honored Jim with the “Leadership in the Nation’s Interest” award, which recognizes business executives who lead their companies with the utmost integrity and purpose, and champion issues for the common good.

Kareem Cook & Claude Tellis

Health Through Plant Protein

Kareem Cook and Claude Tellis acquired Naturade back in 2012. However, it wasn’t always an easy journey for these two. These two entrepreneurs have banned junk food from Los Angeles schools, overcome adversity, and have family histories of diabetes and cancer. Their experiences growing up have inspired them to start living healthy lifestyles and share them with the African American community.

Kareem and Claude first meet in college at Duke University and later reconnected after attending business school. They made the move to California together and began spreading healthy ideas across the area. Growing up on the east coast both Kareem and Claude believed that everyone on the west coast, and California in particular were extremely healthy and fit. They were shocked to see first hand the rate of childhood obesity in the Los Angeles area. They decided to help reduce that number. This is where their journey to spread health and wellness began. The worked to start a healthy vending company in LA. and were responsible for junk food being banned in LA schools, and leading the state of California to banning junk foods. The pair put the first healthy vending machine in LA and acquired the contract for all of the public schools in LA.

While banning junk foods in schools across LA is a large accomplishment the men were unsatisfied. They wanted a larger platform to help African Americans prevent common illnesses that plague the community. Both Kareem and Claude’s families and many African Americans across the country suffer from hypertension and diabetes, illnesses that can be prevented or managed largely based on diet. This passion lead them to develop a business plan to prevent illnesses like diabetes. Their plan involved the purchase of Naturade.

Once Kareem and Claude purchases Naturade their efforts to educate the African American community on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle began in earnest. They were introduced to people who shared similar viewpoints, including John Lewis. Kareem and Claude paired up with John Lewis to create VeganSmart, a plant based protein powder. The pair has made strides to spread health and wellness among the African American community, as well as americans across the country. Kareem Cook and Claude Tellis plant to continue to share their passion for living healthy plant-based lifestyles with the African American community.

Thasunda Duckett

Advancing Black Pathways

Thasunda Duckett, CEO of Chase Consumer Banking, a division of JPMorgan Chase, has joined an exclusive club with her recent appointment to NIKE‘s board of directors. As such, she has become the only African American female C-suite executive to serve on the board of the $34.3 billion athletic footwear and apparel producer as well as a future member of the BLACK ENTERPRISE Registry of Corporate Directors, which identifies blacks among the corporate governance ranks of the nation’s largest publicly traded companies.

Prior to her current role, she was CEO of Chase Auto Finance, one of the top providers of auto financing with a portfolio of more than $80 billion in assets and relationships with 75% of U.S. franchised automotive dealers. Under her leadership, the division moved from No. 27 in the JD Power Dealer Financing Satisfaction Survey to the leader in Prime and Non-Prime. She expanded its dealer partnerships and launched Chase Auto Direct, its latest direct-to-consumer business.

Landon Edmond

Tech Lawyer Opening Doors

As a member of the SAP Senior Leadership Team working directly with the SAP executive management team, Landon Edmond serves as Senior Vice President and General Counsel, GCO and Cloud Business Group for SAP. In this role, Landon functions as chief legal officer for SAP SE’s global field operations and subsidiaries in 50+ countries. All regional, market unit and line of business legal counsel (300+ legal professionals in 20+ countries) report into his organization.

Prior to his 19 years at SAP/SAP Ariba, Landon served as associate counsel with the renowned San Francisco law firm, Morrison and Foerster. While at Morrison and Foerster, Landon specialized in complex civil litigation with a focus on intellectual property matters and pro bono legal work for the Lawyer’s Committee on Civil Rights.

Landon has local San Francisco Bay Area roots growing up in San Jose and graduating from Santa Clara University School of Law but played Division I basketball while attending the University of South Florida in his undergraduate studies.

Landon remains committed to basketball and law school by serving as a volunteer youth basketball coach and a mentor in the Santa Clara University School of Law Entrepreneurs’ Law Clinic.

Rashida Hanif

Academic Dream Enabler

Rashida is the founder and CEO of RepresentEd and brings with her multiple years of experience in the corporate sector . She leverages her business background to form a unique approach to instructing students by applying academic curriculum to real-world scenarios using design methodology. Her passion for inspiring young adults to reach for their dreams has led her to serve as a facilitator, instructor and mentor in both academia and impact-focused organizations. Rashida received her BA from University of California, Berkeley.

William Heard

Next Gen Private Equity Leader

William Heard is the founder of Heard Capital LLC and serves as the Firm’s Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, leading the Firm’s investment process and strategic direction.

Prior to founding and leading Heard Capital LLC, Mr. Heard was a special situations analyst for Stark Investments, a global alternative investment firm. While at Stark Investments, he covered the telecommunications, media, technology, financials, and energy sectors. Mr. Heard’s investment experience spans asset classes and includes leveraged loans, high yield bonds and equity securities.

Mr. Heard currently serves on the Leadership Council for A Better Chicago, the City Year Chicago Board of Directors, and actively participates in OneGoal: a diverse collective of local organizations creating opportunities for today’s youth and low-income population. Mr. Heard is a member of the President’s Circle and Young Professional Network for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Mr. Heard is a graduate of Marquette University’s College of Business Administration where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Real Estate. While at Marquette, he founded and established the University’s Applied Investment Management (AIM) Program. AIM was the first undergraduate business program in the nation to be selected as a Program Partner by the CFA Institute. A strong proponent of higher education, Mr. Heard gives motivational speeches to students about leadership, globalism and the nature of competition. In his spare time, Mr. Heard enjoys mentoring and reading.

Brandon Hoffman & Antonio Key

Venture Capital Disruptor Duo

Antonio Key is a deal lead on the Samsung NEXT M&A team. He assists NEXT in the evaluation and execution of acquisitions and strategic investments, focusing primarily on software and services. His coverage areas have included Augmented Reality, AI, IoT, Digital Fitness and Mapping. Prior to NEXT, he served as an investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he specialized on Tech M&A for public and private companies. Antonio has an MBA from The Wharton School and a BA from Stanford University.

Brandon Hoffman manages Innovation & Research at Samsung NEXT, where he works to create the thought leadership agenda on behalf of the Chief Innovation Officer delivering insights on disruptive trends relating to Industries, Consumers & Technologies, and Geographies. In this role, he leverages his expertise to educate Samsung NEXT, Samsung leadership and the wider Samsung community on both the challenges and opportunities facing the organization, all while driving collaboration between Samsung NEXT and the broader startup ecosystem. He also co-founded and leads the Diverse Founders Initiative, which is focused on identifying, empowering, and elevating early-stage startups founded by diverse entrepreneurs.

Erin Horne McKinney

Visionary Change Agent

Passionate about social impact and inclusive innovation, Erin Horne McKinney is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Revitalize Ventures, an opportunity zone venture studio that is focused on founding and funding software-driven startups that solve pressing problems at scale. She consults and advises government leaders and organizations as a subject-matter expert on inclusive entrepreneurship and innovation strategies. Erin is a serial entrepreneur and intrapreneur with more than two decades of tech policy, venture capital, economic and business development, diversity/equity/inclusion and marketing communications experience.

Erin is also the founder of the global membership organization, Black Female Founders (#BFF), and the mobile app, KissIntel. She previously served as the inaugural Managing Partner of Inclusion for JumpStart Inc. and as Washington D.C.’s inaugural Senior Advisor on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Executive Office of the Mayor. Erin has held executive leadership roles with the National Association of Multicultural Digital Entrepreneurs (NAMDE), the National Diversity Council, and the Maynard Institute. Her telecommunications policy work includes research positions with TechNet, the National Telecommunication and Information Administration within the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.

Erin is a member of Pipeline Angels and serves as an advisor and mentor to startups, tech incubators and accelerator programs. She is on the Media Image Task Force of the American Advertising Federation’s (AAF) Mosaic Center for Multiculturalism. Erin is currently pursuing her Ph.D. within the Technology, Policy and Society program at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She completed her BA in Journalism & Telecommunications Management and MA in Mass Communications and Media Studies from Howard University.

Annie Jean-Baptiste

Tech Diversity Changemaker

Annie Jean-Baptiste is the Head of Product Inclusion at Google. She leads Product Inclusion strategy across the company, including consultation, communications, scale and research.  She is passionate about making the web and Google’s products work for underserved communities while ensuring that Google is a place where everyone shines for their differences. She’s responsible for working with Google product teams and senior leaders on the creation and execution of their inclusive design strategy. She formerly created programs related to Diversity talent management and career development within several technical product areas within Google.

She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (go Quakers!) with degrees in International Relations & Political Science. She is an avid Boston sports fan & loves to bring her dog Hercules to work. She currently is based in Google’s San Francisco office.

Outside of Google, Annie is a former American Heart Association spokesperson and a One Young World ambassador, focused on healthy lifestyles in underserved communities. She was also featured in Sheryl Sandberg’s Option B campaign to help people find resilience in the face of adversity.

She currently serves as an intrapreneur in residence at the University Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and a member of the IEEE’s Ethically Aligned Design committee.

She’s also been covered in Vogue, Essence, the Huffington Post, the Root, Milton Magazine and the Boston Globe and been named “One to Watch” by the Haitian Roundtable.

Yelitsa Jean-Charles

Diversity Beauty Empowerer

Yelitsa never had a doll that looked like her growing up. The one time her parents gave her a black doll, she burst into tears because it wasn’t the “pretty one”. Since then, Yelitsa has made it her goal to make sure that no other children feel the way she did about her own appearance growing.

While in her Junior year studying Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, Yelitsa redesigned the fairy tale Character Rapunzel as a brown girl with beautiful kinky hair. After speaking with classmates and friends, she saw the opportunity to address the demonstrated need for more diverse toys and representation in children’s publishing.

With a grant from the Brown University Social Innovation Fellowship, support from the RISD E’Ship Program, Masschallenge Accelerator program and 674 dedicated Kickstarter backers, Healthy Roots Dolls was born.

Shaun King

Social Justice Truth Teller

As a speaker, Shaun King offers an articulate and historically grounded take on the most pressing problems of the day. He has now spoken in 35 states, on over 100 college campuses, in jails and prisons, and in corporate boardrooms – always calling for us to be better and do better. As a writer, he has written an astounding 1,500 articles on injustice since 2014 and gives morning commentary on the legendary Tom Joyner Morning Show heard by 6 million listeners in over 100 cities.

Shaun might be new to many of us, but he has been on this path his whole life. In 1999, Shaun became the youngest Student Government President elected at Morehouse College since Dr. King was a student there in 1947. Before he was ever known nationally, Shaun was a popular high school history and civics teacher in Atlanta, then a traveling teacher and counselor at a dozen different jails, prisons, and youth detention centers in Georgia –speaking and teaching 5 times a day, 5 days a week, for years. Shaun started and pastored a church in inner city Atlanta and launched several award-winning social good campaigns that raised millions of dollars for causes around the world.

Riana Lynn

Food Innovator

Riana is a leader in food innovation, technology, and venture strategy. A biologist turned serial entrepreneur, Riana has developed high-growth, nationally recognized technology, and food businesses. She runs the exciting new food technology company, Journey Foods, bridging the intersection of food science, AI, and supply chains.

First-hand experience working through problems and scaling a family juice company inspired her to develop acquired supply chain transparency software. Riana’s work impacts some of the most innovative food and agriculture startups in the world, as well as Fortune 500 companies on new innovations. She has served as a recent Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Google. Her accomplishments have been featured on CNBC, Forbes, USA Today, Wired, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, among others. Her products have significantly impacted thousands of food businesses across the US and beyond. Riana’s development work was pivotal for CNBC’s small business hit show, “The Profit.” Her accomplishments have been featured in Forbes, MIT Tech Review’s 35 under 35, USA Today, Wired, Entrepreneur Magazine, Crain’s “20 in their 20s”, among others. Riana is a co-founder and board member of Women Tech Founders. She graduated with a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before pursuing a Masters at Northwestern University. A native of the Chicago area, Riana is a techie, a world traveler, and a food innovation expert.

Chris Lyons

Venture Capital Change Agent

Chris Lyons is a partner at the tech-focused venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He joined Andreessen as chief of staff in 2012, but currently leads the firm’s Cultural Leadership Fund, whose expressed goal is to connect cultural leaders to great technology companies and enable more African Americans to enter the technology industry. To launch the fund, Lyons raised an initial $15 million from a pool of African-American influencers that includes Nas, Shonda Rhimes, Kevin Durant, Quincy Jones, Chance the Rapper, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Candace Mitchell

Beauty Scientist

As a visionary and innovator, Candace built the first personalized hair care technology called Myavana which led her to the Forbes under 30 list and numerous publications:

• Black Enterprise
• CNN
• Marie Claire
• Business Insider

Nate Moore

Black Panther Champion

Nate Moore, 37, is the lone African-American producer in the film division at Marvel Studios. He is the executive producer of both Black Panther and Captain America: Civil War. Nate is also co-producer of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

David P.A. Mullings

Compassionate Capitalist

Mr. Mullings is the Founder and Director of Blue Mahoe Partners, Inc. He is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Blue Mahoe Capital Partners and a seasoned entrepreneur with experience in the finance industry in Jamaica and the USA, most recently serving as Investor Relations Specialist for Left Brain Capital Management, a long-biased hedge fund ranked among the top 10 best performing funds worldwide by Opalesque in September 2017. He has worked with Jamaica National Building Society in Jamaica in various roles, including overseeing the launch of their JN Live online banking platform, as a member of the marketing and product development team, and as Manager, eChannels and Discount Business, reporting directly to the General Manager. Mr. Mullings also served as a consultant to Victoria Mutual Building Society in Jamaica. He is a Mentor for the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship Caribbean and Founder Institute Jamaica.

He previously served on the Board of Directors for the Institute of Caribbean Studies in Washington, D.C., was the first Future Leaders Representative for the USA on the Jamaica Diaspora Advisory Board and was part of the planning team for the first Jamaica Diaspora Future Leaders Conference in Kingston, Jamaica.

Mr. Mullings graduated with an M.B.A. from the University of Miami at the age of 22 with concentrations in Marketing and International Business after playing football (soccer) with Real Mona F.C. in Jamaica after graduating with his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Miami at the age of 19.

Manoj Saxena

AI For Good

Manoj Saxena likes building things, going fast, and helping brilliant people build great companies. He also likes making markets around responsible and ethical pairing of human+machine intelligence.

Manoj currently serves as Chairman, CognitiveScale and a venture capitalist focused on Cognitive Computing and Machine Intelligence market. Founder AI Global non profit. Co-founder and Board Member, Bridgeweave, serves on London Stock Exchange Tech Advisory Board and the Saxena Family Foundation.

He recently served as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, San Antonio and retired after six years.

He led IBM Watson Software Division as its first General Manager (2011-14) and helped with the formation of Watson Business Group in January 2014 with a $1B investment from IBM. He left IBM to create a successful AI VC fund in 2014 which later attracted investments from IBM and USAA.

Manoj is also the former CEO and founder of two successful venture funded software start ups which were acquired by IBM (2006) and by CommerceOne (2001).

Chris Spencer

Hollywood Inclusion Powerhouse

It’s hard to keep a straight face when talking to Chris Spencer. Extremely talented and hilarious, this quick-witted funnyman has a resume spanning over 20 years since his start in the business at six years old. Today, his resume ranges across several sectors of the industry – acting, writing, producing, directing and stand-up. With more than thirty television commercials, nine feature films, numerous television show appearances, a published book and nationwide comedy tours under his belt, Spencer is truly at the top of the entertainment game. 

Chris created and executive produced BET/Netflix’s hit original series Real Husbands of Hollywood, a faux reality-TV satire, starring Kevin Hart. In its first season, he won a prestigious NAACP Image Award. The show is entirely based on a sketch Spencer and Hart created for the BET Awards in 2010 that immediately went viral. 

In addition to Real Husbands of Hollywood, Chris has been the head writer for countless award shows featuring hosts such as Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Hart, Mike Epps, Jamie Foxx and Cedric the Entertainer. Most recently, he created the new series WHITE FAMOUS for Lionsgate and Showtime, starring Jay Pharaoh and Jamie Foxx. He is currently a Co-Executive Producer on Grown-ish, which is Freeform’s spinoff of ABC’s hit show Black-ish. 

If Chris Spencer looks familiar, it’s probably because you may have seen his Showtime Special “Chris Spencer…the Other Chris” or his TV credits, which include Being Mary Jane, Black Love, Jimmy Kimmel, Def Comedy Jam or his own late-night talk show, VIBE. His film credits include Bad Ass, Black Dynamite, Sin, Sixth Man and Don’t Be a Menace. 

He has published the bestselling book 150 Ways to Tell If You’re Ghetto. His notable writer/producer projects also include The Emmy’s, The ESPY Awards, The BET Awards, SNL and the MTV Video Music Awards…to name a few. 

Chris has also moved behind the lens, directing episodic television, several music videos, comedy specials and various commercials.

Read Andrea’s article about Chris, and why she refers to him as “The Other Black Godfather”.

Solome Tibebu

Mental Health Visionary

Solome is an investor and behavioral health technology strategist who is passionate about frontier technologies transforming health, equity and access.

Solome is an investor at Launchpad Digital Health, the most active early-stage venture capital firm in digital health. Prior to joining Launchpad, Solome worked in corporate development at Affiniti, was the founder and CEO of behavioral health tech company Cognific, and served as an enterprise sales leader at healthcare software companies large and small. She is an advisor to the Telosity mental health tech fund, Bring Change 2 Mind and other health IT and human services companies.

Solome is the co-author of ReThink Behavioral Health Innovation, the source for digital behavioral health technology and startups. Her work as an investor, entrepreneur and behavioral health technology expert has been featured in: TEDx speaker, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Inc Magazine, Upworthy, Psychology Today and more.

Solome is the recipient of the SAMHSA National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health Youth MOVE National Dare to Dream Award (Washington, D.C.), the MN Association of Children’s Mental Health 2010 Outstanding Service Award (Minneapolis, MN), the Margaret Clark Morgan Mental Health Scholar Award (Cleveland, OH), GSCU Dr. Martha L. Colvin Docent (Atlanta, GA), and was selected as 1 of 20 young social entrepreneurs to represent the US internationally at the G20 Summit Young Entrepreneurs Alliance in Sydney, Australia.