Sonder Impact, Sip & Sonder, and All Raise present …
Founders Connect
A speed-dating style event linking founders with service providers for rapid insights and connections.
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What's a founder without their team? From legal and marketing to finance and tech, founders need the right experts in their corner to build, scale, and sustain their businesses.
This LA Tech Week, Sonder Impact and All Raise are bringing you FOUNDERS CONNECT, a speed connector event aimed at linking underrepresented founders with essential service providers and advisors who can help turn ideas into thriving enterprises.
Here’s how it works:
Before the event, founders will rank their primary business needs and key challenges, which will be used to create personalized schedules with the service providers who can best help you.
On the day of the event, founders will receive their customized schedule at registration, with 10-minute sessions to meet with experts in areas like legal, marketing, finance, technology, and business strategy. Our goal is to match founders with as many of their preferred providers as possible.
When not in meetings, founders can enjoy food, drinks, and network with others—because you never know where your next great connection might come from!
Space is limited, so register today!
This event is a part of #TechWeek - a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem.
Meet the Experts
Dr. Steph Ardrey, JD, DBA
Dr. Ardrey is the CEO and Founder of ZenoVerse Wellness Group, Inc., a global wellness organization formed to deliver “wellness one week at a time” through its MediSpaTels strategically located across the Caribbean, Italy, France, and Africa. Her firm is also in the farming space offering food-as-medicine (FaM) perishable, nonperishable, meal kits, tinctures, and tonics supporting the various wellness protocols. Dr. Ardrey made a social impact commitment to train and develop 10MM entrepreneurs and farmers to participate in the ecosystem by providing access to capital, capacity, and customer markets for emerging entrepreneurs with the desire to create sustainable business ventures. She has launched her first initiative www.organicfarmersglobal.com, in partnership with Hello Tractor and Smart Maintenance, whereby they are building a network of organic farmers, with over 1MM farmers currently in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana. Dr. Ardrey is a seasoned real estate developer who has directed multibillion-dollar portfolios of commercial real estate development projects – luxury, mixed-use, and retail commercial projects. Prior to entering the high stakes high pressure world of commercial real estate development, Dr. Ardrey was the founder and CEO of The ArdreyGroup Inc., a full-service advertising and marketing communications agency with eight offices across seven western states, a capitalized financial base of over $250 million dollars due to a joint venture.
Trivia Edwards
Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Trivia Edwards is a passionate ecosystem builder, investor, wellness advocate, and matriarch committed to breaking generational cycles and uplifting underserved & overlooked communities. Currently the Program Manager at Cinematica Labs, Trivia is actively contributing to the development of mission-oriented entrepreneurial ecosystems. Collaborating on innovative mentorship programs with partners such as Pharrell Williams' Black Ambition, Black Owned Media Equity and Sustainability Institute, and PledgeLA, she has proudly supported over 300 founders on their journeys. Alongside this role, she serves as a Teacher’s Assistant at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, supporting students in making valuable $50k startup investments from the USC Marshall Venture Fund. In 2021, she was selected as an HBCUvc fellow, which introduced her to the world of Venture Capital and propelled her career as an investor. She later built on this foundation and skill set as a Venture Fellow at Supply Change Capital and an Investment Analyst at Fearless Fund in 2022. Her earlier experiences also include a role as a financial analyst at Comer Capital Group and the Black Bank Fund, focusing on municipal and corporate debt transactions to revitalize the black banking industry.
Shane Kelly
Shane founded Cinematica Labs in 2022, partnering with Pharrell Williams’ Black Ambition to bring together 200 founders with 50 mentors. Cinematica Labs builds ecosystems for mission-driven founders, prioritizing founder well-being while engaging excluded communities in order to catalyze the economies of the future. Shane serves as Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship for University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business where he teaches the Venture Lab, a course designed to guide students to make $50k startup investments out of the USC Marshall Venture Fund. He also teaches Venture Capital to emerging investors through his role as Investor in Residence for HBCU.vc, after which Fellows are placed into paid internships with top Venture Capital firms including Foundry, Slauson & Co, and Bloomberg Beta. An active member of the tech startup community, Shane serves on the investment committee for Cap Table Coalition. As a tech investor, Shane founded Wolverine Angels, an angel syndicate for University of Michigan alumni where he invested in startups including FEM Prizma (Acquired by Nielsen Gracenote) and Neurable. He went on to run investments for seed-stage Titan Fund, powered by CrowdSmart. The company’s proprietary platform combines human expertise and artificial intelligence to increase transparency and reduce bias in the venture investment process. Shane led 15 investments for the fund including Air and Syntiant.
Shanita Nicholas
Shanita has a passion for entrepreneurship, community building and coffee! She is the co-founder and co-CEO of Sip & Sonder, a coffee house and roastery where coffee, community, and culture truly connect. She is also the co-founder of Sonder Impact, which is Sip & Sonder's 501(c)(3) nonprofit affiliate that is committed to empowering Black communities to take ownership of their personal and professional capacity building. As the founder of Law Office of Shanita Nicholas, Shanita's law practice focuses on general corporate start-up work, venture capital financing and private equity mergers and acquisitions. Shanita holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and a J.D./MBA from Columbia Law and Business Schools. She is an army brat with roots in Prince Georges County, MD.
Bonnie Oliva-Porter
Meet Bonnie (she/her/ella) —a Bronx native, 1st-gen Afro-Latiné woman, and devoted daughter of Honduran immigrants who hold dear the values of family, education, and service. Now calling LA home, she's woven her passions into a multifaceted career as a People & Culture Strategist, consultant, coach, advisor, and investor. As the founder of Margins: A Workplace Innovation Studio, Bonnie champions the voices of marginalized groups in the workplace. Her mission centers on crafting high-performing organizations dedicated to serving underrepresented groups, aligning with companies championing bold strides toward workplace equity. Among her notable achievements, Bonnie was a founding team member of Tala, a high-growth FinTech startup, where she played a pivotal role in opening emerging market offices, leading global DEI efforts, and supporting fundraising efforts exceeding $100M. At the NYC Dept. of Small Business Services, she spearheaded the launch of a Workforce Center in the Bronx and managed a $20MM portfolio focused on job training for marginalized groups. In her diverse roles, from serving as PledgeLA Survey & Accountability Committee Chair (2021 - 2023) to contributing on the All Raise LA Steering Committee, Bonnie has consistently demonstrated her commitment to fostering positive change.
Jason E.C. Wright
Jason E.C. Wright is an educator, documentary photographer, Founder and Director at Burntsienna Research Society - a Research Library of Artbooks & Institute for Slow Design Research. A twenty year veteran of the fashion industry, Wright has instructed at FIDM, spoken and moderated for AIGA, A+D Museum, LA Design Festival, MOCA & more. Through Burntsienna, he continues to lead programming and curriculum around artbooks and slow research practices for product developers, design firms, retail and hospitality owner/operators, and independent creative professionals. Founded in 2018, Burntsienna provides programming around artbook access and curriculum around slow research practices in spaces like The Huntington Library & Gardens and more. Burntsienna Research Society is based in Los Angeles, on the unceded and occupied lands of Tovaangar and the Tongva people. We pay respects to ancestors past, present and emerging.