30 SaaS Women Founders in NYC That You Should Know
When a certain New York venture capitalist recently tweeted: ‘Serious question – SaaS female founders in NYC. Do they exist?’ – it touched off a mini-tweetstorm.
We all know that companies founded by men are not only funded much more frequently than those founded by women, but the amounts that they raise are often larger.
And how often do we hear investors say that they tend to fund companies that are referred by people in their networks? Well, if there are primarily guys in your network, yup, that could be one reason why female-founded SaaS companies are not entering your orbit – and subsequently being considered for funding.
In any event, New York women do have SaaS (-based companies, of course), and we sensed an opportunity to shine a spotlight for the masses and managed to put together this quick list of some of those founders – in under a New York minute. This list is in no way exhaustive nor was it meant to be and we are happy to add to it.
You want SaaS? We’ll give you SaaS companies founded by women…
AlleyWatch note: AlleyWatch does not have a financial relationship with any of those included. This list is in no particular order nor is it a ranking. In fact, the =RAND() function on excel was used to determine order. Unlike our other lists, for obvious reasons, everyone included in this particular list was selected on the basis of their gender, only to aid discovery for the community.
Before you check out the list…
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Hilary Hatch
Vital Score
Hilary Hatch is Founder and CEO of Vital Score, a SaaS-based platform for primary care that takes one minute of a doctor’s time to deliver personalized advice for the behaviors that cause chronic illness.
Hatch also has street cred. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology (City University of New York) and is a certified psychoanalyst (NYU Langone School of Medicine, Institute for Psychoanalytic Education). She’s also an Instructor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. And considering that behavior is the primary driver of chronic illness, which accounts for $2 trillion in healthcare costs a year, this is a game-changer, what, eh?
Keep up with Hilary:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: LinkedIn
Rachel Kaplowitz
Honey
Rachel Kaplowitz is CEO of Honey, an easy-to-use tool/social intranet built to connect global teams, share resources, simplify team conversations, and support employee workflows, Honey makes internal communications easy. Anyone in a company, from the intern to the CEO, can share useful links, inspiring videos, reference documents, clever ideas and internal news with their colleagues, without cluttering email inboxes.
Buckeye State-raised, Kaplowitz is NY educated all the way – Columbia undergrad, with an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business. And she’s a coffee addict. Yeah, she’s a New Yorker.
Keep up with Rachel:
Twitter
LinkedIn
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Maria Seidman
Yapp
Maria Seidman is CEO and Cofounder of Yapp, which is democratizing app creation for the masses by enabling users to create personalized mobile applications for their events, including conferences, weddings, fundraisers, college events, poker nights, sporting events – the list goes on.
Everything seems to have an algorithm these days. Amazing how many people/groups/events need an app, too, eh?
An entrepreneur, mom, and recovering big company executive (Director, MGM, Vice President and General Manager, Warner Brothers Digital Distribution), Seidman was also named Entrepreneur Magazine’s 2014 Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year. A Yale graduate with an MBA from Stanford, she is also a frequent speaker on the subjects of entrepreneurship, mobile, and well, just a frequent speaker.
Keep up with Maria:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Twitter
Kelsey Recht
VenueBook
Kelsey Recht is Cofound and CEO of VenueBook, a cloud-based event planning platform that enables users to explore venues, check availability, compare prices and book online. Think of it as a cross between OpenTable and Saleforce, providing the first end-to-end online venue management software to event venues – and event planners!
A Northwestern University MBA (Kellogg School of Management), she started her career in finance (Fidelity), but who wouldn’t rather help get the party started?
And make no mistake about it: she means business.
Keep up with Kelsey:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: LinkedIn
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Nicole Hamilton
Tactile Finance
is the founder and CEO of , a technology company that makes complex financial decisions clear and easy for consumers, and uncovers new business opportunities by leveraging data and clarity. She started the company after she found it unacceptable that home owners and home buyers don’t have access to more sophisticated insight into the financing options when it comes to what is often their biggest asset – their home.
Tactile Finance’s first products revolve around home financing opportunities, and are used by mortgage professionals from many different banks and their customers, providing clarity for both sellers and buyers.
Hamilton’s career has spanned several different technology sectors. She was the managing director of a large-scale enterprise software data analytics company, and worked in telecommunication software technology and the medical device industry, launching high-impact, innovative products.
She’s no stranger to SaaS, and has spent her career focused on game-changing technology for large and competitive industries.
She’s also a 2015 New York Venture Fellow.
Keep up with Nicole:
Twitter
LinkedIn
.
Christina Sass
Andela
Christina Sass is Cofounder and COO at Andela, a global talent accelerator that finds the brightest young people in Africa and gives them the training and mentorship needed to thrive as full-time, remote developers for companies around the world.
In cofounding Andela, Sass has finally found a scalable way for bright but disadvantaged young people to receive training and employment without any debt and without leaving their home countries.
She certainly has her share of believers. The company’s investors include Steve Case, Omidyar Network, Founder Collective, Rothenberg Ventures, Learn Capital, Melo7 Tech Partners, and Chris Hughes.
Talk about a Sass platform!
Keep up with Christina:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Luan Cox
Crowdnetics
Luan Cox is Founder and CEO of Crowdnetics, a leading provider of market data solutions and funding portal platform technology to the private equity and crowdfunded securities industry. The company operates the industry’s premier centralized hub for real-time market data aggregated from platforms across the globe, and the company’s data and technology solutions are used by hedge funds, family offices, asset managers, venture capitalists and investment banks
As for the company’s founder, Cox has deep financial technology leadership experience, having served as General Manager of Interactive Data Managed Solutions – Americas (IDC acquired by Silver Lake and Warburg Pincus), Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at Stockpoint (acquired by ScreamingMedia now part of IDC), and Executive Director for Quote.com (acquired by IDC).
Nice track record!
She is also a proud alumna of the elite Springboard Accelerator program, comprised of the world’s leading women-led media and technology companies.
Keep up with Luan:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
Miriam Altman
Kinvolved
Miriam Altman is Cofounder and Chief Business Officer of , a Benefit-Certified, social venture that is improving graduation rates by providing schools and after school programs with the Kinvolved app to help increase attendance rates by offering real-time communication among schools, families, and youth programs.
She speaks from experience: a former NYC public high school history teacher through the Teach For America corps, Altman holds an MPA from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, and MA., Ed. from Lehman College, and a BA with Honors from Brown University, where she continues to mentor in various capacities.
She and her cofounder. Alex Meis, were named 30under30 in Education by Forbes in 2015.
Keep up with Miriam:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Jennifer Goggin
FarmersWeb
Jennifer Goggin is Cofounder of FarmersWeb, an online marketplace that connects local farms and wholesale buyers, allowing farms to manage their current wholesale business and gain visibility to new buyers, while letting buyers (including restaurants, schools, corporate kitchens, caterers and retailers) efficiently source local ingredients from multiple farms in just one transaction.
Goggin started her career in finance (Analyst, JP Morgan), but her true passion was always food and we’re talking the good stuff, or rather, the kind that’s good for you. Prior to FarmersWeb, she was Director of Operations, Basis Farm to Chef, which provided sales and distribution services for family farms and artisanal producers interested in selling their products directly to wholesale customers in NYC and the surrounding area.
Keep up with Jennifer:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Doreen Bloch
Poshly
is CEO and Cofounder of Poshly, the beauty-meets-data company named by InStyle Magazine as “Best of the Web.” Bloch is also the recipient of L’Oreal’s NEXT Generation Women in Digital Award (2012).
Poshly collects hyper-personal data direct-from-consumers to empower brands with real-time consumer intelligence and precision marketing campaigns. Clients include L’Oréal, Unilever, Time Inc., Teen VOGUE, et al. Since 2014, Poshly has raised more than $2M in capital from investors including Frontier Equities VC, Corigin Ventures, WI Harper Group. and 645 Ventures.
Bloch’s work has been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and more. The former Second Market analyst also authored the book, “The Coolest Startups in America.”
And when it comes to SaaS startups, she has got one of them.
Keep up with Doreen:
Twitter
LinkedIn
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Deirdre Lord
The Megawatt Hour
Deirde Lord is Cofounder of The Megawatt Hour, a decision-making platform for energy purchasing. Transactions are simple, decisions are hard, and TMW is the only online service dedicated to helping commercial and industrial customers manage, track and forecast energy usage and expenditures. They are not a supplier, consultant or broker.Nor is the company affiliated with any suppliers or brokers—they simply sit on the customer’s side of the table, and someone’s gotta do it.
And about time!
Lord has been focused on energy conservation and alternative energies for most of her career, as COO and Founder of Juice Energy (which is not a power drink), SVP at Constellation New Energy, and a project manager at the International Institute for Energy Conservation. In fact, she and cofounder, Bob Bright, were instrumental in building the nation’s largest retail electricity business, have founded and run two retail supply businesses, and have a particular expertise in de-coding the black box that is energy markets.
Lord also has a Master’s degree in Energy and Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware. We know how investors focus on subject matter expertise. There you go.
Keep up with Deirdre:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
Veronika Sonsev
inSparq
Veronika Sonsev is the CEO and Founder of inSparq, a Trending Product Engine for retailers and brands to help them instantly market and merchandise their trending products.
And isn’t timing always everything?
Since it’s inception, Sonsev has led inSparq to become the social merchandising choice for leading retailers, including Kenneth Cole, C. Wonder, American Apparel, The Cocoa-ColaCompany and Giggle.
Her street cred:prior the pursuing the entrepreneurial path, she was an operating executive at AOL and Jumptap, where she built new business lines, developed strategic partnerships and launched international markets. She is also a cofounder of Women in Wireless, was a cofounder of Women Innovate Mobile, and is on the advisory board for Remodista, helping the next generation of female leaders.
Sonsev earned an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Economics from American University. She was recently honored by Fast Company as one of 60 members to The League of Extraordinary Women and one of the Top 50 Women to Watch in Tech by Femmeonomics.
Recent speaking engagements: Fashion Digital NY, Fashion Digital LA, Grow Fashion, Social Media Week, Internet Week. Goldman dotCommerce.
How could she possibly have fallen under anyone’s radar?
Keep up with Veronika:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Kelsey Conophy
WorkZeit
Kelsey Conophy is Cofounder and CEO of WorkZeit, a company that is helping redefine the experience of work and creating happy, successful companies through cloud-based tools built for the mobile workforce. The idea: to increase employee engagement, retain top talent and take advantage of the ever-shifting global talent landscape.
She’s also founder of Featherlight, a workZeit product to help companies manage their people.
She studied Design & Management at Parsons School for Design, where she learned how to create products and experiences that influence and shape behaviors. After graduation, she joined Vivaldi Partners Group, a branding and innovation agency. as an Experience Strategist, where her client projects ranged from helping global corporations understand how to think and talk about company identity internally, to providing enterprise customers with a path to a culture of customer-centricity.
Keep up with Kelsey:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
Susan Danziger
Ziggeo
Susan Danziger is Founder of Ziggeo, whose API for video recording and playback integrates video reviews, video comments, video messages and video profiles into any site or platform. We take care of the recording, transcoding, playback and hosting so videos can be easily recorded and played on any mobile or other device. With just two lines of code, Ziggeo has taken the pain out of incorporating video comments, video profiles, video messaging, video reviews — and lots of other use cases yet to be imagined.
Her last startup, DailyLit, the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form, was acquired by Plympton in 2012.
Keep up with Susan:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Heather Marie
Shoppable
Heather Marie founder and CEO of Shoppable® (formerly known as 72Lux), a software technology company that enables a shoppable layer across digital content, and a cloud-based platform enabling mass product distribution for merchants and brands to tens of millions of consumers.
Shoppable® enables you to shop over 9 million products from top retailers with a single wish list and checkout.
Marie also won the 2013 Women in Digital Award from L’Oreal, was named one of the ten “Most Powerful Millennials in Manhattan” by Gotham Magazine, and one of the eleven “Tech Gurus Changing the Luxury Game” by Refinery29. Shoppable® was also a 2014 Webby Award Honoree for “Online Shopping” and named one of the “100 Brilliant Companies” by Entrepreneur Magazine.
Prior to Shoppable, Marie was on the founding team at Affinity Labs, a digital media company that became the largest collection of online professional communities. In 2008, Affinity Labs was acquired by Monster Worldwide. While assisting with the company’s post-acquisition integration, she expanded her role and ran national lead generation sales strategy for all five U.S. divisions of Monster Worldwide.
She also spent 6+ years working in retail for such notables as Ralph Lauren, Express (Limited Inc.), and Abercrombie & Fitch.
Yeah, she knows what’s Shoppable.
Marie actually launched her first “venture” at age eleven: an arbitrage business on eBay. She received her undergraduate degree in Business Administration the University of San Francisco and the London School of Economics.
Keep up with Heather:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
Karen Moon
Trendalytics
Karen Moon is CEO and Cofounder of Trendalytics, a SaaS visual analytics platform that measures how merchandise trends resonate with consumers. Starting with the fashion and beauty, the company surfaces relevant signals by identifying and synthesizing product attributes (e.g., maxi dresses, combat boots) across social chatter, shopping patterns and shared images to reveal actionable insights on product assortments, regional demand and seasonality.
Instead of finishing her fashion design degree, she switched gears and built her career on Wall Street and the business side of the retail industry.
Kudos, to date:
– Wall Street Journal Start up of the Year Top 10 Finalist
– Future of Retail Disruptors Finalist (118 applicants)
– Enterprise & Smart Data Finalist for SXSW Accelerator (over 500 applicants)
– Fashion Tech Forum Founders of the Future Semi Finalist (120+ applicants)
– Selected by retail executives to join the inaugural class of the New York Fashion Tech Lab (over 127 applicants)
-Entrepreneurs Roundtable Alum
All of this, and she’s also totally Geek Chic.
Keep up with Karen:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Aileen Gemma Smith
Vizalytics
Aileen Gemma Smith is CEO and Founder at Vizalytics Technology, a company that helps main street to stay vital by leveling the playing field of accessible information for businesses by collecting information from disparate sources, and then targeting the right information, at the right time, to the right business owners.
They’re the creators of Mind My Business to serve the needs of brick and mortar businesses. Over 15% of Mind My Business users engage with the tool daily.
Smith puts a strong emphasis on listening and building relationships. She prefers hard work and problem solving over fancy titles. She believes in the value of collaborative process.
Smith and team are honored to be NYC Big App Awards finalists, and part of 500 Startups Batch 10.
Keep up with Aileen:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
Vivian Rosenthal
Snaps
Vivian Rosenthal is the Founder and CEO of Snaps, the first end-to-end mobile messaging platform for brand marketing across messaging applications and devices Over 50 billion messages are sent through messaging apps daily. The Snaps branded iOS keyboards allow brands to become a part of these conversations, and to engage audiences in meaningful and authentic ways through branded emojis, stickers and gifs across messaging apps like iMessage, WhatsApp and FB Messenger.
The company closed a $6M Series A round in mid-April, and was recently featured as one of the top 24 US start-ups in the Wall Street Journal’s Startup of the Year Series.
She’s also Chief Founder in Resident for the Google Incubator, a founders program for designers, and an experiment in giving talented visual thinkers the hands-on experience needed to create products that may just change the world. It’s 20 designers. It’s 30 weeks. It’s in New York
Rosenthal has also been named one of Creativity Magazine’s top 50 global creatives of 2010 and was selected as one of the five finalists for L’Oreal’s NEXT Generation Awards, highlighting women-founded tech companies. She has spoken at numerous conferences on the intersection of advertising and technology, including the CaT conference by AdAge,TEDxSilicon Alley 2011 and 2012, Bloomberg Money Moves, Ad Tech and Socialize West, and featured in Fast Company, The New York Times, Mashable and AdWeek, among many others.
Keep up with Vivian:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Amy Vernon
Predictabely
Amy Vernon is Cofounder and CMO at Predictablely, a SaaS platform that helps predict what’s going to be hot before it is, and how long something will be hot, so you can decide if it’s worth spending time on.
Think of it as a data science team in a box.
Vernon is also a 20-year veteran of newspaper journalism and top female submitter of all time on the late great Digg.com. She is also much sought-after for advice on how to navigate the social web, and has consulted for a wide variety of clients, ranging from tech startups to international media organizations, on how to harness the power of their community, develop shareable content and put in place best practices in their digital strategy.
It seems Predictablely was, predictably, her next logical step.
A fun aside: AlleyWatch spoke with Vernon a while back. She gave us her insights on the general perception of women in technology. The more things change…
Keep up with Amy:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
Marcela Shine
Scientificly
Marcela Shine is Cofounder and CEO of Scientifcly, a cutting edge SaaS platform that helps brands to analyze social marketing success based on purchase intent, She’s the one who drives strategy execution and operational efficiency at the company. She has managed operations in entrepreneurial environments where cash efficiency and employee retention is crucial to a start-up’s success.
Shine’s career started at Lipper Analytical (acquired by Reuters), where she managed global product teams for services such as the Lipper Index Service and the Data Feed Services (LDFS). LDFS was the first to distribute fund data to online publishers such as The Wall Street Journal, SmartMoney and TheStreet.com – and make benchmarking available to the every day investor. Her last role was in post-acquition management, where she helped integrate companies such as HedgeWorld into the Reuters group of companies.
Shine and her husband are partners in Avanzar Ventures, where they make seed/angel investments in start-ups focused on digital marketing technology.
Keep up with Marcela:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Maisie Devine
Poacht
Maisie Devine is Cofounder and CEO of Poacht, a SaaS platform for covert job search. It enables employers to recruit the most qualified candidates from among the currently-employed by ranking and matching the passive candidate to an open position on the platform. Poacht also makes it simple to discretely with candidates who are passively ‘looking’ by connecting with them on their mobile devices.
Devine is…divine! She’s a Forbes 30-under-30, Enterprise Tech (2015); on the AlleyWatch 26 Women to Watch in Tech; she’s an ERA alumna; guest columnist for Inc.com; an expert contributor for Monster, Business News Daily, and Career Attraction.
The Princeton-educated entrepreneur’s background is in digital media advertising, where she worked with Fortune 500 companies, including P&G, J&J, Walmart, Comcast, Turner, BMW, and Lexus.
No, she’s not looking to be Poacht. That we know of.
Keep up with Maisie:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Lisa Xu
NopSec
Lisa Xu is CEO of NopSec, a fast-growing startup in the IT security and vulnerability management space, offering intelligent analysis, threat forecasting, and remediation workflow management in a single solution.
Over the past two decades, Xu has advised Fortune500 enterprises on data security, privacy and technology risk management, building deep domain expertise in the regulated sectors and leveraged technology to solve business problems and regulatory compliance challenges.
Her background is in management consultant, having worked at Accenture (Andersen Consulting), and leading many diverse teams at Ally Financial (GMAC), KPMG and Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Xu earned both a Bachelor degree in Economics and Master of Science in Finance from Boston College, and attended the Harvard Business School Executive General Management Program. She’s also a charter holder of CFA, Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst and abCertified Information System Auditor.
And a world traveler, having visited over 30 countries on three continents.
Keep up with Lisa:
Twitter
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Ashwini Anburajan
Social Data Collective
Ashwini Anburajan is Founder and CEO of a Social Data Collective, a private data marketplace that allows consumers to access, control and monetize their data. Social Data Collective allows consumers to trade data from a variety of sources for high quality products and services offered by brand partners.
Anburajan’s expertise is in large-scale network development, social analytics and data aggregation, and content strategy. In fact, she was previously Director of Partner Development at Buzzfeed, and at Outcast prior to that. She has created cutting edge thought leadership and has advised some of the largest names in media on their social publishing strategy, including USA Today, New York Times, Hearst and CondeNast.
Keep up with Ashwini:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Christie Nicholson
Publet
Christie Nicholson is Cofounder of Publet,a lead generation solution for B2B sales and marketing collateral. The Publet platform transforms old-school PDF white papers into dynamic, responsive web-designed pieces that can live anywhere on the web. The company also provides a system for social and paid sharing, as well as reader behavior data down to the paragraph level.
She is also a contributing editor to Scientific American, and an advisory board member to SXSW Interactive – and did the keynote interview at SXSW in spring 2014, with Neil deGrasse Tyson. She’s a guest lecturer at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and an adjunct professor in entrepreneurial journalism, at New York University.
Her first startup experience was in 1998 at Iguana Studios, a full service web agency, and since then she has beenat Havas Worldwide, Scientific American, and CBS Interactive in digital marketing and media.
A graduate of Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Nicholson has won two Webbys, and has been a featured speaker at the Sundance Film Festival, MIT/Standford VLAB, The National Academy of Sciences, MIT’s Synthetic Biology conference, Synberc, and the National Science Foundation. She has spoken at the South By Southwest Interactive conference three times, covering brain-computer interface in 2010, the secrets of DARPA in 2011, and the trending field of embodied cognition in 2013.
Keep up with Christie:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit:
Wen-Wen Lam
NexTravel
Wen-Wen Lam is Cofounder of NexTravel, aYCombinator company that builds business travel products that save time and money – especially for SMBs.
NexTravel offers software tools to help managers establish and monitor travel policies, and employees the easiest possible way to find and book the best available flights, hotels, and rental cars, prioritizing either price or rewards, depending on the users’ preference.
She’s also one of the cofounders of Women2.0, and was Marketing Manager at LinkedIn, back in the early days.
Lam has a thing for shoes. Makes sense for someone who’s in the travel space. And who’s got places to go and people to see.
Keep up with Wen-Wen:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit:
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Cynthia Schames
AbbeyPost
Cynthia Schames is Founder and CEO of AbbeyPost, which is creating the world’s first algorithmic clothing patterning platform, so that made to measure clothing can be available to women of all shapes and sizes. Made in the USA, delivered in under 2 weeks, at department store prices.
In fact, the company is launching their new SaaS product in alpha (and coming back to NYC) in May!
Not only is Schames a Plus Size woman herself: she also has deep domain expertise in ecommerce and technology, having also founded and run La Boite Orange, an online consignment store for luxury handbags and accessories.
She is also a proud alum of 500Startups Batch 9, and was named one of AlleyWatch’s 14 NYC E-Commerce Entrepreneurs You Need to Know About.
Keep up with Cynthia:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: Linkedin
.
Jules Miller
Hire An Esquire
Jules Miller is Cofounder and COO of HireAnEsquire, the first and only technology company to offer enterprise legal staffing. The company’s Software as a Service platform helps law firms and in-house legal departments to hire, manage and pay a team of contract-based attorneys on demand.
A 2015 New York Venture Fellow, Miller is also a self-professedrabble rouser and perpetual student of life. She has been an entrepreneur, an intrapreneur, a corporate zombie, a consultant at Ernst & Young, and also had a prior life helping big corporations like Salesforce.com and Tiffany & Co.
Now she’s focused on her own company, because she believes that making attorneys’ lives less miserable is a much more satisfying endeavor – and she may be on to something there.
Keep up with Jules:
Twitter
LinkedIn
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Lily Lu
Public Stuff
Lily Liu is Founder and CEO of PublicStuff, a service that allows you to capture and notify the correct department in a city to get things fixed. The company rolled out of Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator’s first class and was quickly named one of the top 25 startups to watch by Business Insider. Next, Liu, a New York Venture Fellow, was named one of the top 30 under 30 Entrepreneurs by Forbes, and then the company made the Forbes list of companies to watch in 2014. It’s no wonder: the platform is currently being used in literally hundreds of cities – and the number keeps growing. As for Liu herself, did we mention that the Carnegie Mellon grad was the youngest analyst under Mayor Bloomberg‘s Department of Education for special analytics and projects, where she helped manage the $20B budget and teacher union negotiation ? Or that she’s into extreme sports, loves to arm wrestle and has yet to lose a match?
For the record, this is all public stuff.
Keep up with Lily:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Image credit: LinkedIn
Meghan Messenger
Next Jump
Meghan Messenger is Cofounder and Chief of Staff at Next Jump, Inc., a company that’s helping to change the world by helping change the workplace culture, helping companies to take care of their employees and their families with exclusive employee pricing and rewards on the things they need and care about most.
Messenger started with the company in 1998 as a local sales intern, helping to grow the business to 150 employees though the first dot-com bubble. Next Jump did survive the dot-com bust, but shrunk to just four employees in January of 2002, including Messenger, at which point she became one of the founders of the restructured Next Jump. She then helped drive the majority of the company’s revenue growth, managing the merchant services division and building over 30,000 merchant partnerships. She also helped build the senior management team, as well as recruit and train some of the best engineers in the country, building the company back up to 200 employees. Experts have called Next Jump the Demonstration Project: Next Jump was proof that the combination of caring for your employees and helping them grow as human beings is possible while making money and helping the world become a better place. Next Jump believes this is a prerequisite in today’s human capital economy, and calls it Better Me + Better You = Better Us.
Messenger is a Fairfield University graduate, where she earned B.A. in Psychology, with a minor in Marketing.
Keep up with Meghan:
Twitter
LinkedIn
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
Piraye Yurttas Beim
Celmatix
Piraye Yurttas Beim, PhD. is a Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Celmatix Inc., a personalized medicine company that leverages big data and genomics to create products that bring greater clarity to the treatment of infertility, and pave the way for proactive fertility management.
Under Dr. Beim’s direction, Celmatix is developing the world’s first non-invasive, genetics-based female infertility diagnostic tests, which will help doctors guide women to fertility treatments that are most likely to work for them, improve the outcomes of those treatments, and identify at-risk women before they become infertile, and while options such as egg freezing are still available to them. The idea for Celmatix came to Dr. Beim during her postdoctoral work in the field of mammalian pre-implantation embryology at the Gurdon Institute of the University of Cambridge, UK. Her doctoral research at Cornell University, Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences/Sloan Kettering Institute in New York City had focused on a class of genes that cause infertility in experimental mouse models. While in the UK, she was able to interact more directly with fertility doctors and realized the wide gap that exists between the research breakthroughs being made on the bench and the application of those basic research discoveries to advancing reproductive medicine. She decided that the fastest way to bridge this gap was through a high impact biotech start up, left academia in 2009 and returned to New York City to cofound Celmatix with Laura Bandak.
Dr. Beim also holds a BA in Plan II Honors and a BS in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in Molecular Biology/Mammalian Embryology from Cornell.
She is also a 2013 NYC Venture Fellow and a Crain’s 40 Under 40.
Keep up with Piraye:
There has been a lot of recent chatter about women in tech and we’d like to see some more action. AlleyWatch has produced an upcoming 3 part series focused on some critical resources that every woman in tech needs for which we would like establish a partnership with the right organization(s) that has a genuine interest in gender parity in the tech ecosystem. This perpetual, evergreen, content marketing initiative will provide unprecedented exposure with prominent branding for the right organization(s) at scale and will reach more people in a few days than every tech event in NYC this year combined. Please email us to find out more and find out what you can do to take part in the conversation.
