Philly Tech Week 2020

Veniece Newton, is a true entrepreneur of today who has been connecting people and products through her relationship building for more than a decade. In her early years, while working in promotions and marketing in the music industry for Arista Records in NYC she learned the importance of people and how they connect the dots. Eventually, she developed an entrepreneurial spirit that could not be denied. Her innovative and unparalleled ability to harness the power of relationship building has given her tremendous respect in the business community. Always ahead of the curve, 15 years ago she founded an online fashion/lifestyle television in which she oversaw a production team of 30 from Hong Kong, Alaska, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City. While travelling the world, she interviewed A list celebrities, cover red carpets for many high-profile events. The years of varied experiences, allowed her to eventually find her way to what she truly loved, and that is being involved in the community. As a natural connector, she is a member of several committees and enjoys consulting others with their business ventures. She serves as the Diversity Liaison for the Philadelphia International Airport in which she works specifically to improve workforce while pursuing an Executive MBA at the Fox Temple School of Business. However, one of her strong passions lies in working with youth. She not only has a flair for business and connecting people, but she also has a heart of gold. For the past 10 years, she has devoted her time to empowering the next generation of leaders. She is a panel member for the District Attorney’s Youth Aid Panel and the Founder of Community Angel Foundation; a nonprofit organization that gives back by encouraging, empowering and educating our youth to be future leaders through 4 pillars focusing on volunteerism, education, career and culture. Everything Veniece involves herself with, always includes giving back. It wasn’t no different when she made it to the "Final Four" during the Camden Catalyst startup competition for her innovative idea of ENGAGEathon! And it wasn't farfetched in knowing that her startup would involve community engagement. ENGAGEathon is a customizable software platform that tracks and promotes community engagement, outreach and social impact which will be used by corporations, school districts and organizations. Veniece has a mission to bring our communities together in a positive and effective way; and she will not stop until her mission is complete. Her latest project, Cypher City is a nationwide livestreaming cypher competition in which the public votes through all social media platforms. Cypher City is a very exciting because it allows Veniece to acknowledge the importance of diversity & inclusion and provides a platform for aspiring lyricists to express themselves through words. Veniece is a woman of today and an inspiration for many to believe in yourself and have hope for all.

Michael Winslow picked up his love for programming when he was 10 years old writing GW-Basic code on his Tandy-1000. With his passion for designing simple solutions to complex problems, Michael has played key roles at companies like Aramark, Ortho-McNeil, Oracle and Xfinity Mobile. He is a seasoned, international public speaker who enjoys using his platform to uplift engineers and create powerfully diverse teams in technology. Michael is currently a DevOps advocate, Agile enthusiast, and dedicated people-leader for the Software Strategy and Transformation group at Comcast.

Jordan DiPietro has been working in the financial industry for 15 years and spent the last decade as a marketing and growth specialist at The Motley Fool. He has a passion for creating quality content and building digital products that focus on individuals, entrepreneurs, and business owners. He loves copywriting, his two young kids, skimming old swipe files, and all-things-Philadelphia.

Jumoke K. Dada, Principal and Founder, Signature RED and Tech Women Network

Jumoke Dada is best described as a techie and visionary whose sweet spot lies at the intersection on innovation, entrepreneurship, goodwill and girl power.

Dada holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Sciences and real estate certification from Temple University. She is also a certified Scrum Master. Her corporate technical experience includes work as an application developer, business and systems analyst, quality assurance tester, and technical project manager. As the principal of Signature RED, she offers tech consulting services to companies and creates tools and resources for women interested in careers in technology. In 2017, she created the Tech Women Network - an online, searchable platform and community for women with technical skills.

Over the years, she has hosted several educational events and workshops including Building iOS Mobile Apps, Rails Girls, Techies Who Brunch, and the HUE Tech Summit for women of color in tech. Dada is a public speaker with a growing passion to empower women and girls especially those with interests in STEM fields. In the summer, she gives back through her non-profit Signature Red Cares whose main program, Project ALOE, gives care packages and advice to college-bound girls. Dada has been recognized in several media outlets for her innovative ideas, leadership skills and community involvement. Additionally, she is a contributing writer for ForbesWomen where she covers diversity in tech.

To learn more about her work, visit dadaverse.org or follow @jumokedada on Twitter.

Lisha is a venture builder and investor, startup advisor, and business strategist and operator who has served on all sides of the business table. She is the founder of Arable Ventures LLC., a boutique innovation consulting and advisory practice helping organizations develop full scale operating models to deliver innovative solutions. Prior to launching Arable Ventures, Lisha was the founder and head of Vanguard’s Innovation Studio, where she led the vision for enterprise innovation and owned the ongoing delivery of a venture portfolio focused on addressing white spaces with the potential to transform businesses and disrupt the financial services industry.

Throughout her work, alongside crafting effective strategy and operations enabled through technology and data wherever possible, Lisha has always placed high emphasis on growing the best functioning teams and company culture. She is an active investor with 37Angels, an early growth stage women's syndicate focused on increasing representation of diverse founders and funders, and serves as mentor and advisor to startups across the consumer, enterprise, and fintech sectors. She is also an adjunct professor @ Temple's Fox School of Business, teaching on open innovation & strategic partnerships. Lisha currently lives in Brooklyn and travels often in pursuit of new adventures.

Marian Croak is the Vice President of Site Reliability Engineering for Ads, Corporate Engineering and YouTube, at Google, Inc. Marian joined Google in late 2014 after retiring from AT&T as an SVP responsible for advanced research and innovation, and designing and developing one of the world's largest wireless and broadband networks. She managed over 2,000 world class engineers and computer scientists. Marian holds over 200 patents mostly focused on IP technology. Marian has received numerous awards, including the 2013 and 2014 Edison Patent Awards, was inducted into the Women in Technology International's Hall of Fame in 2013. She is a strong supporter of STEM initiatives, served on many boards including NACME and Catalyst, and personally mentors many individuals in STEM. Marian attended Princeton University, and the University of Southern California where she received her doctorate in quantitative analysis. She is currently a member of the Corporate Advisory Board for the University of Southern California.

Barrie E. Litzky received her Ph.D. in organizational sciences and psychology from Drexel University and taught for the past 18 years at Penn State Great Valley. At PSU, Barrie’s primary teaching responsibilities included business, ethics, and society; sustainability; diversity leadership; and career management. She established the Consortium for Sustainable Business Development at Penn State Great Valley, which operated from 2010 through 2013 and supported various faculty research projects, a campus lecture series, and a variety of student initiatives including service learning and field trips. Barrie created courses in sustainability and social entrepreneurship and led the effort to create a graduate certificate in Sustainable Management Practices. In September 2017, Barrie returned to Drexel as an associate professor of entrepreneurship in the Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship. Excited to be at The Close School, Barrie is currently developing and teaching courses in social entrepreneurship and sustainability, resilience and failure, and mindfulness.

Christine Raetsch currently serves as Duolingo’s first Head of People, building the company’s HR practice. Duolingo is the most popular language-learning platform worldwide, with over 300 million users and the mission to make education free and accessible to all.

Prior to joining Duolingo, Christine was a senior executive at Vanguard, where she spent the first 20 years of her career. In her last role at Vanguard, she served as the Global Head of Culture and Inclusion, where she created and led the center of expertise on culture, employee engagement, diversity, and inclusion for Vanguard’s 15,000+ global employees. In addition to HR, Christine had roles in client management (managing a $50B book of business), risk management (creating the risk management program for our largest division), operations management (leading a team of 250+ employees), and process improvement (earning a Six Sigma Black Belt designation). Christine received her M.B.A. and M.A. from Villanova University. She maintains the GPHR and SHRM-SCP HR professional designations.

Christine is passionate about making her community strong and vibrant. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, and is a partner with Social Venture Partners Pittsburgh, a non-profit accelerator. She also provides HR consulting for many arts- and culture-focused non-profits in the Pittsburgh region. In what remains of her free time, she loves being outside: biking, running, playing tennis, and kayaking on all the great rivers in Pittsburgh. As a relative newcomer to the Pittsburgh area, Christine is enjoying all that Pittsburgh has to offer in terms of arts, culture, the outdoors, and so much more!