Philly Tech Week 2020

Executive Director, Head of Community Affairs & Corporate Responsibility, Americas UBS AG Jamie Sears is Head of UBS Community Affairs & Corporate Responsibility, Americas. She also leads the UBS Foundation USA.

Since joining UBS in 2012, Jamie co-led the development of our philanthropic strategy, overseeing the firm's high-impact flagship initiatives and launching our signature programs in the areas of education and entrepreneurship. As the architect and program head for UBS Elevating Entrepreneurs, a portfolio of programs focused on driving inclusive entrepreneurship, she oversaw the creation of Project Entrepreneur, which seeks to build the pipeline of female founders of high-growth companies, and UBS NextGen Leaders, a multi-year commitment to increasing college and career success for first-generation and low-income students.

Jamie and her team are responsible for grant making, partnerships with national nonprofit organizations, community stakeholder engagement, and employee volunteering and giving programs. UBS's philanthropic efforts have received media coverage in outlets including The New York Times, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Inc.

Prior to UBS, Jamie held a variety of roles in the Office of Corporate Engagement at Goldman Sachs, including serving on the launch team for the firm's global 10,000 Women initiative to support women entrepreneurs, designing and managing the engagement strategy for the 10,000 Small Businesses domestic education program, and working as a program officer with leading scholarship organizations to advance underrepresented female undergraduates pursuing careers in business.

Her previous experience includes establishing and managing the New York University Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship and working at Teach for America on the Corps Member selection and national development teams. Her early experience at TFA influenced her life-long commitment to education equity, social innovation, and impact investing.

Jamie holds a Master of Public Administration from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Politics and Spanish from Pennsylvania State University. She is on the board of the National College Access Network and is a member of Entrepreneurship Funders Network, NationSwell Council, and the Social Innovation Summit Council. She lives with her husband and son in New Jersey.

Christian is the Global Director for Savings Groups at CARE and the Founder and CEO of Chomoka, a start-up social enterprise unlocking economic opportunity for savings groups and their members through digital innovation. Currently live in Tanzania, Chomoka combines an Android-based record-keeping system with a digital marketplace to help people engage with the rapidly evolving digital economy. Over 10 years with CARE, Christian has served in a range of roles focused on program design, management, measurement and learning to support CARE’s efforts to eliminate hunger and food insecurity, increase access to finance and promote economic development. Christian has worked in the international development arena for 20 years across Asia, Africa and Latin America. He began his career as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan. Christian holds degrees from Boston College and the George Washington University. He lives with his wife and two young sons in Narberth, PA.

Mr. Robert A. Celestin, Esq. has practiced entertainment law in New York City for over 25 years. A graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School, Mr. Celestin started his legal career as an associate at the corporate law firm, Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler in New York. He then went on to work in the legal department of Clive Davis’ Arista Records before becoming the VP/GM of Uptown Records, Inc., (“Uptown”), the label responsible for merging hip-hop and R&B and launching the careers of “Mary J. Blige”, “Jodeci”, “Guy” and others. At Uptown, Mr. Celestin worked alongside Andre Harrell and Sean “P-Diddy” Combs. He later went on to work for Untouchables Entertainment, Inc., as VP/GM and was instrumental in the success of rappers “Pete Rock and CL Smooth”; R&B trio “Intro”; and R&B vocalist “Donnell Jones”. Mr. Celestin went to work with his mentor, entertainment attorney Louise West, Esq., in representing “Timbaland”, “Missy Elliot” and “Ginuwine”. Mr. Celestin also managed the Grammy nominated and platinum selling Pop/R&B group “City High”. Presently, Mr. Celestin’s law firm, the “Law Offices of Robert A. Celestin”, represents and provides strategic advice and counsel to independent record label start-ups and production companies, recording artists, music producers, songwriters, reality TV stars, DJ’s and others. Present clients Include “Desiigner”, “6ix9ine”, the Estate of the late “Xxxtentacion”, “Fatboy SSE”, “Dj Self”, “Ezinma”, “Winners Circle Publishing”, “Anthony Flammia”, “JTK Pro Beats” and many more.

Ethan is the Data Engineer at Seer Interactive — finding new ways of automating and leveraging machine learning to move Seer into the future of digital marketing.

Some fun projects include changing PPC ad sentiment to increase click-through-rate and identifying low quality sites on paid placements to save clients money.

Previously, he was an SEO Team Lead, where he focused on providing team members with guidance on strategy and tactical implementation.

His passion lies in using the newest, latest tools to automate process and create net new business opportunities for clients.

Outside of work he loves cooking, biking, yoga, climbing, fine cocktails and Taco Tuesday.

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.

Stephanie Harris is a back end software engineer at AWeber, where she builds software that enables customers to easily create awesome content for their emails. After earning her undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, Stephanie transitioned into tech by joining the Fall 2015 cohort of the Rutgers Coding Bootcamp in New Brunswick, NJ. She was able to land an internship shortly after graduating, and eventually a fullstack engineering job before moving to AWeber in 2018.

Some individuals are going through life, just living the everyday ‘grind.’ Then you have those who live with a purpose, who honestly want to improve their surroundings in their community. Dr. Leslie Grace is one of these people in the city of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Professor Grace has always been self-driven and a little more mature than her peers in her thinking. Even as a young girl, she clearly knew what her life goals were going to be. A younger Leslie Grace was in newspaper articles at the age of 16/17 years old. She had well thought out opinions even then, wise beyond her years by today’s standards. She was a young lady with determination and big dreams to chase, which fueled her mind daily.

Professor Leslie Grace is an educator, social entrepreneur, philanthropist, and will be a new author this upcoming spring. This amazing single mom lives to empower the young people in her community. The Elements Of The Community Inc provides educational, media relations, financial literacy and entrepreneurship programming to communities around the United States. Dr. Grace has taught thousands of young children & adults how to open their own businesses and manage their finances. “Why do we teach our young people to be good workers, instead of teaching them to be good owners? We must stop limiting the potential of our youth.” Dr. Grace truly understands that real freedom comes from being financially free, because that is the only way that those from the inner cities will have a chance to live the “American Dream.”

The exposure that the young people are getting about today’s financial situation here in America, and how to avoid those landmines, will surely result in a financial behavior change, totally different from what their parents had experienced in their youth. Dr. Grace is truly dedicated to increasing the financial capabilities of young Americans and their immediate family members. She is so committed to teaching her young students about ownership over their lives, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Dr. Leslie Grace is well educated, but don’t be thrown off by how young this educator looks. She has definitely done her time in institutions of higher learning. She lives by the motto, “What Is The Point Of Having All The Degrees And You Are Not Helping Change Lives.” This young lady has more degrees than a thermometer and welcomes any information that will continue to educate her.

Dr. Grace has won numerous community and innovation awards from the business world locally in the city of Philadelphia. Dr. Grace was nominated to attend the United States Women Summit, hosted by the White House in 2016, because of her dedication to women and their families. The release of two books are on the horizon this spring for Dr. Leslie Grace, that will help change the landscape of children and their families globally. She is not afraid to step out in front and be the game changer in her community. She definitely won’t let grass grow under her feet (and that is just the way she likes it).

Philadelphia native, James Lindsay, graduated from Cheyney University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing. He initially developed his marketing skills while serving as a manager in the consumer products industry for Johnson Products, an ethnic hair care company, and Warner-Lambert. These experiences, and his desire to own a business, empowered him to start Rap Snacks, Inc in 1994. The initial success of Rap Snacks helped solidify a co-marketing agreement with Universal Records. The deal consisted of advertising Universal’s Artists on all Rap Snacks bags. Eventually the company grew into a five million dollar business selling mostly twenty-five cent bags of chips.

In 2001 Mr. Lindsay decided to expand his product line by purchasing a snack foods line called “Mr. G” snack foods. Mr. G was a locally owned Philly brand that was best know for its hot and barbeque cheddar flavored chips.

In 2007, Mr. Lindsay launched Soulful Foods, Inc. The mission of the company is to provide consumers with a great cultural experience through unique products and seasonings, and to partner with other ethnic brands in order to expand their product reach in the marketplace.

The first product launched under Soulful Foods, Inc was a venture between Mr. Lindsay and Sylvia Woods, the “Queen of Soul Food”. They came together to develop a nationally recognized brand of snack foods called “Sylvia’s”.

The introduction included three flavors of Kettle Cooked Potato Chips fried in Sunflower seed oil, which eliminates trans fats. The initial flavors included honey barbeque, lemon pepper, and Louisiana hot.

Mr. Lindsay has been in the consumer marketing industry over 17 years. His unique marketing concepts and flavor profiles have differentiated his products from other snack items on the shelf and helped him build the company’s loyal consumer base.

In 2010, Mr. Lindsay continued to be an big influence in the music marketing industry; guiding platinum selling recording artist, Meek Mill by connecting his brand with corporate America and securing brand deals with companies such as, PUMA, Monster Energy Drink, and Ciroc. As well as partnering with Monster Headphones to help create the Monster’s 24k Headphones. Mr. Lindsay also assisted Meek Mill in growing PUMA’s business an additional 200 million over a five year period. He’s also worked with Master P and his family.

Over the past 12 years he has been featured on “CBS Morning Show”, ABC’s “The Jimmy Kimmel Show”, BET, Fox News, People Magazine, The “Tavis Smiley” Show, Black Enterprise, Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine. He was also recognized by Business Philadelphia Magazine as “Top 100 People to Watch”