Clubs & Associations

Owen Bell

VP of Growth, Honeylove

Owen Bell leads growth marketing at women's apparel brand Honeylove, helping the brand grow to a
nine-figure run rate over the last three years. Prior to that, Owen worked on paid social and marketing measurement strategy at a variety of DTC brands.

Raquel Bolleau

Actress, Entrepreneur, Wife, Mother, and Founder of Métisse Natura®, born and raised in Los Angeles, Ca

For years, Raquel battled with several insecurities around her curly hair texture, resorting to using heat and damaging chemicals to straighten her hair. It wasn't until she had her daughter who is Métisse (French for mixed race culture) that she knew she had to set a healthy example for her and embrace her curls. Raquel Founded the natural, organic haircare brand Métisse Natura in 2020. She is passionate about haircare and loves to see women embracing their natural beauty. 

Raquel’s belief is that when you have the knowledge of how to style your hair and are using the right products, you will gain more overall confidence in wearing your natural hair texture. 

Maggie Brown

Founder, Recess Pickleball

Maggie Brown is the founder and CEO of Recess Pickleball, a dynamic lifestyle pickleball brand based in Austin, Texas. Since the company’s founding in 2021, Maggie has been the driving force behind its explosive growth, transforming it from a pandemic passion project to a renowned pickleball gear company with a focus on quality and design.

Prior to establishing Recess Pickleball, Maggie worked in strategic partnerships for Uber, where she played an instrumental role in growing the food delivery market across the globe. Maggie also served as Vice President of Action in Africa, a nonprofit and community-based organization that operates a thriving community center in Uganda. 

Maggie graduated from The University of Texas at Austin, where she received her B.S. in International Relations and Affairs in 2016. When she’s not busy leading Recess, Maggie loves learning about other cultures, doing anything outdoors, hosting dinner parties and traveling.

Jake Capps

Co-Founder/Managing Partner at Meaningful Partners

Jake Capps has been a private equity investor for over two decades with a passion for the consumer sector. Jake founded Meaningful Partners to create an investment platform with a community of accomplished executives all devoted to serving others to empower and accelerate the growth of purposeful business.  Prior to starting Meaningful Partners, Jake began his career at Goldman Sachs and later worked at three large private equity firms where he led or co-led investments in dozens of companies deploying over $1.5 billion of equity capital.  Jake resides in Manhattan Beach, CA with his wife and three children. Jake holds a BA from Dartmouth College where he was co-captain of the Men's basketball team and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Paul Chapuis

Founder & CEO, OnQ

For three decades, Paul has been creating meaningful retail experiences. Since founding OnQ 20 years ago, he’s helped leading brands and retailers bring products to market, designing retail displays for computer peripherals, home automation, health & beauty, phones & tablets, and now smart watches, AR/VR and other wearables. Under Paul’s leadership, OnQ was early to integrate technology into its displays, and was first in the industry to create a management platform for interactive retail displays. 

Mitch Gilbert

CEO of Oya Femtech Apparel

Mitchella “Mitch” Gilbert is an inclusive product designer. She was a former elite athlete and Nike employee, so she is obsessed with women’s health and sportswear apparel. She attended the UCLA Anderson School of Management after earning a full scholarship to build her startup Oya Femtech Apparel. She is one of the first 200 black women to raise over $1M in venture capital and she graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy. Oya Femtech Apparel is her fourth company. 
Her OB/GYN mentioned many other women who loved working had the same issues as Mitch. She believed her patients’ leggings were causing the issue by creating environments for pathogens to thrive. Mitch saw that no leggings company was addressing this issue and went to work on a new legging that had a breathable, replaceable pad and panels that promoted ventilation around the inner thigh. We are now getting ready to launch our second version along with new tops.

Before OYA, Mitch had co-founded a fashion business, so she was easily able to find a pattern maker and sewer to help her build an MVP. OYA’s launch on March 19th was a huge success. OYA earned a 12x return on our CAC and sold out within four weeks.

Scott Gladstone (’11)

President of International and Corporate Development, Dine Brands Global

Scott Gladstone was appointed to the position of President of International and Corporate Development in January 2023. In this role, he is responsible for international growth and the overall strategic direction of IHOP and Applebee’s functional areas. He oversees all aspects of global strategy development, planning, innovation, and new concepts to drive growth for the company.

Mr. Gladstone previously served as the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation for Dine Brands after serving as Vice President of Strategy, Business Analytics & Consumer Insights for the Applebee’s brand. In this role, he was responsible for a series of strategic growth initiatives. These included ensuring a guest-driven focus across key business and brand-building initiatives by leveraging guest insights and analytics, driving the growth of our off-premise channels (To Go, Catering and Delivery – third-party partners and Applebee’s Delivery), and strengthening the franchisee portfolio through market evolution and restaurant development.

Prior to joining Applebee’s in 2016, Scott was a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group, leading strategy and operations projects across a variety of industries and topics. His experience included efforts focused on brand transformation, marketing optimization, growth strategy and consumer insights.

Scott received his undergraduate degree from Emory University and his M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Jon Glick

Partner, CMO Advisory, PwC

Bio coming soon

Mat Gurda

Creative Director, WD Partners

As a creative director, Mat Gurda owns the creative ideation within a given project, playing a lead role in a wide variety of concept work across many industries. Mat attended the Cleveland Institute of Art, with a dual focus in interior design and product design. His strong visualization skills are realized through hand sketches and Adobe Photoshop, taking his ideas to paper with speed. After time spent at General Motors, he has continued to explore product and furniture design, and has applied his formal training in user experience, interface and ergonomics within the environments created at WD. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor, teaching within the design programs at both The Ohio State University and the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). His work at WD has included clients such as Aramark, Dannon, Emart, Friendly’s, Gatorade, Hasbro, EchoPark/Sonic Automotive and The Home Depot.

Heidi Hinkle Vargas

Vice President, Sales at Bacardi USA

If you’ve ordered a Bacardi cocktail at one of your favorite neighborhood bar or restaurants across the U.S., Heidi probably had her hand in getting Bacardi brands there. As former Vice President and Managing Director of On-Premise, Heidi managed the entire On Trade (hospitality) for Bacardi USA. This included an award-winning national account team who cared for the largest restaurant, hotel, casino, and concession chains. In addition to this, she created the national strategy for independent bars and restaurants across the county. There, she kept a vigilant watch over what she refers to as the On-Premise Empire, a field sales team who bring the Bacardi brands to life for consumers.

Heidi joined Bacardi with already impressive hospitality and beverage credentials. She previously worked at Pernod Ricard and at MGM Resorts International (Bellagio and Aria Resorts) where she built and managed massive beverage programs. Under her leadership, she cultivated hundreds of hospitality professionals and groomed many of the food and beverage executives that are prevalent in Las Vegas today. During this time, Heidi was voted by her peers as the Santé Spirits Professional of the Year. She has been recognized by employers and peers for driving results through building positive culture and leading with authenticity. 

During her time working at the Bacardi HQ in Miami, Heidi was a founding member of the Bacardi Center of Excellence at Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism. The Bacardi Center of Excellence is a dynamic educational partnership focused on developing the future leaders of beverage management, fine spirits, industry innovation, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. Heidi is also a graduate of the University of Miami Herbert Business School, completing her Executive Education in Advanced Leadership. 

Heidi currently resides in Southern California and oversees total retail sales within the west coast, a valuable contribution worth nearly half a billion dollars in revenue. She is married with identical twin boys and is a self-proclaimed foodie and home chef.

Natalie Holloway

Co-founder of Bala

@nnholloway @bala

Natalie is the Cofounder of Bala, a Los Angeles-based movement company. Natalie – a certified yoga instructor – and her  fellow cofounder / eventual husband shipped  the first 75,000 units of their now infamous Bala Bangles from their garage before appearing on Shark Tank, where they secured an investment from Mark Cuban and Maria Sharapova. Bala has since been featured in the likes of Forbes, The New York Times, Esquire and was dubbed one of “The 17 Items That Defined 2020” by Vogue. 

Prior to Bala, Natalie worked at best-in-class advertising agencies on marquee brands including Starbucks, Google, and Jeep. 

Natalie attended Fashion Institute of Technology before graduating from The University of Texas at Austin. 

Natalie is a mother to Watson and Uma,  and dog-mom to Penny and Naomi.

Sarah McMahon

Head of Retention Marketing & Audience Activation, Vans

Sarah McMahon is a seasoned generalist marketer & dynamic leader that has driven retail and consumer growth programs from startups to Fortune 500 companies throughout her career.  She currently leads Retention Marketing & Audience Activation at Vans, a VF Company.  In this role, she directs segmentation strategies to engage the Vans consumer with the core brand mission of enabling creative expression, by ensuring marketing communications deliver the right message at the right time. Prior to this role, Sarah held a variety of digital & growth marketing leadership positions in the ecommerce and direct-to-consumer industry.  Sarah also received her MBA from UCLA Anderson in 2021, with a specialization in Global Business Expansion.

Alissa Miki

Founder and CEO of Cashi Cake Inc.

Alissa is a Japanese social entrepreneur, youngest awardee of Forbes Japan 100 Women in 2019, and Business Insider Japan's "Game Changer 2019", as well as an award-winning public speaker and news commentator viewed by over 15M people annually . Recently, she has been recognized by the Milken Institute for outstanding progress in the development of marine plant-based technology and her active role in philanthropy. Alissa is the only Japanese member of The Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle (YLC) 

At its core, Cashi Cake is a wellness tech company with the unique model of marrying state-of-the-art technology with centuries-old wisdom. Technology developed by Cashi Cake, in tandem with Japan’s largest seaweed producer, has allowed the company to develop new, sustainable techniques of mass-producing and processing marine plants (agar-producing seaweed, etc.) previously not possible. Consumption and processing of the carbon dioxide stored in marine plant life help balance the global ecosystem and make available the unique health benefits of these products. Far from rooting itself in the ivory tower of silicon valley, however, the vision of Cashi Cake emphasizes the importance of getting its technology (and its benefits) into the hands of people worldwide. Thus, Misaky.Tokyo was born.

Misaky.Tokyo, a Japanese-inspired confectioner, makes use of the technology developed by Cashi Cake to make the health benefits and one-of-a-kind, delicious results accessible to the general public. Launched in 2019 under the simple premise of "Shareable sweets that make people happy.", Misaky.Tokyo has collaborated with Kim Kardashian's brand, gained over 900K followers and 150M times in total number of views on Tiktok, and has catered the Academy and Emmy Awards pre-events.

This year, Cashi Cake is  planning to launch the first marine-plant based functional gut-healthy beverage, OoMee. OoMee is a marine-plant fruit infused water with gluten free, vegan, non additive, that you can drink daily to support good gut health. OoMee drink was nominated for the best new plant forward product at 2023 Expo west NEXTY awards from over 850 applicants.

Ariela Nerubay Turndorf

EVP, CMO, Curacao. Professor at USC.

Ariela N. Turndorf is an award-winning marketing executive and active Chief Marketing Officer with over twenty years of marketing expertise developing results-generating strategies and initiatives to drive revenue. A well-rounded professional with advertising agency background and client-side know-how launching, branding and marketing a variety of products and services, from a cross-section of industries; from banking and insurance to retail and entertainment. Wide experience working for multiple size organizations from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies with focus on domestic and international consumers.

Blake and Brandon Shirk

Co-Founders, SOVA Hospitality

Blake & Brandon Shirk are twin hoteliers from Dallas, Texas. Inspired by their intrepid travels in over 40 countries, Blake & Brandon decided to create the hotel they once wished existed in the U.S. – a concept designed to embody the adventurous spirit found in exploring the world and meeting fellow travelers. Following graduation from Texas A&M, the Shirks decided to forgo traditional jobs in finance and instead committed their days to orchestrating what would later become the first SOVA Hotel. While juggling part-time jobs as freelance consultants and even as a sushi chef, the Shirks raised capital, oversaw design & buildout, then officially opened the doors of "SOVA Micro Room & Social Hotel" in October 2021. SOVA has since been rated as one of the top Hotels in Downtown Dallas after 2,000+ reviews across all booking platforms. The business subsequently opened a third-floor speakeasy bar (run by their sister Morgan!) that was rated one of the “Hottest Cocktail Bars in Dallas” by Eater Magazine in 2022.