Signature Events

Meral Arik

Meral Arik is a founder of Passage Protocol, where she provides crypto & NFT communities tools to build their own high-performing, on-chain membership programs. Meral co-founded Passage in 2021, after contributing to numerous DAOs and crypto projects including Seed Club, Forefront & NEAR Protocol.

Previously, Meral co-founded String, a messaging SaaS company (acq). She also founded DOER Society, a community of 10k+ entrepreneurial women.

Meral has over 200k followers on TikTok, where she talks about startups, wellness & web3. You can hear more from Meral on Twitter Spaces where she co-hosts “CLUB House,” a weekly show about DAOs, Social Tokens, NFTs and web3 communities.

Connect with Meral—
Twitter: @ismeralgmi
TikTok: @meralarik
meral@passageprotocol.com

Amanda Clayman

Amanda Clayman is a financial therapist who helps people bring money into balance. She is the host of the Death, Sex & Money podcast series Financial Therapy with Amanda Clayman for WNYC Studios. To learn about the inglorious start to Amanda’s financial wellness mission, read the story about her $19,000 Haircut at www.amandaclayman.com.

Dina Barmasse-Gray

Dina Barmasse-Gray is Chief People Officer for The Cheesecake Factory- named one of the FORTUNE "100 Best Companies to Work For” eight years in a row. The Cheesecake Factory differentiates itself through their service and hospitality, menu innovation and operational excellence—each of which is dependent upon the strong performance of their 40,000 staff members and the common culture that binds them together. In her role, she is responsible to drive the overall effectiveness and strategy of the HR organization, building the capacity to meet the company’s talent challenges & opportunities.

Dina holds a Master of Science in Organization Development from Pepperdine’s’ Graziadio School of Business, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Psychology from California State University Northridge. She’s been honored as the 2019 Los Angeles HR Executive of the Year, and was previously recognized in Ventura County for the same achievement.

Samantha Edelstein

Samantha Edelstein manages multi-million dollar deals in HBO’s Originals Production Business Affairs division, working with some of the industry’s top executives and talent. She graduated with a BFA in Acting for Motion Pictures & Television from the Academy of Art University and spent several years as a Creative, producing and acting in award-winning films and television series, before pivoting into the business side of the industry. Prior to HBO, she worked for prestigious companies such as ICM Partners and Mammal Studios, specializing in Contract Administration and Client Accounting.

Samantha is currently a FEMBA candidate at UCLA Anderson, class of 2024, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Anderson Women’s Business Connection.

Kim Floresca

Kim Floresca is the Senior Vice President, Executive Chef and Innovation officer for goop Kitchen, responsible for the strategic direction, growth, and performance of Gwyneth Paltrow’s premier food enterprise.

As an industry professional with more than 20 years of experience, Kim is known for maximizing operational excellence and driving brand growth. Kim has not only worked at some of the world’s most elite restaurants, but she has also been recognized by Bon Appetit as The People’s Best New Chef 2014, a 2016 Culinary Master for Robb Report, as well as having her work highlighted in such publications like Food & Wine, Bon Appetite and The New York Times.

Born into a military family, Kim’s exposure to food began at a young age. Through cultural adaptation, Kim has been able to craft food in a way that contributes to a style that is fresh, flavor forward and sustainable.

As the Chef for goop Kitchen, Kim’s goal is to create culture that builds and nurtures talent, creativity and development. With the future of food strategy, clean eating and well-being first and foremost, Kim’s push to continue to push the boundaries of food design.

Carolina Garcia

Carolina Garcia is Director of Original Series at Netflix where she oversees some of Netflix's top Overall Deal talent, including The Duffer Brothers, Brian Yorkey, Jennifer Lopez's Nuyorican Productions, Shawn Levy's 21 Laps, Mara Brock Akil, Marti Noxon, Courtney Kemp and more. She has shepherded some of Netflix’s most popular series including Stranger Things, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 13 Reasons Why, Atypical, and Raising Dion, along with the upcoming Echoes, and All the Light We Cannot See. Prior to Netflix, she was at Twentieth Century Fox for nine years - and before that she graduated from the University of San Diego. Carolina was born in Tucuman, Argentina and raised in Claremont, California.

Carolina was named one of The BBC’s 100 Women of 2021, Hola! USA’s Top 100 Powerhouse Latinas in 2021 and as one of Forbes’ 40 Under 40 in 2020 and The Hollywood Reporter’s 35 Under 35 in 2019.

Mitchella Gilbert

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. Prior to that, she was a Deloitte consultant and the Chief Product Officer at a sportswear startup. She worked with Nike’s Demand and Supply Management Division and she graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy. OYA Femtech Apparel is her fourth company.

Christina Hardy

Christina Hardy joined Bumble, the women-first dating and networking app, as Director of Talent and Influencer in 2021. In her role, Christina spearheads Bumble's talent and influencer marketing strategy, translating the brand’s messaging and mission to new audiences globally with the goal of increasing brand awareness, securing brand trust and, in turn, obtaining and retaining user acquisition. Prior to joining Bumble, Christina spent nearly 13 years at organizations such as Special Project Media, ESSENCE Magazine, InStyle, and Sunshine Sachs, holding various management roles across talent relations, event production, and marketing. Christina is currently based in Los Angeles, and holds a B.A. in Political Science/Pre-Law from Washington State University. She is also a graduate of Howard University, where she received a Master’s degree in Mass Communication and Media Studies.

Ridhima Kahn

Ridhima Ahuja Kahn is the VP of Business Development & Partnerships at Dapper Labs. Her focus is helping build meaningful partnerships with social media platforms and the world’s top IPs as they look to build blockchain-based experiences. Prior to Dapper Labs, she was a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) where she focused on sports, social, media & entertainment, collectibles (digital & physical), hospitality/travel and food. She has also spent time on the investment teams at the Hewlett Foundation ($12b) & Grosvenor Capital Management ($46b).

Kahn holds a Bachelors of Business Administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Kwoon

Dr. Kwoon is an organizational psychologist and co-founder of Illumentia, an organization that creates and delivers programs on leadership, multiculturalism, and DE&I learning. She has worked in a variety of industries including non-profit healthcare, mortgage banking, and themed entertainment. She spent 10 years with Walt Disney Imagineering, working first as project finance on the Shanghai Disneyland Theme Park & Resort opened in 2016, and then as the Business Manager for the Creative/Show division. She earned a PhD in Business Psychology in 2018, focusing her studies on power dynamics in the workplace and how the positive use of power is vital to building creative, innovative, and ultimately more productive working cultures.

Katherine Longest

Katherine is currently the Director of Growth at OSEA Malibu, a vegan skincare and bodycare brand made in California. In addition, she is an instructor at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, where she sits on the Digital Marketing Advisory Council. Katherine holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and a B.S. in Economics & Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Originally from the East Coast, Katherine and her husband moved to Los Angeles in 2015 and have no plans to leave sunny California.

Maggie Love

Maggie Love is Co-founder and Director of Business Development at W3BCLOUD, a joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), and ConsenSys. W3BCLOUD is building multi-protocol infrastructure for the compute and storage layers of Web 3. While at ConsenSys, she worked across ventures, partnerships, and client engagements.

Maggie is also the Founder of SheFi, a crypto education initiative focused on hands on experimentation in Web 3.0 and an inclusive community. She launched SheFi in 2020 to cultivate a global community of leaders learning about, discussing, building and investing in the future of finance and Web 3. To date, she has onboarded over a 700+ people to Web 3 either through her cohorts or other educational engagements. Maggie also participates in the broader crypto ecosystem as a member of the DeFi, music and social DAOs, as a mentor for crypto accelerators and as a backer of the Komorebi Fund.

Before she fell down the crypto rabbithole in 2017, Maggie led product strategy for IBM Watson in Financial Services.

She fervently believes “joy is not made to be a crumb” (Mary Oliver) and lives her life accordingly. You can find her cultivating, creating and curating experiences of joy with my friends/communities on and off the dance floor.

Ashley Merrill (‘15)

As founder of Lunya and Lahgo, Ashley Merrill is reinventing sleepwear for modern women and men, respectively. Both brands share a simple mission: to champion rest in people’s lives.

Beyond Luny and Lahgo, Ashley is principal at impact investing firm NaHCO3, where she leverages her background in venture, technology, and the arts to invest in ways that utilize business to create opportunity and move humanity forward. Ashley is also cofounder of The Deep, a media platform that makes philosophy and personal exploration accessible through thought-provoking questions and the Chairwoman of Outdoor Voices. Both personally and professionally, she is an active supporter of organizations like SOLA, Upstream, and United Medical Corps. She is a Southern California native and resides there with her husband and their two young children.

Dana Taylor Old (‘10)

Dana Taylor Old (MBA 2010) is a certified professional coach and facilitator who works with teams and individuals to build connection, uplevel communication and to reach untapped potential. As President of Studio DTO and Head of Corporate Practice for Organic Communication, her clients include Red Bull, Disney, Ralph Lauren, FOX, Stitch Fix, Activision, Sony, Experian, DaVita and Jägermeister.

Additionally, Dana brings 10 years of CPG Brand Management experience and a passion for developing high-performing teams. She translates brand-building and cross-functional leadership expertise to help clients drive clear communication and effectively foster a strong team environment.

She received her BA in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania and earned her MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. After graduating from UCLA Anderson, Dana spent a decade at Red Bull North America and Nestle USA. She is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Certified Coach (PCC, CPCC).

Dana resides in her hometown of Manhattan Beach and is passionate about Park City, Peloton, Sunday Open Houses and beach time with her family.

www.studiodto.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-taylor-old/
dana@studiodto.com

Eve Logunova-Parker

Eve Logunova-Parker is a visionary and an innovation-focused professional from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2021, Eve was recognized as one of the AI leaders to follow and one of Top 10 powerhouse female ecosystem builders of Amsterdam’s tech domain. For the last 15 years Eve is dedicated to help people and businesses embrace growth and become future-proof by applying emerging technologies, such as AI, Extended Reality (XR), Web 3.0 and Blockchain. In 2020, she founded Evenness, a fast scaling startup that democratizes XR by making technology accessible to everyone, on any device. Last year Evenness scaled to the US and now builds its own virtual space, a so called Metaverse, for social collaboration and learning. Eve's life mission is to make technology more inclusive and accessible for people of all walks of life, with a special emphasis on building inclusive solutions by DeepTech companies themselves. With data becoming every company’s best asset, Eve truly believes that AI ethics, Inclusion by design, diverse datasets as well as tech teams are vital in achieving progress toward a more inclusive workplace as well as society at large. For more information, please visit: www.evgenia-logunova.com

Lisa Sterbakov

Since 2014, Lisa has partnered with Mila Kunis and Cami Curtis on their Orchard Farm Productions. In the company’s first year in operation, Lisa sold 6 shows into development – every project they took out to the marketplace – and have since continued at a similar pace. With an equal split between comedy and drama, both cable and broadcast, she has developed with ABC, NBC, Fox, CW, Hulu, TBS, TNT, Freeform, HBO Max, and Starz, among others.

Additionally, OFP moved into features in 2020 and Lisa is producing numerous projects around town at Netflix, D+, WB, and HBOM, including Luckiest Girl Alive with Netflix which will be shooting through 2021.

On the cutting edge of the industry, Mila and Lisa, both members of the 3050 Gang, launched their first NFT project, Stoner Cats, in 2021 with the plan to develop multiple new shows using this the NFT model.

Jennifer M. Walske

Dr. Jennifer Walske is an adjunct assistant professor at UCLA Anderson, and has served as the faculty director of Impact@Anderson. She is also a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. As a writer, researcher and investor, Walske sits on numerous for-profit and nonprofit boards. Her research centers on the funding and scaling of startups, with an emphasis on social startups and social venture capital firms. Walske has received numerous research and teaching awards, including the “best paper” award from NYU Stern’s Social Entrepreneurship Conference and the Cheit Award for Teaching Excellence at UC Berkeley Haas. Prior to her academic career, Walske was an institutional All American ranked investment banking securities analyst and a regular commentator on both CNN and CNBC. Prior to investment banking, Walske served in product marketing roles at Synopsys and Intergraph. She holds a doctorate in strategy and entrepreneurship from Boston University, an MBA from Santa Clara University and a B.A. in communication studies from UC Santa Barbara.