CULTURE CAPITAL

Felecia Hatcher is the CEO of Black Ambition Prize, a non-profit led by Grammy Award-winning artist Pharrell Williams that invests capital and resources in high-growth startups founded by Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs. In that role, she has invested in over 100 entrepreneurs that have raised more than $95 million. Felecia’s corporate career in marketing led her to influential positions at the Minnesota Timberwolves, Nintendo, Sony, and Mckee Foods. Companies like Google, Disney, Spotify, EY, Target, Samsung, and Etsy call on Felecia to help them empower their teams and shape their inclusive innovation strategies. Felecia has been featured in Forbes, the Today Show, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, and is a White House Champion of Change Honoree.

Melinda Archuleta is the Founder of Bar Carlo, a full-service neighborhood Mexican-American restaurant in Portland with a bar, patio, and occasional live shows. Growing up in Southern California as a Mexican-American, Melinda frequented Mexico with her family to connect to her roots. Those experiences inspired her to explore the flavors of her culture. After working in various San Diego restaurants, Melinda had the opportunity to create Bar Carlo and quickly infused it with vibrant Mexican flavors. At that point, in Portland, it was difficult to find a Mexican restaurant that wasn't a high-end joint or a hole in the wall, so Bar Carlo offered a nice balance. Now, 12 years later, Melinda has aspirations of her restaurant developing into more of a lively community space.

Cody Coleman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Coactive AI, an analytics platform for visual content. Coactive leverages artificial intelligence to make it easy for enterprises to search, filter, and analyze large amounts of image and video data by bringing structure to unstructured data. Cody is also a founding member of MLCommons and Co-Founder of MLPerf, playing a crucial role in developing standards and benchmarks that drive innovation in machine learning and AI. Cody's diverse professional experience includes internships at Facebook focusing on computer vision and roles at Pinterest and Jump Trading demonstrating his ability to apply AI and machine learning across a variety of domains. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University and Master of Engineering and Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT.

Bertony Faustin is the Founder of Abbey Creek Vineyard AKA The Crick, the only hip-hop winery. In 2008, he became the first recorded black winemaker in Oregon, and his journey was anything but typical. In an industry of legacy and privilege, Bertony had neither; he was not the descendant of a prominent wine lineage, and his motivation was never strictly about the wine. Still, after working in the medical field, Bertony wanted to feel more fulfilled and live up to the expectations of his Haitian immigrant parents. So, he acquired land that serendipitously had grapes planted by the previous owner. Even though drinking wasn’t his forte, he knew he could tap into winemaking and give the industry a whole new outlook. His deeper ambition is to bring people together, break bread, develop community, and allow for a deeper conversation into diversity, and representation.

Grace Hsia is the Founder of Warmilu, a global non-electric warming technology manufacturing company. Warmilu manufactures warming technology that is able to generate warmth with the press of a disk — and it lasts for hours and can be reused. Grace’s determination to spread warmth to those in need stemmed from her own story. As a preterm baby, an incubator’s warmth saved her life. Grace started her entrepreneurship journey as a senior project manager at the First Customer Program at the University of Michigan Economic Growth Institute, managing $1.6 million in program funding and 200+ advanced technology startups. She later earned a Master’s degree in Engineering from the university. She also earned a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, has been named a U.S. Manufacturing Institute Emerging Leader (2016 STEP Ahead Award), and received various other awards. Warmilu’s operations are primarily centered in Nairobi, where Grace and her dynamic team drive the majority of their product sales.

Chekesha Kidd is the Founder and CEO of Kinumi, a tech-enabled concierge platform providing aging adults and their caregivers access to resources and experiences to help them age successfully. Kinumi also provides a tool for employers to support their teams and recapture lost productivity due to caregiving demands. Kinumi offers Chekesha the opportunity to blend her extensive experiences as a C-suite healthcare executive, a former investment banker, and family caregiver. Chekesha previously served in senior leadership roles with Delta Dental of Minnesota, The Hartford, and Aetna. She also has nearly a decade of Wall Street experience as an investment banker, responsible for structuring and managing the deal process for M&A, debt and equity transactions totaling over $5 billion in value. She also has diverse health administration experience working in clinical research, state policy, and federal lobbying.

Latoya Peterson is the Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer of Glow Up Games, a studio building games and playful technology centered on Black and brown joy. Its flagship game is Insecure: The Come Up Game based on the hit HBO show Insecure starring Issa Rae. Latoya has always been a changemaker interested in disrupting the gaming space to include more people of color and women in the narrative. She spent years in journalism, advocating for race representation in video games and pop culture in publications like ESPN the Magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Essence, Vibe, and The Atlantic. She also worked as an independent consultant before co-launching Glow Up Games from the ground up with no experience in the gaming industry other than their passion for gaming.

William Tyrone Toms is Co-Founder of REC Philly, an innovative social club model dedicated to empowering creative people to do more of what they love. Under Will’s leadership, REC Philly has grown from humble beginnings in a North Philadelphia warehouse to an eight-figure, multi-city company serving thousands of creatives and some of the world’s leading brands. To date, REC has paid out over $2 million dollars to creatives in the Philadelphia region alone and landed Will a spot on the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 List in the Social Impact category. Will previously worked at a marketing agency helping some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry promote their brands. The experience helped Will learn what it takes to create and grow a world-class brand. The company recently announced a multi-city expansion and plans to open REC Miami in 2025.

Ashley M. Williams is the Founder of RIZZARR, a martech platform built to elevate content creators around the world and showcase a brand's purpose authentically through content and data science. Ashley also speaks at gatherings worldwide and hosts a video and podcast series called The Ripple Effect of You. She was a journalist for NBC and USA Today, and eventually made her mark by starting her own purpose-driven spin-off show with USA Today. These experiences inspired her to start RIZZARR, realizing creators wanted to work with purpose-driven brands and brands needed help connecting with creators. Ashley graduated with honors from the University of Southern California, earning a B.A. in broadcast and digital journalism as well as minors in international relations and Spanish.

David Wong is the Founder of FRIEDA, a social enterprise based in Philadelphia the mission of which is to bring people of all ages, ethnicities, and social backgrounds together to meet, eat, drink, share, learn, and create. Born on the island of Tahiti, he moved to Europe for college, then to New York. Burned out after a long career working on Wall Street, Wong moved to Sydney and then Paris, and rediscovered his insatiable appetite for the culinary arts. He created FRIEDA, an idea to redefine how we age in a more humane society, anchored around multigenerational communities of choice. Without hesitation, he seized the opportunity to work and invest in a venture filled with meaning, purpose, and promise.