Impact with Wings

 Stories to Inspire and Mobilize Women Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs

by:

Suzanne Andrews, Jagruti Bhikha, Karen Bairley Kruger, Christine Emilie Lim, Wingee Sin and Hana Yang With Contributing Authors Geri Stengel and Susan Preston

Publication Year: 2016

WILL YOU SETTLE FOR LEAVING HALF THE WORLD’S WEALTH ON THE TABLE?

In a world where women’s capital remains underused, angel investing—providing money, human capital, and expertise for start-up or early-stage companies—offers a potent opportunity for women to impact the future. The authors—all seasoned players in the global business and investment community—share their personal stories and insiders’ insights in a clarion wake-up call intended to activate new women angel investors.

Both inspirational and actionable, Impact with Wings is a unique book offering the necessary tools and information for evaluating whether angel investing is an appropriate financial asset class for you. Whether you’re a woman who wants to tap into your previously dormant financial clout or an entrepreneur—of any gender—who wants to understand the huge potential of women’s economic influence, Impact With Wings will inform, educate, and inspire you.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Wingpact is Born

Part I: Women and the Lay of Their Land: Investing, Funding and Entrepreneurship

Chapter One: What The Numbers Say: Angel Investing is Not Just a Man’s Game, by Geri Stengel

Chapter Two, Setting the Stage and Unpacking the Trends, by Suzanne Andrews

Chapter Three, Angel Investing as a Form of Empowerment, by Wingee Sin

Chapter Four, The Art of Due Diligence and Company Valuation, by Susan Preston

Chapter Five, Looking Beyond the Horizon: The State of Angel Investing in Emerging Economies, by Christine Emilie Lim

Chapter Six, Leveling the Playing Field: Crowdfunding as a Stepping Stone to Angel Investing, by Hana Yang

Part II: Women’s Stories and Voices from the Leading Edge of Angel Investing

Chapter Seven, Women in Transition, by Karen Bairley Kruger

Chapter Eight, The Matriarch, by Christine Emilie Lim

Chapter Nine, Past, Present, Future: Beads of Our Lives Woven on a Thread of Time, by Jagruti Bhikha

Part III: What the World Could Look Like When Women are Fully Empowered

Chapter Ten: Writing the Next Chapter in the Wingpact Story: Your Next Steps, and Ours, by the Authors

Appendices

Glossary

 

About the Authors

 

The Wingpact Team

Suzanne Andrews – Mother, Investor, and Global Connector

As an angel investor, Suzanne Andrews focuses her investments on women-owned positive social impact companies, with a particular interest in the fair fashion industry. Previously, as director at the Anita Borg Institute, Suzanne supported the TechWomen program, bringing technical women leaders from the Middle East and North Africa to the United States for partnerships with Silicon Valley women. From this experience, she learned about the power and opportunity in her dream of a global women’s network of investors and entrepreneurs. Suzanne also writes about women’s startup culture, investigating the possibilities for disruption now that there are more women investors available to support previously underfunded high-impact women entrepreneurs. She spent ten years as a software engineer at Apple, has been a midwife’s assistant and a doula, and is a proud mom to Emily, 19, and Ian, 12. Suzanne has a BA in computer science from Brown University.

 

Jagruti Bhikha, MS – Mom, Geek, Speaker

Jagruti Bhikha is a seasoned technical leader and strategist whose work experience includes software engineering, creating and executing programs in technology as well as conferences for women in tech, and helping to provide tech solutions for nonprofit organizations by matching tech talent with the tech needs of the nonprofit. She is currently working as a talent development leader for a software consulting firm and is an active angel investor as well as an advocate for women entrepreneurs. She has successfully implemented WEQ (Women’s Entrepreneur Quest) program in India, which is now in its fifth year and was recently featured on CNBC India. She is working to bring a similar conference program to Chile (LAtINiTY), giving women entrepreneurs an opportunity to pitch in front of government and business leaders. She currently serves as an advisor with India’s most trusted platform for startups, LetsVenture, helping connect Indian startups with global angels, VCs, and startup programs. Jagruti is passionate about women in leadership (especially tech, marketing, and design) and growing women investors and entrepreneurs worldwide. She holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from NYU-POLY and an MS in project management from George Washington University and is the mother of two daughters, Priya and Nisha. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Karen Bairley Kruger, MS – Mother, Entrepreneur, and Social Impact Investor

Karen Bairley Kruger is an impact investor, writer, and mother of four. She holds a BA in psychology from the College of William and Mary and an MS in counseling, Phi Beta Kappa, from San Francisco State University. Karen worked previously with children and adolescents, teaching and counseling in Japan and Hawaii, respectively. She is passionate about increasing cultural awareness as a part of early education and expanding leadership ​opportunities​ for women and minorities. Karen is an active angel investor in female-founded social-impact companies. She is dedicated to leveling the playing field by empowering women to support, hire, and invest in each other.

 

Christine Emilie Lim, MBA – Technology Marketer

Christine Emilie Lim has extensive marketing experience in Silicon Valley both at a Fortune 500 company (Symantec) and at VC-backed technology startups such as Mercantila (acquired), MarketTools (acquired), Egnyte, and HackerOne. She concentrates on social enterprise investments and runs a foodtech blog on gastronomypix.com. Christine received an MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University in the Netherlands and a BS in business administration in marketing and international studies from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington. She has lived in multiple countries but calls Cebu City, Philippines her first home. Christine is passionate about food systems, sustainability, health, and cultures.

 

Wingee Sin CAIA, CFA – Financial Products Wiz, Investor, Startup Advisor, Traveling Skirt

Wingee is a managing director at State Street Global Advisor and heads up global product strategy for the firm’s retirement business. In her capacity, she leverages her fifteen years of investment, strategy, and execution experience to drive product innovation and evolution to help America retire with dignity. She has extensive experience across global capital markets and investors. Wingee has been a serial intrapreneur in her career and had the privilege of making a difference at Goldman Sachs, Barclays Global Investor, and State Street. She loves investing and has a passion in helping others, especially women, make their money work for them.

 

Hana Yang, MS – International Trailblazer and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Builder

Hana Yang is a senior banker on First Republic Bank’s tech and venture team, whose mission is to foster community thought leadership in the entrepreneurial and venture capital ecosystem. Prior to First Republic, she was a managing partner at Manos Accelerator, an accelerator for Latino founders. She also has strategic and operational experience in crowdfunding and e-commerce startups. Before joining the early-stage tech industry, Hana held positions at Adobe, the United Nations Population Fund Agency, and Capgemini Consulting. Hana is also a founding partner of Wingpact, a global network of women investors and entrepreneurs, and a Class 20 Kauffman Fellow. She received her master’s degree in fundraising management from Columbia University and her undergraduate degree in Spanish and Portuguese Literature from UC Berkeley. Hana is passionate about people, cultures, revolutionary ideas, disruptive technology, and impact investing.

 

Contributing Authors

Geri Stengel, Founder and President, Ventureneer

Geri is founder and president of Ventureneer, a content marketing, marketing research and education company that helps companies reach small businesses. Clients include CNBC, Dell, Intuit, New York City and turnstone. As a writer (author of Forget the Glass Ceiling: Building Your Business Without One and Stand Out In the Crowd: How Women (and Men) Benefit From Equity Crowdfunding and Forbes contributor writing about the success factor of women entrepreneurs), consultant, teacher (Kauffman FastTrac facilitator and former adjunct professor at The New School) and speaker, Geri has helped thousands of entrepreneurs take their vision to reality, develop their business plan, and learn the strategies and tactics they need to grow their businesses. A graduate of the corporate world, Geri conducted market research for The Wall Street Journal and headed marketing for Dow Jones’ online services and launched Physicians’ Online before the Web.

Susan Preston, Managing Member, Seattle Angel Fund

Susan Preston is the General Partner for the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund and the Managing Partner for the new Seattle Angel Fund, committed to fostering entrepreneurial growth in the Pacific Northwest through early-stage investments. She teaches in the MBA program at the University of Washington. Susan also serves as co-chair and a lead instructor for the Angel Resource Institute, a global investor and entrepreneur education organization, and is a board member for Element 8, a Seattle-based angel group focusing on clean-tech investing. As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for six years, she focused on initiatives supporting the growth and success of women entrepreneurs and initiatives related to angel investing and angel organizations. Susan consults internationally on angel and venture financing, has held several board positions with public and privately held corporations, and has served on numerous non-profit boards. She spent much of her earlier career in senior management positions in public and private companies, was a partner in two national law-firms, and is a licensed patent attorney. She received her JD, cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law and her BS, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in Microbiology and Public Health from Washington State University.

 

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