Jill Nelson
General Partner, Elevate VC
Before joining Elevate Capital as General Partner, Jill founded Ruby Receptionists (Ruby.com), and grew it to 630 employees and 10,000 customers before handing over the reigns. Under Jill’s leadership, Ruby holds the record-breaking position as one of Oregon’s fastest growing companies for 12 consecutive years and was repeatedly named a top 5 places to work in the U.S. by Fortune Magazine.
Jill was a Pacific NW 2017 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and was named the 2017 Oregon Technology Executive of the Year—the first woman to receive this recognition. Jill sits on the board of Ruby.com and is an Operating Advisor for Updata Partners. She is also a board member of TiE Oregon.
Smita Siddhanti
Founder & President of EnDyna Inc.
Virginia, DC
Dr. Smita Siddhanti, President and founder of EnDyna Inc., an environmental and management consulting firm, working with several US federal agencies. A nationally recognized expert in public health risk assessment and environmental management, she has worked extensively with federal and state agencies to develop regulations, policy, guidance, technology evaluations and management approaches to environmental protection, and training. She serves on the board of University of Pittsburgh and has served on the Virginia Governor's Air Quality Board. For the last two decades, Smita has been actively engaged with Rural women entrepreneurship in villages of Maharashtra. Dr. Siddhanti is the current President of TiE-DC and a Trustee on the TiE Global Board.