Blessy Thomas is Partner at Innovate Capital Growth Fund, a growth equity fund focused on investing in underinvested, growth-focused lower middle market companies primarily in the Mid-Atlantic region. Blessy Thomas is a finance management professional with 18+ years of experience driving growth strategies and profitability initiatives. She has worked with large commercial teams and small businesses in diverse industries such as Biopharma, Manufacturing, Petrochemical, Food Products & Services, Consumer Products, and Healthcare. Blessy has been instrumental in developing, packaging, and executing company financial plans and strategies for groups with revenues in aggregate of $1B+. Since joining The Enterprise Center (TEC) in January 2019, Blessy has been instrumental in investing, expanding, and managing the portfolio of debt and equity investments, implementing procedures, and advising minority-owned enterprises on their strategic and financial options. Before joining TEC, Blessy was a strategic director at VWR International (Avantor Sciences) for 10+ years, a product and service supplier to the life science sector. While there, she spearheaded strategic and financial analysis and identified sales and profit-enhancing opportunities that resulted in significant revenue and profit growth.

Blessy received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a focus in Finance and Marketing from Drexel University in Philadelphia.

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Kim has over 18 years of extensive experience originating, structuring, and negotiating lease transactions with startup, emerging growth, venture, and private equity-backed companies. Kim’s vast number of connections working in the venture capital space and forming strategic relationships has led to millions of dollars in transactions. During her career supporting a wide variety of businesses across many verticals with an alternative source of capital as it related to Capex needs has allowed these companies to use expensive equity dollars to grow and expand their businesses not use on capex. Deep, long-term relationships have been the key to her success.

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Forbes Next 1000 List-Maker, Ali Kaminetsky of Modern Picnic, disrupted the cooler industry with their first-to-market, viral insulated lunch boxes catered towards the modern female consumer. They have since created a line of innovative, high quality food storage solutions that embody their values of functionality, sustainability and style. Modern Picnic has been celebrated in the media over 450 times, including publications such as Forbes, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Oprah, The Today Show, can be shopped at Saks, Bloomingdales, The Container Store, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, amongst others and more recently can be seen on Shark Tank!

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Ramona Ortega, Esq. is an award-winning tech entrepreneur and social impact leader, recognized for her visionary work in financial technology. As the founder of WealthBuild, she has pioneered the development of AI-powered agentic workflows that drive personalized financial solutions. WealthBuild is the only generative AI platform built specifically for client-facing financial services firms, enabling companies to transform client experiences, optimize operations, and maintain rigorous compliance across every channel. WealthBuild is part of the IBM Fintech Fast Pass program. Ramona’s first company, My Money My Future, a financial literacy and inclusion platform, leads the THRIVE Campaign, a new investor initiative in partnership with the NASDAQ Foundation. Ramona is an Angel investor and fractional General Counsel for Rhia Ventures, an impact-first, venture capital fund that invests in early-stage health startups.

Ramona is a public speaker and thought leader on AI and financial inclusion and millennial money. Ramona was named Crain’s Business Most Notable Women in Financial Advice in 2020 and 100 Most Influential Latinas by Latino Leaders Magazine. She is a Politico Impact leader and was featured in HBO’s Gaming Wall Street. Previously, Ramona was on the founding team of Azlo, a BBVA-backed neo-bank for small businesses. Prior to that, Ramona was a Wall Street attorney, where she worked on high-profile securities litigation cases in private practice and at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

Ramona holds a B.A. from UCLA and a J.D. from Fordham School of Law.

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Corinne Goble joined the Association of Women’s Business Centers (AWBC) in January 2019 with a mission to expand the network’s capacity and impact. Leveraging her diverse background in trucking, financial services, philanthropy, and communications, Goble has led AWBC through significant growth, expanding the network across all 50 states. Under her leadership, AWBC has grown to four full-time employees and awarded over $1 million in subgrants. Originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Goble holds a BA in International Studies and has studied abroad in Spain and Switzerland. In her free time, she enjoys activities like yoga, boxing, and strength training.

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Le’Jean Thompson is a Senior Regional Development Manager at Founders First Capital Partners and a capital access strategist who helps growth stage founders unlock the right funding without giving up equity to get there.

At Founders First, Le’Jean leads market development and partner engagement across key East Coast markets, connecting service based B2B and B2G companies to revenue based financing and non dilutive growth capital designed for sustainable scale. His work is rooted in a simple belief: the right capital, at the right time, changes the trajectory of a business.

Before joining Founders First, Le’Jean served as Interim CEO of Workforce and Economic Revitalization for Communities, Inc. (WERC), a certified CDFI that oversaw a $20.8 million federal grant. As a Business Consultant with the U.S. Minority Business Development Agency, he helped underserved business owners generate $57.9 million in revenue, secure $3.9 million in capital, and create nearly 900 jobs.

Le’Jean brings a practitioner’s lens to capital strategy, helping founders move from capital curious to capital ready, and from application to deployment.

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LaFonda Willis is a former teacher, school leader, and entrepreneur turned securities lawyer with a deep commitment to the economic empowerment of women.  Leveraging her unique background in both education and law, LaFonda champions financial education and initiatives that equip and inspire women to become confident investors and entrepreneurs and to pursue careers and opportunities in capital markets and emerging tech. 

LaFonda currently serves as a two-time American Bar Association Presidential Appointee to the Commission on Women in the Profession, Co-Chair of the Securities Regulation and Small Business Subcommittees for the ABA Woman Advocate Committee, Co-Chair of the ABA Banking Law Committee’s Payments & Electronic Banking Subcommittee, and Chair of the GWAC Bar Association’s Law Firm and Corporate Counsel Committee.  LaFonda is passionate about helping women thrive in business and law and leverages her multiple leadership roles to advance this mission and create lasting impact. 

LaFonda has a distinguished legal practice at the intersection of financial services, fintech, securities, and trading and markets activity.  She specializes in providing regulatory counsel to stock exchanges, alternative trading systems, broker-dealers, investment advisors, and crypto markets participants.  

LaFonda also represents a range of clients—including publicly traded companies, investment advisors, and brokerage firms—in securities, commodities, and commercial litigation.  LaFonda began her legal career with service as a federal judicial law clerk for the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit—which provided an excellent foundation for a remarkable career defined by leadership, excellence, and purpose. 

LaFonda is honored to speak at the Women’s Capital Summit to provide inspiration and actionable insights to women entrepreneurs for business success and to connect with women investors and entrepreneurs who share her vision, values, and commitment to women’s economic empowerment.

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Allegra Stennett is co-founder of New Majority Capital, an impact investing firm focused on small business buyouts by underrepresented entrepreneurs. Allegra sits on the firm’s Investment Committee and also oversees external partnerships. 

Prior to NMC, Allegra completed an MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management and an EdM in Education Policy & Management at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Following completion of her undergraduate studies, Allegra was a banker at J.P. Morgan in New York for 5 years. She split her time equally across the investment banking and commercial banking divisions. During her tenure, Allegra covered a variety of multi-billion dollar client relationships in the Healthcare, Industrials, Natural Resources, and Nonprofit sectors, launched a second language program to prepare 5,000 tri-state employees for international opportunities, and completed an expat assignment in London. 

Allegra is a native New Yorker, daughter of Jamaican immigrants, and currently resides in Boston.

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Lori Avedikian is an executive director and head of the Women’s Segment with Wells Fargo’s Commercial Bank (CB). CB delivers expertise and financial services to companies with annual sales between $25MM and $2B across a wide range of industries. In her role, Lori partners with the relationship-focused banking teams to ensure we understand that needs of our clients, offer solutions, and raise awareness on behalf of women-owned and led businesses. This includes creating and supporting partnerships that support business growth.

With 25 years at Wells Fargo, Lori has been a leader focused on growth and delivering for customers. She led a team of FX Payment Solution Sales Specialists focused on Commercial Banking customers with the goal of creating solutions that support need related to foreign currency payments. Prior to that, Lori was part of Wells Fargo Capital Finance—Wells Fargo’s asset-based lending group—leading the Strategic Relationship Development team. Her focus was on strategy and risk management while driving relationship growth and development. Lori has also spent time as a Senior Relationship Manager in US Corporate Banking and prior to Wells Fargo held various roles focused on credit underwriting, workout, and trade finance.

In the community, Lori is actively involved with her children’s schools and regularly volunteers and fundraises for various causes. In 2020 she built, in conjunction with Wells Fargo, a partnership with Junior Achievement aimed at developing awareness and interest in financial services careers with targeted high school students.

Lori holds an undergraduate degree in Business Management from Boston University and has her MBA in Finance from New York University. She lives in Connecticut with her two teenage children and enjoys her time outside of the office as a dance, men’s gymnastics, and dog mom, and as her family’s personal chef and travel agent.

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Kathleen Reynolds is a finance executive with 20+ years of combined experience in financial services on Wall Street (at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs), and in advising start-ups and businesses as their outsourced/part-time CFO. Kathleen is a seasoned professional with an MBA from Columbia and extensive experience with all things financial: cash flow management, financing strategies, acquisition valuation and integration, financial reporting/forecasting/budgeting, KPI and performance assessment, new accounting systems testing and implementation, bank/vendor/regulatory relationship management and more.

She is a veteran team leader in corporate finance, delivering results under tight deadlines, coordinating across globally diverse and remote team members, all while adhering to keen regulatory oversight. Kathleen is equally comfortable working in the details, as she is with providing strategic guidance and perspective as a business partner, and enjoys moving between the two. She finds the shared expertise framework of ProCFO Partners to be of high value to clients because often the best ideas arise from collaboration and collective experience.

When Kathleen is not working with her clients, she volunteers with her school district’s Special Education Parent-Teacher Association (SEPTA), with her local parish, and is a charity swimmer for Swim Across America. Kathleen resides in Long Island, NY, where she and her great hubby raise three awesome boys.

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