Stephanie J. Wilson, Founder

Stephanie began her career in the medical industry out of college. She was recruited to participate in the Prestigious Technical Sales Program that General Electric Medical Systems offers to 3 college graduates from a field of over 7,000 National applicants every 3 years. After graduating from the program, Stephanie served as a Diagnostic Account Manager in over 4 states gaining market share for GE Medical Systems by selling MRI, CT, Radiography & Fluoroscope, Mammography, Cath Labs, and Linear Accelerators to Major Hospitals and Physicians.

For the last 25 years, Stephanie has specialized in the area of medical development, sales, leasing and management. Stephanie focuses on penetrating growth markets, working closely with hospitals, physicians and their staff to analyze and program their existing campus and future expansion options.  Key metrics of Stephanie’s Real Estate Development accomplishments:

• Led over 213 medical office building transactions
• Participated in over 1.2 million sq.ft. of planned development and construction
• Master planned over 125 acres 
• Raised over $430M in debt & equity

Stephanie Gripne, Ph.D., Founder, Impact Finance Center

Stephanie is an academic entrepreneur, impact investor, researcher, educator & the creative force behind Impact Finance Center and CO Impact Days and Initiative. She founded Impact Finance Center in 2012. Stephanie is the creative force behind the Impact Finance Center. Stephanie sets the vision and provides leadership for the entire organization while focusing on business development, client engagement, and industry thought leadership through her research, writing, and speaking.   

Nicole Bagley

Nicole supports the Impact Finance Center in the area of strategy, communications, fundraising and education. Nicole is a experienced entrepreneur, philanthropist, and impact investor and is the President of the Brenn Foundation, Vice President of the Arca Foundation, and serves as a trustee for the Sapelo Foundation. The Brenn Foundation  and Musgrove Conference Center convenes meetings for non-profits in a unique environment that encourages action through open conversation and the building of strategic partnerships.  

Heather Callander-Potters, Vice Chairman and Chief Business Development Officer of Pharmajet

Heather has a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Management from Claremont McKenna College and an MBA from Wharton, the University of Pennsylvania. One of the co-founders of the company, Heather has over 25 years of active investment experience including Private Equity fund management and international investment (BCEE; Enterprise Investors) across multiple jurisdictions, and has managed individual investments and financial investor consortiums, ranging from $1 million to an excess of $100 million. She has also held board positions with several companies across a variety of industries ranging from auto-parts, to systems integration, publishing, and light-manufacturing. 

Donna Morton

Donna is a lifelong serial social entrepreneur and an Ashoka, Unreasonable and Ogunte fellow. She is the co-founder of Change Finance; and now the Impact VP at LumenFarm Tech Company. Donna has spent years uniting the values of “Occupy”” with the financial acumen of “Wall Street”. She has worked on climate change and social justice for over 30 years through direct action, policy, deployment of renewable energy, carbon and other sustainability tax programs.She considers the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Victoria BC and Coastal Miwok people in Oakland California to be home. Donna identifies as financial activist, storyteller and mother. Her spirit and optimism are fed by friends, flowers and movement.

Karen Ashworth-Macfarlane

Karen is an entrepreneur, wealth manager, impact investor, fin tech investor, and a senior level consultant. She has a deep passion to empower and educate women, underserved people and men, around the globe on the value and power financial education and advocacy can and will bring to us all. She has her certified financial manager designation, has held numerous FINRA licenses, and was a senior leader for nearly two decades at major wall street firms. Karen is an entrepreneur, having co-founded, self-funded and built an all-natural clothing and accessories company, and developed this in to a multimillion dollar company. Her calling to empower and support women, underserved populations, and social impact companies has increased exponentially. 

She is the founder and CEO at women of wall street, a financial advocacy and educational consulting firm. Karen has been, and remains, actively involved in many nonprofits, boards, as a philanthropist and member. 

Praful Shah 

Praful is an angel investor focused on social impact, and has invested in 75 start-up companies. He is the Advisory Chairman of Principium Investments, Board of Directors for Rockies Venture Club and on the international Advisory Board of GlobalMindEd. His passion is to alleviate poverty of all kind (especially ignorance) and provide richness to lives. He spent over thirty years as a scientist and an executive in Research and Development departments of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. He finished high school in an Indian village and came to USA for college. His educational background includes B.S. (Chemistry), MBA (Finance) and PhD in Pharmaceutics.

Melanie Pease Davidson

Melanie is focused on social advocacy and investment to support organizations that are dedicated to poverty alleviation, food stability and economic security through empowerment of women and investment in female-led enterprises. Melanie is a veteran marketer who served as President of the Denver-based digital marketing agency, Fruition. She is a member of the Women Donors Network, serves as an advisory board member for Excelsior Youth Foundation to help rehabilitate young girls who are victims to trauma, and has recently produced a movie titled Madame Presidente which highlights and exposes the conditions in other countries able to elect a female president. 

Carol Carter

Carol is a national and international student success author, speaker, and entrepreneur. She began her career in college publishing with Prentice Hall, and became the first female assistant vice president and director of college marketing at age 26. Later, as V.P. and publisher, she developed the widely acclaimed Keys to Success series to help college students connect their academic success to their future professional success. Now in its eighth edition, the series is available in multiple languages, and has been used by more than 3,000,000 students worldwide. In addition to theKeys series, Carol has also authored multiple other academic success books for middle, high school, and college-level students.In 2000, she started LifeBound, a student success company that provides academic and professional coaching skills training for K-12 and college faculty, advisors and staff.

Carol’s business experience and her international work help shape her unique perspective on how institutions of learning, youth development, and businesses can prepare students from all backgrounds and levels of learning to thrive in an increasingly complex world. In 2014 she founded GlobalMindED to bring together leaders in education, government, business, and social enterprise committed to improving access and equity to education, employment and health. Now in its sixth year, the annual conference attracts more than 1000 attendees, including 100 first-generation college students who learn academic and professional skills while networking with companies who seek a diverse talent pipeline. 

Jim Davidson

Jim created PeakChange to promote positive impacts of early stage investment companies and funds.  With leveraging over 20 years of internet technology and entrepreneurial experience, Jim is currently focused on early stage impact-investing, providing capital, and serving as an advisor, board member for companies in clean tech, education, environment and international development that drive innovation and technology to further their social benefit and sustainability missions.  Jim serves on the boards of Girls for a Change, Investor's Circle, ThinkImpact, and Unleesh. Jim's memberships include: Rockies Venture Club, Toniic, Investor's Circle (Lifetime Member), Impact HUB Boulder (Lifetime Member). 

John H. Friedman

John is the Founding and Managing Partner of Easton Capital Group. Prior to founding Easton Capital, John was the founder and Managing General Partner of Security Pacific Capital Investors. Security Pacific Capital Investors was a $200-million private equity fund geared towards expansion financings and recapitalizations. Prior to joining Security Pacific, John was a Managing Director and Partner at E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co., Inc., where he spent eight and a half years. Previously, John was an attorney with Sullivan and Cromwell. During his career he has invested in six transactions that generated 100x-to-1 returns (including a company he co-founded). John currently serves on the Boards of Promedior, Trellis Bioscience, MedCPU, PerceptiMed, TigerText, Within3, and Precise Light. He was also co-chairman of the President's Council at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and serves as a Trustee of The New Museum of Contemporary Art and The Sculpture Center. 

Mike Tadych

Since beginning his law practice in 1997, Mike has worked on matters ranging from multifamily construction project disputes and trademark litigation to the representation of a national day-care operator before its state licensing agency and negotiation of the contract for a national public radio personality.  

As an example of his versatility Mike, who grew up knowing nothing about farming, used his background in information technology and presentation development to create computerized damages analyses that led to the successful resolution of more than 35 crop insurance lawsuits filed by North Carolina tobacco farmers in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran.  This imaginative work has led to Mike’s handling of crop insurance claims for many other farmers.In addition to his litigation, First Amendment and professional licensing work, Mike enjoys representing the interests of creative individuals including authors, singers, journalists and artists.  He has served as general counsel to the Watercolor Society of North Carolina, The Justice Theater Project and is a frequent speaker on areas of interest to creative individuals regarding business structure, intellectual property and transference of ownership.  

Ed Briscoe (Board President & Co-Director)

Ed is a co-director of the organization and the corporation’s President.  Ed is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of Weave Social Finance, a provider of consulting and investment banking services to social enterprises and businesses based in low-income communities. Through his career, Ed has directed, structured, and facilitated over $300 million in investments benefiting low income communities. Ed’s experience in the organizational leadership and management of charitable organizations includes serving on the Board of Directors of Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute for over 5 years, “Unreasonable Angel” with the Unreasonable Institute (now Uncharted), and the first investor and board member for Knotty Tie Co. Ed has a B.S. in business administration from Stamford University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University with concentrations in finance, strategy, and human and organizational performance. 

Maria Lynne Dayton 

Maria is a successful social entrepreneur, systems architect, and creative finance expert who has developed, funded, and managed over 20 major development and IT projects on 4 continents with a variety of stakeholders including: international organizations, governments, civil society, and the private sector. She specializes in achieving systemic impact at the nexus between crowd-based technology, rich storytelling, and disruptive fin-tech.

Her current passion is the creative financing of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and last mile infrastructure; blending different approaches such as blockchain, impact investment, and crowd finance. As an Impact Fellow at Singularity University she is also leading several moonshot initiatives with a coalition of Fortune 50 companies and foundations around global health and small business finance. 

Maria has co-founded a number of companies, including Transterra Media, an award-winning online marketplace that is changing the way companies source news and marketing video. Transterra currently has offices in Dallas, London, and Beirut, where it brokers and produces video stories for large satellite broadcasters and brands that empower local voices. These stories have reached over a trillion people globally with 70% of profits returning to local producers. Transterra has received awards from Red Herring, Wamda, The Dublin Web Summit, and was selected by Mashables as one of its Top 25 Startups in Unlikely Places.  

Maria holds a BA in International Studies and Biology from Gonzaga University, as well as, MAs from both France and Egypt in International Relations, International Economic Development, and Middle East Studies. She consults regularly with governments and IGOs on citizen engagement, alternative finance, and ecosystem development.

Jameel Barkat

With over 30 years of experience, Jameel brings an in-depth knowledge of operating companies and commercial real estate. He has served in operational and leadership roles at various aerospace and industrial corporations (including Boeing and Curtiss-Wright) and various commercial real estate ventures. His broad expertise spans investment in and acquisition of commercial real estate (across multiple product types) properties. His operating company experience includes leadership roles in engineering, sales & marketing, program management, mergers & acquisitions, strategy development, integration (of acquired companies) and global supply chain management. Barkat’s illustrious career has included evaluations of several hundred transactions, resulting in 25+ closed deals and deployment of over $500 million.

Anna Brickman

Anna is a proud DC native with a B.A. in Communications and Media Studies from Fordham University. Before she joined the ACCESS Medical Development team, Anna worked in External Relations at Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit that works to support artists manage the business side of their trade. Before her tenure at Fractured Atlas, she worked at nonprofits such as the National Center for Children and Families, Part of the Solution and Martha's Table. She also has a background working in Fashion PR in both New York and London. Anna has always been passionate about social justice. She is a firm believer that financial equity and opportunity are key components to a more just world.