Brett Danforth is the co-managing director of NC State University's Wolfpack Investor Network, an angel network currently comprised of 150 NC State-affiliated angel investors that have deployed over $10 million into NC State-affiliated early stage companies over the last two and a half years. Prior to joining WIN, Brett was a Venture Banker at Square 1 Bank, lending to venture-backed early and growth stage companies in the Southeast. His career also includes experience with a family office investor and a financial consulting firm serving nonprofits. Brett is a graduate of the Poole College of ..read more

From India, to Dubai, to Durham NC. A truly world class citizen, business owner, and architect, Vandana Dake and Nick Jordan sit down to discuss her career journey, her passion for helping empower and inspire women in developing nations, and finding your why. Vandana provides a broad range of experience in design and construction — both locally and internationally. Vandana is currently the Owner of Alliance architecture. Her technical expertise and strong design concepts inform her work, ranging from schematic design through construction administration.She has received numerous awards, includi ..read more

Madilynn A. Beck is a former actor and entertainment industry executive turned psychotherapist, entrepreneur, and podcast host. One of her current startups is Better Spot, which you can think of as We Work for wellness and wellbeing professionals.Founded four years ago, the company helps to set up and serve their retail clientele and run their practices. The startup is now extremely well positioned as the wellbeing industry has been thrust into the spotlight as a result of the pandemic and the toll it has taken on our mental and physical well being.    Madilynn's intrinsic why is Equ ..read more

Anna Shuford is an innovative, business professional with experience in campaign development, strategic partnerships, and content creation. Anna is currently enrolled in UNC Kenan Flagler's MBA program, Class of 2022. At UNC, she’s pursuing a concentration in marketing and enrichments in entrepreneurship and technology and innovation management. Along with being a full-time MBA student, Anna owns and operates her company, BoomRoom. BoomRoom simplifies the process for fitness instructors teaching live virtual workouts through one single integrated platform that gives them the tools and technol ..read more

Anna Shuford is an innovative, business professional with experience in campaign development, strategic partnerships, and content creation. Anna is currently enrolled in UNC Kenan Flagler's MBA program, Class of 2022. At UNC, she’s pursuing a concentration in marketing and enrichments in entrepreneurship and technology and innovation management. Along with being a full-time MBA student, Anna owns and operates her company, BoomRoom. BoomRoom simplifies the process for fitness instructors teaching live virtual workouts through one single integrated platform that gives them the tools and technolo ..read more

What's holding you back from moving forward with the ideas swirling around your head? Venus Liles loves new ideas, whether thinking of them for herself or supporting those of other entrepreneurs. Venus has many passions, including law, entrepreneurship, and tech. Over the years, Venus is an active member of the Senior Legal Counsel for SAS Institute and has founded over three companies; including qcard, DanceHer, Liles Law, and others. She also wrote a children's book to support family conversations about the coronavirus and social distancing. While keeping a mission to help as many parents as ..read more

We’d like to give a warm welcome to Maria Kingery! Maria co-founded Southern Energy Management with her husband in 2001. Since then, she has helped pioneer the residential energy efficiency and solar industries in North Carolina and beyond. Being deeply committed to sustainable business practices, Maria believes businesses have the greatest power to drive positive change. After a couple of years of implementing the EOS system at SEM, Maria was so inspired by the amazing work her team was doing that she decided to train professionally as an implementer in 2016 - wanting to help other entreprene ..read more

From Playing Soccer before he could walk to now a Venture Capitalist at one of North Carolinas leading VC firms, Lister Delgado has been a staple of the Durham and RTP startup, technology, and investment scene for the last 15+ years.  In this conversation, Lister and Nick talk about the path to VC, diversity, what they both like about our roles in the ecosystem, and how Lister looks at evaluating an investment in an initial 20 minute call, and more relating to the world of investing and Venture Capital!  - Want to take this episode with you?  anchor.fm/nextmattersmost To lea ..read more

From Playing Soccer before he could walk to now a Venture Capitalist at one of North Carolinas leading VC firms, Lister Delgado has been a staple of the Durham and RTP startup, technology, and investment scene for the last 15+ years.  In this conversation, Lister and Nick talk about the path to VC, diversity, what they both like about our roles in the ecosystem, and how Lister looks at evaluating an investment in an initial 20 minute call, and more relating to the world of investing and Venture Capital!  - Want to take this episode with you?  anchor.fm/nextmattersmost To lea ..read more

Let's welcome to the triangle, Jarrod Overson! Jarrod is a Director of Engineering at Shape Security, where he led Shape's Enterprise Defense development, the industry-leading solution against imitation attacks like credential stuffing. After Shape Security exited for over 1B dollars, Jarrod now frequently speaks on modern web threats and cybercrime and has been quoted by Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, CNET, among others. He's the co-author of O'Reilly's Developing Web Components, creator of Plato, a static analysis tool for web applications, and frequently writes and records topics about r ..read more