Gingerbread Capital

Ita Ekpoudom joined GingerBread Capital in 2018. In 2014 she founded Tigress Ventures, an advisory and consulting firm focused on helping women scale their businesses and develop leadership skills, and previously served as a Venture Partner at Plum Alley Investments, where she managed investment opportunities and pipeline for female-founded and gender-diverse startups. Earlier in her career she held product management roles at TravelClick and American Express and worked at Goldman Sachs as an analyst and institutional trader; she holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Princeton University.

Katherine Rice is a Partner at GingerBread Capital, where she leads investments in women-led businesses and funds. She previously worked as an Operating Partner in private equity at Altamont Capital, was a senior executive at Williams-Sonoma leading global business development, and founded RCP, a strategic advisory firm for consumer growth companies; earlier roles included investment banking at Kidder Peabody and management at Bain & Company. She holds a degree from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Stanford University, and has served on numerous private company boards.

Cary Conrad is an engineer and entrepreneur who has served since 2015 as President and CEO of a stealth-mode predictive analytics venture built on MIT's D4M technology, applying AI to large-scale data problems and handling business development, venture investments, and investor relations. Earlier in his career he worked as a systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company and as a research engineer on national security systems at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, then founded a security-focused startup for financial services firms that was later acquired, after which he led a turnaround of a managed security services provider. He holds a B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Valparaiso University and writes about cybersecurity for executives.

Danielle Davis has been part of the Gingerbread Capital team since its founding, where she supports team coordination, events, and relationship management. She began her career in public relations across the fashion, publishing, and film industries in Manhattan, then moved into magazine journalism, working as a beauty writer for Real Simple. She holds a BA in Media Studies with a minor in Comparative Literature from Fordham University.

Elizabeth "Liza" Valiaveedan joined Gingerbread Capital in July 2024 as an Associate and was later promoted in July 2026. She previously worked at Rosecliff Ventures, where she sourced and evaluated investment opportunities, and before that at capital markets advisory firm Rose & Company. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and has completed the CFA Level I Exam.

Jeanie M. Barnett previously worked as editor-in-chief of MBE magazine and co-founded and edited Women's Business Exclusive, a newsletter covering programs and policies for women-owned businesses. She earned a master's degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her career has included work in public service and nonprofit roles, including as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana and communications director at Cancercare.