Golden Seeds

Carol Curley is Chief Investment Officer at Charian Ventures, an early-stage investment vehicle, and Managing Director at Golden Seeds, which focuses on investments in women-led businesses. Her investment banking experience includes senior roles at Berkshire Capital Corporation, Prudential-Bache Capital Funding, and Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., as well as prior service as Chief Operating Officer and board member at Westwood Management Corporation, a registered investment advisor. Curley holds a BA in Economics from Wellesley College and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School, is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and has taught graduate-level finance courses at the University of Dallas and Pace University.

Catherine White is an entrepreneur and director with experience in angel investing, equity research, banking, and entrepreneurship.

Cheryl Kallem is CEO, President, and Founder of the Greater Houston Women's Chamber of Commerce, which she has built into the fastest growing women's chamber of commerce in the United States. Throughout her career, she has led nonprofit organizations from inception through significant growth and has been recognized by organizations including Texas Executive Women, MAKERS, Women Who Make America, and Forbes. She serves as Co-Chair of the Texas Small Business Task Force and oversees the chamber's network of over 1,100 member businesses.

David Nethero is president of Nethero Management Company, which focuses on high-potential startups, and serves as board trustee and treasurer of Golden Seeds Angel Association Inc., one of the largest angel investor networks in the United States with over $170 million invested in women-founded or women-led companies. He is a founding member and co-chair of Golden Seeds' Atlanta chapter and has been a managing director since 2012. Nethero previously spent 25 years in senior executive roles at Fortune 100 companies including Dow Chemical, Union Carbide, Amoco, and British Petroleum, and co-founded and grew Intimacy, a specialty bra retailer, to 18 locations with revenues approaching $40 million before its sale in 2012; he is also an author and guest lecturer at Emory University's Goizueta Business School.

Eric Nadler is Managing Director of the B2C Sector at Golden Seeds, where he works with early-stage companies. He has experience across ecommerce operations including site design, mobile strategy, marketing, and customer service, along with expertise in business strategy and vendor management.

Gina Tedesco is Managing Director at Golden Seeds and Managing Member of Amala Ventures, where she leads investment efforts focused on women-founded companies. Her background spans engineering, finance and M&A at a global pharmaceutical company, three entrepreneurial ventures, and early-stage investing in the U.S. and Brazil. She holds board positions including Treasurer at Deirdre's House and serves on the NJ Strategic Innovation Center's Advisory Council, while teaching at Fairleigh Dickinson; she is fluent in English, French, and Portuguese.

Irina Berkon serves as CFO and Board Member at Metallicus, a digital assets technology company, and as Co-Founder and Board Director of FBBTHoldings, Inc. She is a Managing Director of an angel investment fund focused on women founders and has held multiple senior executive roles.

Iris Fujiura brings over 30 years of space industry experience in operations, systems engineering, and P&L leadership, including extensive international work in Europe, Asia, Russia, and Kazakhstan. She serves as Chapter Chair Emeritus at Golden Seeds, where she mentors early-stage companies and advocates for diversity and inclusion in investing. Fujiura has held leadership roles across organizational development, strategic change management, and team building, and remains active as a mentor and speaker for Washington State University and MIT.

Jennifer Machado is a Managing Director at Golden Seeds. She brings senior-level finance experience from her background at a major international energy company.

Jo Ann Corkran keeps a mistake notebook to separate emotion from analysis, encourages founders to adopt it, and—after reinventing her career roughly every decade from fixed-income to private-placement equity—guides pivots.

Kathryn Swintek is a Managing Partner at Golden Seeds LLC, an angel investment firm focused on women entrepreneurs, and serves on the boards of four private companies across industrial distribution, medical devices, digital publishing, and financial services sectors. She previously held senior positions in investment banking at BNP Paribas and Irving Trust Company, with experience in acquisition finance and international operations. Active in nonprofit governance, she serves as an elected trustee of The Dalí Museum and has held leadership roles with C200, the Women's Forum of New York, and MINT Theater, among other organizations.

Kathy Lynn Cullotta is founder and principal of Lynn-Cullotta Consulting, Inc., where she advises companies on developing new revenue streams across sectors including healthcare, dental support organizations, SaaS, retail, and media. She serves as managing director of Golden Seeds and leads its Arizona chapter, which she established in 2019, while also sitting on the board of trustees for the Golden Seeds Angel Association.

Laura Baldwin is Managing Director at Golden Seeds and Executive Vice President at WBR Partners. She brings over 20 years of experience in finance, treasury, corporate development, and investor relations, with background in investment banking, equity research, and hospital operations.

Laura Davis is Co-Chair of the National Health Care Group at Golden Seeds, an angel investor group focused on early-stage and growth capital for women-owned and women-led companies. She holds a Ph.D. from Rockefeller University and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Whitehead Institute as a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow and Lucille P. Markey Scholar. Davis previously directed a molecular genetics laboratory as a Howard Hughes Assistant Investigator at Duke University Medical School and Brandeis University, published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, served on NIH and NSF grant review committees, and taught genetics, cell biology, and molecular biology to undergraduate, graduate, medical, and science journalism students.

Linda Laskowski is Managing Director at Golden Seeds, an angel investment group focused on women-led and women-owned startups. She previously spent 30 years in management roles at AT&T and related companies, including 15 years leading startup initiatives such as a joint venture with France Telecom and the development of the first large-scale residential broadband service in the United States. Laskowski serves on multiple boards including the University of North Dakota Alumni Association and Foundation and Starr King School for the Ministry, and has held positions with various for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Loretta McCarthy mobilizes a 300+ angel network to advance women-led companies, leveraging Fortune 500 C-suite marketing experience to educate new angels and build investing infrastructure via the Knowledge Institute.

Lynn Baine is a General Partner at Golden Seeds Fund LP, where she manages investor relations and corporate development for a fund focused on early-stage, gender-diverse enterprises. With over 25 years in financial services, she began her career at Morgan Stanley in 1979 and subsequently held senior roles at First Boston and Greenwich Capital, specializing in mortgage and asset-backed securities. Since 2008, she has also invested directly in early-stage companies as an angel investor.

Mara Babin is the founder of High Altitude Strategies, where she works with select clients on strategy and execution. With over 30 years of experience as an international business lawyer and executive coach, she has served as fractional general counsel to companies across sectors including aviation, diagnostics, and healthcare, and previously managed the London office of a global law firm where she established its European private equity practice. As a co-founder of Abilto, a virtual mental health care company, and as managing director of the Arizona chapter of Golden Seeds, she supports entrepreneurs and women-led ventures.

Co-chairs the Membership Engagement Program and oversees the Trend Talk Series.

Mitzi Krockover is a physician executive and Professor of Practice at Arizona State University's College of Health Solutions, where she directs women's health innovation programming and co-founded FemTech AZ. She previously founded the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center at UCLA and served as the first Vice President of Women's Health at Humana, overseeing programs for over six million members. Krockover is a managing director at Golden Seeds, founder and CEO of Woman Centered, board member of the Black Women's Health Imperative and other health organizations, and host of the podcast Beyond the Paper Gown; she has testified before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on women's health and spoken at major healthcare innovation conferences and policy forums.

Peggy Wallace, managing partner with nearly two decades of experience backing women-led, early-stage companies, specializes in post-investment portfolio management, active board and governance support, and interviewing female technical founders.

Petra Meyer is Managing Director and Co-Chair of the Life Science Committee at Golden Seeds, a $200 million AUM angel network where she co-leads investments in early-stage, women-led companies and advises portfolio boards and founders. She brings over 25 years of general management and marketing experience from Fortune Global 500 companies including Walgreens Boots Alliance, Merck KGaA, and Unilever, most recently serving as General Director and Regional Managing Director for Europe at Alphega Pharmacy Group, where she managed a $3+ billion P&L. Meyer also provides advisory services to early-stage and enterprise leadership teams through Inspired Solutions, focusing on capital formation, product-market fit, and growth strategy.

Samina Farid is a retired energy and technology entrepreneur who founded Merrick Systems in 1992, a software company serving the oil and gas industry that was sold to P2 Energy Solutions in 2014. Her career includes executive positions at ESSO in Pakistan, HNG/Enron, Cabot Transmission, and Brooklyn Interstate Natural Gas Company. She currently serves as Managing Director of Golden Seeds and Co-Chair of the Houston Chapter, while serving on the boards of the Greater Houston Women's Chamber of Commerce, the Houston Independent School District's Young Women's College Preparatory Academy Foundation, and The Orange Show Center for Visionary Arts.

Sheila Narayan is a strategic advisor and mentor to early-stage companies, providing guidance on ideation, product development, customer discovery, and fundraising. She has over a decade of experience as an angel investor and more than two decades in the payments and financial technology industry. Narayan leads fundraising workshops, offers mentorship through accelerator and university innovation programs in the Boston area, and previously served as a managing director at Golden Seeds and on the board of a nonprofit focused on startup fundraising education.

Susan Nethero is a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, the largest national angel investment firm funding women-led businesses, where she co-chairs the Atlanta chapter and advises entrepreneurs on growth strategy and fundraising. She founded and served as CEO of Intimacy Specialty Stores for 20 years, growing the company to $38 million in revenue before its sale to a strategic partner in 2015. Nethero serves on multiple boards including Committee of 200, UNICEF USA's Southeast region, and Executive Women of Goizueta, and is a keynote speaker on business and entrepreneurship topics.

Tasneem Dohadwala is Founding Partner at Excelestar Ventures, where she invests in medical technology, deep technology, and related sectors. Her investment portfolio includes Augmenix, nVision, Conformal Medical, Diesel Labs, Instylla, and Altiostar Networks, several of which were acquired by Boston Scientific. Previously, she worked in financial services at Lehman Brothers and Matrix Partners, and she serves as Managing Partner of the Golden Seeds Boston Chapter and Board Member at Instylla. Dohadwala holds degrees from Wellesley College and Harvard Business School.

Active early-stage investor and experienced board member and advisor. Emeritus partner.

Kathleen Coviello served as Chief Economic Transformation Officer at NJEDA, where she focused on advancing New Jersey's technology, life sciences, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing sectors through initiatives including the NJ Innovation Evergreen Fund and public-private partnerships such as the HAX/SOSV collaboration. She holds positions as Vice Chair of the NJ Green Bank and founding member of the Golden Seeds NJ Chapter, and serves as a Board Member of the NJ AI Hub. Her background includes expertise in corporate finance and strategic partnership development.

Wendy Ryan is a Strategic Advisor and Angel in Residence at TechFoundHer with over 30 years of leadership experience as a founder, CEO, and board advisor. She founded and led Kadabra, developing an AI-enabled Chief Learning Officer solution for corporate training, and spent eight years at Larcen Consulting Group advising PE/VC-backed companies and boards through M&A transactions, including supporting Shepler's digital transformation ahead of its $147 million acquisition by Boot Barn. Her advisory focus spans governance, executive performance, enterprise AI adoption, and organizational transformation across Fortune 100 companies and venture-backed enterprises.