Strategy for building entrepreneurial ecosystems in the age of AI.

Kathryn knows how an entrepreneurial ecosystem gets built because she built one. She created ProjectDiane, the first comprehensive study of Black women founders in U.S. technology. Its data helped catalyze funds including Backstage Capital and Impact America, and a number of venture funds spun out of that one report. She then built the first incubator for diverse women, and women who came out of it have gone on to raise venture funding.

She has worked with JPMorgan Chase, Google and American Express, and with the City of Chicago, the City of Atlanta and other local governments. She founded and sold a seven-figure media company, and she wrote the Wall Street Journal bestseller Build the Damn Thing. Founder, researcher, program builder and adviser to large institutions: she has worked on every side of an ecosystem, and she tells organizations what it takes to strengthen one.