Our Team

CEO

Kate Brodock

Kate is CEO of Women 2.0 and General Partner of W Fund, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage, tech-enabled startup led by women and other traditionally marginalized and underfunded founders.

She’s lived in the tech startup world for almost 20 years, and has played an active leadership role in the women in tech and entrepreneurship ecosystem for 15 of them, having led a global, 60+ chapter organization focused on the issue as President for several years prior to coming to Women 2.0 in 2016.

The two decade combination of her operational experience in startups and her deep expertise on and central commitment to gender and representation in the ecosystem has positioned her as a expert and leader on the creation and development of a more equitable future for our innovation economy.

She’s also an EIR at LaunchNY, and a long-time mentor for Techstars. She’s held prior roles as CMO of untapt, an AI-driven tech talent marketplace based in NYC, and Adjunct Professor in PR and Marketing at at Syracuse University.

Kate has keynoted, spoken at and been featured in 100s of places, including SXSW, Collision Conference, Fast Company, Fifteen Seconds, UNLEASH, Microsoft, IBM, MSNBC, Techcrunch, IBT, the BBC and Al Jazeera.

She holds BAs in Political Science and African American History from the University of Rochester, an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from Goizueta Business School at Emory University and an MA in International Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

When she’s not doing all *that*, she’s a very non-professional (but adventurous!) athlete, an equally as non-professional musician, can be found outdoors in any weather — skiing, biking, hiking, sailing — loves a good meal with bubbly, craft beer and good friends, hilariousness and life. Her husband is a startup-web-developer-turned-beer-guy and they live on a hops farm in Upstate New York with their two boys. She can be found on Twitter at @just_kate.

Senior Director of Allyship

Corey Ponder

Corey Ponder is an empathy practitioner and educator who works with innovative companies and individuals to build safe spaces for inclusive and diverse experiences.  

 Corey believes in the power of human connection and how that drives real impact.  Over his 10 years of professional experience as a policy analyst in the public sector and a program manager and policy professional in the private sector, Corey knows that an emphasis on emotional intelligence—self-awareness, empathy, and interpersonal skills—leads to a more committed, productive, and engaged workforce creating a real impact in the workplace and spaces they occupy.

 Corey has scaled diversity programs across several companies, including with CIA and Facebook, and has developed and facilitated over 50 workshops on allyship, bias, privilege, and building empathy across the tech industry.  He has also spoken on allyship for several organizations, including Chan Zuckerberg initiative, Fitbit, MomWarrior, and Diversability.  He continues to publish on these topics as well, most recently being featured in Fortune Magazine’s raceAhead newsletter.  

 Corey holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Vanderbilt University.

Director of Talent Initiatives and Employer Branding

Hilliary Turnipseed

Hilliary Turnipseed is an experienced talent acquisition and management executive, specializing in early-stage startups, as well as the education technology, media production, and advertising industries. In addition to her recruitment work, Hilliary has successfully implemented diversity and inclusion strategies, along with employee engagement and wellness program initiatives. She is also well known for her viewpoints and approaches to optimizing workplace environments and policies for the Millennial Generation.

Most recently serving as the Head of Talent Acquisition for DC-based technology startup, Upside Business Travel, Hilliary built one of the industry’s most diverse engineering teams, while also earning them a spot on Glassdoor’s “Best Places to Work” list. Prior to joining Upside, Hilliary managed talent acquisition efforts for companies such as POLITICO, Discovery Communications and Blackboard.

Hilliary currently serves as a Director for Women Who Code’s DC Chapter, and well as an Advisor for Tech, Rebalanced. She resides in Washington, DC, with a presence in NYC, LA and the SF Bay Area.

Director of Allies Program

Alison Cheung

Alison is the Director of Allies Program at Women2.0. She is also the Chief of Staff of Headstart, a revolutionary recruiting tool which uses Machine Learning to help companies identify which candidates would be the best fit for their job opportunities.

Previously the Marketing Brand Lead at Google in London, she has always believed in the importance of spreading awareness of the benefits and potential of technology, as well as its risks and the problem of the democratization of technology, resulting in unequal access. Ultimately, technology needs to be put to good use and to empower its users. Therefore, being at the forefront of shaping technological products and their marketing message truly excites her.

Empowerment has always been her primary goal in life. At university, she provided over 200 students with international volunteering exchanges to enable them not only to grow personally and professionally, but also to contribute towards helping others grow. Professionally, she has stayed true to this goal and endeavoured to work on products that add significant value to both consumers and businesses, such as Android and Think With Google.

In her free time, you’ll find her in a coffee shop trying to strike up conversations with coders (more like pestering) or in a yoga studio slipping on my yoga mat. She is improving… slowly but surely.

Communications Management Intern

Noal Rauchenecker

Noal Rauchenecker is an open-minded business student majoring in Finance and minoring in Management at Hult International Business School. Originally, she is from Munich, Bavaria, but she has lived in Boston and London to complete her Undergraduate Degree for the last three years. 

Value creation has always been her primary goal in life. Noal is engaged as an Event Manager at her University’s social impact club called Hult In Action. Its goal is to give back value to the Bostonian Community while integrating the International students from Hult into the Boston community. In 2020 she formed a group of MBA and BBA volunteers and worked together with the Salvation Army in Boston, which provided over 600 families with a thanksgiving dinner. Her goal drives her ambition in life, which is showcased in her past experiences as a financial analyst intern at Consulthon, a start-up in London that provides consulting services for SMEs. 

Value creation is also reflected in her academics as she has won two academic of excellence awards when it came to providing clients with individually tailored solutions to their problems. For the start-up, IBars she developed a successful omnichannel distribution strategy that the business could implement directly. Additionally, she has created a new revenue stream for the Online Learning platform Boomwriter, which improves children’s literacy rate. 

Noal is an extrovert who loves to network and start conversations with new people. She also likes to travel, which is one of the reasons she is studying at Hult, as they have five campuses across the globe.  She believes that you can learn the most from people with diverse backgrounds and believes.

Fun-Fact: Noal is a Turkish name that stands for the beginning.

Investment Programs Intern

Declan Braun

Declan Braun is a business student majoring in Finance with a minor in Accounting at Le Moyne College. Currently, he works as an Intern at Women2.0, and next summer, he will be working as an investment banking intern for Brown, Gibbons, Lang & Co. as a generalist. 

On campus, he is a member of Le Moyne’s Integral Honors Program: a group of the top 3% of each class. He currently holds a 4.0 GPA, and he was recently awarded the Vincent J. Smith Medal for outstanding academic achievement. He is also the sitting president of the Le Moyne College Economics Club. The club’s goal is to provide additional resources—networking opportunities, expert speakers, job opportunities, educational material—for students who might not have had access otherwise.

He has also recently started running a program of Saturday seminars aimed at provided non-target students with the resources and advice they need to land investment banking jobs. He began this program in an effort to provide underrepresented and non-target students with the opportunity to use the tools and resources he had access to.

Outside of that, he tries to play his French horn when he can. His favorites are movie pieces (think Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings); these have the best horn parts! He also loves to go biking and take his golden retriever puppy on walks in futile attempts to tire him out.

Community Management Intern

Emma Henry

Emma Henry is a creative Master of Arts in Political Science student at York University. As well, with a Bilingual Honours Bachelor of Arts in Political science and Philosophy at Glendon College, York University she is continually curious and is always looking to generate solutions for various problems. Focusing on migrant rights throughout the European Union and Canada (as well as some other countries) for her master’s and bachelor’s degrees, Emma has further learnt and researched about employment inequalities, job precarity that occurs in a variety of workforces, and how important it is to support marginalized groups.

Emma has taken on leadership and advocacy roles in her community and globally with several non-profit organizations and the municipality of Toronto. Also, since the age of 14 Emma has worked; thus, she further understands the need for diversity, equity and inclusion in any workplace which further drives her ambition to work for Women 2.0. Combining creativity, curiosity and research, Emma focuses on developing and releasing material to Women 2.0’s Twitter, Facebook, and the weekly newsletter.

Excited to be working with Women 2.0, Emma is furthering her knowledge of the fintech industry, obstacles that marginalized groups face in this realm of work, and ways that organizations and individuals are working towards combatting these issues. These relate to her other areas of strength include analyzing policies, research, writing, social media as well as always being up to learn and accomplish a new task. Whether in the kitchen baking or out on a run, she is always striving to improve her skills.