Chris Fredericks founded Empowered Ventures, serves as president & CEO, and is a member of the board of directors. Chris has a diverse background in management, accounting and finance, business valuations, mergers and acquisitions, operations, people development, and strategy. In 2010, he proposed and led the acquisition of TVF (www.tvfinc.com) on …

Jeannie founded Funding U to provide a responsible loan option for academically achieving, low income students who needed last gap funds to complete college, but for whom the only available options were high interest rate credit cards. Her drive to solve this problem came from a decade of working in education nonprofits in Atlanta and an understand…

David Blake operates at the intersection of the future of work and the future of politics. David Blake has spent his career innovating in formal education and lifelong learning. He is on a mission to future proof our workforce and use learning and skills to enable everyone to fulfill their personal missions. David is the co-founder and CEO of Degre…

Nikhil is the technical cofounder of Hearth. Hearth was founded to give home improvement contractors and businesses the tools to achieve the American Dream. Hearth does this by providing an all-in-one tool suite for owners to manage their operations covering: lead management, quoting, customer financing options, invoicing, contracts, payments, and …

Normally on Startups For Good, we interview external guests. Today, we turn the mic back around and focus on Purpose Built and what we're up to. Recently, we did a webinar called “Ready to Build. How do I know if I'm ready to be a startup founder?” Have you had a nagging feeling that you'd one day like to start a company or have people told you the…

Adam Jackson is the co-founder and CEO of Freelance Labs, builders of Braintrust, the first user-controlled talent network that provides enterprises with the highly skilled technical and design talent they need. Prior to founding Braintrust, Adam co-founded Doctor on Demand, the popular video telemedicine provider, with daytime talk show personalit…

Shannon Farley is an experienced social entrepreneur. She was the founding Executive Director of Spark, the world's largest network of Millennial philanthropists. Prior to joining Spark, Shannon helped start The W. Haywood Burns Institute, a MacArthur Award-winning juvenile justice reform organization. Shannon holds a BA in American Studies from Ge…

Anna Counselman is co-founder at Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST), a leading AI lending marketplace that partners with banks to improve access to affordable credit. Upstart helps millions of consumers who don’t have access to credit, pay too much for it, or take on credit they can’t ultimately afford. Anna leads business operations where she drives focus on …

Before coming to YU, Noam was a professor at Harvard Business School for 13 years. He was also the founding director of the Founder Central initiative at the University of Southern California and the Lemann Chair in Entrepreneurship there. He won the MBA teaching awards at both Harvard and USC, and has written two bestselling books, The Founder’s D…

Entrepreneur and investor with a love of learning, a passion for making dreams become reality and having a positive impact on the world. Husband, father and book addict. Miles is founder/CEO of Purpose Built Ventures Studio where he co-founds winning mission-driven companies with passionate entrepreneurs. Miles is an Investor in early-stage startup…

Jon has over 15 years of experience in energy investing and project finance. Prior to launching Carbon Direct, he was the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of BBL Commodities, a commodity hedge fund. Jon started his career at J. Aron, the commodities division of Goldman Sachs where he managed a large proprietary trading book across global macro …

Rafi Levi, BSc. Mechanical (Technion, Israel), MSc. N.A.M.E (University of Michigan, USA), has over 35 years of Engineering, project management, business development, and business management experience, in Israel and worldwide. Rafi joins me today to talk about how much fertilizer is wasted and turns into pollution because farmers don't have the da…

Erin Levine is the CEO & Founder of Justice Tech company, Hello Divorce. After 16 years as a divorce lawyer, Erin knows just how broken, toxic, wildly inefficient and unreasonably expensive the family law system is - with Americans spending 30 billion a year on legal fees alone. No longer wanting to be a complicit participant in a process that rout…

Dr. Seth Feuerstein is the Founder and CEO of Oui Therapeutics. He has expertise across multiple areas of medicine, technology and business. . He is a founding board member of the Center for Biomedical and Interventional Technology at Yale and Executive Director of the Center for Digital Health, Innovation and Excellence. He teaches at the medical …

Jeff is a Co-Founder and CEO of Fig Tech. Fig creates onramps for underbanked Americans to repair their credit score and regain access to traditional financial services. Fig started as a collaboration with the United Way in Houston and became the first fintech to be both B Corp certified and a US Treasury recognized Community Development Financial …

Born to immigrant parents in poverty, Jonathan and his family quickly learned the value and need for community (something he discovered later on was very hard to come by for folks on the street). Receiving an opportunity to study at the University of Michigan, Jonathan earned a degree in Informatics, specializing in UX design. After producing a doc…

Misha is the founder of Effective Government California. He believes government is a vitally important institution, and that our responsibility as citizens is to help improve it. Today Misha will make the case that startup skills are partially transferable into the political and policy domain and encourages you to consider it when it's the right ti…

Millennial, Immigrant, Uber driver (36000 mi) turned Techstars fintech startup founder @Line Financial. Previously Product Leader @PayPal (75 consumer fintech patent publications). Dad, Husband, Brother, Proud son of parents who came from extreme poverty, worked hard to give us great education, tolerant values and culture. Akshay joins me today to …

After working in private equity and investment banking, Jacob Sills’s passion for criminal justice reform led him to start Uptrust, a communication and engagement platform focused on ending mass incarceration. To date, Uptrust has helped over 300,000 people across 22 states navigate the criminal justice system and avoid violations that could send t…

Adena Hefets is the co-founder & CEO of Divvy Homes, a proptech company on a mission to make homeownership accessible to everyone. Today, Adena is one of the few female founders to reach double unicorn status and to be valued at approximately $2 billion. Adena set out to solve a problem she saw in the market: fewer people can afford to purchase a h…

Thomson Nguyen is the founder and CEO of Nearside, a financial services provider and neobanking platform built on the belief that starting a business should be easier. A data scientist turned entrepreneur, Thomson focuses on providing an estimated 60 million entrepreneurs, micro-SMBs, freelancers, gigsters, and unbanked individuals with fair financ…

Alex's entrepreneurial journey started long before he ever knew the concept of a business plan. In fact, he did not realize it at the time, but his earliest experiences in childhood gave him the background and understanding of a problem (and how to solve it) that would lead Alex down the entrepreneurial path. Alex has since served in leadership pos…

Tony Huang is the Co-founder & CEO of Possible Finance, a consumer fintech company focused on improving the financial health of lower-income Americans. Since 2019, Possible has provided small dollar installment loans to over 500,000 Americans to help them cover emergency expenses and build credit history. Recently, Possible announced the Possible C…

Jens is the founder of NewImpact, a humanity benefit nonprofit based in Seattle, WA. NewImpact is seeking to change the way the world finds opportunities and solves problems by pioneering the field of Tri-Sector Innovation. NewImpact inspires and enables innovators and organizations to design solutions and business models that repurpose and realign…

Arna Ionescu Stoll has deep expertise developing complex, multi-touchpoint healthcare products that integrate seamlessly into people’s lives. As the Chief Executive Officer at Wavely Diagnostics, she is guiding Wavely’s technology through development and into viable commercial markets based on her decades of experience developing high impact, innov…

Sander Daniels is passionate about ensuring we have good jobs for people in the future as technology accelerates. He spends his time doing what he can to create, connect, and train people into new jobs. Sander is a founder of Thumbtack, the modern home management platform. Millions of households in the U.S. use the Thumbtack platform to manage thei…

Jimmy Chen is the Founder and CEO of Propel, creators of the Providers app, which is used by over 5 million Americans to manage their SNAP benefits and banking. Propel was founded through a fellowship at the Robin Hood Foundation, and has raised over $80m in venture capital funding from investors including the Financial Health Network, Andreessen H…

Chukwudi N. Kanu is a Nigerian-American entrepreneur and investor, laser-focused on leveraging technology to solve today's systemic problems while creating a more equitable & inclusive future. He is the Cofounder & CEO of Humblebrag, a tool for investors to find overlooked pre-seed founders in emerging tech hubs while giving scouts interest on the …

Jonny leads the fundraising team at Wefunder, a platform that lets startup founders raise capital from their customers and community, as well as rich people. Before joining Wefunder, Jonny founded the U.S. team at the non-profit Kiva.org. He is from the UK where he studied history at the University of Cambridge, and is the proud dad of Felicity, Ca…

Shalen is a recovering banker who worked at Deloitte, BNP and SMBC, primarily in M&A and Leveraged Finance. During this time, he co-founded Global Clinic as a volunteer to deliver free cataract and cleft surgeries and primary eye and dental care around remote parts of Asia, which led him to quit banking and dedicate his career to healthcare. Shalen…

Ali Tamaseb is a partner at DCVC, a Silicon Valley VC fund with over $2 billion under management. The investments Tamaseb led on behalf of DCVC has generated an enterprise value of over $6 billion and the companies he sits on as a board director employ over 3,000 people. Tamaseb studied Electrical Engineering at University of Tehran, Biomedical Eng…

Dr. Jasmin Hume is the Founder and CEO of Shiru, a biotechnology company addressing a critical need in the food industry by providing access to more sustainable and healthy ingredients. Jasmin is an expert in proteins, leveraging deep biochemistry, materials science, and food science knowledge to bring transformative, sustainable foods from concept…

Will Sealy is the co-founder and CEO of Summer, a B Corp that's helping student loan borrowers navigate the repayment process to maximize their savings. Prior to Summer, Will worked at SoFi on business strategy and operations, and, prior to that, served as one of the first student loan policy experts at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFP…

Muriel Clauson is the co-founder of Anthill, HR solutions for employees who don't sit at a desk or computer. Anthill is focused on helping workers in manufacturing and supply chain roles have the same support in their careers as their desked peers. Muriel has been an active researcher and advisor on the future of work and artificial intelligence. S…

Arjan is a trusted and experienced venture investor and founder of Core Innovation Capital, a leading venture capital fund investing in financial services companies that democratize prosperity. He is a passionate advocate for market-based financial access and empowerment. His investments include Ripple, NerdWallet, Bestow, and Oportun. He is a Seni…

David Helene is the founder and CEO of Edquity (www.edquity.co), a provider of equitable and effective cash transfer administration technology for institutional and government partners. Under his leadership, Edquity has worked with over 30 innovative partners in postsecondary education to process over $85 million in emergency grants to over 90,000 …

Ronnie Kwesi Coleman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Meaningful Gigs, a tech-enabled marketplace connecting skilled African designers with companies seeking high quality digital design. After dropping out of college at 20 to support his family in Ghana, Ronnie got a job at a tech startup in Washington, DC. Soon after, he helped launch the VC-backed st…

Alex Mooradian, founder and CEO of Resolve, is a private equity investor turned entrepreneur. He is the Founder and CEO of Resolve, a company which combines caring human experts with powerful technology to provide people with affordable and transparent debt relief solutions. Prior to founding Resolve, Alex was Entrepreneur In Residence at Expa and …

Damola Ogundipe is the CEO of Civic Eagle, a public policy data and software company helping build a limitless world with intelligent and useful public policy data. Damola was born in Nigeria and grew up in Minnesota where he attended the University of Minnesota and later on founded Civic Eagle. I’ve been an investor in the company since 2018, they…

Matt Spettel is the co-founder and CEO of CoPilot, a Pittsburgh-based remote personal training startup. With an engineering background from Carnegie Mellon University, Matt specializes in designing and building innovation consumer products and experienced. Since its founding in 2019, CoPilot has raised $10M, grown to 50 full-time employees, and imp…

Paul is an economist and entrepreneur working to accelerate the end of extreme poverty. He is an associate professor of economics at UC San Diego. His research examines the design, implementation, and impact of anti-poverty programs at large scales. He is co-founder, former president, and current director at GiveDirectly, the leading international …

Charlie Olson is the co-founder and CEO of Pando. Pando was founded after Charlie and his co-founder, Eric Lax, graduated from Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 2017. Since inception Pando has signed hundreds of professional athletes and entrepreneurs into income pools and has raised a Series A from top fintech investors. Prior to his time …

Subscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes! Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app. Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or LinkedIn, and share your fa…

Jeff is a serial entrepreneur who brings a wealth of experience in the climate tech industry and has served in multiple executive roles in clean energy, waste repurposing, and venture capital. He also serves as an advisory board member to a Bay Area biotech company. Jeff completed his master’s thesis on economics in PHA production, and is the co-in…

David is the CEO of On Deck, a network of communities dedicated to unlocking human potential — helping founders start up and raise early capital, top talent connect with opportunities and explore "what's next" in their careers. David joins me today to discuss the Silicon Valley ecosystem and what is stands for. We discuss if a founder needs to have…

At the age of 15 Jason Wang was given a 12-year sentence at a maximum security prison in Texas. Upon release he earned two master’s degrees and was still unable to find a job due to his criminal history. Jason decided to become an agent for change. He started FreeWorld. FreeWorld empowers people who have been in prison with educational support and …

Amanda DoAmaral is an educator, activist, and co-founder of Fiveable - a social learning network for students. She spent a half a decade teaching high school history in Oakland, CA, where her passion for creating equitable educational opportunities was ignited. Amanda has been a vocal advocate for inclusive history curriculum and is active within t…

Andrew Yang is an American businessman, lawyer, book author and philanthropist, as well as a former 2020 Democratic US presidential and New York City mayoral candidate. He is the founder of Venture for America which connects young professionals to innovative companies in economically challenged cities. As the first repeat guest on Startups for Good…

Paul Gross is the co-founder and CEO at Remora. While at Yale, he conducted experimental research that uncovered solutions to collective action problems like political polarization and the climate crisis. Remora got started when he read a dissertation on mobile carbon capture written by his co-founder, Christina, and convinced her to quit her job a…

Ethan Davidoff founded Atlas in 2017 and serves as CEO. Prior to Atlas, Ethan was a founding member of RiskIQ, where he took on a variety of individual contributor and management responsibilities resulting in exponential revenue growth and ultimately an acquisition by Microsoft. Prior to RiskIQ, Ethan owned and operated a software development firm …