2014 Liberty Bank Power Pitch

Paul Brunson – Emcee
Paul Carrick Brunson has become internationally recognized as one of the country’s most successful matchmakers and life coaches. A former investment banker and business executive with an MBA from Georgetown University, he is the first African American male matchmaker, having served over 500 clients directly and collectively through live events and social media and matched over 3,000 people on dates. In 2012, he received an NAACP Image Award nomination for his best-selling book entitled: It’s Complicated: But It Doesn’t Have to Be – A Guide for Finding and Keeping Love. 

Greg Campbell 
Greg Campbell is the President and CEO of Rainmaker, Inc, which builds and invests in businesses that are disruptive, scalable and noble in their purpose.  He is also a partner of Best Associates, a private merchant banking firm, and co-founder of the North Texas Opportunity Fund, a private equity firm that invests institutional money in minority and women led middle market companies in the distribution and specialized services sectors. He has held senior management positions with Pepsi Cola, Frito-Lay and CPC International.

Brian Dixon 
Brian Dixon is an Investment Associate for Kapor Capital, where he identifies and evaluates early-stage investments along with helping portfolio companies grow effectively. He started his career as a software engineer at Citigroup through their selective IT analyst training program and has worked as a product and project manager at Education First and Babyzone (Acquired by Disney Inc.). 

Mike Eckert 
Mike Eckert is the Vice Chairman of the Angel Capital Association (ACA), which is comprised of over 200 angel investing groups and 12,000 individual investors; and is the Chairman of the NO/LA Angel Network, a New Orleans based group of 65 investors, as well as recent past Chairman of the Atlanta Technology Angels. He has extensive operational start up experiences as a member of the launch team of The Weather Channel/Weather.com where he served as CEO for 14 years, and as CEO of Pathfire, a leading early stage digital media technology infrastructure business. 

Craig Vaughan 
Craig Vaughan is a Co-Founding Managing Partner at VCAP Investment Group (“VCAP”), where he runs the investment banking division and oversees the firm’s QueensBridge Fund, which has invested in over 40 early-stage technology companies since launching in 2014. He began his investment banking career with Goldman Sachs and has over $7 billion in closed transactions

2014 Entergy Power Pitch

Roland Martin  - Emcee
Roland Martin is the host and managing editor of TV One's NewsOne Now, the first daily morning news program to focus on news and analysis of politics, entertainment, sports, and culture from an African American perspective. He is a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate, and is senior analyst for the Tom Joyner Morning Show, where his daily segment is heard on more than 100 stations and by 8 million listeners. Among many other awards, he was named Journalist of the Year in 2013 by the National Association of Black Journalists for his focus on voter suppression and other issues of concern to African Americans during the 2012 election.

Daryn Dodson
Daryn Dodson is a co-lead for the Special Equities Program at Calvert Funds, a mutual fund company that invests in socially and environmentally responsible companies.  In this role, he advises companies, foundations and universities on impact investments. Through this program, Calvert has invested more than $69 million in impact investing funds and companies. He currently serves as a Board Director for Ben and Jerry’s, Stanford Business Alumni and Impact Hub DC.

Carla Harris
Carla Harris is a Vice Chairman, Global Wealth Management, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley.  She is responsible for increasing client connectivity and penetration to enhance revenue generation across the firm.  She formerly headed the Emerging Manager Platform, the Equity Capital Markets effort for the consumer and retail industries and was responsible for Equity Private Placements.  She has extensive industry experiences in the technology, media, retail, telecommunications, transportation, industrial, and healthcare sectors. In August 2013, she was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council. 

Raymond Jeandron 
Raymond Jeandron is a Vice President at LongueVue Capital (LVC), a situation-driven, value-oriented private equity company focusing on the lower middle market (businesses with annual revenue of less than $100 million).  He is primarily engaged in performing financial and operational due diligence; processing and executing transactions; and supporting and monitoring portfolio companies. Prior to joining LVC, he worked in the investment banking departments of Jefferies & Company and Global Hunter Securities and the audit group at KPMG. 

Jerry Johnson
Jerry Johnson is a Managing Director of RLJ Equity Partners, a private equity firm focused on generating long-term capital appreciation by investing in profitable and growing businesses founded in 2006 by Robert L. Johnson and The Carlyle Group. He joined RLJ Equity Partners from American Capital, a publicly traded alternative asset management company with more than $20 billion of assets under management. Previously, he was with Bank of America and also served as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense

2014 Chevron PowerMoves Pitch

Sherri Shepherd - Emcee
Sherri Shepherd is a Daytime Emmy Award winning co-host of the daytime television talk show "The View". She also competed in the fourteenth season of ABC’s wildly popular, “Dancing with the Stars.” She continues to be a memorable player in prime time with roles on the Emmy award-winning series 30 Rock.  Sharing her passion for staying healthy, she authored the New York Times Bestselling PLAN D: How to Lose Weight and Beat Diabetes Even If You Don’t Have It and humorous autobiography, Permission Slips: Every Woman’s Guide to Giving Yourself a Break.  She co-stars with Chris Rock in his new comedy film “Finally Famous,” alongside Kevin Hart and J.B. Smoove, due to be released late 2014. 

Alejandra Y. Castillo
Alejandra Y. Castillo is the National Director of the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). She is the first Hispanic-American and the second women to lead the Agency since its creation.  In this capacity, she directs the Agency’s strategic efforts to enhance the growth and global competitiveness of minority business enterprises (MBEs).  Under her leadership, the Agency has expanded its effort to help MBEs grow and succeed through access to capital, contract and business opportunities both domestically and abroad.  

Melinda Emerson
Melinda F. Emerson, “SmallBizLady” is America’s #1 Small Business Expert. She is an expert on small business start up, business development, and social media marketing. Forbes magazine named her the #1 woman for entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. She publishes a resource blog www.succeedasyourownboss.com. She is also the bestselling author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months and the ebook How To Become a Social Media Ninja.

Michelle Y. Long
is the Feedstock Program Manager for the Carbon and Biofuels business unit of Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV), which champions innovation, commercialization and integration of emerging technologies within Chevron. CTV’s Venture Capital arm makes investments in early-stage companies developing emerging technologies that have the potential to improve Chevron’s oil and gas base business performance or create new opportunities for growth. In her role, she leads a team developing technologies related to large-scale commercial production and distribution of advanced biofuels, from non-food sources, in the United States. 

Erik Moore 
Erik Moore is the founder and Managing Director of Base Ventures. He was among the first to invest in Zappos in 1999, which Amazon purchased for $1.2 billion and Agencourt Biosciences which was sold to Beckman Coulter for $270mm.  Previously, he worked as a Merrill Lynch bond trader for 15 years. He currently serves as a board member for the East Bay College Fund whose mission is to help resilient youth from Oakland, historically underrepresented in higher education, go to college and expand their life opportunities.