Meet The Judges

Kara GoldinKara Goldin
CEO, Hint Water

Kara Goldin is CEO and founder of San Francisco based hint Inc., which produces the leading unsweetened flavored waters, with nothing artificial. Kara started hint, Inc. to make it easier for consumers to lead a healthy lifestyle. Flavored only with natural fruit, hint delivers refreshment without unnecessary additives and sweeteners. Kara was formerly the VP of Shopping and E-commerce Partnerships at AOL, where she grew AOL’s shopping business from startup to more than $1 billion in revenue in less than 7 years. In 2015, Kara was selected as winner of the prestigious Marketers That Matter award for Brand Building Small Company. Forbes recently named her as one of the “40 Women to Watch Over 40.”

 

 

 

Charles HudsonCharles Hudson, Venture Capitalist, Precursor Ventures, Bionic Panda Games
Venture Capitalist, Precursor Ventures, Bionic Panda Games

Charles is a Venture Partner with SoftTech VC and Managing Partner of Precursor Ventures, a pre-seed venture capital firm focused on investing in B2B and B2C software companies. Prior to forming Precursor Ventures, Charles was a Partner at SoftTech VC in which he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure, mobile applications, and marketplaces. Previously, Charles was the VP of Business Development for Serious Business until the company was acquired by Zynga in February 2010. Charles was also the founder of the Virtual Goods Summit and Social Gaming Summit, two of the leading conferences in the free-to-play games space. Charles spent several years working at In-Q-Tel, the strategic venture capital group for the Central Intelligence Agency. He holds an MBA and a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Stanford University.

 

 

Bindi KariaBindi Karia, Silicon Valley Bank, Microsoft Ventures, Techstars
Silicon Valley Bank, Microsoft Ventures, Techstars

Bindi is incredibly passionate about all things startup in Europe. Bindi devoted much of her career in and around the startup ecosystem, with senior positions at Silicon Valley Bank and Microsoft’s BizSpark and is an active leader in the UK Investor Community including actively mentoring at top London Incubators including Seedcamp, TechStars, Startupbootcamp, WAYRA, JLab, Microsoft Ventures & Level39. Awards: Asian Women of the Year at the UK Asian Achievers Awards (2015),Silicon 60 and Top 1000 Influential Londoners (2014), Britain’s 100 Most Influential Women List (GQ), Ten Women in Tech to meet (The Guardian, 2013); 25 faces behind the success of Europe’s fastest growing Tech Cluster (Tech City News). Wired UK Top 100 Digital Power Broker list (2010 – 2012), Girls in Tech Euro 100 Women’s list (2012), Six Most Connected Women in the UK (IoD) (2011).

 

 

 

Vicki SaundersVicki Saunders, Founder, SheEO
Founder, SheEO

Vicki Saunders is an entrepreneur, award-winning mentor, and advisor to the next generation of change makers and leading advocate for entrepreneurship as a way of creating positive transformation in the world. She’s Founder of SheEO, a two-decade long initiative to dramatically transform how we support, celebrate and finance female entrepreneurs building new models, new mindsets and new solutions for a better world. Vicki co-founded and ran 4 ventures in Europe, Toronto and Silicon Valley including Zazengo, KidsNRG/The NRG Group, and Impactanation, a global consulting firm focused on engaging youth to tackle the grand challenges we are facing. Awards: 100 most influential leaders (2015) from “EBW – Empowering A Billion Women”, and Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum (2001). Some speaking engagements: The World Economic Forum, Women of Influence Series in Canada, TEDx Conference, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs events.