WORK is a pop-up conference exploring creative and entrepreneurial approaches to work.
WORK RETURNS ON AUGUST 22, 2020.
presented by bbatx (#bossbabesATX)
powered by Texas MSTC and Texas MBA
9:30 AM to 5 PM on August 22, 2020 via Zoom
Tickets start at $27. Click here to register.
MEET OUR SUMMER 2020 SPEAKERS BELOW. STAY TUNED FOR MORE RELEASES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS.
Vanessa Flores, LCSW-S, CDWF is a therapist in private practice. She has spent the past 11 years working with teens, survivors of trauma, LatinX women and communities of color. Her training in EMDR and the curriculum of Brené Brown has helped transform the way clients heal. Vanessa is the founder of Colors of Austin Counseling, a social justice oriented group practice that offers varied mental health services in the Central Texas area. Her practice is founded on values of diversity, creativity and courage. Vanessa is passionate about helping other healers and practitioners grow their practice through business consultation and is the founder of Brave & Well.
Simone DeAngelis was born and raised in Austin, Texas, where she lives with her two dogs. In 2012, she entered intense psychiatric care, where she took the tools she learned and made them her own, and made the decision to stay alive. She applies her experience as a patient to her experience as a teacher. Sharing these skills with others has become a piece in the foundation of her life's purpose. She is the author of “If You’re Freaking Out, Read This.”
Ashley “Bird” Williams is the entrepreneur and small business strategist behind Bird Williams Consulting.
She went from graduating with 18 people in her high school class, to falling in love with business at the University of Texas, to a Wall Street Investment Banking Analyst in New York City, to managing multiple startups, to owning and building a successful fitness brand… and she’s currently in the middle of launching several businesses with multiple clients.
Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or in the weeds and needing some guidance, Ashley can help you build a strong foundation from which to launch or grow your small business.
Megan Saxelby is the co-founder of Wild Feelings, an app that helps leaders uplevel their emotional intelligence so they can build healthy work cultures, expand their understanding of emotions, and better equip individuals with the tools needed to thrive. Megan has over a decade of experience in education and specializes in emotional intelligence, prosocial critical thinking, and dignity. Her work combines research in neuroscience, conflict resolution, and social emotional learning.
Madison Butler is the VP of People + Culture at Sourced Craft Cocktails. She is a New Englander at heart but moved to Austin in 2017. Her work is focused around talent, people development and on-boarding. She is an outspoken advocate for diversity, belonging and the ability to be human at work. She is a self proclaimed start-up enthusiast and is passionate about building inclusive teams from the ground up with early stage companies. Madison is committed to helping change the narrative around what it looks like to be “human at work”, and hoping to help alleviate unconscious bias in corporate America. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, watching hockey, and playing with her rescue pups.
Kwee Lan Teo is the Vice President of Talent Development and Acquisition at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, representing over 2,200 businesses. Kwee Lan is part of the Business Leads Fellowship Elite Cohort for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation as well as a Fellow for Education and Talent Development with the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE). Kwee Lan has served as an Advisory Board member and panel picker judge for the SXSW EDU Conference an& Festival since 2013.
Jenna Luecke is an artist, graphic designer, and writer. Jenna graduated from Texas State University with a degree in Communications Design, went on to work for the College of Natural Sciences at UT, designing infographics, logos, a magazine, and other materials. After six years in science communication, Jenna left to pursue her dream of freelance illustration. Along with client work, Jenna also writes and illustrates her own content, and will be releasing her first book in January, a humorous style guide titled "The Breakup Hair Handbook.”
Janice Omadeke is the CEO and Founder of The Mentor Method, an enterprise platform helping companies keep and develop their diverse talent using the proven power of mentorship. Using a double-blind algorithm, The Mentor Method is closing the opportunity equity gap in the workplace. Janice is a 2020 Austin Under 40 nominee and winner of DivInc’s Champion of Change Diversity Champion of the Year for the city of Austin. Venture-backed by funds including Backstage Capital and Capital Factory, Janice's company was a finalist at the Grace Hopper annual conference in 2018, is a MassChallenge Texas Gold winner, a 50 on Fire winner for both Austin and DC Inno, and a 2017 Startup Grind Global Exhibition selection. Black Enterprise recognizes Janice as one of DC’s top 5 Black women in tech. She has also been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur magazine, and she was a subject matter expert at the 2016 White House Summit on Building the Tech Workforce of Tomorrow. Janice is certified in Entrepreneurship from MIT, and is PMP certified with over 10 years of corporate leadership experience for Fortune 500 companies.
Hali Martin (they/them) is a digital marketer born and raised in San Jose, California (a.k.a. the Bay Area). Years later, they followed in their aunt’s footsteps and moved to Austin, Texas. Hali’s has experience ranges from programming and marketing for independent film festivals to organizing and writing a black feminist manifesto. Professionally, they are passionate about creating effective solutions and lifting up voices of queer and queer trans people of color. In their free time, they give living room talks on sexual wellness, play board games and shop at the farmers markets. Hali can regularly be found reading a book or cooking a new recipe.
Faiza Kracheni is an experimental media artist, nonprofit leader, musician, and educator in Austin, Texas.
She is currently a Director at Motion Media Arts Center, co-founder of Texan women’s film festival Transform, and a member of the UNESCO Media Arts Austin board. You can often find her making music with her bands/projects, creating experimental art pieces, or teaching film/new media classes around Texas and beyond.
Celeste Quesada is an event architect, maker of creative magic and real estate agent specializing in unique, historic and affordable homes. Known for creating community by weaving together her 22 years of working within the cultural arts, social impact, home-building worlds – she loves to inspire, educate, and share her expertise with others.
Though she enjoys all her hometown has to offer, Quesada admits her favorite “haunt” is her South Austin home, which she shares with her husband, producer & musician Adrian Quesada; their daughters, Amelie and Marcelle; two guinea pigs; two parakeets; and their 100 year old chihuahua named Ana Empanada Quesada.
Nina Rose, founder of The R.O.S.E. Project, is a Black yogini (baby yogi) passionate about the emotional and mental wellness of Black and Latina girls and women. Her journey of mental and emotional health is ongoing, but she chooses to share that truth with others. Her meditation techniques, which she’ll share at WORK, utilizes imagery in order to celebrate and manifest one's path.
Bre Cruickshank is CEO and Founder of Radical Girl Gang, the online marketplace to shop emerging women-owned brands. She’s passionate about breaking down barriers for women entrepreneurs and building regenerative systems designed by women, for women. Her background at Nike and Outdoor Voices has given her a keen awareness of how brands can be leveraged to ignite social change. Her own business is rooted in feminist principles and designed to disrupt power dynamics at scale. You can usually find her forgetting to drink enough water, going to therapy or smashing the patriarchy.
Desirée Zamora García is a veteran of the design and tech industry. She leads a team of product designers at Loom, a video messaging tool that empowers everyone at work to communicate more effectively, wherever they are. At night, she keeps a side hustle as an Editor of A List Apart, a webzine that explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.
Her career has spanned a quirky range of areas, from transparency in the federal government, to artificial intelligence, and the most widely-used publishing platform on the internet. She’s spoken at conferences like Front Conf, O’Reilly Design, and podcasts like The Hustle.
Dez is a first-generation Chicana daughter of Mexican immigrants, a psych graduate of The University of Notre Dame, and proud mama of two fierce little girls of her own. She loves house music, Star Trek, and assembling IKEA furniture.
Kendall Antonelli co-founded Antonelli's Cheese, an award-winning and internationally-recognized specialty food shop, events venue offering 200+ tastings yearly, e-commerce site shipping cheese clubs nationwide, and wholesale program supplying 150+ Central Texas chefs - all with the goal to Do Good. Eat Good.
On a personal mission to spread joy and de-stigmatize mental health challenges, Kendall is a public speaker and published writer, has been recognized as an Austin Under 40 Awardee and Austin Business Journal Profile in Power, and actively supports numerous nonprofits. Her life is made sweeter alongside her two spirited children Everett and Elia, adopted aging pups Lucky Day and Luna Loca, and supportive husband John (who loves a strong woman).
Whitney Batres is a visual artist who currently resides in Austin, Texas with her husband and their cat, Karen. In 2015, she graduated with a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin and stuck around for the people and the food. Her inspiration comes from family and cultural traditions of domestic craft, and aims to bridge the gap between craft and fine art in her work.
Hailey Easley is the Executive Director of Austin Asian Community Health Initiative, a Texas-based grassroots organization working to improve health care access for Asian immigrant communities in Central Texas. Her experience as a second-generation, Korean Mexican American and as well as her dedication to social justice inform her work as researcher, community health worker, advocate, and nonprofit leader.
This year’s conference has been curated by bbatx committee members Jimena Gamboa, Aisha Lewis, Kathleen Lu and Maggie Scalli, alongside our Executive Director Jane Hervey. Meet them all here.