Building LaunchPad takes many hands. Our Advisory Committee brings together leaders with experience across entrepreneurship, accounting and finance, technology, and business to help strengthen LaunchPad and guide its strategic growth, making it more useful and accessible to under-resourced entrepreneurs.
-
-
KATE BRENNAN
Kate is an executive product leader with over twenty years of experience across investment banking, GTM, hardware, software, and AI. She currently leads the product, engineering and business organizations behind Stripe Terminal. She has held product, engineering, design and marketing leadership roles at Square, SurveyMonkey, and Sonder, and has built and scaled teams from zero to global.
-
-
Salvador is a first generation Latino and fintech executive committed to empowering underserved communities. He serves on the board of Cristo Rey San Jose, which provides first generation Latino students with a private education and work experience with leading Silicon Valley organizations. He also advises Alas, serving underserved communities in Half Moon Bay and Monterey County. He leads Customer Experience at Casap, an agentic AI platform serving financial institutions and fintechs.
-
-
Kat is a research and design strategy leader with more than 20 years of experience collaborating with cross-functional teams on front-end innovation and go-to-market initiatives. At Square and Intuit, she built and led high-performing research teams, translating customer insights into business direction. She also oversaw Adopt a Small Business, a QuickBooks program providing hands-on coaching to help small business owners build confident bookkeeping skills. Kat currently serves on the board of SF New Deal and as an Expert-in-Residence for Rippleworks, supporting social impact programs.
-
-
Colleen is a Senior Advisor to the Makahakama Foundation, where she contributed to the early development of the LaunchPad program. With decades of experience with financial services and technology firms, Colleen has a proven track record of thinking strategically and executing tactically. She has held leadership roles at BILL, PayPal, eBay, Visa and BNY Mellon, where she built high-performing product, risk and compliance teams. Currently, Colleen is a board member at Runway Group, a consultancy that helps young fintechs manage legal and compliance. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Pittsburgh Area Salvation Army.
-
-
Ariege is the SVP of Product at BILL, leading flagship products including the Accountant channel. She joined BILL in late 2024 from Intuit, where she led Gen AI for SMBs and QuickBooks Live, and previously led Intuit’s Accountant Segment, serving over 700k firms. Her career began in customer service at PayCycle. She was named to Accounting Today’s Top 100 and SV Business Journal’s Women of Influence. She holds a BS from Stanford, and lives in SJ with her husband, Simon, and two kids, Medina and Idris.
-
-
Hugh is a product and technology leader with 30+ years of experience. Formerly President and CTO of BuyNothing, he spent 22 years at Intuit as an Engineering Fellow and VP of Innovation, earning its inaugural Founders Innovation Award. He serves on the boards of Barloworld and Echoing Green and previously served on Mozilla Corporation’s board. Co-author of The Intrapreneur’s Journey, he champions leadership, inclusion, and employee-driven innovation.
-
-
Jody, known as The Radical CPA, is a leading voice in accounting transformation. A longtime Accounting Today Top 100 Most Influential honoree, she pioneered the cloud firm model and now co-founded XcelLabs, where she created Navi, an AI-powered platform that helps accounting firms transform workflow, leadership, and advisory for the AI era.
-
-
Sayra owns a beloved Oakland bar blending great food, craft drinks, and community since 2023. As a trained architect, she influenced the design and flow of the space herself, and her bicoastal roots—New York edge meets California ease—shape its eclectic energy. A true family business, it doubles as a venue for local musicians and artists. Now expanding into catering and mobile events, Sayra shows how design, culture, and family can turn a small business into a neighborhood cornerstone.