When?
February 23, 2021
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM CST
Who?
Open to all that support our mission, YEA! Students and their families
Where?
Conference bridge information will be provided prior to the event
What?
Our annual YEA! CEO Roundtable event brings together high-profile Chicago women business leaders for an informal discussion about their lives, careers, and what they love most about what they do. This event includes our Young Entrepreneur Academy (YEA!) students front and center. These middle and high school girls are able to ask their burning questions of our panelists. In addition, our Female Strong® tribe of professionals that support our mission is in attendance. This is an event not to be missed.
Our YEA! CEO Roundtable 2021 guests will include:
- Moderator:
- Jessica Zweig, Founder and CEO of SimplyBe.
- Panelists:
- Leslie Scott, Founder of Jenga
- Winnie Park, CEO PaperSource
- Noor Sugrue, Founder Vintro
- Jeni Britton Bauer, Founder Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream
- Liz Kammel Tillati, VP Business Development Cubii, Founder and Ceo of ZipFit Inc. until 2019
Thank you to our generous sponsor Edlong:
Moderator
Jessica Zweig
Founder and CEO of SimplyBe
Panelists
Leslie Scott
Founder of Jenga
Why what you do is so important and what led to the creation of your business?
A difficult question to answer as I don’t actually think anything I did or do should be considered ’so important’. Certainly, I didn’t start a business because I thought that what I was about to do would be important – at least not to anyone else. But this isn’t to say that I didn’t believe in myself. On the contrary, I had enough self-confidence to start my own business because I thought I would be the best person to publish and market products that I had designed myself. With hindsight, I think I was right, in as much as I don’t think I would have ever managed to convince an established toy company to take on Jenga at that time. But I also think that I was extremely lucky. There is a fine balance between being confident and foolhardy. As founder and/or CEO you certainly need to be passionate about your business and your product, but you also need to be realistic and able to judge when to keep pushing and when to change direction.
Winnie Park
CEO of PaperSource
Noor Sugrue
Founder of Vintro
Jeni Britton Bauer
Founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream
Liz Kammel Tilatti
VP Business Development, Cubii
Founder and CEO of ZipFit Inc. until 2019
YEA! CEO Roundtable Panelist Liz Kammel Tilatti Shares Her Passion
Liz is open about her experience as a woman founder of ZipFit Denim and how imbalanced the playing field is for women who are trying to raise venture capital dollars and conduct business in general. It is her passion to change change this!
