2023 Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium, part one: Leading change

Cara Duckworth is the Chief Communications Officer for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), where she directs a team of communications, education, and outreach professionals focused on promoting the agency’s goals and objectives. She also oversees the USPTO’s partnership with the National Inventors Hall of Fame and management of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. 
        
Prior to joining the USPTO, Duckworth served as Vice President of Communications at the Association of American Publishers, where she helped manage the day-to-day operations of the communications department for the trade organization representing the $25 billion U.S. book publishing industry. Previously, Duckworth served as the Senior Vice President of Communications at the Recording Industry Association of America and as Director of Communications at the Motion Picture Association.

An experienced communications veteran of the creative industries and a modern-day storyteller, Duckworth’s broad skillset includes media relations, public speaking, social media expertise, stand-up comedy, and theater acting. She has been at the forefront of many innovative and groundbreaking campaigns that have helped define the transitions of the music and movie industries to the digital age.

Felena is a long-time entrepreneur and marketing maven. Her latest venture, Hera Hub, is a spa-inspired shared workspace and business accelerator for female entrepreneurs. She has two company-owned locations in San Diego and licensed locations in Carlsbad, DC, Irvine, and Temecula, with more cities launching soon. She is on a mission to support thousands of women in the launch and growth of their businesses.

Ms. Amber Hart is the Co-founder and Co-owner of The Pulse™. Ms. Hart currently serves as the President of Women in Technology (WIT), is an active member of the Professional Services Council (PSC), and sits on the advisory board for the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University (GMU). As an advocate for the government contracting industry, Ms. Hart has testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Committee and participated in the Biden Administration’s 2022 Supply Chain Ministerial Forum. She brings critical knowledge and experience in navigating congressional and federal procurement data and sources, from legislation to appropriations and historical discretionary spending obligations, to The Pulse™.

Dr. Corinna Lathan is a neuroscientist, biomedical engineer, and tech entrepreneur who uses technology to help people do things better. She co-founded AnthroTronix, a tech innovation firm whose innovations include: a robot to help kids with disabilities, a sensor glove to train surgeons, a virtual reality system to study astronauts in space, and a computer game to track your brain health. 

Dr. Lathan is a social advocate for STEM education, is on the board of the KID Museum in Bethesda, Maryland, and was featured in an exhibit of 120 statues of contemporary women in STEM at the Smithsonian in 2022.

Glorimar Maldonado is the Diversity Officer for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In this role, she provides policy review, technical guidance, data-driven analyses, and strategic leadership for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) related programs and initiatives to recruit, retain, engage, and develop a prepared, diverse, and sustainable workforce. Further, as an instructor, she conducts employment and professional/leadership development workshops and K-12 activities that promote careers in mathematics and the sciences. 

Previously, Ms. Maldonado was the Interim Deputy Director for Talent Acquisition and the first-ever and first Latina Chief Recruitment Officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, she developed, reviewed, and implemented policies, programs, and initiatives to streamline and improve federal hiring and retention practices, implement robust diversity recruitment practices, and promote DEIA in the workforce.

Ms. Maldonado has also been a senior advisor for the Strategic Programs Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where she developed, implemented and managed Hispanic recruitment and outreach programs and initiatives. Additionally, prior to joining the CDC, she was the chief of staff for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. In this role, she supervised the daily operations of the office, including strategic planning, social media campaigns, management of staff, and the development and implementation of Presidential outreach programs..

Ms. Maldonado holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, history, and psychology and a Master of Science in leadership.

Jenny Poon is a serial entrepreneur and founder of CO+HOOTS and HUUB. As the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and a self-made entrepreneur, she speaks, writes, and advocates daily for safer entrepreneur ecosystems for women and people of color. She currently serves as CEO of HUUB, a data-driven digital platform for governments to streamline delivery of small business support services.

Prior to HUUB, Jenny founded the first co-working space in Phoenix, Arizona. She expanded the business to two locations, created thousands of jobs, and served more than 1,000 entrepreneurs monthly. She credits her decade supporting entrepreneurs through CO+HOOTS and her experience as a daughter of small business owners as the driving force behind her work with HUUB and equity building today. Jenny is also an appointed board member of the National Women's Business Council.

Kathi Vidal serves as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) – America’s Innovation Agency. 

As the chief executive of the USPTO, she leads one of the largest intellectual property (IP) offices in the world, with more than 13,000 public servants and an annual budget of more than $4 billion. She is the principal IP advisor to the President and the Administration, through the Secretary of Commerce, and is focused on incentivizing and protecting U.S. innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. Named one of Managing IP’s top 50 most influential people in IP in 2022, she leads an agency whose mission is to help American workers and businesses compete and collaborate, especially in ground-breaking technologies and across all demographics. As Director of the USPTO, Vidal is working to expand American innovation for and from all, and to bring more ideas to impact, including serving as the Vice Chair of the Council for Inclusive Innovation (CI²), alongside Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo and the Council members, a Co-Chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE), and the Co-Founder, with the Secretary, of the Women’s Entrepreneurship (WE) initiative. 

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Sean Wilkerson works in the Office of Innovation Outreach at the USPTO creating intellectual property (IP) awareness programs and managing outreach services to independent inventors, small businesses, entrepreneurs, makers, and universities. Wilkerson previously worked as an outreach coordinator for the programs leading up to the opening of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley and Texas Regional Offices. He also spent a year as part of the New York engagement team that developed the 2015 Future of Urban Innovation Startups Summit in coordination with Columbia University and the USPTO.

From 2011–2013, he served as the program manager of the inaugural Select USA Summit, developing the program, structure, and outreach efforts of a U.S. government-wide program housed in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. As an education program analyst in the Global Intellectual Property Academy from 2008–2011, he managed international programs focused on providing IP training related to enforcement of patents, trademarks, and copyrights and the U.S. patent and trademark system. Prior to working for the federal government, he served as the Director of Events for the National Association of Homebuilders in Washington, D.C. and as the Ideas Exchange Manager for Accenture in Reston, Virginia.