Advisory Council

Advisory Council Member

Karan Kapoor is an investment banking professional focused on Mergers & Acquisitions (“M&A”). He has a strong financial background having worked as a private equity investor, a strategy consultant and now as an investment banker. Karan currently works for Pagemill Partners, a Duff & Phelps subsidiary. Pagemill is based in Silicon Valley, specializes in M&A advisory for technology and media companies globally, and is one of the most active mid-market technology investment banks.

Advisory Council Member

Nadia is a Registered Dietitian who is passionate about addressing nutritional issues in America and abroad. Her graduate research was done in collaboration with the Exploratory Center for Obesity Research at the University of Washington and focused on analyzing food prices and access to healthy foods in Seattle by neighborhood income. Currently she is the co-founder and CEO of a non-profit organization called Jolkona aimed at growing the number of donors giving online. She helped start Jolkona in order to allow others to get involved with philanthropy and making a global impact. Jolkona’s unique approach to giving leverages technology to let anyone make a difference easily and effectively through micro-donations. Prior to starting Jolkona, she worked in the non-profit sector in Los Angeles promoting social entrepreneurship and financial literacy to inner city youth. She was recently selected to be a Cordes Fellow among top emerging social entrepreneurs and nonprofit executives and won the Social Endeavor’s Award for her pitch at Social Venture Partner’s Social Innovation Fast Pitch.

In her spare time she is involved with several nutrition related projects including being an advisor with the nutritional educational gaming start-up company, Food N’ Me and also with the global health non-profit PATH, where she volunteers with a research project focused on staple food fortification in Bangladesh. Nadia has a BA in Business/Economics and a minor in Public Policy from UCLA and a Master in Public Health and Nutrition from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Carey Lenss is the Founder of Lenss LLC, a firm that brings individualized services and tactics to any organization in core performance areas. Employees, Operations, Technology, External Relationships, and Future Growth Areas are all critical to an organizations success. Her goal is to enhance Organization revenues, operations, participation, and enthusiasm. Organizational development occurs through understanding a wide array of potential growth areas such as – Restoring organizational effectiveness thru team subsystem analysis; Facilitating technology applications within operations/market practices; Intelligence gathering on your target markets, customers, and competitor and applying it back to your mission ; Improving business operations without adding bureaucracy.

Peter is regarded by many as “One of the World’s Great Rainmakers” and “One of the Most Connected Men in North American Business Circles”.

He calls on a dream list of Global business, organizational, and political leaders to provide immediate feedback to validate business ideas, strategy, leadership, and investments. He is considered to be one the top business strategists in the world focused on “Instant Change” or as he likes to call it “The best at Now”! His ability to pickup the phone and call a Who’s Who of Business Legends has been called “Remarkable”, Peter calls it “Fireside Chats”!

He has developed unique strategies and methodologies that combined with his ability to call a dream list of thought and business leaders, can be used to insure correct direction changes that immediately place a company on the right path to success. A former High-tech Executive at GRiD (inventor of our Modern Clamshell Designed Laptop) and former Director at Dell. Former CEO & Founder of Zero2 Ventures which was sold to MacFarlane & Gordon in 2000. In 2008, he created “Friends of Peter” which is used to bring business and community leaders together to effect “Instant Change” as it relates to the critical business and social needs of a community or country.

He and his wife Kelly have been passionate about children’s issues and from 2003 to 2006 they had up to 16 people live in their home with the goal of helping families get out of debt and create a foundation for the future. They helped found a Foster Care Agency that today helps 100′s of children throughout Texas.

Advisory Council Member

Ruth Glendinning began her first entrepreneurial venture in 1994 while still employed in the Strategic Consulting Practice at Price Waterhouse in Century City, California. Clients included Disney Imagineering, DreamWorks Studios, Universal Studios and a broad range of emerging entities in California, New York and Texas. She transitioned her work to working full-time in Austin in 2000 and soon after turned her attention to the social entrepreneurship sector of the market. In 2002, Ruth developed her theory of cultural strategy which demonstrates the importance of creating a balance between community, culture & commerce for sustainable economy.

She has successfully applied the cultural strategy model to her current work with Community Renaissance Market, a 60,000 square foot building repurposed into a microbusiness incubator containing 40+ businesses, an accessible technology training and placement program for people with
disabilities, and an apprentice training program for foster children ages 18-22 as part of Foster Apprentice Training Enterprises, a non-profit Ruth was instrumental in founding. In the 6 months of daily management, she & her business partner have brought the CRM venture to break-even and have their first outside investor, with others positioned to invest as the model is refined and replicated. Community Renaissance Market has been profiled in Community Impact News, Austin Business Journal, News 8, Channel 24 News, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer and will be featured on a reality show filming May 2011 expected to air Fall 2011.

In addition to creating & co-owning the CRM concept, Ruth has partnered on multiple businesses within the market, including The Curiouseum, Curiouseum Estate Services, Austin Chocolate Company, Renaissance Apothecary, South Austin Signs, and Community Renaissance Coffee. She is in the process of bringing multiple consumer products to market; developing an accessible technology training pilot project with the State of Texas to be located at Community Renaissance Market; creating the Caregiv(h)er™ product line & Caregiv(h)er™ Foundation; publishing her first children’s book “Tessa’s Tickly Tummy”; managing the Keith Scott Hogan Memorial Fund for Accessibility with the intention of developing the Keith Scott Hogan Universal Design Center; and working with the team of bankers, investors and advisors assembled by her late husband to develop AMP Federal Credit Union, a banking & financial services institution developed to serve the community of people with disabilities, their families and network of support.

Food Service Director

Monica is a graduate from the “Le Cordon Bleu” Culinary School in Austin, Texas and has worked for numerous years in Mexico city as a Sous Chef and Food Stylist under World Class Chefs.

She studied Nutrition and Organizing Events at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, and worked as a Managing Partner at Les Creatifs, an event planning organization in Mexico City.

Her experience in teaching children about the local food culture, and the importance of eating healthy foods, makes her an expert at Whole Kids Adventure, when planning menus and balancing meals to make them as healthy and nourishing as possible.

On her own time she loves reading about nutrition and cooking, and trains to keep up to date on organic cooking methods and ingredients.

Director of Operations

Tere A. Holmes has been devoted to the field of Early Care and Education for nearly 35 years. She is a native Texan who earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Advertising and Marketing with emphasis in Spanish from Texas Tech University. Tere has served in many positions, including center director, district manager, regional manager and director of operations.

Tere’s expertise is in the successful multi or single unit operation of early care and education programs and effective advocacy and government relations for children’s issues. Her experience includes the successful development of new early care and education programs, as well as organizational growth through acquisitions. As the President of Early Care and Education Strategies LLC, Tere does business consulting and training for early care and education programs in the United Sates and internationally. With knowledge of licensed programs both regionally and nationally, Tere is familiar with all aspects of program operation. With memberships in NACCP, NCCA, NAEYC, and TLCCA, she presents annually at various National and State conferences, and is currently listed on the Texas Trainers Registry.

Currently, Tere serves on the board of the National Association of Child Care Professionals, and the National Child Care Association, and is the past president of the Texas Licensed Child Care Association. Legislative and regulatory issues are very important to Tere and she stays involved on both the state and national level. Realizing that the industry connection to legislative and regulatory constituents affects the lives of our youngest citizens, Tere has dedicated numerous hours to her advocacy work.