Julie Turner is a Professor of Nonprofit Administration. She earned her Doctorate of Philosophy in Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, her M.A. in Adult and Continuing Education at Michigan State University, and her B.A. in Sociology and Religion at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Dr. Turner has over twenty years of experience in education and nonprofit leadership, having served as a K-12 teacher and administrator, fund development/grant writing expert, and serving in a variety of leadership capacities through organizations such as Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Greater St. Louis, Children’s Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis, Today and Tomorrow Educational Foundation, and Washington University in St. Louis.

She serves on the board of directors for Community Council of St. Charles County and is the Regional Chair of Thrivent Financial-Heartland Region and is actively involved as a community volunteer in a wide range within school, nonprofit, and church settings.

Dr. Turner was recognized as “Professor of the Year” by the Lindenwood Student Government Association (2020); received the "Emerson Award for Teaching Excellence" (2015) and the "Lindenwood Service Award" (2018) as well as serving as a Faculty Fellow for Student Engagement in 2019.

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Vikram Lakhwara has built his career around supporting entrepreneurs in multiple facets from advisor and mentor, to investor and board member. Vik is a native of California's Silicon Valley and brings over a decade of venture capital experience and a deep-rooted passion for technology and innovation. 

He is the co-founder and general partner of Green Cow Venture Capital (GCVC). a seed-stage fund focused on investing in diverse founding teams leveraging AI and robotics to tackle critical challenges across foundational industries, ranging from farming to finance. His thesis on creating a recession-resilient portfolio by investing in such teams has yielded two exits from ten investments thus far, including Bear Flag Robotics' $250 million dollar acquisition by John Deere.

Prior to founding GCVC in 2018, Vik led business development and partnerships for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's Startups & Venture Capital practice. As a liaison to the startup ecosystem for the leading life sciences and technology corporate law firm, he built and maintained relationships with investors and support organizations from universities to accelerators to early-stage VCs and growth investors. He provided guidance to the firm's startup clients on fundraising strategy, building narratives, and pitching.

As the first hire of SK Telecom Ventures' $100M fund, Vik contributed significantly to all fifteen investments from sourcing and deal execution to post-deal portfolio management and value-add. The corporate venture capital fund enjoyed great success with nine exits, including acquisitions by renowned companies such as Apple, Autodesk, Uber, and Zynga.

Vik honed his analytical skills and value-add tool set as a consultant for Reinventures, a boutique executive education firm where he worked closely with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies.

Vik is also the co-host of Drinks With A VC podcast, a special advisor to TechSTL, an IIR at Washington University's Skandalaris Center (Fall 2023), and currently sits on the board of GCVC portfolio company, CloudAdmin.

Vik received his BA in economics from Vassar College, where he was also the captain of the Varsity Squash team.

Devon Moody-Graham, MBA is an International business strategist, author and community leader dedicated to seeing a positive shift in economic development through entrepreneurship in underserved communities. She’s the Chief Solutions Officer of CEOMom Empire LLC and Lead Strategist in Business Development to several companies, non-profits, and universities. She creates and facilitates transformational entrepreneurship programs and experiences.

Her experience and partnerships have brought over $4M in capital to small businesses. Devon created a community for mothers that aspire to start businesses and develop professionally. She has worked with over 500+ businesses and 15,000 youth and young adults in entrepreneurship and professional training over the last 13 years to bring awareness to the feasibility of wealth building. She has served on a select White House committee on technology and entrepreneurial resource access. In 2018, she was selected to represent the state of Missouri in the SCORE and Sam’s Club America’s Small Business Championship competition with her business and social development group CEOMom.

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Jeff is passionate about helping startup, early-stage, and small to mid-cap companies achieve their goals. He's worked with over 400+ companies in the past three years and helped many of them achieve milestones such as successful exits, acquisitions, raising capital, strategic planning, branding/marketing, sales strategy and execution, project management, product development and most importantly, establishing and fostering positive company culture.

He has thirty years of leadership experience from CEO (twice) to startup entrepreneur (six startups), yielding a broad background from which to help company founders achieve their potential. Jeff has enjoyed two successful company exits and was part of a startup team that raised $127m in venture capital. He's also served as CEO during the acquisition of multiple companies.

The list of industries in which he's had experience is broad:

• Business intelligence (BI)
• Cybersecurity
• Software development
• Healthcare & medical device
• Retail
• Hospitality
• Finance
• Educational Technology
• E-Commerce
• Non-profits

Other skillset include experience with EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), the Business Model Canvas, Agile Development, and methodologies that help companies scale.

Ultimately, Jeff enjoys working with business owners and their teams to customize the best way forward to scale their growth.

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Quentin is a serial entrepreneur, skilled in negotiation, commercialization, corporate relationship management, growth strategy, mobile applications, and vision development, which provides assistance to our ventures as he supports their progress toward successful market entry and growth stages.

Quentin is also the President of QCO Consulting and has involvement in the leadership of several other ventures.

Quentin is passionate about improving processes, growing companies, negotiating fair business deals, and seeing new thought leadership applied to organizations of all sizes.

Quentin has his MBA, a degree in Management and Information Systems, and a certification for Sustainable Business from Missouri University of Science and Technology.

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