Kathleen is an entrepreneur, venture capital fund manager and early-stage investor focused on helping to find, incubate, and grow ideas for solving our greatest challenges. As the COO and founding team member of Builders & Backers, Kathleen is working in communities across the country to restore personal agency, increase capacity for entrepreneurial thinking, identify promising solutions and ultimately scale and fund the ones that work. As a partner in Builders & Backers Capital, Kathleen invests in early-stage startups and helps other accredited investors do so as well through investment syndicates. Kathleen also is the Director of Operations the 1776 Ventures, a venture capital fund with some of the world's most promising startups, including Twiga Foods, Guild Education, HopSkipDrive, and Swiftly. Previously Kathleen has founded and grown multiple consumer products companies, including one of the earliest treadmill and standing desks companies in the US. She helped to take these companies from idea to manufacturing, e-commerce and retail success, and licenses with international brands. Prior to launching her first e-commerce business, Kathleen was an accomplished attorney and founding partner of a law firm. She served clients of all sizes and helping to secure tens of millions of dollars in judgments for them. Kathleen is an experienced public speaker who has been featured at conferences around the U.S. and abroad. Her articles and interviews have appeared in FastCompany, Tech.Co, PBS, Forbes.com and Livestrong.com.