Denise Brosseau, President and Co-Founder, Invent Your Future

Denise Brosseau is a serial entrepreneur who loves to share the secrets of entrepreneurial success with women of all ages. Denise started her first company by accident at the age of 27 and since then she has co-founded three non-profits and two for profit ventures. Denise spent ten years running the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (now FWE&E) where she created networks, programs and services for women founding high growth technology and life science businesses. She is most proud of the amazing successes that FWE members attained and the empowerment they gained from running their own companies. Along the way, she also co-founded the Springboard Venture Forums which have led to over $3.7B in funding for women-led businesses. Her new company, Invent Your Future Enterprises, is a professional development company specializing in the retention, development and acceleration of women leaders.

Nilofer Merchant, CEO, Rubicon Consulting

Nilofer Merchant is a consultant, writer, conference speaker and the CEO and founder of Rubicon Consulting, a strategy and marketing consultancy designed specifically for the needs of tech companies. She and her team of principals and staff have launched nearly 100 products, created five developer platforms, designed 18 channel vendor programs, run numerous user influencer marketing initiatives and defined more than 30 new markets.

By the time Rubicon was founded in 1999, Merchant had accrued 15+ years of operational experience in key leadership positions at technology firms such as Apple, Autodesk and GoLive (later acquired by Adobe). She uses her expertise to design industry-leading go-to-market programs, and has won awards from CRN, VAR Business and the Marketing Association in both marketing and channel development. Through her many successes (and even her losses), Nilofer has developed a multidisciplinary approach for assessing business situations clearly, applying critical wisdom, and defining a strategic direction.

Merchant and her distinguished team of consultants are trusted advisors to a wide range of executives in Silicon Valley at client firms such as Adobe, Autodesk, Genesys, Handmark, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, Logitech, Symantec, VMWare and others. Their delivery of bottom line results drives revenue growth, market share price and client profits. Merchant has been published in AdAge, Chief Marketer, MarketingProfs, The Pragmatic Marketer, RainToday, SandHill.com, WITI’s Savvy Magazine and other publications.

She holds an MBA from Santa Clara University, a BS in Economics from University of San Francisco, and is a certified Instructor of Facilitative Leadership. Rubicon Consulting can be found on the Internet at www.rubiconconsulting.com. Ms. Merchant blogs at www.winmarkets.com.