Shyra Smart

Chief Development and Strategy Officer at Vox Media

Shyra Smart is Vox Media’s Chief Development & Strategy Officer, overseeing business and corporate development for the leading modern media company. In her role, she focuses on business partnerships that help Vox Media’s editorial teams achieve increased audience, revenue, or brand exposure, licensing the company’s brands for products, content syndication, and evaluating possible mergers or acquisitions.

Smart joined Vox Media by way of the company’s merger with New York Media in 2019. At New York Media, she was head of business development, overseeing the establishment and management of ancillary businesses and strategic partnerships with a focus on multi-platform distribution, content syndication and brand licensing. Prior to joining New York Media, she worked for media brands The Daily Beast, Viacom, HBO, and Fox Searchlight Pictures in business development and strategy roles.

Smart was a finalist for Digiday’s Publishing Executives of the Year and named to AdWeek’s 50: Honoring Media, Marketing and Tech's Behind-the-Scenes Stars in 2022. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from NYU Stern School of Business.

Sarah Phoenix

Chief Product Officer, Thought Industries

As Chief Product Officer at Thought Industries, Sarah Phoenix leads the company’s product vision and strategy. As a seasoned product executive with 20+ years of experience, Sarah previously held executive leadership roles at BILL, Twitter, and GoDaddy, where she specialized in scaling B2B global platforms and building high-engagement user experiences. At Thought Industries, she is dedicated to evolving the platform into an intelligence-driven engine that connects learning behavior to measurable business growth. Sarah’s expertise in data-centric design and AI ensures that Thought Industries remains at the forefront of innovation, helping organizations turn education into a primary driver of customer value.

Debra-Ellen Glickstein

Founding Executive Director, NYC Kids RISE

A serial social-entrepreneur, community wealth builder and organizer, Debra-Ellen Glickstein has spent nearly 30 years working with communities to measurably expand economic opportunities. Debra-Ellen currently serves as the Founding Executive Director of NYC Kids RISE where she is leading the effort to build a first of its kind universal community-driven wealth building platform for New York City neighborhoods. Through her leadership, NYC public school students have a financial asset for their educational futures, starting in kindergarten, and communities have an additional tool to support their children’s economic success. To date, more than 340,000 students have NYC Scholarship Accounts with nearly $60M accumulated for their educational futures.

Debra-Ellen’s career has spanned the public, private and community sectors with a constant focus on neighborhoods and cross sector collaboration. Previously, Debra-Ellen served as the Executive Director of New York City’s Office of Financial Empowerment, the first municipal office in the country focused on creating innovative financial products, programs and services to enable asset building and wealth creation for low income New Yorkers and neighborhoods. In this capacity, she focused on "community wealth building" where she led the efforts to create a citywide neighborhood financial health index. She has served as the Vice President of Strategy & Program Development at the New York City Housing Authority, where she led efforts to create and implement NYCHA’s neighborhood and partnership-based resident services strategy. She is a co-founder and served as the founding Executive Director of Urban Upbound, a non-profit organization that supports public housing residents to achieve economic success through college counseling, financial planning, career training and job placement assistance. She is also a co-founder of the Urban Upbound Federal Credit Union – a community-owned financial institution providing access to affordable and relevant financial services.

Debra-Ellen earned a B.A. with honors from Wesleyan University, an M.B.A. from the NYU Stern School of Business, and an M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Named a “40 Under 40 Rising Star” in New York City government and politics by City and State, Debra-Ellen is a proud City Year alumnus and recipient of the Comcast Alumni Leadership Award - City Year’s highest alumni honor. Debra-Ellen is a Sterling Network Fellow, a 2016 BALLE Local Economy Fellow and the recipient of other honors, including the United Way of New York City’s Power of Women to Make a Difference Award, the New York Mets & Fidelity Investments’ Inspire the Future Award, Outstanding Community Contribution Award from the Long Island City YMCA, Outstanding Contribution to Woodside Houses, Outstanding Community Service Award to Queensbridge Houses, recognition for distinguished leadership by the Lawyers Alliance for New York, and selection as a Resident at the Harvard Innovation Lab, New York City Government Scholar and an Investors’ Circle Venture Fellow.

Julie Cerick

Head of Platform, Female Founders Fund

Julie Cerick is Head of Platform at Female Founders Fund, shaping the experiences, narratives, and cultural moments that define female founders and the future of venture. She architects high-impact experiences, media, and communities that determine how female founders show up, and are seen. With over a decade of experience at the intersection of digital media, venture, and startups, Julie has led platform and community strategy at Vox Media, Kickstarter, Alpaca VC, and high-growth digital brands, known for turning storytelling into community - and community into influence.

Laura Elgueta

Associate VP, Deloitte

Laura is an AVP at Deloitte focusing on helping organizations drive strategic growth through data and technology, enabling better and more impactful decisioning at scale, better understanding customers and markets across all sectors. Prior to Deloitte she spent her career, 15+ years, in CPG (Avon Products, Clorox) and Retail and has held US, European, and LATAM focused regional positions. She's held roles leading teams in the areas of Digital strategy, Paid Media, Content strategy and production, email marketing and UX/UI.

Gali Heichal

Head of Payment Partnerships, Klarna

Gali Heichal is the Global Head of Payment Partnerships at Klarna, where she leads the company’s relationships across the payments ecosystem, including Payment Networks, Payment Service Providers, other FinTechs and banks. She was recognized by American Banker as one of the most influential women in payments (2022) and received the National Organization for Women’s Women of Power and Influence Award (2024). Before joining Klarna, Gali drove key payments and commerce initiatives at Google and spent nearly nine years in leadership roles at Citibank. She holds an M.B.A from NYU Stern and an L.L.B. in Law and Business Management from Tel Aviv University.