PARTNERS
Holly Caplan
Holly is a female empowerment author, speaker and confidence coach. As she climbed the corporate ladder for over 20 years, she learned that advancing meant tolerating discriminatoion in the workplace. This drove Holly to write a book titled, “Surviving the Dick Clique: A Girl’s Guide to Surviving the Male Dominated Corporate World.” Her most recent work related articles can be found in Fox Business, Inc, and Fast Company, CEO MOM and Cosmopolitan. Holly resides in Dallas, TX.
MEET THE BUSINESS PITCH JUDGES
Stephanie M. Broughton
Minority/Women Business Enterprise (M/WBE)
Coordinator
Dallas Independent School District
Dallas Education Center
Stephanie Broughton is an advocate for increasing the economic inclusion of minority and women businesses as an M/WBE Coordinator she is dedicated to proactively helping minority and women owned business owners navigate through the process of how to successfully do business. Stephanie has a strong background in managing educational programs in K-12 and Higher Education and extensive experience in educational and business consulting, marketing, training and recruiting. Serving as a liaison, Stephanie collaborates with business owners, subcontractors, and internal and external customers to ensure compliance of M/WBE contract participation.
Christina Mortel
Christina Mortel is an Army veteran and Business Consultant with the Texas Veterans Commission Veteran Entrepreneur Program. In her role, Christina helps veterans and families with business startup activities including entity formation, business plan review, capital acquisition, marketing, and government contracting. She is the HUB Outreach Coordinator for TVC. After serving eight years as a US Army Officer, Christina entered the private sector working for Pfizer Inc, managing four departments in Distribution Operations in the Chicago office. Prior to joining Texas Veterans Commission, Christina worked 13 years at Hewlett Packard Company in Technology sales covering Global, Enterprise, and Mid-market accounts in Oil & Gas, Banking, Services, and IT verticals.
Tracy Irby
Director, Center for Women Entrepreneurs
Jane Nelson Institute for Women’s Leadership
Tracy Irby was a business advisor for the North Texas SBDC network for over 6 years. Adding to her level of expertise, Tracy has been a small business owner for over 20 years and enjoys bringing first-hand experience to her clients. She successfully owned and operated one of the first Hometown Sears Dealer Stores, a Gym, Bounce House rental business and an online self-defense business. She has a BBA in Marketing and MBA from Texas A&M University-Commerce. She is a recent graduate of the OU Economic Development Institute and holds an Economic Development Finance Certification from the National Development Council.
Bridget Moon
Economic Development Specialist & Veterans Business Development Officer
U.S. Small Business Administration
Dallas/Fort Worth District Office
