Blaze Your Own Trail

The Metro New York & Dallas Fort-Worth Chapters of the National Black MBA Association

Celebrating Women’s History Month

“Blaze Your Own Trail: Intrapreneurship to Entrepreneurship”

Date: Thursday, March 11

Time: 7PM EST / 6PM CST

Strategies for Black Women to Effectively Move from A Corporate Career to Entrepreneurship in various industries

featuring

• Natasha Bansgopaul, MBA, Co-Founder & COO, DarcMatter
• MiShon Landry, CDP, CEO, Culture Consultants

Moderated by:

• Cherice J. Williams, MBA, NBMBAA DFW Chapter, President

Also featuring breakout sessions in various industries for specific recommendations and tips to move into entrepreneurship.

RSVP at www.www.ticketfalcon.comm/blackwomen

For more information, please email [email protected]

About Natasha Bansgopaul, MBA, Co-Founder & COO, DarcMatter

Natasha Bansgopaul Co-Founder and COO FinTech, Blockchain, and Digital Assets

DarcMatter, Konstellation, & VegaX Holdings

https://www.linkedin.com/in/natbans/ https://DarcMatter.com/ https://konstellation.tech/ https://vegaxholdings.com/

As the Co-Founder and COO of DarcMatter (DM), Konstellation, and VegaX Holdings, Natasha is an experienced fintech, marketing, strategy, and M&A professional with over 10+ years of demonstrated leadership through key strategic roles at Fortune100 companies. She is the founder of three fintech companies and significantly increased the platform’s assets under management to over $7.0 Bn, with users from over 65+ countries

Natasha holds an MBA from The Pennsylvania State University, and has successfully led her companies to secure numerous awards globally such as, “Startup of the Year,” NextMoney Global FinTech Finals, HFM Technology “Best FinTech Solution for Hedge Funds”, and “Best Blockchain Technology.

Provider” in the 2019 Wealth Management.com Industry Awards. Most recently, Natasha was selected as a 2021 White House Presidential Innovation Fellow (PIF), a fellowship for leading technologists in the United States, where she is detailed to NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology).

She has received notable recognition from various prestigious organizations and media publications, demonstrating the significant impact she is making within the financial technology industry as a female pioneer. Of note, she has been featured in FastCompany, Black Enterprise, Korea Times, Essence, and ThriveGlobal, in addition to being awarded the distinguished honor of “Female Executive of the Year” and “Female Entrepreneur of the Year” from The Stevies organization. In 2020, Natasha was recognized by her alma mater for the prestigious honor as The Pennsylvania State University’s 2020 Alumni Achievement Honoree, recognizing remarkable achievements from alumni 35 years and younger. She is also a distinguished international keynote speaker, having accepted invites to present at financial services, fintech, and blockchain conferences throughout Asia and the United States.

Natasha is currently focused on using her experience in fintech to build the next generation of investment strategies and indices with digital asset management firm, VegaX Holdings: The ‘BlackRock’ of Digital Assets. With a passion for learning, business development, diversity and inclusion, financial literacy, and technology, Natasha continues to pioneer the need for change in the financial services industry via fintech solutions.

About MiShon Landry, CDP, CEO, Culture Consultants

MiShon Landry, CDP is a Certified Diversity Professional and owner of Inclusive Leadership Institute. Culture Consultants, the consulting arm of Inclusive Leadership Institute is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. A native of Fort Worth, Texas but a military brat from a very young age, MiShon has traveled extensively, living as far away as London, England. It’s partly because of this background that she has a sincere appreciation for a variety of cultures and a passion for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

From a young age, MiShon shared an aspiration and genuine interest in small business ownership. After working several years in the Talent Acquisition / Human Resources industry for a Global Fortune 500 company, she began her own small business, called Integrity Staffing. The organization was focused on Executive Career Placement solutions, Career Planning, and Executive Coaching.  Her natural inclination for building relationships allowed for her to create a (200+ member) Women’s Network called Circle of Friendship, an organization designed to Educate, Empower, Encourage, Motivate, and Strengthen individuals.

After operating her small business for five years, MiShon, felt it was time to make a change, and she decided to return to Corporate America, where she worked for the largest Human Capital Management (HCM) company in the world. Her first three years, she held the position of Regional Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) Manager supporting mid-sized clients who had up to a 1000-employees. As HRIS Implementation Manager, she managed a team of more than a dozen HRIS consultants that built Human Resource and Benefits websites for these clients. Later, because of her passion for entrepreneurship, she turned to the company’s Small Business Services Division and worked for six years as a Regional Client Relations Manager, managing a large team responsible for building and retaining strategic relationships with the company’s largest source of clients. 

While there, the HCM organization began its Diversity & Inclusion efforts, MiShon tapped on the shoulder by a GM / DVP had the unique opportunity to be at the forefront of these initiatives and was responsible for helping launch the company’s first Business (Affinity) Resource Group, setting its Mission and Vision for success. Later, she was appointed by Senior Executive Leadership as one of ten (10) individuals to lead the company’s first Diversity & Inclusion Board, where she held several roles and was later named Chairman. As Diversity Board Chairman, she was accountable for advancing various D&I and cultural business initiatives, including linking Diversity and Inclusion to organizational goals and measuring the ROI. 

MiShon was honored by her peers as Diversity & Inclusion Champion for three consecutive years and selected as one of three female leaders to be interviewed by Working Mother magazine. She is a strategic business partner that functions as a change agent and influencer, providing strategies, solutions, training, tools, resources, and thought leadership on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.  MiShon has over a decade of experience in People, Program, Project Management, Leadership, Executive C-Suite solutions and Entrepreneurial expertise. 

She has been published in HBA Healthcare Businesswomen’s AssociationAdvantage magazine, “Diversity & Inclusion: Unconscious Bias” Medium, “Diversity in Dolls, It’s More Than Child’s Play,’ ‘The Digital Divide and Coronavirus (COVID19),” Mortgage Compliance magazine, “Inclusive Leadership: Traits and Behaviors that Impact Organizational Growth,” and “Walk A Mile in My Shoes: Best Practice for Inclusion.” Talent Economy’s, “5 Best Practices to Create an Inclusive Transgender Culture, PLAID for Women, “Diversity & Inclusion Go Together Like Peanut Butter & Jelly” and The Connect magazine, “How to be Inclusive in the Workplace (And Win)!” She has also been featured in Human Capital Media’s Magazine, “5 Steps to Create a Culture that Embraces Diversity” and Dallas Business Journal’s, “Wage Disparities Between Male and Female Workers” as well as in Better Tarrant, Invest Human, Standing Out and HBANET podcast.

In 2015, MiShon left the HCM organization to follow her passion in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, by launching her own small business, Culture Consultants, a Consulting Firm designed to help bridge the gap between Inclusion and Leadership. Not only does the organization clearly articulate why Inclusive Leadership is an imperative for today’s 21st century leader, but Culture Consultants helps organizations / individuals understand and develop the strategy behind the critical components of these Inclusive Leaders. Culture Consultants was selected as a Top 25 Finalist in the Fort Worth Business Plan Competition, Top 5 Finalist in the Ground Zero Pitch Challenge. MiShon has been honored as a LUNA Award Business Advocate of the Year Nominee, and a Great Women of Texas winner and Woman of Influence. 

MiShon facilitates workshops, seminars and consulting focusing on Inclusive Leadership, Unconscious Bias, and Workplace Culture discussing best practices as well as behaviors and traits that impact an organization. She also facilitates the Cultural Competency portion of a Nationwide Diversity & Inclusion Certification and has held two Supplier Diversity roles, one as a Consultant with a global pharmaceutical organization and another as Supplier Diversity Director for a technology MBE. During her career she has developed structures that cultivate Inclusion, such as Mentoring Programs, Scorecard & Analytics, C-Suite Communications, crafted Affinity Groups infrastructure, supported Government Compliance requirements as well as created Strategic Diversity plans, policies and goals that exemplify value for Corporate organizations and Small to Medium sized businesses. She also has helped Small Business owners compete for Fortune 500 contracts by sharing best practices around Supplier Diversity and Minority-owned Business certifications.

She fosters inclusion across organizations to build a high-performing environment and assist individuals with not only understanding individual differences, but also in developing an open and inclusive environment which helps leaders to translate business strategy, engagement and objectives into inclusive attainable goals that align with the organization roadmap. 

MiShon is faith and family oriented, as well as deeply involved in the community through her volunteer efforts, some of which include Board Member for the City of North Richland Hills, Keep NRH Beautiful Commission, Advisory Board for Iron Dallas, LEADERSHIP ISD of Tarrant County, member of the Tarrant County Food Policy, Children’s Committee Member, STEM volunteer for Black Girls Code, Volunteer Lead for the Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival and Executive Board Member for Rocketship Texas Public Schools and TEXAS CASA.