ABOUT: Bridgette L. Smith is the CEO of Founder Playbook, a startup company that helps women, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ founders become “investor-ready,” get access to capital and scale their business for IPOs and successful exits. In parallel, she also helps female fractional executives elevate their executive profile, secure B2B clients and increase revenue. As an Angel Investor and Limited Partner in multiple VC funds, syndicates and SPVs, her investment portfolio includes over 70 diverse startup companies as well as a growing list of strategic partners, allies and VC collaborations in the U.S., London and Monaco. Having recently retired from Google as a senior PMO executive leading software GTM campaigns across 80 plus alphabet business units, she is very active in the startup and investor ecosystem and serves on several special committees including: Golden Seeds Access to Capital Task Force, CHIEF Angel/VC Investor Group, Gaingels, WAVE (Women Accessing Venture Equity), The Fourth Floor (soon to be The Fourth Effect) LP Steering Committee, 2023 Women in VC Host Committee – Martha’s Vineyard and Athena Alliance Women in Venture Group. She also mentors, advises and consults with numerous underrepresented startup founders in partnership with New Chip Accelerator, Chloe Capital, Brain Trust Founders Studio and The Rainmaker Collective. A few of her career highlights include being an investigative print reporter for the Business Journal, a news reporter and on-air commentator at ABC News and NBC News, a Talk Show Host, Campaign Spokesperson and PR counsel to the Mayor of Milwaukee and the creator and executive producer of an independent television talk show in her hometown. To-date, she has earned over 100 local and national media and leadership awards including six Gracie Awards from Alliance for Women in Media, a Silver World Medal from the New York Film and Television Festival, five Communicator Awards, five Eric Sevareid Awards, five Wisconsin Broadcaster Awards, four Marcom Awards, three Davey Awards and two Telly awards. She has also been featured on the cover of several publications including the inaugural edition of Who’s Who in Black Milwaukee and The Small Business Times Magazine. Since transitioning from media into technology, she quickly climbed the corporate ladder from being a technical writer, analyst and project manager to consulting and leading global teams and landing in the c-suite where she led global transformation and software GTM initiatives for some of the largest companies and brands in pharma, finance, retail, manufacturing, insurance and healthcare. Her educational background includes UW-Milwaukee School of Engineering, Yale School of Management, Harvard Business School and UC-Berkeley – School of Law. Mrs. Smith currently resides in Silicon Valley. Her first book will be published Summer 2023.
GIVES: One free coaching session to startup founders who are members of The Fourth Floor (soon to be The Fourth Effect).
GET: Startup founders as beta testers/early adopters for a new app
NEWS: Just became a Strategic Partner with 2 more VC funds – Chloe Capital and The Rainmaker Collective
FUN FACT: She snores!
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