Join us for an armchair discussion on equity capital options available in Orange County. We’ll hear from women entrepreneurs & founders who have raised capital as well as from investors.

Speaker Bios

Debbie Holzkamp, Founder & CEO of Virtanza.

She is a pioneer leading fundamental change in the higher education system by implementing a real-world sales education platform directly connected to employers. Virtanza provides its partners a white-labeled collection of highly credentialed, ACE CREDIT©️ recommended Sales, Technology Sales, Entrepreneurial, and Sales Management programs in for-credit and open enrollment formats. In a much-anticipated Employer Portal launching in March, hiring managers will prioritize graduates of the programs for sales careers and pathways to management.

Debbie has three decades of experience managing sales teams with Fortune 500 and national companies to achieve more than $1 billion in sales. After her career as a corporate executive, her successful business consulting company sales-certified more than 2,000 adults, conducted more than 9,000 employer field calls, and helped 35 companies in 26 States generate $14M+ in market share revenues. Determined to solve the massive gap in training sales professionals to meet the market demand for sales expertise, she launched Virtanza in 2018, and today a growing number of higher ed partners are delivering the most relevant, credentialed Sales, Tech Sales, Sales Management, and Entrepreneurial curricula in the market.

Debbie is author of Virtanza: The Art and Science of Successful Selling for Business-to-Business Sales Professionals and is creator of the 4-step Virtanza Sales Process.

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Shiva Sharareh, PhD, Founder of Rekovar Inc.

Shiva Sharareh, Ph.D is an executive with experience from multiple large medical device companies as well as entrepreneurial startups. She has been very successful in assisting numerous start-up companies in all aspects of their product development needs through design, prototyping, documentation, manufacturing plans plus local and/or international operations assistance. She has extensive knowledge in medical device technology and in the drug industry in both areas of academic and industrial environments.  She has successfully launched over at least 15 different medical devices in areas of Electrophysiology, Cardiology, Patient monitoring and Critical care, Urology, Spinal and Pain management.  Extensive interactions with FDA for pre-submission and approval of product launches. Expert in areas of taking a product concept and building a full commercialization plan.

She decided to do her own start-up in Nov 2018, she was granted NIH (2 awards)  in June 2020, Feb 2021 and is waiting for her next funding.  She is working on a product that would help babies born from addicted moms with withdrawal symptoms that cannot be controlled so easily.

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Xandra Laskowski, Founder & CEO of OSEA Angel Investors

Xandra Laskowski is an angel investor and startup advisor with over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience with large multinational tech companies as well as startups as founder, investor, advisor and board member. She has held positions as Worldwide Commodity Manager and National Major Accounts managerial roles before moving into the Angel Investment and startup worlds. She founded OSEA Angel Investors in 2017, a woman focused angel investment group based at the UCI Cove, University of Irvine, California.

OSEA Angel Investors is an investment partner with Titan Angels (CSUF), The Cove Fund, Angel Syndication Network, Antler, TiE Global,.Women Angels of the Bay Area and Tech Coast Angels,  Through Xolas, Ms. Laskowski provides startup consulting assisting entrepreneurs in producing their “Startup Roadmap”.

In 2019 Ms. Laskowski was included in the Orange County Business Journal OC 500 Directory of Influence for Innovation and in February 2020 was nominated to the Orange County Business Journal Woman in Business Awards. In October 2020 Ms. Laskowski was awarded the Connected Women of Influence Gamechanger Award for her work with OSEA Angel Investors.

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Tracie Rotter, Angel Investor, SVP of Strategic Business and Product Development within DataLabs, Experian

Tracie Rotter recently joined Experian as the SVP of Strategic Business and Product Development within DataLabs.

Prior to Experian, she was a Partner at Google Ventures, where she spent 10 years as a program creator & scaler, strategic operator, and relationship builder. She co-founded GV’s Partnerships practice, designing and managing how global companies work with startups to drive innovation through commercial opportunities, partnerships, strategic investments, and M&A. She also built out and ran GV’s cross-Google collaboration programs and network of external partners. A champion of diversity and inclusion, Tracie led the Women@Google Irvine ERG and continues to serve as a facilitator for the global #IamRemarkable initiative. Previous roles included consulting at Accenture and non-profit work at the National Kidney Foundation, with a focus on technical integrations and business operations.

Outside of work, Tracie is an active volunteer, startup advisor, and angel investor. Tracie has a B.A. in Economics from Duke University and is currently completing her MBA at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.