Andrea LaRosa is a business consultant and communication strategist who helps small businesses compete and scale in an AI-driven economy. She has founded and operated four businesses across service-based and e-commerce models, giving her a rare, hands-on perspective on growth, marketing, and operations.

She currently leads Smarter Strategies, where she works with entrepreneurs to integrate AI into marketing, content creation, automation, and decision-making — replacing manual systems with smarter, more efficient workflows. Andrea is the author of two books on communication and the host of a podcast with over 100 episodes exploring human behavior and communication patterns, expertise she applies directly to leadership, sales, and customer experience. A graduate of Leadership SLO, she is known for translating emerging technology into clear, usable systems that help businesses move faster without losing the human connection.

Barry has 36 years’ experience enabling organizations to enter & scale & new markets, become the industry go to brand, and improve sales and customer retention by executing best in class customer care. He has a BS degree in Business/MIS from Cal Poly SLO and an MBA from Chapman University.

Becky brings 30 years of experience in marketing and public relations to guide her business coaching. She is an intuitive listener who is passionate about empowering entrepreneurs to tell their stories in compelling ways. Becky holds a BA in Journalism from Cal Poly Humboldt where she later served as their Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Funds prior to launching her consulting practice: YOBECKO, Brand Cheerleaders & Storytellers. Her experience spans PR and marketing strategy, branding, copywriting, advertising, event planning and social media marketing

Christine Sommer brings 30 years of experience working with start ups to Fortune 500 companies ranging in various industries including high tech, service, and consumer goods. Through her consulting and coaching, she helps to uncover gaps to success through exploration and accountability. Christine helps business owners establish clear goals, expand on their skill sets and remove obstacles. Prior to her executive role as the VP of Sales and Marketing for Comevo, a cloud based software company, she provided business consulting and facilitated classes at Collaboration, LLC. She has recently re-launched her own coaching and consulting practice.

Honored for teaching excellence and club advising, I have held positions in a broad range of industries, including nonprofits, sole proprietorships, and a major corporation. As the driver behind Cal Poly’s new Sales Minor, I act as a liaison between industry and Orfalea College of Business, coach competitors in the Orfalea College of Business Sales Competition and National Collegiate Sales Competition, advise the student marketing club (AMA – American Marketing Association), and coordinate Cal Poly’s Marketing Career Conference.

Dr. Metcalf joined the marketing faculty at Cal Poly in 1986.

In 1995, Dr. Metcalf began her journey supporting innovation and entrepreneurship during a five-year appointment at a Philips incubator in Silicon Valley. She returned to Cal Poly in 2000 and worked with the marketing faculty to focus the marketing curriculum on innovation and data-driven decision making. Dr. Metcalf was named a CIE Faculty Fellow in 2013, a program which she now directs. She joined the entrepreneurship faculty in 2016.

Dr. Metcalf is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina Moore School of Business.

Matt Bennetti is a seasoned marketing and operations professional with over 18 years of experience in driving operational excellence and go-to-market strategies. Currently a Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital Catalyst, he empowers early-stage B2B software companies by combining venture capital with hands-on coaching from an extensive network of industry leaders.

Tom White is a business-growth storyteller and award-winning industrial designer, filmmaker, and marketer. He played a key role in securing a $70B contract that fueled a trillion-dollar business pipeline, transforming companies like Lockheed-Martin, DAF Trucks, and Motorola into global leaders. At The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), Tom created the Master the Pitch program and co-authored the Founder’s Business Accelerator, helping cleantech startups generate over $500M in sales and funding.

Jose is a founder and startup community builder leveraging over 10+ years’ experience in digital marketing, event execution, venture design, to partner with startups and various clients helping them launch and scale innovative ideas. Previously served as the President of the Latino Startup Alliance, a Silicon Valley based organization helping to accelerate Latino led tech ventures. He is also the Founder at Santa Maria Valley Tech (santamariavalley.tech), an online community platform highlighting all things tech and entrepreneurship in northern Santa Barbara County.  

I am an experienced human-centric leader with 10+ years of experience in high growth, cross-collaborative, global/remote teams. I consider myself an innovative brainstormer, creative problem solver, and a big believer in diverse and collaborative teams and solutions. I believe that HAPPIER people produce better work and culture needs to be woven through systems. I enjoy providing a psychologically safe space to share ideas, provide input, and come up with solutions or perhaps that next big thing! I value communication, growth-mindset, emotional intelligence, diversity, and trust.

Rachel is a certified leadership & executive coach and mentor with 25+ years’ experience in tech startups, national nonprofits, and Fortune 500s. She’s held leadership roles in content strategy, communications, brand management, design operations and team operations in a range of industries, and served as board chair of an arts education nonprofit. Household names she’s worked with include Adobe, Amazon, Boeing, Mural, PayPal, Walmart.com and Western Union. Having lived in nine countries, she has an extensive background and training in intercultural communication.

Amy brings 20+ years of experience in working with small businesses. She has a strong background in helping companies find a bookkeeping system that works best for their organization. Amy enjoys working with clients on understanding financial reports, gauging the health & profitability of their business.

With over 20 years of experience, Hannah is a people-focused leader known for helping organizations navigate complex and fast-changing environments. She takes a holistic, strategic approach to HR – building initiatives that simplify processes, optimize resources, and strengthen collaboration across teams.
Her career spans across leading non-profits, cutting edge biotech start-ups, and progressive outsourcing firms. Most recently, she founded Plan HR, where she partners with organizations to create scalable infrastructure, culture-driven programs, and resilient teams. Having worked both nationally and internationally, Hannah thrives in dynamic environments developing the systems and people strategies that enable organizations to grow and adapt with confidence.

Javier is an industrial and graphic designer with more than 20 years of professional experience. He is a specialist in creating innovative and conceptually solid designs in a variety of 2D and 3D formats. 

Rolando is a strategy, operations, and financial planning executive. He has advised leaders over his 30+ year career at multi-billion dollar corporations such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 3PAR, Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems and Hitachi Data Systems.  Rolando also consults with small businesses and startup ventures.  He helps business owners plan and prepare for growth.  For several years, Rolando owned and operated Sent Sovi, a fine French restaurant nested in the hills of Saratoga, CA.  He enjoys great food and drink, staying fit and anything related to soccer.  Rolando holds an MBA from Santa Clara University and an Economics degree from UCLA. 

Carolyn Kreuzkamp is an accomplished consultant specializing in grant preparation, innovation management, and biotechnology. She is a Reviewer for SBIR/STTR Programs at the NIH, assessing grant applications. As the founder of C. Kreuz Consulting LLC, Carolyn advises high-growth research teams on market strategy and grant applications. Her diverse roles include Market Research Consultant at Med Aditus, Interim COO at Cervu Health, and Co-Founder of REESHI. Carolyn is also involved in strategic events and fundraising with the Small Business Association for International Companies.

Ben is a Central Coast native with over 25 years of hospitality experience. He owns and operates Benny’s Pizza Palace & Social Club, known for Detroit-style pizza, craft cocktails, and live music in SLO. He also manages a commercial kitchen, providing affordable space to caterers and pop-up restaurants. With Slow Money SLO’s support, he mentors aspiring restaurant owners. Ben, a Cuesta College History instructor for 7 years, is pursuing a PhD at the University of Oxford. 

Jeff works with local start up and early to mid stage businesses, primarily in Food and Beverage industries, and also supports tech, transportation, manufacturing and other market segments. Jeff has held senior management positions in the software industry and became an independent consultant in 2010 to focus on the marketing needs and budgets of small, local businesses. Jeff holds a BSEE from WPI and an MBA from Pepperdine. 

Serial entrepreneur: Viking Foods was food distribution company I started and owned for 20 years, selling into restaurants and supermarkets from SF to LA. I sold that company in 2000. Cafferata Pasta was a high end pasta company, which I sold in 2004. I also owned Rick’s Chips, maker of Halloween ghost and bat shaped potato chips. I have been a national sales manager and regional sales manager in specialty food industry also.

BJ has over 36 years of industry experience leading software teams and providing computer services to customers. His career encompassed diverse management and technical positions where he drove strategy, acquisitions, architecture, software development and quality assurance.

He holds a BS from the University of Illinois and a MS from the University of Arizona.

Bruno specializes in software quality and long-term maintainability, with a focus on how teams can build systems that remain reliable and adaptable over time. He spent over five years as an Assistant Professor of Software Engineering at Cal Poly and now serves as a Software Quality Expert at CQSE America, where he helps software teams improve code quality using Teamscale. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications on software quality and evolution.

Janice has led user experience research and design, product development, and innovation and incubation for both business and consumer applications. Janice has designed products for Apple, Intel, AT&T, Experian, Cisco, Netflix, HP, and others. She has design patents and contributed to multiple ISO, NIST, and other standards. Janice is an expert in optimizing processes, from requirements gathering to project prioritization to product development. She has worked in a variety of domains, including fintech, intelligence, construction, healthcare, and more. Janice has taught over 15,000 tech professionals on topics including leadership, management, and design systems. She was a founding board member and past president of the Usability Professionals Association. Janice studied Entrepreneurship at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, previously was in Stanford’s Medical Computer Science program, and also graduated with a Bachelor’s in Biology at UC Santa Cruz.

Dr. Anderson is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Dr. Anderson directs the Data Science Research Group at Cal Poly where his team specializes in developing and applying data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to the fields of bioinformatics, genomics, biomedical informatics, and metabolomics. His research group also specializes in the foundations of data science with a focus on explainable and fair ranking algorithms. He has served as the Director of Data Science at the College of Charleston where he founded the first MS in Data Science and Analytics in South Carolina. Dr. Anderson is actively engaged in Software Engineering and Data Science with extensive experience deploying AI and machine learning systems in production. 

Wendy Castleman has spent almost three decades as a user experience professional in tech companies like Intuit, Motorola, Lucent and BMC. Her facilitative leadership and organizational development skills were forged during her time leading at Intuit. Since starting her consulting career almost a decade ago, at Developeople UX, she has worked with teams and executives in technology, finance and healthcare, with companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Wendy also teaches Design Thinking in the Entrepreneurship Minor at CalPoly. She has a PhD in cognitive and perceptual psychology from the University of Texas at Austin.

Trevor brings over 15 years of experience leading engineering, product, and technical operations across SaaS companies, manufacturing, and digital agencies. His career includes roles with MINDBODY, Shift Lab, IQMS, and Dassault Systèmes, where he helped teams modernize legacy systems, scale platforms, and adopt practical, sustainable development practices.

Before moving into software and engineering leadership, Trevor worked in a mix of hands-on and customer-facing roles, including inside sales, technical operations, and CAD drafting. That background shaped his people-first approach and gives him a grounded understanding of how technology, operations, and business realities intersect.

Trevor later became a software engineer at IQMS, building ERP and EDI systems before progressing into engineering leadership. At MINDBODY, he served as a ScrumMaster and technical lead software engineer, guiding Agile teams and supporting large-scale SaaS applications. He returned to IQMS as Director of Software Engineering, where he transitioned the organization to Agile, improved delivery and quality, and helped guide the team through the company’s acquisition by Dassault Systèmes. As Director of Technology at Shift Lab, he managed technical strategy and client delivery, including a major digital transformation for a national freight company, and projects ranging from genomics to eCommerce.

Today, Trevor is the founder of //TREVORFRY.TECH, where he serves as a fractional CTO and technical advisor for SMBs, helping companies align technology with business goals, streamline processes, and build high-performing teams. His experience spans cloud architecture, product development, Agile leadership, and operational systems for growing organizations.

He holds certifications in Scrum, change management, and behavioral assessments, and has worked with clients across software, e-commerce, manufacturing, and professional services.

Sara works in women’s, maternal, and reproductive MedTech (“FemTech”), particularly with technologies developed for global impact. She enjoys supporting companies with strategic positioning in a fast-growing field and helping them grow their networks. She is a co-founder of ArcHealth Foundation, where she leads efforts to accelerate access to impactful technologies in emerging markets. When time allows, she enjoys teaching a course that she designed for biomedical engineers to explore FemTech innovations.