Spring 2024 Mentors for Tulane’s Social Venture Accelerator
The Taylor team is proud to introduce an incredible group of mentors for the 2024 Changemaker Institute cohort.
These mentors committed their time and expertise to support our budding social entrepreneurs develop and hone their ideas for social change.
View the 2024 Cohort that was supported by the mentors below.
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Malliron Hodge
Malliron Hodge is the Founder of Baddies with Business, an organization that creates a community where Black women feel brave enough to share their stories. Hodge introduced CI students to the Lean Canvas Model, helping students map out core components of their venture and revealing assumptions about their business model. Prior to starting her own business, Malliron served as the New Orleans Community Manager at 4.0 Schools, where she worked to support New Orleans community members who were interested in taking their education idea to the next level.
Malliron mentored EnviroComm, which encourages environmental storytelling and visual communication about environmental issues to increase eco-literacy, pro-environmental behavior, and awareness of environmental research. To work with Malliron, email: baddieswithbusiness@gmail.com
Stephanie Shea
Dr. Shea is a StARR Research Resident who works at Tulane-Ochsner Pediatric Residency and specializes in Pediatrics with a focus on adolescent medicine. Dr Shea is passionate about public health, reproductive justice, and anti-racism.
Dr Shea mentored Period Prepared, an educational platform that creates hands-on menstruation workshops for parents, educators, and adolescents ages 8-12 years old.
Amanda Kruger Hill
Amanda is the Executive Director of the Cowen Institute and is an award-winning educational leader with a deep commitment to the success of New Orleans youth. She co-founded the first youth-initiated high school in the United States and the Reach Institute for School Leadership in California. Additionally, she was a lead design team member of New Harmony High, the award-winning XQ Super School. Amanda is a former principal, master teacher, and college counselor. Prior to leading the Cowen Institute, she was Director of School Reviews with New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO). Amanda holds her Master’s in Educational Leadership, Principal Licensure, and Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and is pursuing her Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Johns Hopkins University. She has served as an adjunct faculty member with Columbia University, Tulane University, and Relay Graduate School of Education. She also serves on the boards of Bard Early College New Orleans and the Tulane Center for Teacher Preparation and Certification as well as on various task forces for the Department of Education. Amanda is the Cowen Institute’s lead for Harvard University Strategic Data Project Fellowship.
Amanda mentored CollegeCounselor.co, a Louisiana-based non-profit organization that provides accessible higher education support to Louisiana students, with a focus on lessening educational gaps and increasing academic equity.
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Todd Wackermann
Todd Wackermann is the founder and director of STEM Library Lab, a local equipment share resource center in New Orleans (and also a CI alum!). He taught Physics and a variety of other STEM subjects at public schools in New Orleans and Brooklyn from 2010-2016. Todd received his MBA from Tulane’s Freeman School of Business, an MAT in Science Education from the University of New Orleans, and his from BA from Boston College in Political Science and History. Prior to teaching, he worked as a program manager and project coordinator for corporate volunteerism at two nonprofits, and has extensive volunteer experience with local nonprofits including Crescent City Farmers’ Market and Youth Run NOLA. Todd has worked in various roles in schools and universities all across the country, including California, Massachusetts, Louisiana and New York. Building from those experiences, he is excited to be founding STEM Library Lab and helping teachers to improve the quality of their classroom experiences. To work with Todd email, twackerman@stemlibrarylab.org
Todd mentored ECO Unity, which fosters unity in the conservation community through English language proficiency and comprehensive conservation education. ECO Unity serves U.S. university students and conservation researchers, empowering them with cross-cultural communication skills essential for fruitful collaboration with diverse international teams and local communities worldwide.
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Blake Stanfill
Blake J. Stanfill is an investor, change agent, strategist, and accomplished leader who is passionate about making positive and long-lasting impacts on institutions, enterprises, and society. Currently, Blake is Principal at Okwata Group, a financial services firm that provides outsourced chief investment officer services to impact venture capital, private equity funds, and green banks. Stanfill advises seed-stage ventures, providing growth and channel partnership strategy. Blake co-founded an alternative lending fintech start-up, LendStand, which provided working capital solutions to underserved businesses working on public contracts. Additionally, he was the Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the New Orleans Startup Fund where he spearheaded an accelerator program that provided business coaching and technical assistance to minority-owned businesses. Recently, Stanfill was the Director of Growth at Trepwise, where he guided the firm’s business development and expansion strategy.
Blake mentored Global Progress Ventures, a financial and consulting firm which helps allocate capital and resources to founders and innovators across the developing world and global south, working on solutions to our globe’s toughest problems
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Kim Tuleu
Kim is an executive leader who functioned as the CFO, COO, and Chief of Staff for a multinational company she owned and operated for over 20 years. Her expertise includes spearheading annual company-wide strategic initiatives to achieve corporate objectives, developing and tracking multi-currency budgets, managing financial analysis and reporting, and building out systems and processes for a company experiencing sustained growth.
In CI, Kim Mentored Caracas Canteen, which promotes greater water consumption and improved hydration via a SMART water bottle and accompanying app. Founded by women of color, researchers, and social justice activists, this innovation seeks to progress water justice and health equity by increasing collective understanding of water as a vital nutrient for bodies, creating a culture around clean, safe, and accessible water as a human right, and advocating for water justice-forward policies and practices.
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Cheree Franco
Cheree is an accomplished journalist whose work has appeared in VICE, Huck, Juxtapoz, Vinyl Me Please, BOMB, Number:INC, Buzzfeed, Brooklyn Rail, Ra-zorcake, The Indypendent and more. Currently she teaches journalism as a Visiting Professor of Communications. She spent much of 2011 reporting from Pakistan, with the New York Times-affiliate Express Tribune. A wrongful conviction story she wrote played a role in helping release a formerly-incarcerated Arkansan, 20 years into a life-sentence. More recently she investigated the history of discrimination and access surrounding Ponchartrain’s beaches for Places Journal. She followed the grassroots caretakers of Lincoln Beach, the former (city-owned, long-closed, but still used) Black beach and amusement park in New Orleans East, exploring the meaning of true public stewardship and the necessity for free-range spaces. Some of her work can be found on her website. Cheree Franco holds an MA in Arts & Culture Journalism from Columbia University and has been a features writer and editor at alt-weeklies and daily papers, in addition to publishing in magazines, anthologies, and punk zines.
Cheree mentored The College Contemporary. a student-run intercollegiate magazine that gives student writers access to more reach and student readers access to higher-quality content.
About the Changemaker Institute
Participants in the 6-month Changemaker Institute deepen their understanding of the social issue their venture tackles, gain social entrepreneurship and business development skills, and work as a cohort to iterate their idea and build a sustainable business model. CI participants are either working to create their own social impact venture (such as a non-profit, program, student-run organization, or business) OR are focused on building a new and innovative capacity within an existing organization.
Interested in learning more about our speaker or potentially leading a CI workshop to support our budding social entrepreneurs? Contact Julia Lang at jlang@tulane.edu to learn more.