Jean Smart is the founder and CEO of Penelope, a New York fintech rebuilding the retirement recordkeeping layer for the small and micro-businesses Wall Street forgot. After a 20-plus year career as a financial-services executive at Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Citigroup and UBS, she left a managing-director seat to build affordable, fully-digital 401(k) infrastructure for solopreneurs and mom-and-pop shops. The company, which she named after her daughter, launched in 2022 with a mission to put generational wealth-building within reach of the workers institutions have historically overlooked.
Goalsetter is a New York-based financial education and banking platform that teaches American kids, teens, and families how to save, spend smart, and invest. Founded by Tanya Van Court, it blends FDIC-insured savings, a 'Learn to Earn' debit card, and pop-culture-flavored financial quizzes mapped to national standards. The company also runs Goalsetter Classroom, a K-12 curriculum used by schools, framing financial literacy as a tool for closing the racial wealth gap.
Judene Jean-Louis is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz's Cultural Leadership Fund - the first VC fund comprised exclusively of Black cultural leaders committed to Black wealth generation. A Jamaican immigrant and Brooklyn native who trained professionally as a dancer, she brought dual MFA and MBA credentials to Silicon Valley's most ambitious experiment in cultural capital. At a16z, she bridges world-class entertainers, athletes, and cultural icons with early-stage technology investments, while funneling all management fees and carry back into nonprofits that funnel Black talent into tech.