
share this page
About
I am a second-time founder and CEO of Pearachute, a company that strives to help parents feel like better parent and to inspire children's creativity and passion by empowering parents through convenience and choice. I love building businesses that matter. I started Pearachute to solve a need I had personally, which was that as a busy mom with kids in childcare, I worried about over-scheduling and overcommitting our family but still wanted to experience art, music, dance etc with them. After unsuccessfully forcing my oldest into swimming and soccer, I realized that the format for young childhood classes is broken. It creates stress to drag them to classes they get bored with and wastes valuable money on things that don’t bring families closer together. Previously, I co-founded GiveForward, one of the world's first crowdfunding platforms. Over my seven years there, we helped hundreds of thousands of families raise more than $190 million and built the company to $5mm/year in revenue. My co-founder, Ethan Austin, and I learned so much through our multiple rounds of funding (Angel, series A, venture debt, and strategic), and I am grateful for the opportunity to take those lessons to those I mentors and to my next adventure. I am passionate about how technology can make the world a smaller and more connected place. I subscribe to the belief that every one of us can take small actions that change someone's world. As a believer in the Conscious Capitalism movement, I'm deeply committed to maximizing stakeholder value and creating a workplace that elevates every team member. I'm an active mentor to other entrepreneurs and enjoy sharing the lessons we've learned along the way as a panelist or keynote speaker. I am the mother of two young boys, Griffin (5) and Aedan (3), and stepmom to Danielle (12), and wife to a Chicago Police Officer.Company Spotlight in Tech

Signature Retail Services
videos (1)
Dan Perry

1871
videos (2)
Howard Tullman

Wi-Tronix, LLC
videos (1)
Larry Jordan

ObjectWave
videos (1)
Sam Cinquegrani

Cloudbakers
videos (1)
Mitch Greenwald

Public Good Software, Inc.
videos (3)
Melissa Anderson

Access Mobility 24
videos (1)
Joe Wright

Tenant Cloud
videos (1)
Joseph Edgar

Hireology
videos (2)

SMB Help Desk, Inc.
videos (1)
Matthew Cleaver

DragonSpears
videos (1)
Patrick Emmons

Jobbatical
videos (1)
Karoli Hindriks

Swap Motors
videos (1)
Sanjay Patel

MotherG
videos (3)
Dave Davenport

Threadless
videos (2)
Jake Nickell

4C Insights
videos (2)
Alok Choudhary

RightHand Technologies
videos (1)
Steve Valentor

Brain.fm
videos (1)
Daniel Clark

alligatortek
videos (2)
Sid Bala

Keeper Security, Inc.
videos (2)
Darren Guccione

Alive Telecom
videos (2)
Daniel Barton

Pro Material Solutions
videos (1)
Jerry Freeman

ExteNet Systems, Inc.
videos (1)
Ross Manire

Market Track
videos (1)
Kristopher Kubicki

Techstars Chicago
videos (1)
Troy Henikoff

Clear Automation, LLC
videos (1)
John DeBlasio

Malwarebytes
videos (1)
Marcin Kleczynski

Helix
AAron Dannenbring

Enova International
videos (1)
John Higginson

onShore Security
videos (1)
Stel Valavanis

SkillNet
videos (1)
Mike Kritzman

ThinkCERCA
videos (1)
Eileen Murphy

Soothe
videos (1)
Chris To

City Tech Collaborative
videos (1)
Brenna Berman

Retrofit
videos (1)
Mary Pigatti

Heidolph NA
videos (1)
Jim Dawson

Ora Interactive
videos (1)
Mike Kelly

SP+ (SP Plus)
videos (1)
Marc Baumann

MSDSonline
videos (1)
Glenn Trout

SoloInsight Inc.
videos (1)
Farhan Masood

Tovala
videos (1)
David Rabie

Georama
videos (1)
Nihal Advani

Highland Solutions
videos (1)
Jeff Nixon

uBack
videos (1)
Kaitlin Reimann

SmartSource Inc.
videos (1)
Joe Iovinelli

Intersog
videos (1)
Igor Fedulov

Business Technology Partners
videos (1)
Todd Perlman

Civis Analytics
videos (1)
Dan Wagner