Adonica Shaw

Founder & CEO Wingwomen

Adonica Shaw is a doula, midwife’s apprentice, four-time TEDx speaker, integrative health coach, author, and women’s health and wellness advocate. As the founder and CEO of Wingwomen, she’s a powerful voice for women who are navigating reproductive health. She built the international peer support platform after experiencing a code blue eclamptic crisis in the hospital. The experience was the catalyst for creating the network, which provides access to health coaching to women with endometriosis and PCOS.

As a health advocate, Shaw also serves as a mental health subject matter expert for the Conscious Inclusion Company. She is also known for her work as both a patient advocate for the Preeclampsia Foundation and Momma’s Voices, where she regularly collaborates with Stanford Medicine and the California Maternal Care Collaborative to drive awareness for initiatives around Preeclampsia to women of color throughout California.

Her work with Wingwomen has been notable. The company placed in the semi-finalist round of the business pitch competition in the Wharton Entrepreneurship Growth Accelerator Program in the summer of 2021. In the fall of 2021, Wingwomen was one of 10 companies selected globally to participate in the Nasdaq Milestone Makers program. In 2022, it joined the StartUp Health portfolio, providing the company with its first check and officially solidifying Shaw as one woman of the .34% of African American female founders to receive venture capital.

With Wingwomen, Shaw has created the inaugural and internationally recognized Parental Mental Health Awareness Week to heighten awareness of the importance of mental health for parents who are also navigating their health journey, be it reproductive health, fertility or pregnancy related.

Named as one of the top 136 Black Innovators in STEM + Arts by Wonder Women Tech, Shaw believes women in particular need a unique support system to break through glass ceilings in their lives. She’s committed to providing access to valuable health and wellness information to women and empowering them to be active agents in their wellness.

FINALISTS | ENTREPRENEUR OFTHE YEAR: SMALL COMPANY

Founder & President Financial Profiles

Moira Conlon is the founder and CEO of Financial Profiles, a national strategic communications firm specializing in building corporate value through effective communications. She launched Financial Profiles during the recession, when similar businesses were shuttering in droves. She prevailed by growing Financial Profiles into a thriving firm with 30 employees – almost all seniorlevel experts in their fields and more than half of women – serving more than 300 clients over the firm’s history, including leading NYSE- and NASDAQ-listed companies.

Chief Executive Officer Clipper Corporation

Twenty-eight years ago, Lina Hu came to the United States to create a better life for herself. She arrived in the states with her life savings – just $2,000. When she stepped off the plane, she didn’t speak any English and immediately started looking for a job at a restaurant to help her survive. When Hu couldn’t find a restaurant job, she told herself, “If I can’t work for them, I will work with them.” She used her knowledge of Chinese factories and international trade to found Clipper Corporation. Today, Clipper is a supplier to the largest names in the food service and related industries globally.

Managing Partner DRA Family Office

Rose Vitale, the managing member of DRA, is an investor and serial entrepreneur who has been helping female entrepreneurs secure capital. She is committed to helping female business owners secure funding for their businesses. This year, she personally launched “FundHer World,” a massive campaign donating personal money to empower women both locally, nationally and, in some cases, internationally. Vitale is a pioneer with one goal: support and empower women. Her mission is to change female entrepreneurs’ lives with all her efforts this year. That is her vision and she is doing it!

Founder & CEO ettitude

After emigrating from China to Australia and struggling to find homewares that were both sustainable and comfortable at a reasonable price, Phoebe Yu was inspired to draw upon her decade-long career background in supply chain management, merchandising and logistics to revolutionize the bedding industry. She perfected and launched ettitude’s innovative CleanBamboo fabric in 2014. CleanBamboo is proven to save 38% of carbon emissions and 99% of water in its production vs. cotton. By 2018, ettitude expanded globally by opening an office in Los Angeles.