Startup Chica Spotlight: Meet Some of Austin’s Female Founders
Meet some of the incredible female entrepreneurs who have volunteered to work with the girls in Latinitas by serving as mentors, career presenters, and judges at our 2017 Startup Chica Conference.
Nelly Garcia, Co-Founder of Rocheli Patisserie
Nelly Garcia was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and immigrated to Austin, Texas, in 2002 at the age of 15. Having the influence of her mother, who is a chef, and after working in several restaurants as waitress and then as a cook, Nelly realized that her passion was the culinary world. Shortly thereafter, Nelly founded Rocheli Patisserie with her mother and sister. They specialize in novelty cakes, wedding cakes, and international pastries. In 2013, they worked alongside TLC’s “Cake Boss,” Buddy Valastro, and in 2014 they received the College Entrepreneur of the Year Award by Entrepreneur Magazine. Nelly has been featured in Univision’s “Despierta Austin,” KXAN News, the Austin Business Journal, Periódico El Norte, Forbes Mexico, and several other publications. By mid-2014, Nelly was featured in Austin Monthly Magazine as one of Austin’s “20 In Their 20s” who are changing the city. In 2015, Nelly received the honor to be chosen as one of Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” in the category of food and wine. In 2017, Rocheli Patisserie received Austin Woman Magazine’s 2017 Business Way Award for Rising Stars. The trio is now planning the expansion of Rocheli Patisserie until it becomes an national brand.
Laura Aidan, Founder of Prohibition Creamery
Laura Aidan’s journey with ice cream making began in her kitchen in Austin, Texas, inspired by the nostalgia of her childhood spent baking alongside her mother. Laura grew up in Iowa where she received degrees in computer science and english from the University of Iowa. After many years developing educational software for special needs children and algorithms that helped disadvantaged kids gain acceptance into college, she decided that she wanted to change careers. Her background in science and technology led her to fall in love with the science of ice cream making, so she attended Penn State University’s 120-year-old ice cream program in order to discover everything she could about the many nuances of ice cream. She decided she wanted to share her passion for craft cocktails and alcohol-infused ice cream with the rest of the world so she spent several years mastering the craft of infusing spirits into ice cream for the most delicious flavors imaginable and started Prohibition Creamery. Laura’s goal is that boozy ice cream should be the best part of each person’s day.
Aileen Passariello-McAleer, Founder & CEO of MamaLingua
Aileen Passariello-McAleer is an American of Venezuelan descent from Miami, Florida. Her parents immigrated to the United States to provide their future children with better opportunities. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Post graduation, she pursued a career with IBM in New York City. Her work in the healthcare space as a client manager inspired her to pursue an MBA, which she completed at the University of Texas at Austin. She decided to stay in Austin because of the exciting and dynamic startup culture.
After working with various startups in Austin, Aileen realized it was time to create something of her own. She began raising her children in a bilingual household and wanted to share her experiences with others. She taught Spanish out of her home to parents that also wanted to raise bilingual children. Her methodology of “learning like a child” attracted many parents with young children. MamaLingua was born out of these experiences and months later in 2012, Aileen formally launched it with one of her students, Christia Hoffman. Today, MamaLingua has evolved from a home classroom to a platform, including a bilingual app for Android and iOS that can be used to implement introductory words and phrases in Spanish or English. The MamaLingua community has reached well beyond Austin, Texas, expanding nationally and globally. She blogs about her experiences raising bilingual children sharing her stories, adventures, and strategies for creating a bilingual household for your children.
Maria Peña, Owner of Donn’s Bar-B-Que
Maria Peña was born and raised in Austin. Maria’s dad started Donn’s Bar-B-Que 35 years ago and Maria now co-operates the business alongside her parents. She has an associate’s degree in business and is currently attending Austin Community College to finish her bachelor’s in business with a major in Marketing, which she will finish off at Texas State University. She is married with two beautiful children.
Emlyn Lee, Founder of BRAVE Communities
Emlyn Lee has been working in the social entrepreneur, tourism, and education sector for over 22 years. She has traveled to over 90 countries in 6 continents. As a result of the 9/11 attacks and the fear of traveling and “the others” that media was feeding into our society, she founded an experiential travel company that provided opportunities for individuals and groups to volunteer, intern, teach, and work abroad, which was acquired by a U.S. study-abroad program provider a decade later. She has developed, coordinated, and partnered with several international NGOs and Ministries of Education to assist with economic empowerment and sustainable community living in undeserved communities. She currently helps to design, coordinate, and facilitate youth leadership, civic engagement, and social innovation programs with nonprofits, organizations, and the U.S. Department of State. She recently launched a new nonprofit, BRAVE Communities, uniting students, businesses, nonprofits, and community groups to Build Relationships, Awareness, Voices, and Engagement (BRAVE), and be advocates for social and racial justice, social change, and social responsibility in Austin. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Maryland-College Park.
Brooke Turner, Co-Founder of Kwaddle
Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, in a mixed, Hispanic and Anglo-American family, Brooke Turner learned the power and importance of culture, community, and education. She attended The University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a BA in english and her secondary teaching certification. After several years as a teacher, she also earned an MA in technical communication from Texas State University, which led to a career in the high-tech industry. From writer to curriculum developer and marketer to senior marketing manager, Brooke has spent the last decade growing as a leader on the academic business team at National Instruments (NI), headquartered in Austin.
Brooke found her entrepreneurial spirit at NI, which has a strong investment in engineering education and encourages their employees to volunteer as robotics mentors at area schools. Brooke couldn’t help but take that a step further. Here’s how she describes what she did:
“When I left teaching, I didn’t leave the students. I recruited an engineering colleague and started a robotics club at the high school where I used to teach. Within four years, we grew from one small team and two mentors to over six teams, seven engineering mentors, and a fully developed robotics program. With a framework in place, my colleague and I started a non-profit organization to help sustain the program. Waterloo GEARS Foundation has been the outcome, and its board members were all pivotal in its foundation and continued success.”
This fall, however, Brooke is speaking to Latinitas Startup Chica participants as the marketing director and co-founder of local startup Kwaddle, a website that enables parents to more easily find and book enrichment activities and summer camps for their kids.
Latinitas’ Startup Chica Conference is Saturday, October 14, 2017, at Capital Factory. Throughout the day, girls ages 9–18 will work with mentors from the startup and tech worlds to come up with solutions to community issues and turn it into a product or app that they will pitch to a panel of judges. For more information, visit StartupChica.com
