The Speakers

Beatriz Acevedo

SUMA Wealth, CEO & Co-founder

Beatriz Acevedo is one of the leading inspirational voices and Latina entrepreneurs in the United States. She has dedicated her career to empowering and opening doors for the next generation of Latino leaders.

Beatriz started her career in media at a young age, first on radio and later on television. Her work earned her three Emmys, one MTV Music Award, and a Media Correspondent Award, among others. She later became a tech media entrepreneur as the Co-Founder and President of mitú, the leading digital media brand for young Latinos in the U.S.

Beatriz is a passionate and sought after speaker who enjoys discussions around diversity as good business, female leadership, and the economic impact of Latinos in America. Additionally, she sits on numerous boards and advisory committees.

Beatriz recently co-founded and co-chairs LA Collab, a Hollywood initiative aimed at doubling Latino representation in Hollywood, both in front and behind the camera by 2030.

Her latest startup SUMA Wealth was founded with the vision of closing the Latinx wealth gap by providing financial education via in-culture content, fintech tools, and digital experiences, all in a highly engaging wealth-building digital platform.

David Hall

Revolution Ventures, Managing Partner

David Hall is the Managing Partner at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and is responsible for investment sourcing, execution, and oversight of the Fund’s portfolio companies. David began his career with Revolution in 2006, serving as an investment professional across the firm, including as an investor with Revolution Growth and Revolution Ventures. David has worked closely with and served as a Board director and observer for a number of Revolution’s portfolio companies, including Revolution Money (acquired by American Express), Booker (Acquired by MindBody), BenchPrep, FreightWaves, Foxtrot, and Understory.

Prior to Revolution, David was an executive with The Washington Post Company as Director of Planning and Development. In this capacity, he managed corporate M&A and investments and launched new print and digital publications. Earlier in his career, David held positions at Akamai Technologies, Inc. and was a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc.

David received a B.A. in Economics from Morehouse College and a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Erika Chestnu

Calendly, Head of QA

Funky. Quirky. Clever. Sassy. Erika’s leadership style starts and stops with relationships. With over 20 years of experience in the tech industry – from application development to spinning up new quality departments – Erika has learned to lead with grace, patience and a little bit of snarky humor. Her mission is to help people lead – in business and life – from a more compassionate space to build-up teams and people that are engaged, empowered and excited.

Morgan Debaun

Blavity, Founder

Morgan DeBaun is the Founder & CEO of Blavity Inc., the leading media company for Black culture and millennials.

Since launching Blavity Inc. in 2014, Morgan has led the company to successfully acquire Travel Noire, a travel platform for Black millennials and Shadow And Act, a Black entertainment news site. Under her leadership, Blavity has launched several leading consumer summits including Summit 21 for Black women creators and Bay Area’s AfroTech, the largest tech conference for Black innovators and founders. While scaling the company, Morgan has raised 11 million dollars from top Silicon Valley venture firms such as GV and Comcast.

Morgan is a passionate small business advocate and advises early stage entrepreneurs on how to scale their business in her Signature WorkSmart Advising program.

Morgan is a St. Louis native and a graduate of Washington University in St.Louis.

Ayinde Alakoye

nedl, Founder

Ayinde’s the CEO of nēdl (as in, ‘the haystack’), served as an Executive Board Member of the Developers Alliance, and created iheartradio’s original app. Appearances include, CNBC Powerlunch, CBS TV & Radio, Clear Channel Radio, BravoTV, as well as panels for the National Association of Broadcasters, Marshall School of Business, Anderson School of Management, and delivered a keynote speech for the Virginia Association of Broadcasters. In addition to the above, Ayinde served as a Speechwriter, Staffer, and Message Advisor for Presidential Candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Maria Salamanca

Unshackled Ventures, Investor

Maria Salamanca is a venture capitalist at Unshackled Ventures, a fund that fills a unique space in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, funding teams with immigrant founders at the earliest stage of pre-seed and seed. Maria joined the fund in 2015, during her time she has been involved in 50+ investments and has evaluated more than 6,000 deals. In 2018, she was first Latina named Forbes 30 Under 30 for Venture Capital and Business Insider’s Under 30 Rising Stars. Her support for the Latinx community also won her the the 2017 California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Shark of Year.

Previous to joining Unshackled, Maria worked at FWD.us an immigration lobbying group founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman and other tech leaders. She attended UC Berkeley where she studied Government and Legal Studies.

Arabian Prince

Arabian Prince – A songwriter, rapper, producer, DJ, technologist Pro Gamer and futurist, Arabian is best known for being a founding member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted rap group N.W.A., west coast electro music pioneer and producer of the Grammy nominated #1 hit song Supersonic. Founder of iNov8 Next Open Labs, Partner at Covitech and president of LAFTC – The Los Angeles First Tech Challenge robotics competition.

His passion for technology led to him create a 3D animation and special effects studio in the 90’s working with companies like Saban Entertainment and Fox, including 100+ video game, film and TV titles for Fox interactive and Vivendi Universal. As a consultant, Arabian has advised many companies on bridging the gap between technology and the youth, while bringing new product innovations to market. He is currently working with his tech partners to bring Open Labs to communities across the country in support of youth, women, diversity, veterans and anyone else who wants to explore the future of technology.

About Plug In South LA

Plug In brings together entrepreneurs, founders, VCs, innovators and emerging talent for conversations and networking focused on creating a community and hub for innovation in South LA. Come join our kick off Tech Summit & Digital Media program in our movement to identify and accelerate the beautiful in tech and digital media.

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