Fix It Fireside: Scaling Your Company and Thinking Big with Lunar Startups and The Coven

Alex is a Swiss Army Knife who knows how to raise humans and build Public Relations strategies for businesses, politicians, startups, and non-profits. The co-founder and CEO of The Coven, a community and work space for women and non-binary folks, Alex is dedicated to the economic empowerment and advancement of women in the Twin Cities.

Prior to co-founding The Coven, Alex held the positions of Communications Director for advertising agency Fallon, Minneapolis City Council candidate Jillia Pessenda, and Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges. Leading PR and communications strategy and execution, she gets joy from telling stories from underestimated communities. She’s been recognized for her inclusive economy work both locally and nationally, receiving the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication Above the Fold Award, AdFed’s 32 Under 32 Award, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Award, and City Pages Best Entrepreneur Award. She’s also a 2019 Bush Fellow and one of Inc Magazine’s 100 Female Founders.

Alex loves her two kids, husband, Oprah, and Beyonce in no particular order. She’s genuinely a people-person who enjoys a good cry.

As the managing director of Lunar Startups, Danielle is dedicated to helping problem solvers achieve their dreams and is acutely passionate about making the world a more equitable place to thrive, for all. Leveraging her origins as an over-scheduled student-athlete, she brings an intense amount of energy, a team-first mentality, and a broad range of program design experience to Lunar Startups. Danielle has also long been active in the social impact investment space, having convened and facilitated some of the first impact investing ecosystem gatherings in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

After getting her Masters in Public Administration from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Danielle worked in international development, focusing on social entrepreneurship as a mechanism for creating community wealth in rural Peru. When she moved to Minnesota, Danielle served as the founding staff of Impact Hub Minneapolis St. Paul for three years, building a community of social entrepreneurs and change-makers. In her role, she was also on the founding committee of Forge North, a coalition of programs, organizations, and individuals dedicated to cultivating a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in MSP.

As a generalist, her experience and expertise span a wide range of specialties including human-centered design, evaluation, facilitation, program design, community building, marketing, partnership development, and digital media design, all driven by a bias towards collaboration.

Elizabeth founded Creatively Focused and built a talented team of educators whose work will increase the national retention rate of special education teachers. Creatively Focused was named one of the 20 Startups to Watch in 2020 by Minne Inno and completed the year driving $2MM in revenue. In August 2021, they launched axis3, a web-based platform connecting the brainwork and heartwork of the special educator. Creatively Focused is a leader of innovation and technology in education.

With a background in urban settings with low-income populations, Elizabeth has worked extensively in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, co-teaching implementation and development, and transition-based planning. Before founding Creatively Focused, Elizabeth taught in the Chicago Public School system and conducted research for the University of Chicago Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center. She then worked as a teacher, school administrator, and Special Education Director for Twin Cities Academy, a charter school on the east side of Saint Paul. Elizabeth had a vision to create an organization that could support school systems in a creative way instead of following the status quo. 

Mondo Davison, most notably known as ‘The Black Tech Guy’ is on a mission to inspire black males to leverage their creativity as a startup entrepreneur. He believes branding The Black Tech Guy as a trailblazing figure in the tech space, will lead to a more compelling ‘Plan A’ than rapper, trapper, or athlete. An educator turned entrepreneur; Mondo is the co-founder of Schoolz -- an edTech startup building culturally relevant content for Google classroom.

Bella Lam is the Founder and CEO of Coconut Whisk, a Community Health Education Graduate from MSU-Mankato, a 2020 #AerieReal Changemaker, 2021 Star Tribune Connect Grant Recipient, Finnovation Fellowship Finalist, LunarStartup and ImpactSKU Member. She's dedicated to using her unique experiences as an immigrant, first-generation college student and community educator to inspire others to dream big and take action