Watch: How Women Can Build Confidence in a Virtual World

Annie Burford

Annie Burford is dot.LA's director of events. She's an event marketing pro with over ten years of experience producing innovative corporate events, activations and summits for tech startups to Fortune 500 companies. Annie has produced over 200 programs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City working most recently for a China-based investment bank heading the CEC Capital Tech & Media Summit, formally the Siemer Summit.

Watch: How Women Can Build Confidence in a Virtual World

The latest edition of our dot.LA Convenes series, devoted to empowering women in tech, focused on "Building Confidence in a Virtual World."

dot.LA Convenes: Building Confidence in a Virtual Worldyoutu.be



As movements such as Times Up and Me Too gain in popularity, examples of women using their voices in the workplace have taken center stage. With all this attention on these issues, why is it that we still struggle with self assurance to stand up for ourselves? Why is it more difficult to find the same confidence our male counterparts easily exude in workplace interactions — especially in male-dominated industries like tech?

Challenges around self-censorship have only increased during the pandemic with financial security at stake and working from home making it more difficult to have authentic interactions. We seek to foster an honest dialogue and discuss specific strategies to combat them.

Esports One COO and Co-Founder Sharon Winter, Vurbl Media Co-founder, CEO Audra Everett Gold, and Valence Head of Partnerships Victoria Tinsley held in in-depth discussion on the topic, led by dot.LA Chief Host & Correspondent Kelly O'Grady.

Victoria Tinsley, head of partnerships at Valence

Victoria Tinsley, Head of Partnerships at Valence

Victoria Tinsley is the Head of Partnerships at Valence, a new tech platform and community incubated by Upfront Ventures focused on connecting Black professionals with mentorship, career opportunities and capital. The company's mission is to unlock the global combined power of Black professionals to create massive economic wealth and social progress that impacts current and future generations. Valence was founded in January 2019 and has a thriving membership of thousands of Black leaders across the nation. Valence also partners with a variety of organizations such as PledgeLA, Netflix, Facebook, USC, The Gathering Spot and Silicon Valley Bank.

Prior to joining Valence, Victoria served on the marketing senior leadership team at AAA as vice president, consumer insights & data analytics. In this role, she led the analytics center of excellence that supported four divisions (Insurance, Membership, Travel, A3 Labs) representing over $4 billion in annual revenue.

A traditionally trained CPG marketer, Victoria also previously worked at General Mills managing product development and marketing strategy for the Annie's Homegrown, Immaculate Baking Company and Pillsbury brands. Prior to earning her MBA at the Michigan Ross School of Business, Victoria held a variety of marketing roles during her 7 years at Active Network, a tech startup that had a successful $1 billion IPO and sale.

Audra Everett Gold, co-founder and CEO at Vurbl Media

Audra Everett Gold, Co-founder and CEO at Vurbl Media

Audra Gold has dedicated her entire career to building first to market and scaled mass media digital products. Her passion for product management and her ability to identify new and emerging product trends has led to her reputation for developing novel, cutting-edge products across gaming, streaming video, digital media, enterprise SaaS platforms, in various business verticals.

Today, as the founder of Product N, a product management consulting and recruitment firm, Audra and her team work with early-stage ventured funded start-ups in various verticals to create, launch and grow their digital products. The team also works in partnership with the VC firm Alpha Edison, helping AE portfolio companies in need of product management expertise to either create, expand or pivot their digital product lines.

Prior to Product N, Audra has spent years leading Product teams at Rubicon Project, The Mighty, Pluto TV, Fourthwall Studios and Defy Media (formerly Break Media). She also held senior product roles at WeddingChannel/TheKnot, Viviendi Universal's online division, and IGN.com.

Sharon WInter, COO and co-founder of Esports One

Sharon Winter, COO and Co-Founder of Esports One

Sharon Winter is the COO and Co-Founder of Esports One, the first all-in-one all-in-one fantasy esports platform with real-time predictive data. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Sharon previously worked at IBM's Watson division before becoming CEO and Founder of Hotpoint App, a CRM and data company for the entertainment and hospitality industries with over 2500 clients from Live Nation, Patron, Hakkasan, Wynn, and others.

Sharon has experience building community-centered products within data-rich platforms. She's on the mission of bringing esports to the Olympics by bridging the gap between esports and sports, and the endemics and non-endemics of the gaming world.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/annieburford
annie@dot.la

Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.

LA Venture: Fifth Wall's Dan Wenhold On Real Estate Technology Investing

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Venture: Fifth Wall's Dan Wenhold On Real Estate Technology Investing
Courtesy of LA Venture

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, Fifth Wall partner Dan Wenhold talks about his role at the firm and shares some of the changes he’s seeing in real estate technology investing.


Read moreShow less

Convenience or Chaos? AI’s Role in Job Recruiting

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Convenience or Chaos? AI’s Role in Job Recruiting
Evan Xie

Staffing firm Robert Half (which operates numerous offices across Los Angeles, including Burbank, Irvine, Long Beach and Pasadena), parses through thousands of job applications a week.

Thomas Vick, regional director of technology for the company, said Robert Half has a database of over 30 million active job seekers, which is why lately it’s been using AI to sift through them all. Vick is one of many directors eager to explore AI’s capacity to streamline hiring as the technology becomes more mainstream.

Read moreShow less
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

Don't Ask Chatbots for Movie Pitches. WGA Goes on Strike to Keep Hollywood Human

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
Don't Ask Chatbots for Movie Pitches. WGA Goes on Strike to Keep Hollywood Human
Evan Xie

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

On this week’s “Succession,” Roman Roy flew to Burbank and met with the head of Waystar Studios, pressing them to greenlight more IP-driven films from major franchises. In the show’s fictional alternate reality, Roy is reacting specifically to the looming failure of sleepy robot-themed sci-fi tentpole “Kalispitron,” and the desperate short-term need to artificially boost the company’s stock price. Still, the scene itself has strong roots in our current business landscape. With media, telecom, and tech companies having recently spent billions creating and selling consumers on shiny new streaming platforms, they now need to actually deliver the quality content they’ve spent the last few years promising and promoting.

Read moreShow less
RELATEDEDITOR'S PICKS
LA TECH JOBS
interchangeLA
Trending