Deborah Jackson
Moved by her strong desire to see women achieve success through the founding of companies, Deborah Jackson is the Founder and CEO of www.PlumAlley.co and a Founder of the Women Innovate Mobile Accelerator. Plum Alley is the place where women entrepreneurs and innovators succeed with crowdfunding, commerce and experts. For the past 10 years, Deborah has been active in early stage companies both as an investor and founder. She was a member of New York New Media in the late 1990s where she made her first early stage company investments. Her investment portfolio spans from cloud technology, consumer internet, mobile technology companies and drug discovery. Since 2009, Deborah has been a member of Golden Seeds, the third most active angel network in the nation. Deborah earned her MBA from Columbia Business School in 1980 and began her career at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker. Before she retired from her 21 year career in investment banking, Deborah launched the healthcare technology and internet practice at Shattuck Hammond Partners in the mid 1990s. Deborah has served on numerous boards during the last 20 years such as Legal Momentum, Heart and Soul Charitable Fund, and French American Aid for Children. Her achievements have been recognized in publications and organizations including: Fast Company, League of Extraordinary Women, August 2012; Forbes, Women Changing the World VCs/Entrepreneurs, August 2012; Columbia Venture Community CVC 30 list, November 2011; Mashable 44 Female Founders to Know, August 2012. Deborah has served as a judge for numerous competitions including Startup Weekend, Technovation, Columbia Social Entrepreneurs, Vator.tv, Columbia Business Odyssey and Women 2.0. She is an Advisor to the Citrix Startup Accelerator and an Xconomist Forum contributor.