Quick name search
CTRL+K
Quick name search
CTRL+K
Keynote Topics
Videos
Arlan Hamilton is a remarkable entrepreneur who built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Started in 2015, […]
Arlan Hamilton is a remarkable entrepreneur who built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT.
Started in 2015, Backstage has now invested over $15M into 175 startups led by underestimated founders and has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, Inc., Entrepreneur, and Quartz.
Arlan made history by making the cover of Fast Company as the first Black woman non-celebrity to do so, and her book “It’s About Damn Time” is out on Penguin Random House’s business imprint Currency. She and Backstage Studio were also the subjects of Season 7 of the popular Gimlet Media podcast, StartUp. Arlan now hosts Your First Million, a weekly podcast featuring in-depth conversations with how the world’s most successful people finessed their first million dollars, customers, or downloads.
Arlan Hamilton entered the venture investing world from an unconventional path. Before launching Backstage Capital, she authored the groundbreaking blog “Your Daily Lesbian Moment”, which she grew to a monthly readership of 50,000 fans worldwide. She has written for AOL, SuicideGirls, and Curve Magazine, and founded and published the internationally distributed indie magazine Interlude. Arlan Hamilton was also a live music production professional, having served as a tour coordinator to numerous international artists including Toni Braxton, and Jason Derulo. Most recently she worked with Atlantic Records recording artist Janine.
In 2018, Arlan co-founded, along with Investment Partner Christie Pitts, Backstage Studio, a new venture studio designed to build products, services, and initiatives that serve the mission of eliminating underrepresentation in tech by empowering founders and their teams to succeed.
Also in 2018, Backstage Studio announced the launch of four accelerator programs, in Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, and London, UK. Called the Backstage Accelerator, this three-month program is designed to give founders the support they need to reach their next critical milestone, through mentorship, investment capital, and access to resources and networks.
Arlan Hamilton was recently named on Fortune magazine’s 40 under 40 list, as well as,Vanity Fair magazine’s The 2018 New Establishment List.
In 2019, Arlan and her mother, Mrs. Earline Butler-Sims, announced their new scholarship program, which kicked off with Oxford University’s first-ever undergraduate scholarship for a Black student, as well as a full-ride scholarship for a Psychology student at Mrs. Sims’ alma mater, HBCU Dillard University.
Arlan’s company, Backstage Capital, produced and released ‘jOURney’, a documentary celebrating the five year anniversary of the firm, highlighting the people and companies who made it what it is today and released an impact report highlighting the strides Backstage has made in changing the venture capital scene. They also launched Backstage Crowd, a funding platform giving access to the best diverse deal flow in VC. Backstage ended 2020 having made over 30 investments in underestimated founders.
To cap the year, Arlan Hamilton Academy was launched. Arlan recruited experts from across the tech universe to teach and give insight into what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Now anyone can learn what was only available to those ‘in-the-know’ in Silicon Valley.
Contact us at Speakers Inc and subscribe to our YouTube channel
For Meeting Planners
This PowerPoint slide above is designed for meeting planners.
Register for FREE and simply click the URL link for automatic download of the PPTX slide.
We have created a simple “ABOUT” single slide which you can instantly insert into your pitch deck when submitting speaker proposals.
Features:
Author Books | Articles
Mandla Isaacs is a public speaker, and facilitator. He is Managing Director of Zehuti Advisory, a communications and strategy firm. His main areas of expertise and interest are: political economy, business strategy/trends, South African and African development, international relations, public policy/administration and politics. His career has spanned management consulting, including with McKinsey – where he […]
Mathew Makoni is a vibrant, experienced and eloquent keynote speaker who has over 10 years’ experience in leading high-performing and impactful teams in various sectors. A masters graduate in operations management, published author and a SADC speaking champion, he not only brings a fresh perspective on relevant topics (that teams and managers face today in […]
Zoya Mabuto-Mokoditoa is a dynamic force in the realm of educational interventions, dedicated to empowering women in positions of leadership or those aspiring towards it. With a passion for fostering personal and professional growth, Zoya specializes in helping women harness the power of their voices, elevate their influence, and create meaningful impacts within their spheres […]
Mongezi Mtati has spent the past six years playing and working on the web. He founded his company WordStart in order to help companies generate buzz around their products and services amongst South African influencers. During the company’s first year, Mtati had the opportunity to present the WordStart business model and MC at Richard Branson’s […]
Femi Adebanji is a sought-after international customer service speaker and organisational excellence speaker focusing on Leadership, Change, and Motivation. A passion for helping organisations transform their service excellence levels, build truly customer centric cultures, create high-performance business cultures and evolve into brands of distinction. With over 15 years of business leadership and customer strategy experience, […]
Musa Kalenga stands as a beacon of innovation in the entrepreneurial landscape, driven by an unwavering passion for leveraging technology to empower those often overlooked in the digital age. As the CEO and Founder of Bridge Labs, Musa channels his entrepreneurial spirit into addressing the pressing issue of accessibility to essential online tools for both […]
Dr David Molapo uses a fine combination of humor, an incredible stage presence and his personal life experiences to mesmerize his audiences with his message of hope. Through his public appearances, stints in the media and books, David is able to effectively motivate, inspire and guide over a million people in South Africa each year, providing […]
Born in Paarl, Dr Gillian Arendse attended Nederburg Primary School and Paulus Joubert SS. He studied at the University of Stellenbosch from 1989 – 1996, with a Ph.D (Experimental Nuclear Physics). From 1997 to 2007, he was the lecturer in the Department of Physics at the University Stellenbosch where he went on to become the […]
These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by Speakers Inc.
All talent fees exclude VAT, travel and accommodation where required.
We are actively working to have our profiles current with Keynote Speech titles, and Summaries.
Some Speakers do not have a set title or summary for their topic lists. Instead they customize for each. Other speakers only do moderated conversations.
If you do not see content here, please contact us.
We also have ample information off line that we can share as some do not want to have visible profiles and as such these are hidden pages. Or in the event we do not have the information, we can contact the speaker to provide and share.
Our Mission
© All rights reserved 2024. Created by Speakers Inc
