Entrepreneurship Summit

MODERATOR

Dalia Strum is the founder of RethinkConnect, an agency that focuses on experiential storytelling through digital and in-person strategies. She is a globally recognized marketer and innovator who embraces nontraditional education while working with professionals to focus on creativity and external innovation.

Strum has spent the majority of her career working with top tier brands, including Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, PepsiCo, Mondelez, and Burberry. Most recently her company RethinkConnect partnered with the Wharton Business School and Ralph Lauren to host an ideathon focused on rethinking retail. 

Strum has been teaching at FIT since 2011, where she has helped launch two certificates along with ten classes: Blogging for Business; Social Commerce; Intro to Social Media; Data Analytics; Digital Marketing; Social Media Marketing; Influencer Marketing; Build Your Business on Instagram; Marketing for Events; and Sales, Marketing, and PR. She also works on The CitySource conference and has moderated multiple panels in addition to advising the marketing team.

PANELIST

Christopher Bevans is a Belizean-Jamaican fashion designer and modern-day pioneer in function, fabrics, and technique. His innovative approach to fashion and technology has been recognized by CFDA, Vogue, Woolmark, Pitti Uomo, MIT Media Lab, and the MacArthur Foundation.

Bevans currently works as the interim creative director for Eddie Bauer, reinterpreting the innovative origins of the iconic American brand through new modalities for today’s world. Earlier this year, he created the signature Bevans Park Collection for FILA, his signature tennis apparel and footwear line seen on the world’s top players at Indian Wells. He is also known for creating and leading the award-winning brand DYNE through multiple seasons of global acclaim and expansion.

PANELIST

Ashley Cole had a passion for business and fashion at a very young age. She was fortunate to be surrounded by an entrepreneurial family. Her father, David Neeleman, is the founder of JetBlue Airways. Cole created Cecelia New York in 2015; she named the company after her daughter.  Her designs incorporate style and comfort with the highest quality materials and craftsmanship, using Italian leathers with a range of authentic and luxurious materials. Cecelia New York is carried at major department stores and specialty stores internationally. After graduating from FIT with a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Merchandising Management, she worked for Giorgio Armani, Diane von Furstenberg, and JetBlue Airways. While at JetBlue, Cole pioneered the effort to brand the airline as a fashion-forward company.

Cole lives in Holladay, Utah, with her husband Matthew, her two sons, Samuel and Eli, and her daughters, Cecelia, Naomi, Genevieve, and Vivienne.

PANELIST

Patti Carpenter is principal of carpenter + company and an award-winning designer of globally sourced home decor, accessories, fragrance, and gifts, with experience in product design and development, merchandising, and color and trend research and forecasting. She is a micro-enterprise specialist in artisan development, SMEs, and entrepreneurial training and economic development. Carpenter has designed and sourced private label collections for Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, Crate & Barrel, ABC Carpet and Home, Donna Karan Urban Zen, and Ralph Lauren. She is an active board member of SERRV International and Black Artists and Designer Guild (BADG), as well as the cofounder of the Kaleidoscope Project. In 2021, she was the recipient of the Gift For Life Industry Achievement Award and the Withit Industry Leadership Award for the Kaleidoscope Project, and she received the 2023 International Furniture and Design Association’s Trailblazer Award.

MODERATOR

In the fashion industry, Gary Wassner, CEO of Hilldun Corporation, known as the company behind many of Seventh Avenue’s most prestigious fashion companies, has provided financing and factoring for America’s and the world’s most iconic designer labels. Derek Lam, Jason Wu, Amiri, Isabel Marant, Victor Glemaud, and Marc Jacobs are only a few of fashion’s finest that have benefitted from his discerning eye, as well as his ability to provide factoring and financing.

Named one of Fashionista’s “50 Most Influential People in Fashion,” Wassner is also an advisory board member of Fordham Law School’s Fashion Law Institute, a board member of FGI, an instructor for the DENYC program, a board member of the High School of Fashion Industries, a member of FIT’s Social Justice Advisory Council, and a passionate supporter of all causes related to the fashion industry in New York City and globally. 

PANELIST

Chief Idea Curator, Idea Manufacturer

IDEA MANUFACTURER is a boutique business consulting firm located in New York City. Founded by Gina Ramcharan in 2013, the firm evolved as a result of lending her business expertise to solve the problems of local entrepreneurs. A thought leader, Ramcharan partners with clients to extract new ideas and strategies that breathe life into their businesses and to forecast potential obstacles to avoid or eliminate. She has successfully worked with clients in the personal services, retail, eCommerce, hair care, nonprofit, construction, consumer goods, and food and beverage industries.

Ramcharan served as the architect and program director for THE LILLIAN PROJECT, Harlem's first business incubator for African-American women. This was the first of her ongoing series of programs that create economic and social change to empower and uplift women and

BIPOC entrepreneurs. Ramcharan is a graduate of Syracuse University. The Westchester County native now calls Harlem home.

PANELIST

Co-Founder and COO, Keel Labs

Aleksandra Gosiewski is the co-founder and COO of Keel Labs, an innovation platform expanding the potential of the ocean to accelerate the planet’s development towards a more sustainable future.

With a background in fashion design and economics, Gosiewski is driving the development of Keel Labs’ business and R&D operations to scale the production of Kelsun, the company’s flagship product. As a systems thinker, she connects the dots between supply chain logistics, financial planning, and business development. Gosiewski is a Forbes 30 Under 30 member, a testament to her unique and pioneering perspective on the intersection of science and design.

Before co-founding Keel Labs, she worked in fashion design at PVH and Ralph Lauren. Gosiewski holds a BFA in Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

PANELIST

Founder and CEO, Hemster 

Allison Lee is the founder and CEO of Hemster, the first tailoring-as-a-service platform that expanded into tech-enabled refurbishing solutions for brands like Eileen Fisher, John Varvatos, AllSaints, Faherty, and Reformation. Ever since launching her first start-up at UC Berkeley, Lee has followed her passions for consumer tech and early-stage companies. Prior to Hemster, she served as the youngest director at Peel, an Alibaba-backed IoT Company, monetizing their data segments and delivering 1200% growth in two years. She launched Hemster in 2017 with the mission of creating an omni-channel tailoring solution that allows shoppers to accomplish the perfect fit anywhere. Hemster recently expanded with Revive, an intelligent refurbishing service to restore millions of damaged items back to life. She was recognized as a Forbes’ 30 under 30 in 2019 and was featured in Techcrunch, WWD, Vogue Business, and Business of Fashion. She frequently speaks at retailer conferences about data transparency in retail and sustainability initiatives for brands.

MODERATOR

Michael Ferraro is the executive director of the FIT Design and Technology Lab (DTech) at FIT and is responsible for industry partnerships and collaborative programs for the college.  

Creative technologist, researcher, artist, and educator, Ferraro’s career spans the worlds of  computer animation, software development, virtual reality media production, fine art, commercial entertainment, and higher education.  

He came to FIT from Lehman College/CUNY, where he spent 12 years as an associate professor in the digital media program of the art department. In 2015, working with students, he won a NY Emmy for Graphics and Animation Supervision for a series of PSA’s entitled “Best of the Bronx.” 

Prior to Lehman, Ferraro founded Possible Worlds, an innovative, real-time animation studio, working for clients such as Warner Bros. MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network. In the mid-1980s, Ferraro was one of the cofounders of Blue Sky Studios and served as system architect of the Academy Award-winning CGI Studio™ Renderer and production animation system. He made his first picture with a computer in 1969.

PANELIST

Digital Fashion Week

Clare Tattersall is the director of Digital Fashion Week NY and London and the founder of The Drip, an haute couture digital fashion boutique.With two decades of experience innovating at the intersection of fashion design and technology, she launched DFW to provide a lens into the future of the fashion industry by exploring unconventional approaches to how we interact with fashion. Before founding Digital Fashion Week NY, she co-created a software to align the design-to-sales process into a single virtual experience and developed wearable technology products.

PANELIST

Throughout his career, Michael Keany has seamlessly fused business and design to help organizations and brands take advantage of new technologies, develop disruptive products and services, enter new markets, and create impact. He is currently chief transformation officer at the digital services and product firm West Monroe. Earlier, he was vice president and cofounder at McKinsey Academy and a partner at Oliver Wyman, where he led their studio. Prior creative work focused on three iconic innovation firms. As CEO of code and theory, Keany led firm strategy, ultimately selling to private investors. At Method, as chief strategy officer, he successfully grew the New York and London offices. Keany was also chief commercial officer, Americas at Havas.  

Keany is the senior innovation and entrepreneurship advisor to FIT’s Dtech Lab and PETE Prize.

PANELIST

Josh Ong is the cofounder of Bored Room Ventures, a consulting agency and fund that helps brands create impactful moments in Web3. Ong is a member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club Community Council and serves as an advisor to Jenkins the Valet, Cryptoys, Chibi Dinos, and Applied Primate. Previously, Ong cofounded the communications firm Causeway Strategies and served as U.S. editor of The Next Web.