Trish Costello

Trish Costello founded Portfolia in 2014 with a vision for a new model of entrepreneurial investing designed for women. Her goal is to have over 100,000 women (and their colleagues and friends) investing in Portfolia Funds in five years.

Trish is internationally recognized for her pioneering work in educating and preparing venture capital investment partners, through the prestigious Kauffman Fellows Program. As the founding CEO and CEO Emeritus of the Center for Venture Education, she led the Kauffman Fellows Program for its first ten years. Trish is Founding President of CVE Capital Corp, the holding company of a $1.7 billion Fund of Funds. Costello was on the start-up team of the Kauffman Foundation’s entrepreneurship center, where for eight years she directed its efforts in venture capital, angel investing, and programming to accelerate high potential women entrepreneurs. She played a leading role nationally in increasing equity investments in women’s businesses and in funding initiatives supporting high-growth women entrepreneurs.

Trish led the National Science Foundation SBIR Sub-Committee on Commercialization and was the Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center of Entrepreneurship at Babson College, the first college focused in entrepreneurship and rated within the top 5 globally. Trish was recently recognized by INC. Magazine in its 15 Most Innovative Women Entrepreneurs of 2016; 17 Women Investors to Watch by the Center for Women and Wealth, and highlighted in Newsweek, Inc and Forbes for her work in activating women investors. Trish speaks globally on new models of venture capital and angel investing, trends with women investors and women’s high-potential entrepreneurship. She has keynoted at the United Nations and the OECD, and testified at the White House Commission on Women and before the US Senate.

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]