K. Shelly Porges is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, a global consortium of venture funds pledged to invest in women-founded firms. She is also a Board Member of the Global Banking Alliance for Women and on the Advisory Board for Cornerstone Capital, Mindshift Capital and Different Funds. Ms. Porges also serves as an Expert on Call for Georgetown University’s Entrepreneurship Program.

Ms. Porges also served as President of the North American Jury for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards and as the former Senior Advisor, Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) at the U.S. State Department, a program she expanded to almost 150 countries, under Secretary Hillary Clinton.

Before joining the State Department, she had a distinguished career in the private sector, including both corporate and entrepreneurial ventures. She served as executive head of marketing for American Express Canada and as chief retail marketing officer for Bank of America during a historic turn-around.

Ms. Porges then founded or co-founded a number of start-up ventures including one sold to Wachovia Bank; Third Age Media, the leading Internet portal for baby boomers; Scudder Weisel Capital LLC, a joint venture between Thomas Weisel Partners and Zurich Scudder Investments; and Global Payments Experts LLC, a payments industry advisory firm.

Ms. Porges is a compelling speaker who has inspired audiences globally at such gatherings as the Gender Smart Investing Summit (London), High Water Women Investing for Impact Symposium, the World Bank THK Blended Finance Forum (Bali),Web Summit (Lisbon), Inspirefest (Dublin), WOMEN UP/McKinsey (Stockholm), The Global Entrepreneurship Summit (Istanbul, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur), Disrupt Conference (Athens), The Women’s Forum on the Economy (Deauville), WEConnect International (London), UnConference (Israel) and at universities such as American, Babson, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, George Washington and Harvard in the U.S. and others outside the U.S.

Ms. Porges holds both a BS with Honors and MPS degree from Cornell University.

A huge opportunity for me to have a chat again with Shelly - a woman with so many credentials, I know it is going to be a knowledgeable talk.

Shelly shared how at such a young age, she became aware of the importance of financial knowledge and how that affected her choices and path in life. We talked about women and money and the still existent gender pay gap.

Listen to an inspiring woman who has found her role in life in creating the change she wants to see in the world.

Some great takeaways from Shelly :