Our Leadership
Diana Franco (Women.NYC)
A serial entrepreneur by nature, she started her career at a young age during the internet boom. Joining the founding team of three successful startups: Latinred,CycleLogic, and Kactoos. She also is the founder of Grenoutwhich helps foreign entrepreneurs launch their products and services in the U.S., and co-founder of CoreWoman, a foundation aiming to empower women professionally and economically. After 15 years in entrepreneurship, she is now leveraging her experience to lead women’s economic development initiatives in the government sector.
Currently, at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), she is the Vice President of women.nyc, an ambitious City-led initiative to make NYC the best place in the world for women of all backgrounds to thrive in their careers and businesses.
Prior to that, Ms. Franco served as the inaugural Executive Director of WE NYC, and Launch Initiatives at the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS), where she led Women Entrepreneurs of New York City (WE NYC); an initiative that empowers and supports women as they start and operate their businesses. Under her leadership, WE NYC developed four portfolios with eleven programs, providing over 30,000 services to nearly 20,000 women, 60% women of color.
The City of New York has publicly recognized Ms. Franco’s work with two awards, in 2019 for Excellence in Public Service and 2020 for advancing Diversity and Inclusion.
Like many New Yorkers, Diana is an immigrant, originally from Medellín – Colombia; when she’s not working on advancing women, she enjoys horseback riding, spending time with her family, and walking her dog.
Tshering Gurung (Accompany Capital)
Chair, Community Development
Maria is a Senior Loan Office at Accompany Capital with over 16 years of experience. Working primarily with women and underserved entrepreneurs providing business guidance and access to capital, Maria works closely with her clients to assess their financial needs and connect them to appropriate resources that support their business growth. As an immigrant, her passion is helping immigrant entrepreneurs manage and grow their businesses with all the new tools and resources available.
Maria holds a Bachelor’s degree in Financial Economics from Binghamton University.
Agnes Jamora
Secretary
Agnes is the founder and CEO of a boutique liquor distribution company that assists smaller brands in launching and marketing themselves in a competitive marketplace. She also works as a consultant for hospitality businesses, assisting them grow through online strategies. She has passion for social impact, environment and food sustainability issues.
Irina Kanaeva (NAWBO)
Coach, Speaker, Personal Brand Strategist, and Jewelry Designer
Irina Kanaeva is on a mission to bring Femininity into Business by transforming the way women do business—bringing femininity, wellness, and natural energy alignment into success. She teaches women how to align with their natural strengths and energy, making business feel effortless and fulfilling.
As VP of Alliances at NAWBO, she is a connector, building powerful collaborations and a thriving community where women support, uplift, and grow together. Irina’s mission is to show women that success isn’t just about doing more—it’s about doing what truly aligns with who they are.
Punitma Malhotra (Blue Astral)
Chief Technology Officer
With over a decade of professional engagement in the tech industry, Punitma’s core competencies lie in the realms of Over-the-Top content (OTT) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). As founder of Blue Astral, she drives innovation in video delivery by fostering an environment that aligns with theirmission of delivering cutting-edge streaming solutions. Their goal is to leverage diverse perspectives to create products that not only meet market demands but also exceed them.
In her role at Verizon, she led the development of new features for linear TV and VOD delivery solutions, including advancements in OTT services. This experience honed skills in adaptive streaming, enhancing her ability to manage complex projects that improve how content is delivered and consumed. Her team’s dedication to innovation is showcased through the continuous evolution of their product offerings. She is proud to contribute to this dynamic sector.
Betty Newman (Women’s Connection)
Betty Newman is a experience maker + connector + humanistic brander. A native New York entrepreneur and business owner of The Holding Company, which designs products, brands, and experiences revolutionizing how we care for our kids and elders and manage family life. For 30 years, she has influenced influencers with herone-of-a-kind consumer brand experiential packages for over thirty years. She has partneredwithorganizations that are working to give families the time, space, and joy they deserve, from fast growing start-ups to multinationals and government agencies to nonprofits. She foundedTHE WIDTH for 50+ women and the brands who want to empower them both benefit through imaginative expansive experiential partnership opportunities.
Rochelle Rhooms (WE NYC)
Rochelle Rhooms was appointed Project Manager for the NYC Department of Small Business Services. She represent WeNYC on the NYWIB Leadership Council.
Mary Tan (SCORE NYC)
Chair, NYWIB
Mary spent more than 30 years at Colgate-Palmolive working in a wide range of marketing and strategic planning roles. She managed and helped build major brands such as Palmolive, Colgate, and Ajax both in the US and in global markets. Mary has in-depth knowledge of branding, innovation, business development, business management and strategic planning. She is an expert on inbound and outbound marketing for profit and non-profit companies. She previously worked in retailing as well as nonprofit and publishing sectors.
Mary joined SCORE, a partner resource of the Small Business Association, in 2012 and led its marketing function for two years. Since joining SCORE, she has conducted more than 2000 mentoring sessions. In 2016, she co-founded New York Women in Business, a virtual organization dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs succeed. A coalition of professional women’s organizations, it has a combined reach of 100,000 women across the tristate area. She believes that forming relationships with other dynamic women, learning from one another, and sharing resources are critical to achieving our goals.
Mary has a BA from Wellesley College and an MBA in Finance/Marketing from Columbia Business School.
Betty Wong (Stage2Startups)
Chair, Resource development
Betty Wong is a serial entrepreneur, new products marketer, educator, consultant, mentor and coach. Her clients, employers and board assignments have included startups (including her own), and Fortune 500 level companies (Colgate-Palmolive, Mars, Johnson&Johnson, Honeywell, NYTimes) and others.
Betty founded Stage2Startups in 2017 when she realized there were no organizations helping founders over 40. Betty has taught entrepreneurship at CUNY-Baruch College and marketing at UPhoenix Online and has been on the boards of Care for the Homeless, Graham-Windham and the New York Chinese Cultural Center.
She is a graduate of NYU-Stern School of Business and Columbia Business School.
