Trish Costello, director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson, will be among the speakers at the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship roundtable -- “Opportunities and Challenges for Women Entrepreneurs on the 20th Anniversary of the Women’s Business Ownership Act” – on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 428A of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Costello’s professional background includes entrepreneurial, corporate, non-profit and academic experience.  She is recognized internationally for her pioneering work in educating and preparing venture capital investment partners, through the prestigious Kauffman Fellows Program.  As the founding CEO and now CEO Emeritus of the Center for Venture Education, she expanded the Kauffman Fellows education program to venture capitalists in 10 countries on four continents.  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, entrepreneur support programs, and programming to accelerate high potential women entrepreneurs.  She played a leading role nationally in obtaining greater financial equity investments in women’s businesses and in funding initiatives supporting high-growth women entrepreneurs.

Costello continues to serve as President of CVE Capital Corp, a holding company affiliated with a venture capital fund of funds created to endow the Kauffman Fellows Program.  Her prior experience includes developing small business products and marketing strategies at the initial divestiture of the Bell System and launching medical ventures for an investor group of twenty prominent children’s hospitals as Executive Vice President of the start-up Child Health Corporation of America.

Roundtable Participant List

Ms. Margaret Mankin Barton
Executive Director, National Women’s Business Council
Washington, DC

Dr. Faye E. Coleman
President and Chief Executive Officer, Westover Consultants, Inc.
Bethesda, MD

Ms. Patricia Costello
Director, The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship
Babson College, Babson Park, MA

Ms. Lisa Dolan, CPP
President, Securit
Flushing, NY

Ms. Margot Dorfman
Chief Executive Officer, U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce
Washington, DC

Ms. Tara Elder
Director, Women’s Business and Training Center
Beckley, WV 

Dr. Sharon G. Hadary
Executive Director, Center for Women’s Business Research
McLean, VA

Ms. Kip Hollister
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Hollister, Inc.
Boston, MA

Ms. Heidi Jacobus
Chief Executive Officer, Cybernet Systems Corporation
Ann Arbor, MI

Ms. Virginia Littlejohn
Chief Executive Officer, Quantum Leaps, Inc.
Washington, DC

Ms. Nell Merlino
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence
New York, NY

Ms. Ann Sullivan
Government Relations, Women Impacting Public Policy
Washington, DC