VP Programs, Duke WiE

Building the operating system for Duke Women in Entrepreneurship's programs

As Vice President of Programs for Duke Women in Entrepreneurship, I've been leading the redesign and execution of WiE's core entrepreneurship programs, with the goal of creating a clearer path for members to move from early interest in entrepreneurship to real startup experience, venture building, and eventually funding.

A major part of my role has been restructuring our Programs division around four connected initiatives: New Member Education, Startup Externship, Accelerator, and Founder Fund. I've helped define what each program is meant to accomplish, how they connect across the year, what success should look like, and what systems need to be in place for them to run effectively.

For the Startup Externship, I've worked on shaping the program around four tracks — Growth, Engineering, Product Design, and Operations — while helping define what makes a strong startup partner, how projects should be scoped, how students should be selected and matched, and what ongoing support and accountability should look like during the externship. I've also been involved in the application and interview process, onboarding planning, project expectations, founder introductions, and the structure for weekly check-ins and end-of-program evaluation.

For the Accelerator, I've been helping build the program from the ground up rather than simply replicating an existing college accelerator. That has meant defining what outcomes actually matter, researching how other accelerators are structured, thinking through how WiE's mission around women founders should be embedded into the program, and helping shape the future mentor, speaker, investor, curriculum, and Demo Day experience.

I've also been working closely on the early development of the Founder Fund, helping clarify what the fund should do, how it should connect to the Accelerator, what diligence and startup evaluation could look like, how funding decisions might be made, and what legal and operational questions need to be resolved before grants can be distributed.

Because WiE does not currently have a dedicated NME Director, I've also been directly involved in designing New Member Education with the broader Programs team. This includes defining the curriculum, member outcomes, interactive sessions, community-building elements, and practical outputs like personal branding, outreach, pitching, and founder fundamentals.

Across all of this, my role has been less about running isolated events and more about building the operating system for WiE's Programs division — setting strategy, coordinating directors, creating timelines, defining ownership, building selection and evaluation systems, shaping partnerships, and making sure each program leads naturally into the next.