Crew

Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Started from scratch in 2015, Backstage has now raised more than $15 million and invested in more than 170 startup companies led by underestimated founders. In 2018 Arlan co-founded Backstage Studio which launched four accelerator programs for underestimated founders in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and London.

Christie Pitts is a General Partner (early-stage investor) at Backstage Capital. She joined Backstage in August 2017. Since then, she has assisted in sourcing and investing in startups led by underrepresented (women, people of color, and LGBTQ) founders, helping to bring the firm’s total investment portfolio to more than 180 companies.

Brittany brings experience sourcing early-stage ventures for investment, conducting diligence, and managing an investment pipeline. Prior to working at Backstage, she has led many organizations in sourcing and evaluating early stage deal flow. Brittany was a principal for #ANGELS, where she sourced companies and contributed to the #TheGapTable initiative. She was a Manager at Village Capital where she analyzed opportunities and created investment recommendations in the fintech, education, health, food/agriculture, and energy sectors. She also gained experience supporting entrepreneurs as an Associate at Techstars and as a Mentor at Startup Jamaica. Prior to her work supporting founders, she had her own ecommerce startup, Runway Technologies, and built a solid foundation in finance working at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for 5 years. Brittany received her BS in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her MBA at Harvard Business School.

Chacho Valadez is a Principal at Backstage Capital. Chacho went from helping retail customers in a Detroit Sprint store, to a Twitter connection and side projects with Arlan, to a full-time role at the firm working towards the mission of growing representation in tech. He has experience with running day-to-day operations at SMBs, business development, and sales. The son of a US immigrant, Chacho has a strong desire to highlight diversity, especially amongst the Latinx entrepreneur community. Chacho has been featured in Quartz, Inc, and Business Insider.

Kelly joined Backstage Capital to support the relaunch of the open application, the pilot apprentice program, as well as Backstage Crowd to ensure that no startups get overlooked. She’s also a founding partner of Glocal Network & Finclusive Ventures and also the host of Finclusive Podcast. Initially investing in REI and later expanding to venture investing and advising, her current investment focus includes the Future of Work, Future of Education, FinTech and ClimateTech.

As a former Delivering Happiness consultant and the creator of its podcast, Kelly is passionate about creating a happier & more equitable world. With a BS in computer engineering and MS engineering management, Kelly had a prolific career in STEM as an engineer, a program manager, and a sustainability lead at Raytheon, and was a competitive Math coach & teacher in Doral Academy.  Kelly was awarded an Inventor and Author award, Operational Excellence Awards and the Green Business Challenge Platinum award. She founded ERG groups and served on the diversity council.

Born in Macau, Kelly immigrated to Miami at the age of 12 and moved over 10 times for her career and will live nomadically with her family in 2022.  Kelly is leveraging her life, work and investing experience to create diversity and equity in the startup ecosystem amongst founders as well as investors and LPs.

Speaking Topics:

Life, Career & Happiness:
Being the Change You Want to See
You Always Get What You Want

Breaking into Your Calling

Landing Happiness

Investing & Equity:
Investing as a Catalyst
Investing as an Angel, Syndicate, GP or LP

Creating a more Equitable Monopoly Game
Creating Diversity & Equity through capital
Women in STEM

Leadership, Culture & Ops:

Launching Startups with Humanity
Improve your OS to Scale Performance
Managing a Remote Team
Culture & Strategy should Have Lunch together

Speaking / workshop:
Startup Grind

Venture Cafe
World Economic Forum – Global Shapers
Africa

Clair Samuel’s domain expertise encompasses operations and finance at startups and venture capital firms. She is experienced in both the tactical and the strategic aspects of business and has a deep understanding of how they are critically intertwined. From due diligence and compliance to financial modeling and training, her strategy uniquely integrates marketing, human capital, diversity, and systemic thinking. Through her company, NoCairns, and now as Head of Compliance and Operations at Backstage, she advises early-stage founders in areas ranging from the fundamentals to the conceptual. Previous to this, she was VP of Finance and Operations, as well as de facto COO and part-time CFO, at Otherlab, a R&D venture studio in San Francisco. Clair has a bachelor’s in International Development Studies from UCLA and an MBA from Georgetown University.

Cathy uses her knowledge of systems to keep the Backstage Capital team organized. She excels at helping people increase operational efficiency with the right tools and processes. Her previous operations experience includes Biden/Harris 2020 and Elizabeth Warren for President campaigns, All Turtles and Greylock Partners. Cathy received an MBA in finance from Mills College and a BA in English Literature and Women Studies from the University of Connecticut. When she isn’t working, she’s riding her bike around beautiful Oakland, California.

Megan Rose Dickey is the Chief Content Officer at Backstage Capital. Prior to joining the firm in 2022, she spent more than a decade reporting on diversity, equity and inclusion in the tech industry at a variety of publications, including Protocol, TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Katie Andresen is passionate about the intersection of technology and social justice and currently is Head of Platform at Backstage Capital. Previously, she was part of All Raise where she worked to accelerate the success of female and non-binary founders and funders and has built communities at tech companies like Square and Phenomenal, an organization bringing awareness to social justice issues like the gender pay gap, where she served as the Head of Programming and Events. In addition, she is the host and producer of Mixed Kid Chronicles, a podcast that explores identity, race, and society, and a certified conflict mediator. She is a graduate of Princeton University and SOAS, and currently resides in San Francisco.

Jaimie is the Executive Assistant to Backstage Founder and Managing Partner, Arlan Hamilton. She met Arlan back in 2005 at the Hotel Café, a notable Hollywood music venue, through musician Terra Naomi while Arlan was her tour manager. Jaimie worked in the Business Affairs department at the Recording Academy, the organization responsible for the Grammy Awards, for 7 years, followed by a short stint as a freelancer based in Oregon, before returning to LA and the Academy. Her passions include collecting vinyl records with her husband, an engineer, and traveling to experience live music. 🎧

Tiffanie is the Executive Assistant to Backstage Capital Partners Brittany Davis and Christie Pitts. She comes to Backstage with over 15 years of experience in executive & administrative support capacities. Thanks to social media, she has been an avid supporter and follower of founder Arlan Hamilton and the Backstage Capital Crew. Moved by the ideals and mission of Backstage Capital, she is excited to be a part of Backstage Capital Team. Tiffanie is mom to three very talented children.

Meighan empowers our Founder and Managing Partner as Arlan’s Personal Assistant. She helps manage Arlan’s speaking events, external podcast recordings, book and media requests. Like several of the Backstage Crew, Meighan reached out over Twitter when Arlan was looking for her first Executive Assistant way back in 2017. Meighan enjoys a healthy work-life balance and is able to support her local art scene and animal rescue. She also has a Boston Terrier named Babs.