Wallet Max Presents Planet Positive Pitch Competition
New York Tech Week in June brings together an inclusive community of startup ecosystem builders. And at Wallet Max, we are proud to partner with CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) and VU Venture Partners to expand this collaboration to corporate leaders and private investors with a goal to increase fundraising access for innovative startups at the intersection of technology, inclusion, and impact.
Join us for a diverse Startup Pitch Competition and Panel of Tech Investors and Industry Experts that triggers meaningful networking and mutual exchange of resources. Reserve your seat at the conversation today!
✅ Connect with startup leaders, impact investors, and corporate executives.
✅ Discover how to enhance sustainable and inclusive practices, and grow your business.
✅ Join a community of ecosystem partners and service providers in deep tech.
Reserve your space today.
Read more about monthly Climate Forward™ events from Wallet Max throughout 2025:
🎯 www.getwalletmax.com/climate-forward-2025
Your host & panel moderator:
Bhuva Shakti, Founder & CEO at Wallet Max, in partnership with CLA and VU Venture Partners.
Agenda:
5:00 PM to 5:45 PM: Check-in and Networking
5:45 PM to 7:30 PM: Tech Week Pitch Competition (17 Startups and 6 Judges)
Line Up of Judges (Tech Investors & Industry Experts):
Carrie Jaquith: Global Head of Digital Product, Abaxx Technologies
René Bastón: Venture Partner at Covenant Venture Capital
Yang Cheung: Co-founder and CEO, pixyit
Timothy L. Hoffman: Program Director for Climate Initiatives at Columbia Technology Ventures
Victoria Kennedy: Founder, Patternist
Bhuva Shakti: Founder & CEO at Wallet Max
Line Up of Startups (Tech Enabled / Any Industry):
Flowgenn - Anthony Tapias
Vuer - Omar Delgado
7:30 PM to 8:00 PM: Judges Feedback & Selection
8:00 PM to 9:00 PM: Q&A, Final Closing, and Networking
Reserve your space today!
About Wallet Max:
Wallet Max is an inclusive global community of corporate executives and venture capitalists with a mission to expand fundraising access for high-growth startups in the technology, AI, fintech, and climate sustainability sectors.
With more than 10 investments directly in impact entrepreneurs thus far, Wallet Max’s network of 1,000 innovators and 60 partners regularly meet in person and virtually throughout the year to mutually exchange connections and drive collective action. Wallet Max ecosystem of events and initiatives are prominent during the New York Fintech Week, the New York Tech Week, and the New York Climate Week every year.
Wallet Max's Planet Positive Podcast is a monthly interview with female investors driving impact globally. Aligned with our mission to challenge the status quo, we showcase personal and professional journeys of diverse investors (Angels, VCs, PEs, Family Office, Corporate Venture) looking to leverage inclusion and impact without compromising growth of investments. Supporting sustainable innovations is good for people's wellbeing, planet survival, and financial profits.
Learn more about Wallet Max 2024 success and 2025 global initiatives: https://getwalletmax.com/climate-forward-2025
About CLA:
CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) is experienced in delivering integrated wealth advisory, outsourcing, audit, tax, and consulting services to help businesses succeed.
https://www.claconnect.com/en/
About VU Venture Partners:
VU accelerates the growth and success of its portfolio companies by actively supporting customer acquisition, partnerships, capital raising, hiring, marketing, and exit strategies.
https://www.vuventurepartners.com/
About Bhuva Shakti:
Bhuva Shakti (she/her) is the visionary founder and CEO driving sustainable innovation at Wallet Max, a global community of executive women and venture capital investors with a mission to expand fundraising access for high-growth sustainable startups. With an MBA from Columbia University in New York and as a senior executive director on Wall Street for three decades, Bhuva has managed diverse financial portfolios and launched several digital transformation products for investment banks, capital markets, and payment networks.
Bhuva’s leadership and risk governance oversight, during the global financial crisis and the pandemic, was pivotal for the success of regulatory compliance and mergers acquisitions at the world's top banks and credit rating institutions. Bhuva is a board director and fractional C-Suite advisor for social impact businesses, and a keynote speaker advancing economic inclusion and climate-fintech partnerships.
Bhuva is the USA country director for World Business Angels Investment Forum and the Chief Ethics & Culture Officer for Women in AI worldwide. She leads the fundraising strategy and product operations for market expansion and manages investor relations throughout the diligence and investment. Bhuva is the founder of Bhuva’s Impact Global that provides board advisory services and enterprise risk management for public and private corporations.
About Carrie Jaquith:
Carrie Jaquith (she/her) is a digital product manager, advisory board member, and educator. She leads transformative Digital Product, Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, and Design teams to build human-friendly platforms and products. At Abaxx Technologies, her teams are focused on developing and deploying financial technologies that make communication, trade, and transactions easier and more secure. Following studies in classical music she has charted a career spanning design, software development, and technology. She and her teams have designed innovative software applications and digital solutions in financial services and she has led technology deployments in 21 countries.
Before joining Abaxx Technologies as Global Head of Digital Product, she was AXA XL’s first Global Head of Digital Enablement for their Data Intelligence & Analytics group. Additionally, she founded the first IT Emerging Technology Group and guided development of Data & Analytics at Lazard Frères. She has taught at Columbia University’s Master of Science in Applied Analytics program, guest-lectured at NYU and Pratt, and collaborated with teams at Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch. She is a member of think tanks focused on data science and genomics and is an Advisory Board Member of Smarter Markets Podcast. A student of Joan Lader and alumni of One World Symphony, she loves to collaborate on projects that blend music, education, and social good. She is inspired by experiences in voice, video games, and machine shops for things that go fast.
About Rene Baston:
Rene has over 25 years of experience in venture creation, innovation, life sciences, digital health, healthcare, cleantech, nanotech, and data science. With a proven track record in entrepreneurship, technology transfer and commercialization, and business strategy, he has demonstrated success in analytical problem-solving, managing multimillion-dollar projects, leading cross-functional teams, startup ideation, go-to-market strategy, and startup team mentoring. He has extensive executive network and strategic alliance experience with Fortune 500 and startup companies in the U.S. and internationally. Rene is currently a Venture Partner at Covenant Venture Capital, an alternative asset management firm. Previously, he was the VP of Strategy and a member of the ideation team at Team8 Health, a digital health startup foundry focused on building and scaling transformative healthcare companies.
Rene is also a national Lean Startup instructor for the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the co-founder of three startups based on university, NIH, and NIST IP. Before Team8, he was the founding Executive Director of the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub, Special Advisor on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the City University of New York, Director of Industry Interactions and Entrepreneurship at the Columbia University Data Science Institute, Chief Business Officer at the New York Academy of Sciences; Associate Director at Columbia Technology Ventures, manager in Ernst & Young’s Healthcare consulting group, and he spent several years conducting research and managing the laboratory of Nobel Laureate, Eric Kandel, at the Columbia University Center for Neurobiology and Behavior. Rene earned his M.A. in Biomedical Informatics and B.A. from Columbia University.
About Yang Cheung:
Yang is the CEO and co-founder of pixyit, a mission-driven platform that transforms children’s artwork into meaningful keepsakes—giving young artists royalties from each order and donating a portion of profits to schools. She is a seasoned product leader, serial entrepreneur, and investor with nearly two decades of experience building and scaling innovative software solutions. Yang has a proven track record of turning bold ideas into user-centric products that drive meaningful growth across both startups and enterprises.
She has led global teams across product, design, and engineering; scaled revenue from zero to seven figures; built engaged communities through scrappy, low-budget strategies; expanded sales pipelines; secured partnerships with major institutions; and contributed to high-stakes fundraising efforts. Blending technical depth with strategic vision, Yang brings deep expertise in product management, startup growth, and complex software platforms. As an angel investor, limited partner in an early-stage fund, and board member at the Born Global Community, she actively supports founders building transformative technologies.
About Timothy Hoffman:
Tim is currently Program Director for Climate Initiatives at Columbia Technology Ventures, including the ClimateTech Expertise Network, NYSERDA Climate Justice Fellows Support Program, and Verizon Climate-related programs. The ClimateTech Expertise Network offers mentoring services, talent matching and related support services to promising early-stage clean energy and climate-tech companies pursuing business in the State of New York. The NYSERDA Climate Justice Support Program provides peer group facilitation, educational workshops and Skills Labs to support Climate Justice Fellows in NYSERDA’s workforce development program. Tim currently also serves as New York Director of the Cleantech Open Northeast and as an Advisory Board Member to Scale for ClimateTech and the Uptake Alliance.
For over 22 years Tim provided strategic and M&A advisory, capital raising, and financial modeling services for large corporations, family-run firms, renewable energy developers, middle market companies and early-stage enterprises. Previously, Tim served as Managing Director with Karbone Capital Markets (formerly Watts Capital, LLC), Scott-Macon, Ltd. and Natixis Bleichroeder, Inc. Tim also served as Co-Chairman of the Cleantech Open Board and a Board Member of ACT (formerly NECECi), Advisory Board member to the Global Sourcing Council, and was an Entrepreneur in Residence for NYSERDA. Tim is a graduate of Indiana University, where he earned two B.A. degrees and spent one year studying at Universität Hamburg. He later earned an M.A.E. with a concentration in Finance from the University of Michigan. Tim is fluent in German, proficient in Japanese and learning Korean and Swahili.
About Victoria Kennedy:
Victoria Kennedy is a product leader turned investor. She was a founding partner at Seed to Harvest Ventures, a pre-seed/seed stage fund that invests in women of color building software enable businesses using our product first approach. Now she is working on an opportunity to unite blended capital in order to build companies that solve big societal problems, tying financial return to solving these problems.