- Email info@cooltechgirls.org
- Phone (614) 818-9061
As president of Lightwell Inc. – a leading Dublin, Ohio-based Information Technology firm that serves clients across the North America and Europe-Michelle leads the daily business operations in addition to developing and overseeing the company’s growth initiatives. Since founding Lightwell in 1998, she has been responsible for all aspects of the business at one time or another. Furthermore, leveraging over 20 years of IT consulting and management experience, she has assisted hundreds of Fortune 2000 organizations in developing and executing their global IT strategies.
Lightwell currently has more than 200 team members, with offices in Dublin, Ohio, Belfast, Northern Ireland and Fareham, England. Lightwell has been recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing privately-held companies for 8 years, including 2017. Lightwell is also consistently ranked in the Top 10 Central Ohio Women-Owned businesses. Before founding Lightwell, Michelle spent several years of her career working in global financial operations for Procter & Gamble. She holds a B.A. in Finance and Accounting from Miami University.
Michelle is a member of the Womens’ Presidents Organization, Young Presidents’ Organization and supports multiple organizations that specifically focus on the advancement of females and female entrepreneurs, including Women for Economic and Leadership Development (WELD), the Women’s Fund, and National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO). Michelle has been recognized as one of the “Forty Under Forty” leaders to watch by Columbus Business First and a Smart Business Magazine 2017 Smart 50 honoree. In the past, Michelle has been honored with the CVS Caremark Good Samaritan Award for Community Service, as a WELD “Woman You Should Know,” and a NAWBO Visionary Award winner. She’s been honored by the Small Business Association with the Small Business Person of the Year Award in Washington D.C. for the five-state Great Lakes region.
Michelle believes that each of us has a social, cultural, ethical responsibility to the communities in with we live and work and is very active in her community.
Lisa Shuneson is a Managing Partner and the Audit and Assurance Services Partner for Whalen & Company, CPAs. Additionally, she leads the estate and trust planning areas. Lisa has extensive experience working with non-profits and businesses in providing practical advice on operations. During her 22 years in public accounting, Lisa has worked with a variety of clients in diverse industries. This experience along with her depth of knowledge in taxation provides our clients with business planning of great value.
Lisa holds a Bachelor of Arts in business administration with a concentration in accounting from Cedarville University. Lisa is a member of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Worthington Estate Planning Council, the Women Presidents’ Organization, the Women’s Economic Leadership Development National Board and the International Women’s Business Forum.
Karen Sullivan is a fourth generation entrepreneur with a life-long passion for persuasive visual and written communication.
The first stepping-stones were laid on Karen’s career path as a child working in her family’s business. Stocking merchandise and directly selling to customers in a retail environment gave her an early appreciation for the power of prominent visibility and persuasive information which she applied, at a very early age, to store layout and direct mail designed to drive sales.
As a teenager, Karen garnered numerous national and regional awards for advertising design, photography, and illustration for the high school newspaper. These successes led to large-scale fundraising event management including press releases and television interviews, as well an invitation to be the first student speaker at the Bowling Green State University Journalism Workshop.
Karen graduated magna cum laude with a BS in Graphic Design from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning in 1989. While there, she completed 5 co-op quarters working in design, architecture and advertising and 1 quarter of international travel in Europe.
After college, Karen continued her education as she evolved from graphic designer to customer service coordinator to inventory systems administrator at Champion International Corporation, a Fortune 500 company. During this time, she also earned an MBA from Purdue University’s Krannert Executive Education Program, which included international study in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Sullivan Solutions LLC was formally established in 1996 to handle Karen’s growing freelance project load. By mid-1997, Karen was ready to make the leap from corporate America to full-time self-employment pursuing the work that she loves: creating compelling visual and written content for a variety of clients and managing their overall marketing strategy.
By the end of 1999, one her clients persuaded Karen to accept a contract for full-time management of marketing. This began a decade-long relationship with Univenture, Inc. during which time Karen developed the branding strategy for the UniKeep™ product line and managed a creative team. This included strategic messaging and tactical international implementation through a company spin-off, on-going product development, retail marketing, custom sales, and promotional industry marketing. Her work at UniKeep earned her several awards, including IABC Bronze Quill Awards of Excellence and Graphic Design USA’s Inhouse Design Awards.
Today, Sullivan Solutions serves a variety of service, manufacturing and retail clients that all have one thing in common: they want strong messaging and strong results.
Karen is a member of AIGA, the professional organization for design, and the National Association for Women Business Owners. She has served as the VP of Communications for NAWBO Columbus from 2009 through 2012 and was voted 2011 Member of the Year. She also volunteers as marketing consultant for Ohio Ministries of the Church of God’s Camp Marengo.
Karen is happily married to Patrick Sullivan. They enjoy their motorcycling, snowboarding, and ballroom dancing. They have one son, Daniel, who has filled their lives with guitar music, snowboarding, lacrosse, concussion clinics, utter fear, and extreme joy.
Purba Majumder, President and Co-Founder of Cybervation, a high-growth technology solutions and staffing company in Columbus, Ohio. With offices in the U.S. and India, the company serves clients nationwide with enterprise software solutions, custom software/mobile app development, IT consulting, IT and healthcare staffing services.
Under Majumder’s leadership, Cybervation has developed many innovative software platforms that were built without external investors but with extensive preparation and attention to detail. The company has offerings for different industries namely healthcare, food and hospitality, retail and procurement. The latest product, BistroUX, used by many local restaurants is a promising solution providing carry out/curbside ordering, gift cards, ecommerce, coupons, loyalty programs, reservations and much more.
As an organization, Cybervation is deeply committed to empowering girls and women for STEM careers through community-focused efforts and its non-profit organization, CoolTechGirls. In 2013, Majumder founded CoolTechGirls, a non-profit with a vision to expose school-age girls to a variety of academic and career options through hands-on activities and showcasing women role models.
An accomplished software executive with over 25 years of experience in software development, consulting and program management, Majumder worked in corporate America for over 15 years, including as a vice president at JPMorgan Chase and as a senior software professional with Sterling Commerce (now IBM).
Majumder and Cybervation have earned numerous awards and recognition for its business and philanthropic contributions: 2020 Business Diversity in Business Award, 2018 Volunteer of the Year Award by the Ohio River Valley Women’s Business Council; 2016 Proclamation by the City of Dublin in Honor of National Entrepreneurship Week; the Smart 50 Award in 2016 and 2017, the Columbus Business First BizTech Minority Business Award in 2017; the BizTech Outstanding Woman in Technology Award in 2016; the Smart Business Progressive Organization award in 2016; the Philanthropic Leader Award by the Ohio Asian American Commerce Group in 2016, and the First Corporate Caring Award in 2015. Sunny 95 recognized her as one of its 20 Outstanding Women in 2014.
Currently, she is a member of the National Board of Directors for Women for Economic and Leadership Development (WELD), the Enterprising Women Advisory Board member and member of the Leadership Council of the Women Business Collaborative. She received her master’s degree from the University of Toledo. She is the mother of two daughters and resides with her family in Dublin, Ohio. https://cybervationinc.com/
Roxanne Holonitch, Program Director of CoolTechGirls, brings a great variety of education and work experience to our team. For 22 years, Roxanne worked at St. Joseph Montessori School as Art Specialist, Technology Coordinator, and Accreditation Manager. She earned her BFA at the Columbus College of Art & Design and her M.S.Ed at the University of Dayton in Educational Leadership. Roxanne holds both a Senior Professional Educator License (Visual Arts K-12) and a Professional Principal License (PreK-12) through the Ohio Department of Education. While employed with CoolTechGirls, Roxanne is also an Adjunct Professor at Franklin University as a Student Teacher Supervisor.
CTG Program Planning monthly meetings are supported by volunteers from Cardinal Health STEM Team. We are incredibly thankful to the employees of Cardinal Health for being an integral part of our program since we started in 2013. Volunteers attend our events regularly. They have served as mentors and judges to middle and high school girls. In 2019, a group of volunteers from Cardinal Health served as mentors for the Dublin City Schools Franklin University CBUS Hackathon teams. Please learn more about our partnership with Cardinal Health here.