Lab Advisory Council

Ariel Beck is a Junior at Harvard College studying Economics. She is the Founder and President of Girls Who Start International, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization with the mission to inspire middle school, high school, and college girls to become entrepreneurs and leaders. Since its founding in 2016, Girls Who Start has expanded to almost 60 chapters and over 5,000+ members across the country and internationally. Ariel built and now leads the national management team and Board of Directors. Additionally, Ariel developed a scholarship program with University Startups to enable underrepresented and socioeconomically diverse high school girls to attend social entrepreneurship, college counseling, and career development courses. Ariel was selected by the Helen Diller Foundation as a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awardee, and she was also awarded the Ellis Island Honors Society Beacon Award. Ariel is the youngest member on the Board of Advisors for the Lab for Entrepreneurship and Transformative Leadership at the Universities at Shady Grove. 

Bola Audena is a Managing Partner at MBA Growth Partners, a business advisory firm offering strategic growth and operational efficiencies support to organizations. Bola has over 18 years of experience in the management consulting field, with a specific focus on go-to-market strategies, strategic planning, and business process optimization. What differentiates Bola and MBA Growth Partners is the emphasis on sustainable and repeatable business performance, leveraging best practices, data-driven insights, and commitment to results to power her client’s growth and success. Bola holds an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

Craig has created wealth and established financial security for hundreds of clients. From individuals trusting their life savings with him to large institutional investors who see value in his unique investment approaches. Prior to launching Financial Investments Inc. (FII), Craig founded Kendall & Company, CPA's, and also served as CFO for Renex Corporation. 

FII has been recognized as an: 

• "INC 500" award recipient 
• "Fantastic 50" winner for the state of VA (2007, 2008, 2009) 
• 2007 was runner-up in "Small Business Success Story of The Year" by Virginia Business Magazine. 

Greg is an experienced entrepreneurial executive. He has served as founding CEO for four VC-backed fast-growth health-related product companies. As founding CEO of HT Medical Systems, he led the company through a $42 million merger with Immersion Corp (NASDAQ: IMMR). He has delivered over fifty invited lectures and keynote addresses covering business development, virtual reality, and medical technology. He is an author of numerous peer-reviewed technical papers and an inventor with eighteen issued patents. He successfully championed a Congressional appropriation funding a simulation-based medical training and certification initiative. He served as invited guest editor for the Proceedings of the IEEE Special Issue on Virtual and Augmented Reality in Medicine. He served as Principal Investigator on numerous federally funded research grants and as a referee/reviewer for government-sponsored and non-profit grants related to medical informatics and virtual reality technologies.

Kevin Beverly is the president of Social & Scientific Systems. Before joining Social & Scientific Systems, he worked in various technical and policy organizations, including Abt Associates, BAE Systems, Tracor Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation, PSI International, the World Health Organization, and the National Library of Medicine. His strength and experience in leadership, operations, strategic planning, project management, and sales and marketing has helped the company's recent growth. In addition to founding the Mildred Beverly Memorial Family Fund, which provides college scholarships for underprivileged youth in Dorchester County, Maryland, Mr. Beverly serves on the boards of the Professional Services Council (PSC), The Universities at Shady Grove, the Community Foundation of Montgomery County, Maryland, and is the board chair of CollegeTracks and the Bethesda-Chevy Chase YMCA.