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Who\\xa0is Jennifer\\xa0Ehlen?\\xa0\\xa0

Jennifer\\xa0Ehlen\\xa0is the founder of Brazen and Prosper Women Entrepreneurs\\xa0(PWE), two organizations aimed at advancing women-led companies. She is the CEO of Brazen Global and a Managing Partner of the PWE Startup Accelerator.\\xa0 Before making the entrepreneurial leap to focus on Brazen and Prosper full-time, Jennifer was a Director at Thompson Street Capital Partners, where Jennifer worked with senior management to help source and evaluate\\xa0investment opportunities for the St. Louis based $1.5B+ private equity firm.\\xa0 Prior to joining Thompson Street, Jennifer was the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Saint Louis University.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

Jennifer is an angel investor and invests in early stage ventures. She is also a member of Golden Seeds (NYC chapter).\\xa0 Jennifer serves as a coach, mentor and advisory board member for companies ranging in size from pre-revenue to $200M+.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

Jennifer\\u2019s favorite and most important venture is raising her four children with her partner Craig.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

• Jennifer shares her path from a small town in mid-Missouri in a socio-economically challenged family that provides a unique perspective where she has worked in and with the top 2% in private equity.\\xa0\\xa0
• Jennifer has been fascinated by intersectional feminism in entrepreneurship.\\xa0 She worked at the St. Louis University, has been an investor, raised a fund, worked in private equity and saw the differences between men and women in entrepreneurialism.\\xa0\\xa0
• Jennifer saw some research in 2012 about the state of women-owned businesses\\xa0and saw that St. Louis came in dead last, tied with San Francisco.\\xa0 She and her\\xa0colleagues had worked very hard at getting women a seat at the table and they were very frustrated by the reality and the study results.\\xa0

• Jennifer, through Prosper, raised a $3M fund to invest in women and\\xa0they built\\xa0an accelerator.\\xa0
• Realizing that the power is in the peer advisory groups, they decided to create\\xa0Brazen to\\xa0build the tools to create better peer groups and allow for global scaling.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
• Brazen operates in 7 cities\\xa0including\\xa0St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas,\\xa0Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit,\\xa0and\\xa0Philly.\\xa0\\xa0Their goal\\xa0is\\xa0to expand into more cities this year.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
• Brazen\\u2019s\\xa0flagship\\xa0program is the\\xa0peer advisory groups (growth groups).\\xa0 7-9 women\\xa0are in each group and\\xa0meet every month.\\xa0\\xa0They use\\xa0Brazen\\u2019s\\xa0proprietary software that provides a rigorous structure that allows the participants to feel like they are fully understood before their peers start to provide guidance and support.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
• Brazen is a for-profit organization and they license to franchisees.\\xa0 They have 50 cities that could foreseeably be a new Brazen\\xa0market,\\xa0but it comes down to the director and who is delivering the program.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

• At Brazen, they feel strongly about making sure that the directors understand startups/entrepreneurship/growth process at a deep level.\\xa0 They need to be able to speak about gender parity in an articulate, evidence-based way.\\xa0 The directors need to have a good network in the market already.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
• Brazen has found that the software for the peer groups is applicable across sectors\\u2026not just for entrepreneurs.\\xa0\\xa0
• Jennifer shares what has been most surprising about her journey over the last year.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
• Jennifer talks about how\\xa0quite a few\\xa0of their investors are men as they\\xa0see the financial opportunity in this space.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
• Terri asks Jennifer about what she is doing to temper the founder roller coaster.\\xa0 Her response is a lot of\\xa0self-care and she is no longer following her competitors\\xa0in order to\\xa0be focused on what she is trying to accomplish.\\xa0 Her team follows them for her.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

• Terri talks about how when she was going through a tough spot her executive coach reminded her that regardless of what \\u2018failures\\u2019 occurred or \\u2018down times\\u2019 existed in the past, I was able to\\xa0recover,\\xa0and this is so important to remember when we encounter tough times.\\xa0\\xa0
• Terri shared what she discussed with her executive coach about the comparison game and how easy it is to lose sight of your own goals. It is important to focus on your own journey and not someone else\\u2019s.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
• If Jennifer could wave a magic wand\\xa0to change something in this world, she would create true, total equity in the early stage capital space and have more women investing.\\xa0\\xa0
• Jennifer\\u2019s favorite founder resource is Brazen Global (of course) and recommends becoming a Brazen member.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

• AmericanExpress\\xa0article on women owned businesses:\\xa0https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/2012-american-express-open-state-of-women-owned-businesses-report/\\xa0

• Paul\\xa0Heirendt:\\xa0https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulheirendt/\\xa0
• Prosper Women Entrepreneurs:\\xa0\\xa0http://www.prosperstl.com/\\xa0
• Brazen Global:\\xa0https://brazenglobal.com/\\xa0
• Brazen Vault (resources);\\xa0\\xa0https://brazenglobal.com/category/blog/\\xa0
• Golden Seeds:\\xa0https://goldenseeds.com/\\xa0

• Pipeline Angels:\\xa0http://pipelineangels.com/\\xa0
• Portfolia:\\xa0\\xa0https://www.portfolia.co/\\xa0
• Astia:\\xa0http://astia.org/\\xa0

Jennifer can be reached via LinkedIn at\\xa0https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferehlen/\\xa0or through the Brazen Global website\\xa0https://brazenglobal.com/.\\xa0

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You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:\\u202f https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.\\u202f\\xa0

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.\\xa0

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife\\xa0and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.\\xa0