She Builds: FEMALE FOUNDER FIRESIDE CHAT + GATHERING
She Builds: Authentic Founder Stories with Female Leaders
The founders who change things rarely come from the expected places.
They come from Beirut and Bangalore. From engineering teams and corporate boardrooms. From countries they had to leave and industries they had to fight their way into. What they share is not a background. It is a decision to build anyway, on their own terms, in a world that was not always designed with them in mind.
She Builds is an intimate evening in Menlo Park where female founders from different corners of the world sit down and tell the real story. Not the pitch deck version. The one about what it actually took to get here, the sacrifices made, the rooms they were not supposed to be in, and what they figured out along the way.
Through a fireside conversation and open networking, you will hear from women who built through displacement, self-doubt, industry skepticism, and personal cost. And you will leave with more than inspiration. You will leave with a clearer sense of what is possible, and who to call when you are trying to do it.
Who is this for? 🎯
🎓 Students (especially at Stanford) in CS, engineering, business, and adjacent fields
🚀 Aspiring founders and early-stage builders in the Bay Area 💼 Early-career professionals in venture and startups
🤝 Women in tech looking for community, mentorship, and real peer connection
Schedule 🗓️
Cocktail party style food (sushi, tartlets, sandwiches, fruits...)
🚪 6:00 PM — Doors open and networking
🔥 6:30 PM — Fireside chat with founders
🙋 7:10 PM — Open Q&A
🥂 7:40 PM — Networking and closing
Speakers 🎤
Pallavi Gadepalli is the Founder & CEO of EnterpriseChai, where she's revolutionizing post-sale customer management through cutting-edge AI. With 20+ years in big tech — including roles at ServiceNow, Cisco, eBay, Microsoft, and HP — she brings deep expertise in product management and customer success.
Her career highlights include building the eBay checkout (saving $22M in costs), creating Cisco's Security BU customer success practice, and driving renewals at ServiceNow's SecOps division. EnterpriseChai has been accepted into Antler EIR, Founder University, NVIDIA Inception, and Microsoft's Founder Hub, and is currently onboarding beta customers.
Neha Gupta Founder and CEO of Breakthrough AI, a communication intelligence platform that objectively measures and develops communication capability across teams. Neha brings over 20 years of experience in client management, strategic marketing, and sales, with deep expertise in behavior change and gamification in fintech and consumer markets. She is on a mission to replace intuition-based talent development with measurable, data-driven growth.
Organisers 🏗️
Cheyoung Ahn Stanford freshman, hackathon builder, and venture associate at Springcamp VC. Cheyoung works at the intersection of computer science, economics, and HCI, building platforms that foster community and human connection. She brings a student founder's perspective to everything she does.
Val Siau Analyst at GFR Fund and founder of Hyphn, a mycelium-based sustainable packaging startup. Val works daily with early-stage teams on product strategy and go-to-market, while building her own company in parallel. She knows firsthand what it takes to be both an operator and a founder at the same time.
Rajvrat Thapliyal Founder of Menlo House, a Bay Area community helping Singaporean founders and immigrants find their footing in the startup ecosystem. Raj works across AI and space infrastructure, and is focused on closing the gap between research and commercialization in frontier technology.
Supported by 🤲
Springcamp VC is an early-stage venture firm known for being the first institutional believer in bold founders. With a track record of backing Korean unicorns from day one, Springcamp is now building a high-trust founder community centered on the Stanford ecosystem.
Menlo House is a community and hub in Menlo Park created by NUS Overseas College Silicon Valley students. Home to founders, operators, and students from Singapore and beyond, Menlo House hosts events and conversations at the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation, and cross-cultural exchange.