The Technical Edge for Female Founders
The Technical Edge for Female Founders
How to Build, Scale, and Lead Elite Engineering Teams (Without a Traditional Tech-Bro Co-Founder)
Silicon Valley tells founders that to build a massive tech company, you need a traditional, male, local CTO co-founder from day one.
We are here to bust that myth.
For female founders—especially non-technical solo founders—building a scalable product, vetting technical talent, and managing engineering culture is one of the steepest mountains to climb. How do you scale robust software without losing control of your roadmap, overpaying for local talent, or burning out?
Join Sisters Female Founders Initiative for an exclusive, hard-hitting panel discussion designed to give you ultimate tech sovereignty.
🔥 Featured Panel Discussion
We are bringing together a powerhouse panel of trailblazing female founders, elite engineering leaders, and technical architects who have actually built and scaled massive systems from the ground up.
Manju Abraham, ex-VP of Engineering at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Manju Abraham is a seasoned product operations executive and technical leadership catalyst with extensive experience leading strategic engineering initiatives in Silicon Valley. Currently serving as VP of engineering at Bottega8, former Vice President of Engineering at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, she specializes in driving organizational transformation, aligning large-scale product strategy with technical execution, and scaling high-performing enterprise development teams. Beyond her corporate leadership roles, Manju is an active speaker, leadership coach, and advocate dedicated to building inclusive engineering cultures and empowering underrepresented leaders in the technology ecosystem.
Claudia Chandra, ex-CPO at Honeywell Connected industries
Claudia Chandra is a dynamic technology executive and B2B SaaS leader specializing in data management, enterprise architecture, and artificial intelligence integration. As the Chief Product Officer at Honeywell Connected Industries, she used to oversee global product portfolios focusing on industrial data infrastructure, optimization, and Agentic AI applications . Her extensive executive track record includes serving as CPO of Industrial Data, AI, Edge Platform & Analytics at Rockwell Automation, along with senior leadership roles at Oracle and Informatica. Claudia holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and is widely recognized for her expertise in scaling complex software ecosystems from lab environments to multi-national deployments.
Varsha Neelesh, CTO at Syncari
Varsha Neelesh is a founding engineering leader with 20+ years of experience building and scaling SaaS, data, and AI platforms. She brings deep expertise in AI, platform infrastructure, and building high-performing engineering teams from 0→1. Her platform work spans a multi-tenant enterprise system handling 300B+ records and 2B events/month across 100+ integrations. She pairs deep distributed-systems expertise with a product-oriented approach to applying LLMs to complex enterprise workflows.
Vera Maslova, Head of Growth & Partnerships at Howdy.com (Host/Moderator)
Vera Maslova is a partnerships and ecosystem leader working at the intersection of technology, talent, and entrepreneurship. As Head of Growth & Partnerships at Howdy, she builds relationships with founders, CTOs, engineering leaders, and investors, helping companies access exceptional global technical talent and build strong engineering teams.
She has led 300+ curated gatherings with 50,000+ attendees and built collaborations with organizations including Mastercard, Nissan, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation. Her work centers on creating high-trust communities that bring the right people together and turn meaningful conversations into lasting partnerships.
Vera is particularly interested in how female founders can build, lead, and scale world-class technical teams, access global engineering talent, and gain greater confidence and autonomy in technical decision-making.
Assel Seitova, Founder at Sisters Capital VC & Sisters Female founders community (Host/Moderator)
Assel Seitova is an experienced finance and venture capital professional with over 20 years of leadership across private equity, cross-border M&A, and startup ecosystems. As a CFA charterholder and graduate of the Venture Capital Accelerator Lab (VC Lab), she is the driving force behind Sisters Female Founders Initiative, a global community connecting early-stage founders to Silicon Valley expertise, capital networks, and structural mentorship. Alongside the community, she leads Sisters Capital, a dedicated venture fund focusing on empowering women-led startups and connecting global resources to cross-border opportunities
In this unfiltered, strategic discussion, our speakers will share their raw strategies on how they bypassed traditional Silicon Valley biases, took control of their codebases, and built world-class engineering teams.
What we will explore:
How to confidently lead a technical organization and own your product roadmap without being a coder.
Modern frameworks for vetting elite technical partners and finding top-tier global talent.
Overcoming the "traditional CTO requirement" bias to build enterprise-grade software on your own terms.
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Welcome & Interactive Networking
6:00 PM – 7:00PM: Live Panel Discussion & Audience Q&A
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM: Drinks, Bites & Community Networking
🎟️ Secure Your Spot
Spaces are limited to ensure high-quality networking and deep-dive audience interaction during the Q&A. Register today to lock in your spot and gain the ultimate technical edge for your startup journey.
🏛 About the Host
Sisters Female Founders is a global community empowering women founders to build globally competitive startups.
We connect founders to Silicon Valley expertise, capital, and networks through curated experiences, mentorship, and pitch opportunities.
📧Info@sistersfemalefounders.com
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Sponsors:
Nixon Peabody works with startups from formation through financing, growth, and exit. Their practice supports early-stage founders on the legal and strategic decisions that matter most, including company formation, fundraising, investor relationships, governance, and scaling.
Community partner:
Funding Breakthrough Lab is a 501(c)(3) women-led nonprofit pre-accelerator with a mission of creating a supportive 25K+ community to build a better tomorrow. We empower founders with education, networks, and resources to unlock their potential while championing diversity, inclusion, and authenticity. Founded by Natalie Pan, an engineer, community builder and executive coach. Donate here to support more women and underserved founders.
Note:
The parking garage is open to any guest to park in. They will pull a ticket upon arrival and then pay for parking at time of departure (we do not validate parking). There is a parking machine on the ground level of embarcadero One. So from garage, take elevator to ground floor then take escalator to lobby level to enter the building.