ELISABETH L. CARDIELLO

Co-Founder and CEO

Infinitely curious, coffee loving, Brooklyn native. She had business cards at six and her first product on shelves at 13. As such, her identity formed in a way that was anything but normal. Her entrepreneur father ensured that on those cards, beneath her name, was the bold word “owner” and that she was empowered from a young age to think and act as such. She graduated from business school at the top of her class, spent time at Credit Suisse and a hedge fund, dealt with loss, found herself, found her passion, more loss, learned the meaning of post traumatic growth, started a coffee company (with a story you won’t believe!), gave two TEDx talks (#1, #2), started speaking in the US and abroad - still wondering where that shy 9 year old went...

She’s been featured by the United Nations, Worldwide Business with Kathy Ireland, Forbes, AMEX OPEN Forum, TEDx Normal, TEDx Fulton Street, GQ, NBC, Heritage Radio WS Radio and many more.

While growing Caffè Unimatic, Inc., Elisabeth started realizing just how much her Dad taught her all those mornings sitting around the family table drinking coffee. She began using her own story as the basis for research around what gave her the confidence to start something with no guarantee it would succeed. This research compelled her to co-found Legacy Out Loud, to pay forward this gift of confidence to young women and help them live the phrase "what the mind can conceive, the mind can achieve."

Currently, head-over-heels about: the power of coffee as a ritual, the universal potential it has as an agent of change, reverse engineering life starting with one's legacy and reinventing what “sales” means. She's famous for asking hard questions, Disney-character-like facial expressions and urging people to linger just a little longer at the table together, over coffee. Full bio.

Some fun stuff...

Instagram: @caffeunimatic

Early bird or night owl? Early bird!!

Morning routine:

Being an athlete growing up (I played soccer from when I could walk through college), I find that if I don't move, I can't think, so early morning Crossfit (5am or 6am) is my favorite way to start the day - getting to see the city before it makes up, intense movement that constantly humbles and teaches you, positive vibes and an amazing community.
Brewing a fresh pot of coffee in my Unimatic and listening for the gentle sound of the perk is sometimes the only quiet time I have before then day unfolds and I'm learning to honor it more and more.

Favorite author: Seth Godin, I'm lucky enough that he's not just my favorite author, but also a mentor.

Cooking or going out? Cooking!! It's the Italian in me...

Favorite food: Brussels sprouts, butternut squash soup, sweet potatoes... and ice cream ;)

Embarrassing story: After 10pm I turn into a pumpkin; no, but really... I may or may not be known to fall asleep in the middle of a party if I'm not up and moving. Yes, it's a consistently embarrassing story, and it's been happening since I was a kid.

DOAN WINKEL

Co-Founder

Coloring outside the lines. Immensely inquisitive. Deconstructing the box rather than fitting in it. Doan was hard-wired to figure out what makes things tick and why. Always pushing boundaries and struggling to fit in the traditional educational system, some would have said he was a difficult child. Luckily, his educator parents gave him freedom to explore, even if it was in unconventional ways. By high school, Doan was not only an entrepreneur, he was also teaching his friends the entrepreneurial mindset. Despite his frustration with standard education, Doan continued to pursue knowledge, and received his BS and MBA from Colorado State University, and his Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship and Organizational Behavior from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Doan’s passion for changing the value of education for future generations was fueled by his awareness that what he was learning in his one-size-fits-all educational system was not applied to the real world. This passion led him into his career path as a professor of entrepreneurship. Doan quickly realized that very few young women were taking his entrepreneurship classes. And, more importantly, he realized that the women who did take his class were more engaged and interested in the application of what they were learning than their male counterparts. He set off on a journey to understand why more women weren't learning and practicing entrepreneurship, and how to attract more women into the field. Doan spent a year interviewing nearly 600 female entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders around the world (one of them being Elisabeth!) to develop that understanding. This, combined with his belief that societal, generational change only happens by empowering young women, led him to co-found Legacy Out Loud.

Doan has shared his thoughts and process of teaching and learning with college and corporate audiences across North America and Europe, and on the TEDx stage. He has won awards for his research into gender and entrepreneurship, and was the first male recipient of the McLean County (IL) ATHENA Leadership Award, which is “presented to a woman, or man, who is honored for attaining professional excellence, community service and for actively assisting women in their achievement of professional excellence and leadership skills.”

Doan is committed to supplementing the educational experiences of young people. He is the founder and director of the Entrepreneurship Education Project, which gathers data from nearly 20,000 college students from 400+ universities across 70+ countries to better understand how to teach entrepreneurship. He founded the McLean County Unit 5's Innovative Entrepreneurs experiential high school class to offer students the chance to experience what entrepreneurship looks and feels like. Doan co-founded internrocket.com to help young people discover and pursue their passion as a career path. While serving on the Board of Directors of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Doan builds programming to give entrepreneurship educators tools to turn their classrooms into experiences. More recently, Doan co-founded TeachingEntrepreneurship.org, an experiential entrepreneurship curriculum being used by university students around the world, and founded and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Experiential Entrepreneurship Exercises Journal, which enables more active entrepreneurship classrooms through sharing, learning, and doing. As the John J. Kahl, Sr. Chair in Entrepreneurship and Director of The Edward M. Muldoon Center for Entrepreneurship at John Carroll University, Doan is developing the next frontier in university-based entrepreneurship curriculum and programming.