Speaker #3 Name: C. Holly Wilbanks

Speaker Title: Founder and Principal

Speaker Company: The Wilbanks Consulting Group

Speaker Bio: Holly Wilbanks empowers individuals to achieve their career goals through strategic career coaching and exploration. She has helped individuals from a variety of industries transition to new opportunities, including professionals in oil & gas, legal, life sciences, medicine, teaching, sales & marketing, and more. Prior to starting Wilbanks Consulting Group, Holly worked in recruitment, professional development, and admissions in the US and abroad.

Event Description/Presentation Abstract:  Forming a Diverse and Cohesive Startup Team: Recent data confirms that diverse and cohesive teams out perform their competition. Learn what makes a diverse and cohesive team, best practices for identifying team members, and how to properly onboard and develop them in this interactive workshop.

Speaker#1  Name: Paula Waggoner-Aguilar

Speaker Title: President and Founder

Speaker Company: The Energy CFO

Speaker Bio: Paula Waggoner-Aguilar is an entrepreneur, award winning CFO, and an expert in entrepreneurial finance.  She works for The Energy CFO® providing consulting, interim, and permanent fractional CFO leadership to owners of private energy, technology, and industrial sector companies.  The Energy CFO® has a suite of customized CFO solutions to help clients startup, grow, change, fix, and turnaround their businesses.  Paula has been awarded BEST CFO for Private Medium Companies and Who’s Who in Energy (2015 & 2016) by the Business Journal for her efforts. Paula is an accomplished senior finance executive with more than 20+ years’ energy experience.  Paula has worked for Lewis Energy Group, Buckeye Partners, BHP Billiton, GDF Suez, Duke Energy, Enron International, and Halliburton.  She is a graduate of The University of North Texas (MS Taxation), The University of Texas at Arlington (BBA Accounting), a Texas CPA, and a member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators. 

Event Description/Presentation Abstract: 

Financial Leadership for Energy and Technology Companies:

Join our CFO as she shares stories of individuals’ leap to entrepreneurship and business ideas for engineers, thoughts on starting a company from scratch, and share how clients bootstrap businesses.  Paula will also talk about where startups get early funding, creative perspectives on leveraging outsourced resources, what are some of the mistakes she sees people make, and opportunities commonly overlooked.  Likewise, she will talk about the differences between finance and accounting, share her own experience and opinions with regards to financial leadership for private companies and what finance tools you need to start and run your business the first couple of years. 

Speaker #2 Name: George Amanzio

Speaker Title: Director of Advisory Services, Small Business Development Center, C.T. Bauer College of Business

Speaker Company:  University of Houston

Speaker #2 Bio: George Amanzio has a unique blend of commercial lending, marketing and technical experience. He has worked as Vice President of Commercial and Small Business lending for such companies as Bank Atlantic, Florida Community Bank and Amegy Bank of Texas. Previously, George was a member of the U.S. Navy and has been part of the Navy Reserves for over 20 years. George holds a Bachelors in Business Administration from Northwood University. He also has specialized certifications focusing on sales management, credit analysis, and leadership. George is also Certified as a SBDC Global Director. 

Event Description/Presentation Abstract:

Review of courses offered by University of Houston Small Business Development Center:  The University of Houston, Small Business Development Center (SBDC) will be presenting on the business advising services and business workshops available to all entrepreneurs in the SBDC network.