Breaking the Tinted Ceiling in Tech

There are a handful of Black senior executives in the tech industry and even fewer Black female executives. The Blacks In Technology Foundation will spotlight the stories of four women who are paving a way for others as founders and leaders in technology.

Kunbi Tinuoye, Founder & CEO - UrbanGeekz (Moderator)
Kunbi Tinuoye is an award-winning British-born journalist and broadcaster based in the US and founder of UrbanGeekz, a groundbreaking video-centric African-American, Latinx, and multicultural digital news platform focused on technology, science, business, and startups.

Dawn Dickson-Akpoghene, Founder & CEO - PopCom
Dawn Dickson is CEO of PopCom, an automated retail company that uses facial recognition, A.I, and blockchain technology to help retailers collect valuable customer insights. As a serial entrepreneur with over 16 years of experience in marketing and business development, Dawn launched four successful cash flow positive companies since 2002.

Michelle Grover, Chief Information Officer - Twillio
Michelle brings over 20 years of technical experience to her role as CIO of Twilio. Overseeing IT as well as several engineering groups and teams, Michelle is responsible for up-leveling the company’s technology systems and processes as it prepares for its next stage of growth. Most recently, Michelle was SVP of SW Development at SAP Concur, where she led a 300+ global team of mobile and platform engineers.

Niki Allen, Sr. Vice President of Technology - Kohls
Niki Allen is currently SVP of Technology at Kohls. In her role Niki will lead the architectural system design, application development, deployment and integration for Marketing and Merchandising technologies. In addition, Niki leads the Data Platform & Analytics initiatives and serves as a key transformational change agent and champion to enable Kohl's Technology transition to a product centric software development organization. Prior to Kohls, Niki spent nearly 20 years leading IT at Boeing.