Staff

As the CET Program Consultant, Christy brings a unique combination of business planning, financial modeling, fundraising and business development experience to the Cortex Innovation Community. In addition to running CET’s flagship training program for entrepreneurs, Square One, she is responsible for an array of programs and services to support the entrepreneurs in residence at CET and throughout the St. Louis ecosystem. Christy is the co-creator and co-host of the Entrepreneurially Thinking podcast.

Christy started her career in nonprofit management and transitioned to social entrepreneurship when she co-founded the Mission Center, L3C. After a brief engagement with Visiting Nurse Association to lead its public offering, Christy joined CET in June 2015. Today, she works with entrepreneurs across a wide spectrum of advanced technology industries to promote the development of new high-growth companies in Missouri.

Christy is a member of the Forward Through Ferguson Board of Directors and an advisor to Mavuno, MEDLaunch and We Stories. She earned her Masters in Business Administration from Webster University and her Bachelors in political science from Montclair State University.

As program manager, Rikki is critically important to the development and coordination of CET’s programming for entrepreneurs.

Rikki comes to CET with 15 years of higher and adult education experience particularly in life-long and self-directed learning along with operations and logistics. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from Tennessee State University,  Masters of Public Administration degree from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and Doctor of Philosophy in Education degree focusing on adult education from University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Prior to joining CET, Rikki was responsible for daily and special operations at Harris Stowe State University.  Additionally, she provided mentoring, training and development of students through their college matriculation.  She maintained operational and capital budgets, developed internal process and procedure for programming, and maintained organization procurements. Rikki is extremely passionate in adult learning, evaluation, assessment, mentoring, leadership, training and development.