Carolyn Rodz

She got sued for funding Black founders.

Carolyn Rodz started at JPMorgan.

A rising star on the investment banking floor, closing billion-dollar deals in waste management, medical devices, and retail.

But one day she left it all behind to build her dream: a luxury retail brand called Signatures.

It landed in Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Bloomingdale’s. From the outside, it looked like a success.

Then it crashed.

“I knew very little about starting a company, and my first business failed. I was sorting through a lot of financial troubles and difficulties.”

She was broke and drowning in debt.

But she went back to work, paid it off, and built her next company: Cake, a digital media agency for global brands.

She built it, scaled it, sold it.

That sale gave her something she didn’t have before: credibility.

“The world opened to me,” she said. “And I started to wonder what if every entrepreneur had the same shot?”

So in 2017, she teamed up with Elizabeth Gore to launch Hello Alice: a digital platform built to support the very founders who are always underestimated.

Women, people of color, veterans, LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs.

The vision was simple: democratize entrepreneurship.

The results?
- 1.5M+ entrepreneurs supported
- $50M+ in grants distributed
- 92% of Hello Alice businesses are still running

And then came the lawsuit.

In 2023, a Trump-aligned group sued Hello Alice over a grant for Black-owned businesses.

Within days, two-thirds of their Series C investors backed out.

Carolyn and Elizabeth had to lay off 69% of their team.

It looked like game over.

But Carolyn didn’t blink.

“We made really tough decisions as a company. But nobody gets to dictate our future but us.”

She hired one of the top constitutional lawyers in the country.

Ten months later, they won. The case was dismissed.

And instead of moving on quietly, Carolyn made the lawsuit’s defense playbook public.

So no other founder would have to fight blind.

“Success in DEI means everyone knows they belong at the table. Everyone knows how to show up.”