Tigress Ventures

Tigress Ventures is a New York-based advisory and consulting firm founded in October 2014 by Ita Ekpoudom, rather than a traditional capital-deploying venture capital fund. Its mission is to engage, educate and elevate the next generation of successful women business leaders and investors. In practice, Tigress Ventures operated by tapping Ekpoudom's network to connect visionary entrepreneurs with seasoned professionals, hosting a monthly speakers series featuring thought leaders and industry experts, and offering private consultations with individual clients to help women scale their businesses and sharpen their leadership skills. Founder and CEO Ita Ekpoudom began her career at Goldman Sachs as an analyst in Credit Capital Markets and later as an institutional trader of preferred stock, before holding product management roles at TravelClick and American Express. She subsequently served as a Venture Partner at Plum Alley Investments, where she oversaw the investment pipeline for high-growth female-founded and gender-diverse startups, and was named a Kauffman Fellow in 2022. Ekpoudom holds an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Psychology with a certificate in Finance from Princeton University. She is now also a Partner at GingerBread Capital, where much of her active investing activity is channelled. There is no public record of a portfolio of direct fund investments made under the Tigress Ventures name, and this profile reflects its role as an advisory and leadership-development practice focused on women founders and investors rather than an institutional capital vehicle.