Community-driven. Entrepreneur-focused.
2026 SPEAKERS
2026 BVC Keynote Speakers:
Keynote: Jens Molbak
Building What’s Next: Finding Opportunity Where Others Don’t
Jens Molbak is an entrepreneur with a habit of recognizing patterns — spotting overlooked opportunities and finding new ways to put existing resources to work at scale. That way of thinking shaped Coinstar, which Jens founded and built, turning billions of dollars in forgotten coins into spendable cash and creating benefits for consumers, retailers, nonprofits, and government along the way.
Today, Jens is founder and CEO of NewImpact, a nonprofit that develops tools and frameworks to help entrepreneurs and organizations across the private, public, and social sectors recognize similar patterns, make better use of the resources around them, and design stronger, more scalable business models. He also coaches, mentors, and advises founders across startup and accelerator communities.
Jens is an avid hiker, backcountry skier, and enthusiast of landscape architecture. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Yale University.
Keynote: Laura Putnam
Building Resilient Companies in an Age of Uncertainty - Don't Fight the Water. Fix It.
Laura Putnam is a bestselling author, leadership catalyst, workplace wellbeing expert, and global keynote speaker who’s been pioneering manager-led wellbeing movements for nearly two decades. As founder of Motion Infusion, she’s worked with hundreds of organizations and trained more than 50,000 leaders to spark culture change that lasts.
Her book, Workplace Wellness That Works, has been a trusted playbook for organizations worldwide, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, MSNBC, and more
What sets Laura apart is her background. A Division 1 competitive gymnast, professional dancer, and public high school teacher, she brings unmatched energy and heart to the stage—flipping the script on wellness from personal responsibility to a leadership and culture imperative.
Panel: Funding Without a Formula: How founders can build and fund companies on their own terms
Moderator: Julie Harrelson
Julie Harrelson is a strategist and keynote speaker whose career is centered on helping leaders drive growth, innovation, and meaningful change. Often described as the “angel on the shoulder” to more than 100 CEOs, she has advised founders and executives who employ thousands across multiple sectors.
As Managing Director of eight Cascade Funds, Julie she made than 100 investments while becoming a trusted advisor to startup leaders. Before venture capital, she served as a founder and executive in six early-stage companies and as a strategist in a boutique consulting firm she founded focused on executive advisory work.
Known for bringing candor, humor, and humanity into conversations, Julie is a lifetime student of the human spirit, and TEDX speaker. She divides her time between the Oregon Coast, Portland, Vancouver, BC, and global adventures that inspire her work.
Ryan Comingdeer
Ryan Comingdeer is Co-Founder and CEO of Platformr, an AWS CloudOps automation and governance platform he launched after leaving Amazon in 2023 — the fifth company he's founded in a 25-year run as a CTO, entrepreneur and advisor. Along the way he's served as fractional CTO and technical advisor to dozens of startups, helping founders pressure-test their product strategy, build their first engineering teams and get to a fundable milestone without over-building. He's deeply invested in Central Oregon's startup ecosystem: he sits on the board of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, mentors through the region's accelerators and university programs, and is a frequent guest lecturer and judge for local student and founder pitch events.
Jessica Murrey
Jessica Murrey is an Emmy-Award-winning storyteller and international peacebuilder turned game designer. Jess spent years at Search for Common Ground, the world's largest dedicated peacebuilding organization. Building on the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated NGO’s expertise, Jess crafted a framework to train young movement leaders from Kyrgyzstan to Nigeria, Myanmar to Burundi, Colombia to Boston. She partnered with a behavioral scientist and a former Sr. Engineer on Pokémon GO to create Wicked Saints Studios. First to emerge from Niantic’s (makers of Pokémon GO) BDI incubator, Wicked Saints is building the world's first adventure activism game. World Reborn is a real-world activation platform wrapped in the immersive experience of a story game. It blends fantasy narrative gameplay with real-life changemakers to deliver bite-sized actions to help Gen Z improve their wellbeing, relationships, and world. Brands sponsor the irl quests and grant players real-world rewards for making real-life impact.
As CEO, Jess has raised over $5M in venture from Riot Games, Precursor Ventures, Reid Hoffman, and others, joining fewer than 100 Black women founders who have raised $1 million or more.American Business Journals named Jess 34 Female Founders to watch in 2023 by American Business Journals. Jess is the winner of the 2024 BTA Awards (Black Tech Achievement) for the "Force of Good Award" and a recipient of the GameHERs' "Trailblazer Award" in 2025.
Rich G. Carter
Rich G. Carter has spent his career at the intersection of industry and academia. In 2012, he co-founded with Mike Standen Valliscor, a technology-driven chemical manufacturing company. Valliscor products are currently used in the production of four on-the-market medications - including being the global dominant manufacturer for the final ingredient used in the production of fluticasone propionate (the active ingredient in Flonase). More recently, Valliscor has announced the production of a critical etchant (hexafluorobutadiene) used to make memory chips and the construction of a new manufacturing campus in Albany, Oregon. In addition to his role at Valliscor, Rich serves as Professor of Chemistry and Faculty Lead for Innovation Excellence at Oregon State University where he leads a national effort to increase the rate of commercialization of university discoveries known as Promotion & Tenure - Innovation & Entrepreneurship (PTIE).
EMCEE
Shanan Kelley
Shanan Kelley is a professional emcee, auctioneer, writer and comedian. She is known for her magnetic energy and heart-centered and humorous approach to live events, creating meaningful experiences for audiences across the country. She lives in Oregon with her two long-eared, short-legged dogs.
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