Betty Melinda Ark Fung Wong is serial entrepreneur, new products marketer, educator, consultant, mentor and coach. Her clients, employers and board assignments have included startups (including her own), Fortune 500 level companies (Colgate-Palmolive, Mars, Johnson&Johnson, Honeywell, NYTimes), governments (New York State) and NGOS (GrahamWindham,World Education Services, CUNYBaruch, World Cares). Betty founded Stage2Startups in 2017 when she realized there were no organizations helping founders over 40. Betty attended Hunter High and Pratt Institute, and graduated with a BS from NYU Stern and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Emelie Smith Calbick built her career in financial services, holding a variety of senior level marketing and strategy positions at American Express, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.  After a successful corporate career, Emelie joined the startup world and became Chief Marketing Officer at the fast-growing startup, Placecodes, Inc., which was subsequently sold to Destini Global. Emelie is co-founder of Stage2Startups. She holds a joint MBA/MIA from Columbia Business School and Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs.

Launched in 2017, Stage2Startups supports Baby Boomer and Gen X professionals who are thinking about, or who have already left, their career path to successfully found and grow their own business or nonprofit. While we support all types of founders, we particularly focus on supporting founders from under-represented populations such as women and people of color.

Stage2Startups provides workshops, training and networking opportunities for every stage of your entrepreneurial journey, both in-person throughout the metro New York area and online nationally.

We all came by different paths to Stage2Startups. Betty didn't agree with the media and society's expectations about aging and retirement and wanted to make a change. We started Stage2Startups because we believe ageism has no place in the business world and that people, no matter their age,can do anything, including starting a business or social impact company.