Astia, a premier venture accelerator that targets exceptional start-ups with women on their founding teams, today announced that COO Katie Nittler will be speaking at the Stanford Women in Business (SWIB) Conference on Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 1:15pm in the Annenburg Auditorium. The panel is titled “Launching into Action: Taking the Bull by Its Horns”. It will be moderated by Mary Liz McCurdy and feature Susie Cranston, author of How Remarkable Women Lead; Traci Long, CEO of Ladies Who Launch; Lorraine Fox, former partner at Crescendo Ventures; Katie Nittler, COO of Astia; and Ruth DeGolia, Co-founder of Mercado Global.

The conference’s mission is to educate, motivate and inspire women to achieve success at every point in their career, whether they’re learning the ropes at their first, entry-level job or leading a successful company and looking to reach new heights. To that end, the conference features speakers who have reached these heights and are eager to share their stories, from recent graduates pioneering their own innovative start-ups to CEO’s of multinational corporations. The conference includes hands-on workshops intended to broaden women’s definition of the path a career can and should take.

The conference is free and open to undergraduate and graduate students and community members both female and male. For more information on Stanford Women in Business visit http://swib.stanford.edu

ABOUT ASTIA

Astia is a global not-for-profit organization with a distinct focus and mission – to uniquely source innovation by propelling women’s full participation as entrepreneurs and leaders in high-growth businesses, fueling innovation and driving economic growth. Guided by a proven philosophy that gender diversity is an essential element of innovation, Astia works with start-ups around the world as they access capital, grow their businesses, and hone the leadership skills of their founding teams.  The Astia model of engaging a community of experts to the benefit of the select start-ups it serves has resulted in an exceptional success rate: since 2003, 60 percent of companies that have participated in the Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or achieved an exit within one year of presenting, totaling more than half a billion dollars raised and 17 exits, including two IPOs.  Headquartered in San Francisco, Astia delivers programs for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, New York, London and India.  For more information, visit www.astia.org.

ABOUT ASTIA SPONSORS
Astia is generously supported by global sponsors including Microsoft; Cisco; SVB Financial; The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; Fenwick & West; Moss Adams; Wells Fargo; The Three Guineas Fund; Osborne Clarke; Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky & Popeo, P.C.; Deloitte; The Althea Foundation; Morrison & Foerster LLP; Iron Creative; Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal; Reed Smith; Tier One PR; AngelSoft; IF Communications; US Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management; as well as a number of premier venture capital firms including, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Asset Management Company, Intel Capital, Alloy Ventures, Apex Venture Partners, Opus Capital, Prolog Ventures, Illuminate Ventures; Garage Technology Ventures, Hamilton Lane, Levensohn Venture Partners; and the angel investment group GoldenSeeds.