Monica Wheat is a strategist, educator, and venture developer. Wheat is founder and executive director of Venture Catalysts, a nonprofit venture and ecosystem development group focused on investor and founder education as well as innovation hub, seed fund, and large-scale entrepreneurial initiatives for more than 30,000 attendees.
Wheat is also managing director of Backstage Capital’s Detroit startup accelerator, a four-city, global tech accelerator in investing three months and $100,000 in scaling startups for underrepresented founders. She is additionally the Techstars Startup Programs lead, heading programs in Detroit and globally. her work is featured in Crain’s, Huffinton Post, Black Enterprise, and Forbes.