Victoria Silchenko, Ph.D. is one of the leading alternative funding experts in the United States, an economist turned entrepreneur and adviser, known for being at the forefront of next-generation, impact-driven venture financing models in the new digital era. She has authored numerous articles for the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Business Journal, and CrowdfundInsider, among other industry media, and been invited to the White House as a “crowdfunding champion.” As a prominent international speaker, Dr. Silchenko’s lecture tours have taken her to countries such as Brazil, Zambia, Kyrgyzstan, and India as well as to her homeland of Russia, where she grew up in the first-generation there that enthusiastically embraced capitalism and the market economy. She is the founder of the consulting boutique, Metropole Capital Group, and the World Funding Summit, both based in Los Angeles, and serves as a visiting professor at the California Lutheran University (CLU) School of Management, where she teaches Entrepreneurial Finance to MBA students. Dr. Silchenko has served on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA) and is currently on the Advisory Board of The California Stock Exchange. Before heading down the entrepreneurial path, she worked with Dr. Arthur Laffer (the “father” of supply-side economics) and at the Milken Institute, a non-profit led by Michael Milken (the inventor of high-yield bonds).