1. Haley Stauss enjoys vino with event organizer and Athena.LA founder
Morgan Sacco
2. Delicious savory appetizers from Hal’s Bar & Grill include fruitti di mare risotto, fresh salmon crudo, pork chop and wedge salad
3. Playa Vista resident Cat Chen of Skylar Body, the event’s keynote speaker
4. Elizabeth Barket, Kristina Medrano
and Stacey Lee network with other
tech-minded ladies
5. Sarah Comtois and colleagues chat
about growing ecommerce in today’s
ever-changing retail landscape
Women-in-tech networking group Athena.LA and Eric Thomasian of Playa Vista Tech hosted a sold-out dinner at Hal’s Bar & Grill on March 20, sponsored by Amazon Web Services. The evening’s featured speaker was Cat Chen, founder and CEO of the Playa Vista-based natural fragrance company Skylar Body.
When Athena.LA founder and Playa Vista resident Morgan Sacco moved from the Bay Area to L.A. three years ago, she found networking opportunities among women in tech to be comparatively sparse. Inspired by the group Bay Area Girl Geek, she launched Athena.LA last August to fill that niche.
Attendees mingled over wine and appetizers, exchanged business cards, laughs and career advice. While Athena.LA is mostly about networking right now, “Hopefully, we’ll move on to helping people get jobs or get promoted within their companies,” Sacco said.
More dinners are scheduled for May and June.
— Robyn Paris
Leave a Reply