Our Team
Jenny Kassan
Founder
Jenny has over 25 years of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises. She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-aligned investors and raised over $2 million for her own businesses.
She is the author of Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul (Berrett-Koehler, October 2017).
Jenny earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and a masters degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley.
Jenny co-founded the Force for Good Fund, an impact investment fund managed by Community Ventures, a nonprofit organization that Jenny founded in 2008. She also co-founded Crowdfund Mainstreet, a licensed portal for Regulation Crowdfunding. Most recently she co-founded Opportunity Main Street, an impact investment fund that owns a mixed-use building in Baltimore which serves as a hub for supporting under-represented entrepreneurs and providing education about community-based investing.
Jenny’s legal practice, Jenny Kassan Consulting, provides legal services, coaching, and consulting for mission-driven companies, investors, and intermediaries and includes educational programs for entrepreneurs (the Capital on Your Terms program) and investors of all levels of wealth and income (Angels of Main Street).
Jenny served on the Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. She submitted the petition to the SEC that led to the passage of the 2012 JOBS Act and was present at the White House signing ceremony.
Before becoming a securities lawyer, Jenny worked for eleven years at a nonprofit community development corporation in Oakland called the Unity Council, where she served as staff attorney and managed community economic development projects including a $100 million transit-oriented development project and the formation and management of several social ventures designed to employ and create business ownership opportunities for low-income community residents.
Jenny co-founded the Sustainable Economies Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal information to support sustainable economies. Jenny is also a fellow at Democracy Collaborative. She is on the board of directors for CfPA (Crowdfunding Professional Association) and formerly served as a director of Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Jenny is certified as a coach by the International Association of Women in Coaching. In 2020 she was named to the list of World-Changing Women in Conscious Business by SOCAP Global.
Michelle Thimesch
Legal Director
Michelle has over two decades of closely-held business consulting experience as an estate and succession planning attorney. She has helped her clients create legacy and philanthropic planning goals that ensure the continuation of business and community involvement for the next generation. Michelle is the founder of East Bay Revitalization, Inc., a nonprofit that addresses the scarcity of affordable housing and economic opportunities for working families. She is also the CEO of Crowdfund Mainstreet, a regulated investment crowdfunding platform.
Rana Abu-Ragheb
Director of Operations
Rana has over fifteen years of national and international experience in finance, human resources, and operations management. Prior to joining Jenny Kassan Consulting, she managed the operations of several SMEs across several industries including sustainability consulting and software development. Rana co-founded and managed a social impact venture that aimed to provide access to books in underserved communities in Jordan. She holds an MBA from American University in Washington, DC.
Africa Archield
Director of Insights and Strategy
Africa is the founder and owner of Africa Archield Strategies, a business coaching firm and consultancy. She has over a decade of experience working with entrepreneurs and small businesses helping them streamline and scale.
Africa earned her EdS in Organizational Development & Change and MA in Adult & Developmental Education. She taught in higher education for over 20 years and spent over 10 years in the finance industry.
Michelle Richardson
Accountant
Michelle Richardson is the founder and owner of Leverage, a boutique cloud-based accounting firm for freelancers, startups and small to mid-size businesses. A senior accountant with over 15 years of experience, she is recognized as an early adopter of cloud technology for accounting and other businesses. Her areas of expertise include software integration, systems creation, complex reconciliations and financial reporting. Before launching Leverage, she worked in a wide variety of industries including publishing, wine import/distribution, online education, technology, digital media and non-profits.
In addition to her training in accounting, she received a BA in International Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. As a French-American, she is a board member of an association for developing the local French community, Los Angeles Accueil. A proponent for women’s education, she sponsors schools in Guatemala and is an avid supporter of women entrepreneurs in the tech industry.
Marin Dell
Attorney
Marin Dell has been a member of the California Bar since 2003 and has been on the law faculty, and an adjunct faculty member, of several US law schools for the past 15 years. She has an LLM in Taxation from the University of Florida Levin School of Law and graduated from California Western School of Law with honors.
Natalya Morgan
Chief of Staff
Natalya Morgan brings over eight years of program development, partnership management, and operations experience to Jenny Kassan Consulting. As Chief of Staff, Natalya manages Jenny’s meetings and events and provides support in marketing, client engagement, and communication. Prior to joining Jenny Kassan Consulting, Natalya worked at the intersection of experiential education and international travel, living in Tanzania and developing service-learning programs that focused on access to public health and education.
Amy Short
Community Engagement Manager, Angels of Main Street
An enthusiastic advocate for inclusive financial empowerment, Amy joyfully self-directs her retirement funds, supports investment crowdfunding, and empowers others through encouraging financial literacy and sound business practices. Amy is excited to take on the role of Community Engagement Manager for Angels of Main Street, a nationwide investment community for anyone who wants to learn about investing directly in business doing work they care about.
Find Amy at our Angels of Main Street meetings or through her consulting practice website: LovesCompany.co. She welcomes chats about how to bring more womxn in and how to democratize access to information around business opportunities.
Recent Blog Posts
Episode 20: Empowering Female Angel Investors With Suzanne Andrews
Suzanne Andrews is an angel investor and an ecosystem builder in the finance innovation space, with a particular focus on women and money. In this episode, Suzanne shares her mission to empower women and teach them to shift their mindsets so they can see themselves as...
What if I told you the only thing standing in the way of large-scale prosocial economic development was you?
Few people know about the potential of Investment Crowdfunding to save the middle class and bring back the unique character and charm of our individual states, cities, and towns. Investment Crowdfunding is a newer tool that allows the American people to fund the...
Episode 19: Compliance in Regulation Crowdfunding with Securities Lawyer Elizabeth Carter
In this episode, hosts Jenny and Michelle are joined by fellow securities lawyer Elizabeth Carter as they spill the tea on regulation crowdfunding platform missteps they have witnessed as well as the first major compliance action against a crowdfunding platform. They...
