Susan Coleman is a professor of finance at the University of Hartford located in West Hartford, Connecticut. She teaches courses in entrepreneurial and corporate finance at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Coleman's research interests include entrepreneurial and small business finance. She has published extensively on the topic of financing women-owned firms and is frequently quoted in the business press. Dr. Coleman is currently writing a book (with Alicia Robb) entitled A Rising Tide: Financing Strategies for Women-Owned Firms.

Alicia Robb is a senior research fellow with the Kauffman Foundation, a research associate with the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a visiting scholar with both the Center for European Economic Research (Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung [ZEW]) in Mnnheim, Germany, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Her main research interests are entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, entrepreneurship by women and minorities, and entrepreneurship in emerging markets. Dr. Robb received her MS and PhDd in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously worked as a staff economist for an economic consulting firm and as an economist for the Office of Economic Research in the Small Business Administration and for the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board for Governors. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, she is the co-author of Race and Entrepreneurial Success, published by MIT Press, and is currently working on her second book on entrepreneurial finance and women-owned businesses for Stanford University Press.