The Denver Disruption 2.0

Ellen Winkler is a cultivator of possibility. As the Co-Founder and Partner of INDUSTRY and Q Factor, she has become an influential urban planner in the west. As a master designer, real estate visionary, and placemaking expert, Ellen leverages insight to understand community needs, delivering integrated solutions that elevate the quality of life for urbanites and businesses alike. With a talent for curating memorable activations and spaces, she is considered one of the founders of experiential design specializing in bringing client vision into reality. Ellen began her career as a civil engineer on large construction projects, later pivoting and developing specialties in large-scale event management, lifestyle media production, branding, and messaging. During her days as co-founder of Wink Inc., she represented the likes of Red Bull, Oakley, Audi, and Johnston & Murphy. This foundation led her and her husband to establish Q Factor, a contemporary development firm with their first projects including the visionary Battery621 and INDUSTRY. Ellen spearheads the experience-based design on these projects and how their impact can change a mindset and a city. With four INDUSTRY properties and counting (including Denver, Salt Lake, and Detroit), Ellen heads up all design, offering a personalized approach to every venture. Her cumulative career encompasses a deeply rooted set of skills that allows her to elevate properties, thinking holistically to deliver an end-to-end experience. Her entrepreneurial spirit led to the ownership and management of Drumbeat, an experience-based design firm that transforms spaces for large and small-scale companies alike. From companies like Comcast to Uber, AMG Bank, and more, Ellen’s design-thinking can be experienced at locations in Seattle, Nashville, Atlanta, Denver, Salt Lake, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Now growing from the evolution of the new-age workspace, Ellen has entered the urban planning world and finding her niche in pushing the idea of city development forward. Currently, she is heading design for over 30 acres of warehouse and blighted spaces in downtown Salt Lake City. These blocks will transform the city and set precedence for how city dwellers live, work, enjoy, and congregate in urban environments. As a community leader, her commitment to evolving people and places translates to an extensive resume of volunteering and nonprofit work. Ellen’s voice and contributions have strengthened the initiatives of many organizations including The Downtown Denver Partnership Board, The Denver Moves Transit Taskforce Chairperson. Her recent accomplishments include: the 2019 Women’s Chamber of Commerce Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Colorado, the 2018 Downtown Denver Champion Award, the 2017 Urban Land Institute Impact Award, the 2016 Denver Business Journal Thought Leader, and the 2015 Denver Business Journal Woman of the Year.

“I believe identity's moment has arrived. My mission is to make it the center of security.” In the past 20 years, Andre has founded and grown a number of successful software companies. Andre founded Durand Communications in 1993. The company pioneered the first online photograph database and Windows NT client/server bulletin board. In 1998, the company was sold to Webb Interactive. Jabber was founded by Andre in 2000 where he commercialized the Jabber instant messaging open source platform, creating the Jabber Software Foundation in the process. Today Jabber is used around the world by hundreds of thousands of businesses. Jabber was sold to Cisco in 2008. In 2002 Andre founded Ping Identity with a vision of securing the Internet through identity. Among his many contributions to the identity and security industry, he founded and chairs the identity industry conference, Cloud Identity Summit, now in its 7th year. Andre holds a BA in Biology and Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara and lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife Kim and two daughters, Parker and Samantha.

Stretching back to 2005, Jeff has more experience teaching Ruby and Rails than anyone in the world. Starting his education career with Teach for America in 2003, he’s taught middle school and high school, co-founded a middle school, and created Jumpstart Lab in 2009, Hungry Academy in 2012, and gSchool in 2013. Along the way he’s taught thousands of developers, taken nearly a hundred people from “no experience” to professional, and created over a thousand pages of instructional content. As the Executive Director of Turing School, Jeff designs the overarching instructional program, coordinates the instructional team, connects students with the community, directs the hiring process, and teaches full-group sessions.

Ryan is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parkifi. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA and is an avid skier, golfer, traveler and entrepreneur. Ryan’s favorite hobby is solving problems with technology… like parking! Fun facts about Ryan: he lived in Switzerland for a year in high school and has had his appendix removed twice. He is a computer engineer by trade, and an entrepreneur by passion. He has worked for Fortune 500 companies and startups, but his heart is in the startup world where he plans to remain. He has 10 years of experience in scalable software engineering solutions. Most recently he worked at SendGrid which he left early in 2014 to found Parkifi. Favorite quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke.

Matt Davidson is a tenant representation specialist in Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Denver office, where he provides brokerage, real estate consulting and lease negotiation services to occupants of office space on a local, regional, national and global level. With more than 15 years of industry experience, Mr. Davidson is an expert at assisting companies, ranging from startups to large multinational corporations, develop and apply their real estate strategies. He is particularly adept at advising clients that want to leverage their market position, gain workspace efficiencies and improve employee recruitment and retention rates. Prior to joining Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, Matt was a vice president with CBRE, Inc. where he spent 11 years in brokerage contributing to the growth of its Downtown Denver office. Mr. Davidson earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Davidson College.

David co-founded Zocalo spurred by a commitment to development that balanced investment returns, community impact and environmental respect. David focused on downtown development as soon as he arrived in Denver in 1990.  David’s first project was the Lofts over the Wynkoop Brewery. Since the Wynkoop, David established the vision for historic conversions such as the Downtown Denver and Downtown San Diego Courtyards by Marriott, which utilized the Historic Investment Tax Credit. In Denver, David was one of the first developers to work through, develop and sell deed-restricted, for-sale units at Silver State Lofts, a program that codified in the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance.  Since formation, Zocalo has quickly become among the best respected development companies in Colorado, recognized for thoughtful, innovative, well-timed and skillfully-executed projects.  As a LEED-Accredited Professional, David oversees all aspects of project development and management to ensure they meet project specifications, budgets and timelines.  As recognition, David received the Denver Business Journal's Developer of the Year award for 2012. David received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is interim board chair of the State Housing Board and was chairman of the board of directors of community jazz station KUVO and co-chair of the Downtown Denver Partnership's Housing Council.  David co-founded the University of Denver's Affordable Housing Conference and co-chaired the Conference's first five years. David has an appointment to Mayor Hancock's Task Force on Affordable Housing.  He received the Affordable Housing Leader of the Year Award for 2006 from the Denver chapter of the Enterprise Foundation.

Jeff is an Economist, and the Director of Development Finance – and currently oversees the Economic Vitality and Development Department at the City and County of Broomfield. He assists Broomfield’s leadership team in setting the direction and delivering community economic development programs and services in Broomfield. These efforts are specifically focused in business development, strategic and catalytic developments, attainable housing, and development finance. In addition, he provides information and analysis to support the City/County Manager and her leadership team to better understand the impacts of the economic factors and impacts on Broomfield. Recently, he assisted the City/County Manager in encouraging the redevelopment of the Flatiron Crossings area and establishing the Broomfield Housing authority, as well as resetting Broomfield’s attainable housing efforts. Prior to joining Broomfield in late 2019, Jeff was the Chief Economist and Strategic Advisor in the City and County of Denver, serving three Mayors and four OED Executive Directors, and supporting a number of the Mayor’s executive team. In these roles, he provided regular economic analysis and forecasts, and directed the business attraction and development, business lending, affordable and workforce housing, and neighborhood development program activities of the integrated community economic development program. Prior to joining Denver, Jeff was on the economic research faculty of the Leeds School of Business, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Chief Economist at the Maricopa Association of Governments (Phoenix metro) and the Denver Regional Council of Governments. He has taught graduate classes in micro- and macro-economics, economic development, urban market analysis and public policy..

Aaron Miripol has 20 years’ experience running community development and affordable housing companies. He has over seen more than $400 million in direct economic development, including over 2,000 permanently affordable homes. Aaron joined ULC in 2007 and leads this unique real estate company in partnering with a wide range of organizations in the Denver metro area on the strategic acquisition and development of land and buildings to preserve and enhance their ability to create sustainable benefits in underserved communities. To date ULC has invested in 26 properties totally $66 million, and ranging from vacant lots, to 600,000 square feet of nonprofit facilities, and preserving and developing over 1,000 units of affordable housing. Over 600 affordable units have come through the country’s first Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Fund for affordable housing, a partnership with Enterprise Community Partners, the City of Denver, Colorado Housing Finance Authority, MacArthur Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and FirstBank. In the last year over 10,000 people (more than 80% are low income households) were served by the ULC’s acquisitions and 600 jobs are supported by its real estate. Aaron is a board member of Wyatt Academy School; a board member for Housing Colorado (the statewide advocate for affordable housing); and PLACE, a national advocate for community development practitioners. Prior to his work at ULC, Aaron was the Executive Director of Thistle Community Housing, providing oversight on one of the fastest growing non-profit housing providers in Colorado. In his nine years at Thistle, the organization’s affordable housing production grew from 100 homes to 1,000 rental and ownership homes valued at over $70 million. Most importantly, Thistle grew from serving 250 people a year to over 3,000 people annually in need of affordable housing. Before moving to Colorado, Aaron worked in Baltimore running two inner city non-profit community development corporations, Southwest Visions and The Loading Dock. He was a Goldsmith Scholar in International Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has his BA in History & International Studies from Macalester College in St. Paul, and a Masters in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Liz Adams' entire career has been dedicated to work in the public sector and community service. She served fourteen years at the State Capitol – as both a policy analyst with an emphasis on educational issues and as an aide to two Colorado State Senators. She provided the senators with policy research, formulated recommendations about pending legislation, and provided constituent service to the citizens of Colorado. Liz also spent time in Washington, D.C. working in the office of Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), at the US Department of Health and Human Services, and at the Congressional Management Foundation, an organization that helped members of congress better manage their offices. Liz has twice run for public office and has worked on numerous candidate and issue campaigns. She has held leadership roles with several nonprofits in the Denver Metro Area and Colorado including the East Angel Friends and Alumni Foundation, Real Soccer Colorado and North Central Association for the Accreditation of Schools, among others.