How to Incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals into Your Startup: Hosted by Impact Hub MSP

Former Minnesota Secretary of State, President of Global Minnesota and co-chair Minnesota USA World Expo Bid Commmittee

Nikki Love, NDN Fund Managing Director, is Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. Love is responsible for the leadership, management, and growth of NDN Fund, which provides loans and grants for large-scale Indigenous infrastructure development projects. Love is an accomplished leader in community development finance with nine years of experience. She has a Bachelor’s degree in history and education from Fitchburg State University and a Master’s degree in economics and public policy from the University of Chicago.

Silvia was born in Ecuador to a family of entrepreneurs, where she learned the value of hard work, creativity, resilience, and integrity. Silvia obtained her law degree in International Law and Arbitration while working on her own startup company, employing and training several women from indigenous communities.

In 2002, Silvia and her family came to the USA as a graduate student, earned her degree in International Intelectual Property Law from the University of Minnesota, and then re-joined the Ecuadorian Foreign Service. As a diplomat, Silvia represented the nation of Ecuador in Washington D.C. and in Minnesota for almost two decades. Silvia was the founder of the first two initiatives focused on protecting immigrants' rights in the Ecuadorian Foreign Service. Both, the Centro Vida y Salud and el Centro Legal provided free services to all immigrants and were established within the premises of the diplomat post.

During her tenure as a diplomat, Silvia also founded the South American Trade Forum, where she proposed and help establish the Ecuadorian Chamber of Commerce, the Minnesota-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and the Brazilian Honorary Consulate. After her retirement from the Foreign Service, she has served as a consultant on economic growth based on social capital to different organizations across North, Central and South America.

She is an alumni of the FBI Citizens Academy, where she started the task force for the Opioid Abuse Prevention Program. Silvia also co-founded the Center for Women in Leadership and Diplomacy and the Latina Leadership Institute. With a passion for sustainable development and providing opportunities to the most vulnerable, Silvia volunteers for many organizations focused on protecting immigrant and women’s economic rights.

Miki Huntington is an educator, speaker, facilitator, mentor, life coach, and military veteran. She served in the U.S. Army for 25 years before transitioning to a career in teaching. She is also founder/life coach at Miki Huntington Coaching & Consulting, where she specializes in energy leadership, intercultural communications, and development of actionable goals for positive impact as well as personal and professional fulfillment.

Terri Barreiro is principal at Cogent Consulting PBC, where she is consultant to nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, an adjunct instructor of Social Entrepreneurship at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and venture advisor to students at Carlson School of Business, U of MN. And she is co-founder of and volunteer venture trainer and coach at Impact Hub MSP. She is co-author of Social Entrepreneurship: the Journey from Issue to Viable Venture. She brings to her work more than 30 years experience as nationally recognized nonprofit and philanthropy leader and consultant strengthening the sector and improve human serving systems as well as a decade as founding leader and educator for an academic center dedicated to entrepreneurship development of college students.