Speaking · Teaching · Advisory
I have built it and I have funded it.
Five companies founded, three exited, 80+ investments written. I teach founders the parts nobody explained to me, with real numbers instead of theory.
Speaking · Teaching · Advisory
Five companies founded, three exited, 80+ investments written. I teach founders the parts nobody explained to me, with real numbers instead of theory.
What I speak on
Every one comes from running the company, not reading about it. I bring real numbers and blur what I have to. Two of these are workshops, and in a workshop nobody takes notes because they are building the thing.
A working session, not a talk. Laptops open. Everyone leaves with two automations live in their own business: a competitor brief that arrives before they do, and an inbox that pre-sorts itself with replies already sitting in drafts. The pattern never changes. Connect, context, prompt, schedule, approve. Learn it once and you can build anything.
Most people are still copy-pasting prompts into a chat window. The shift is to stop using a tool and start building an org. Every model is an employee at a different pay grade, and the job is to give that team a desk, a voice and hands. I walk through what I actually handed over inside a brand that ships physical product, and the exact line I do not let it cross.
Five companies founded, three exited, and most of the mistakes made in public. The hiring order I would redo, the clause that made a company harder to sell, and the difference between the decisions that felt urgent and the ones that actually mattered. Built so the room can skip a year.
The patterns across 80+ investments made with my own money. What earns a second meeting, what makes me pass inside two minutes, and the thing founders bury in the appendix that I always go looking for first.
How founder equity becomes real money. Dilution, secondaries, and the terms that quietly decide who walks away wealthy. A salary is survival money. Ownership is the score. Nobody sat me down and explained the difference, so I explain it.
What it actually took to build Wander Beauty, and 5 SENS after it. Founder-led sales before anything else, the order I would hire in, the retail conversations nobody prepares you for, and the parts I would not do again.
What a room gets
The talk you have already heard is the one about believing in yourself. Mine is the one where I show you what a promotion actually cleared after discount, ad spend and returns, and why the dashboard said best day ever while the month came in flat.
I have run teams of one and teams of over 300. I have hired hundreds of people and I have unhired some of them. When somebody in the audience asks the uncomfortable question, they get the real number, blurred only where I am contractually required to blur it.
And in the workshops, laptops stay open. People leave with the thing running, not with a photo of a slide.
What organizers say
Rebecca MinkoffCo-Founder, Female Founder CollectiveDivya is an incredible speaker, founder and operator. She gives concrete, actionable knowledge, and her range runs from beauty to consumer to investing to AI. She is a true gift to our community.
Alison WyattCo-Founder, Female Founder CollectiveEvery time Divya has spoken with our community, they share that she was the most impactful and favorite speaker of the event. We get requests to bring her back time and time again, and that is because she delivers truly actionable advice with real efficacy and resources, all delivered with poise and efficiency.
Candy LeeProfessor, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Northwestern UniversityThe students thought hearing from Divya was the best of all the talks. She talked about her career, but it was her advice on learning and growth that made the difference. On the last day I asked them to name something they would take with them as memorable words, and many of them named Divya's.
Allison Esposito MedinaFounder, WillaDivya hosted an event for our Willa community and she was fantastic. She really knows AI and stays current on everything new coming out, and she has a knack for simplifying complex topics. Her energy is infectious. Everyone left feeling like they could tackle a new project.
Formats
30 to 45 minutes, conference or offsite. Built for the specific room, not a stock deck.
One hour, laptops open. Everyone builds live and leaves with it running, plus a setup pack with every prompt written out so they can rebuild it on Monday.
Founder and investor perspective in the same seat, which is the part most panels are missing.
Regular on CNBC, NBC and MSNBC, plus Good Morning America and ABC's The View. Comfortable live and unscripted.
Selective. Early stage, usually alongside an investment through Concept to Co.
Background
I guest lecture at top universities and business schools, and I am the author of Pitch Perfect: A Founder's Guide to Fundraising for Startups and Sexy Women Eat, published by HarperCollins.
Divya Gugnani is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and board member with over 25 years of experience. She founded five companies and exited three. She began her career at Goldman Sachs, then invested at Investcorp International and FirstMark Capital, co-founded Wander Beauty, and now runs 5 SENS, a clean fine fragrance brand that captures your mood, bottled. As Founding Partner of Concept to Co she has made over 80 investments with her own capital. Divya served on more than ten boards and has appeared on Good Morning America and ABC's The View. She holds a B.S. from Cornell and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and lectures at Harvard, Cornell, Northwestern, and NYU.
Get in touch
Date, format, audience and budget gets you the fastest answer. I read every one of these myself.
Goes straight to my inbox at Concept to Co. Not an assistant, not a form that disappears.