Erika Lucas
Most capital still flows to founders who look and sound like the investors writing the checks. Boards that want durable growth are realising the incumbent playbook leaves real markets and real returns on the table. The commercial question is how to find and scale the companies the mainstream system keeps missing.
Erika Lucas, co-founder of StitchCrew and VEST Her Ventures, helps organisations see where growth sits outside the default investment map.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Erika Lucas
- Her accelerator, run in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017. She draws on live operating experience, finding and scaling founders that most capital systems miss.
- Her venture fund, VEST Her Ventures, invests in women-led companies in the care economy and the future of work. She brings a current portfolio view of where workforce shifts and regulatory pressure are opening commercial opportunities, and the market is under-pricing.
- She speaks the language of the full capital stack. As a former private equity Partner and as Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, she is fluent in public incentives, PE, VC, and bank credit, which matters for boards making complex allocation decisions.
- Her TED talk, “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot,” makes a market-sizing case for capital flowing to overlooked founders. That is the register that senior leaders and investment committees respond to.
- She operates from Oklahoma City, away from the coastal hubs from which most speakers on this topic come. For companies building workforce, consumer, or policy strategies outside a handful of metros, her ground-level view is difficult to source elsewhere.
Biography highlights
- Co-founder of StitchCrew, its accelerator with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017
- Founder and General Partner of VEST Her Ventures, an early-stage venture fund investing in women-led companies in the care economy and future of work
- TED speaker: “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot” (TEDxOU)
- Host of the VEST Her Podcast, examining the structural barriers to women’s economic advancement
- Board of Directors at Arvest Bank; Fellow at the Just Economy Institute; Member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association
- Former Partner at a US and European private equity firm; former Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure
Biography
Only a sliver of venture capital reaches women and founders of colour. The commercial cost of that pattern is usually understated. Whole categories of customers, markets, and operators are being systematically under-priced by capital that is trained to look in the same handful of places.
StitchCrew was built on that reading of the market. Co-founded with her husband Chris in 2016, it runs an accelerator in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned founders. The positioning matters. It sits in the middle of the country, not on a coastal hub, and the deal flow reflects markets that most East Coast or Bay Area funds never see.
The logic extended into investment. VEST Her Ventures, founded in 2022, backs early-stage women-led companies in the care economy and future of work, two sectors where demand is visibly running ahead of available capital. The fund came together in weeks. Two million dollars was raised in two months, entirely from women limited partners based in the middle of the country.
The throughline runs back through her earlier career. She was a Partner at a private equity firm with investments in the United States and Europe, and Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure. She sits on the board of Arvest Bank, is a Fellow at the Just Economy Institute, and hosts the VEST Her Podcast, where the repeated question is what it would take for American capital to stop leaving its most profitable markets untouched.
Key speaking topics
- Access to capital and overlooked markets
- Entrepreneurship and the new majority economy
- The care economy and future of work
- Women in leadership and ownership
- Venture capital and economic inclusion
- Economic mobility and public-private strategy
Ideal for
- Corporate boards and Chief Investment Officers are looking for the next source of portfolio growth
- Private equity and venture investment committees assessing deal flow and diversification
- CHROs and heads of talent building workforce and care infrastructure strategies
- Economic development agencies, chambers of commerce, and regional leadership forums are working on commercial inclusion
Audience outcomes
- A sharper commercial argument for investing in overlooked founders and markets, drawn from a live accelerator and an active venture portfolio
- A clearer map of where venture and growth capital actually lands in the United States, and which geographies and founder profiles it consistently misses
- Named sectors where consumer and workforce change is already running ahead of investment capital, including the care economy and the infrastructure of work
- A vocabulary for discussing inclusion in commercial terms, usable with boards, investment committees, and senior executives who are sceptical of fairness-led framing
Talks
A commercial case for investing in women and founders of colour, framed around the scale of the market opportunity most capital continues to miss.
Key takeaways:
- Why capital systematically mis-prices the commercial value of overlooked founders and the markets they build for
- How geographic concentration of venture capital creates blind spots that even well-resourced firms inherit
- What it takes in practice to build investment and support infrastructure outside the coastal venture hubs