StartOut Names Andres Wydler Executive Director

SAN FRANCISCO, CA and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 14, 2015) - The Board of Directors of StartOut, the leading organization inspiring, educating, and supporting LGBT entrepreneurs across the US, selected San Francisco based Andres Wydler to lead the organization as Executive Director, effective immediately.

In line with StartOut's mission, Andres has been keenly focused on the LGBT entrepreneurs' needs and accomplishments. He brings nearly two decades of successful start-up experience to the organization, as co-founder, executive, angel investor, advisor, and board member. He also taught an acclaimed course on clean tech entrepreneurship at Stanford University's continuing studies program. As an active participant in StartOut events since 2010 and Governor a year later, he has built many strong relationships within the organization. Andres holds an MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and a JD equivalent (lic.iur.) from the University of Zurich's law school.

"Inspiring, networking, mentoring, and enabling access to capital, StartOut is dedicated to the success of our LGBT entrepreneurs," said StartOut Chair Patrick Grosso. "While we reach 15,000 entrepreneurs today, we are excited to see Andres leverage his hands-on experience and for-profit best practices to benefit our community. His leadership will be instrumental in further developing our programming, scaling the organization, and providing critical resources for our members."

Andres added: "I am grateful how our nation has advanced LGBT rights in recent history, and in a short five years, StartOut has had terrific success supporting LGBT entrepreneurs throughout their business lifecycles. However, too many LGBT entrepreneurs still cannot unleash their full potential, no matter where they live. It is a tremendous honor to build on the organization's achievements and expand the organization's reach nationwide. To increase our impact on the US society at large, we will help more of our highly talented, driven, educated and smart LGBT entrepreneurs to achieve their successes they work so hard to attain. Teaming up with the Board of Directors, and with the generosity of our valued supporters, I am excited to focus on the economic empowerment of our community and lead StartOut to the next level."

StartOut thanks its sponsors, including, Scott Miller Executive Search, Bank of America, Pillsbury, Morrison Foerster, J.P. Morgan, Deloitte, Lowenstein Sandler, Perkins Coie, SheWired.com, Silicon Valley Bank, The Advocate, The Social Edge, Nixon Peabody, Trinet, Foley; as well as the Kauffman Foundation, Kevin J. Mossier Foundation, arcus Foundation, and many more, for their generous and longstanding support.

About StartOut:

StartOut is the national non-profit organization dedicated to fostering and developing entrepreneurship in the LGBT community. StartOut empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to start new companies, helps current entrepreneurs to grow and expand their businesses, and engages successful LGBT entrepreneurs as role models and mentors for the next generation of business leaders. With six city chapters across the US, StartOut produces annually over 50 programs on education, networking, and access to capital, and mentors entrepreneurs, serving an LGBT network of 15,000 (and growing).

For more information, visit http://www.startout.org and follow @StartOut

For additional sponsorship inquiries or more information on our upcoming November 5 StartOut Awards event in San Francisco, please contact Andres Wydler at sponsorships@startout.org, or awards@startout.org, respectively.