Karina was born in Riga, Latvia and moved to San Francisco in 1988.
She is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, adviser, and educator. She spent more than a decade in Silicon Valley in senior positions helping companies grow globally. She also launched three ventures of her own, including WorldUpstart, a consulting practice focused on providing mentorship and advice on best innovation and commercialization practices to institutions around the world and helping international companies enter US market.
In addition, she launched and ran the AppItUP Challenge, a digital accelerator for mobile technology at the University of Pennsylvania where she managed a portfolio of 19 companies. She is now a Director of Business Incubation and Accelerator Programs at the University City Science Center.
She frequently gives seminars and webinars on a range of topics that may be helpful to startups including “Pretotyping,” based on the work of Alberto Savoia and Jeremy Clarke.
