Victoria Silchenko, Ph.D.

Victoria Silchenko, Ph.D. is one of the leading alternative funding experts in the nation, an educator and a prominent voice in the entrepreneurial community on modern capital formation issues and venture financing tools, including crowdfunding, crowdinvesting and venture capital. She was one of the first supporters of the JOBS Act and has been at the forefront of crowd-finance since, helping to re-shape capital markets via educating entrepreneurs, publishing thought provoking data-driven articles & producing world-class high-end industry conferences and round-tables with think-tank themes. Recognized by the Los Angeles Business Journal as a Woman Making a Difference, she has been invited to both the White House and the UN Leadership Summit in recognition of her efforts. Victoria writes for the Huffington Post and is an Op-Ed guest writer for Los Angeles Business Journal, she has been also featured and interviewed by numerous other media channels including Forbes, Crowdfund Insider, Equities.com, etc. Dr. Silchenko is the founder & CEO of Metropole Capital Group which she launched in 2004 in Los Angeles, California to provide strategic and capital formation advisory services and since then she has served numerous startups and emerging growth ventures in a broad range of industries throughout the U.S. and BRIC. On a quest to inform entrepreneurs with fundraising opportunities given the JOBS Act development and to unite “entrepreneurial friendly” financiers, in 2012 she launched the first Next Generation Entrepreneurship and Global Crowdfunding Forum which later was rebranded as the Global Alternative Funding Forum, based in Los Angeles. The unique annual gathering has quickly become the premier event in entrepreneurial venture financing uniting FinTech innovators, investors, entrepreneurs and leading authorities from Wall Street, Main Street, Silicon Beach, Silicon Valley, Washington DC and around the world. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Californian Lutheran School of Business teaching an “Entrepreneurial Finance” course for MBA students, a course she created based on her years of related experience. Dr. Silchenko currently serves on the Board of the Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA), the oldest nonprofit in Southern California that supports and educates entrepreneurs, and she also chairs Global LAVA - a strategic interest group which she initiated in 2011 to unite capital providers and local entrepreneurs seeking to expand globally. She is also on the Advisory Boards of The California Stock Xchange & TradeUpFund.com. Before striking out on her own, Victoria worked at the Milken Institute, a leading economic “think tank” managed by Michael Milken. Previously, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher directly with Dr. Arthur Laffer (former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan) at Laffer Investments, a global economic research and consulting firm. Dr. Silchenko is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship and modern fundraising strategies for startups at numerous seminars and conferences including the Association of Corporate Growth (US), LAVA (US), Horasis: The Global Visions Community (Luxemburg), and Digital Hollywood (US), among others. Dr. Silchenko holds degrees in Economics and Finance from the State University of Demidov and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. She has also studied Business Strategy, Valuation, and Financial Modeling at the University of California, San Diego. In her spare time Dr. Silchenko enjoys studying Philosophy, Psychology and Behavioral Economics. She paints, writes poetry and is a classically trained pianist. Her first published poetry e-book, No Limits: Modern Poetry For Modern People has a five star rating at Amazon.