Meet The Team

Sherry Deutschmann

Founder and CEO

Sherry Deutschmann is a serial entrepreneur, author, and passionate advocate for entrepreneurship. In 2019, Sherry founded BrainTrust, a company dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

Prior to founding BrainTrust, Sherry was founder and CEO of LetterLogic, Inc., a company she grew to $40 Million and sold in 2016. LetterLogic was named an INC 5000 company (one of the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the US) for ten consecutive years.

Sherry attributes the success of LetterLogic to its unique culture in which the needs of the employees came before those of the customer or shareholder. That culture led Sherry and LetterLogic to be featured in the New York Times, Forbes Magazine, Business Leaders, INC, and Fast Company. Sherry was honored by President Barack Obama as a White House Champion of Change in 2016. Sherry’s book, Lunch with Lucy – Maximize Profits by Investing in your People, was released in March 2020 and received national honors, winning both the 2021 Gold Foreword Indies Business Book Award and the 2021 Bronze Axiom Business Book Award.

Stefanie Diaz

Chief Revenue Officer

Stefanie Diaz brings two decades of experience as an operator, investor, and ecosystem builder to her role as Chief Revenue Officer. She came to this role because she has lived every version of it: as a founder who needed this community, an ecosystem builder who created spaces like it, and a venture investor who funded companies built for and led by women.

Before joining BrainTrust, Stefanie led innovation and venture strategy inside a major health system, managing a $100M+ corporate venture portfolio and deploying capital into companies building the future of women’s health. She has contributed to $100M in revenue growth, coached more than 100 founders on go-to-market strategy and capital readiness, hosted nearly 200 podcast episodes, and spoken on stages from SXSW to the White House Women’s Health Initiative.

A Latina, mother, mentor, and dancer who still performs flamenco in her 40s, Stefanie believes the best choreography, whether on stage or in a boardroom, requires holding structure and feeling deeply at the same time. She brings that same energy to growing BrainTrust: building the systems that scale while staying close to the women whose lives this community changes.

Josh Bowling

Chief Financial Officer

Josh Bowling brings hands-on leadership experience across every stage of early-stage growth, from Series A through Series C, spanning industries including SaaS, fintech, media, hospitality, and healthcare. With roots in banking and public accounting, he has spent his career as a founder and executive in finance and operations, building a reputation for identifying and fixing the root cause bottlenecks across people, processes, and tools that hold growing organizations back.

Josh creates environments where people work to their unique abilities, free to execute without fear, and where collaborative problem-solving and diverse perspectives drive better decisions. That approach has earned him repeated invitations from top leaders and board members to advise, invest in, and rejoin their ventures, a testament to the trust he builds everywhere he goes.

He brings that same operational rigor and people-first mindset to BrainTrust, ensuring the organization has the infrastructure, alignment, and momentum to scale with integrity.

Laurel Graefe

Fractional Chief Strategy Officer

Laurel Graefe is an economist, founder, and strategic advisor who built her career guiding leaders through the forces that shape markets and communities.

Before BrainTrust, Laurel spent two decades at the Federal Reserve, most recently as Nashville Chief and Regional Executive for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, leading policy and research across the Southeast and building deep relationships across the country’s financial, civic, and corporate worlds. In 2025 she founded Navora Advisory, counseling founders, boards, and investors on growth strategy and long-term value creation. She’s brought her work to public company boardrooms and the Bretton Woods 75th anniversary stage, been published in the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, and co-authored a book on the politics of oil. Laurel serves on boards spanning healthcare, housing, technology, and economic development. She holds a degree in economics from Agnes Scott College, an MBA from Vanderbilt’s Owen School, and executive credentials from Harvard and Stanford.

A rock climber, a novice welder, and a devoted community builder, Laurel is most at home where economic opportunity meets human well-being. At BrainTrust, she gets to put that to work for women building real companies, real jobs, and real wealth.

Holland Nix

VP of Member Experience

Holland Nix is an entrepreneur at heart. Prior to joining BrainTrust, she spent over 25 years forging a successful path in the male-dominated music industry. As former CEO and Founder of her own artist management agency “Anger Management”, she understands the unique nuances, challenges, and rewards that come with owning a business.

It was Holland’s passion for supporting local artists that inspired her to leave a stable management position to start her own company. Not only could she create the work/life balance she craved, but she was able to give local rock bands a platform for creativity and growth that took them from Nashville to a global market performing from Japan to Moscow’s Red Square. And her influence hasn’t stopped there.

She’s used her experience and insights to coach women in business through peer-to-peer sharing, moderated forums, strategic planning and consulting. Holland’s impact continues here at BrainTrust. She’s responsible for executing and directing operations while ensuring the team and members are able to wholeheartedly execute the BrainTrust core values.

Jess Johnson

VP of Marketing

Jess Johnson brings 15+ years of dynamic experience growing brands and building communities in female-forward industries including wellness, fitness, and real estate. Working alongside bold, creative women throughout her career has helped shape a business philosophy centered around clarity, authenticity, and meaningful connection.

As a Bay Area–based working mom of two, Jess understands the realities of building an ambitious career alongside a full life, and she brings that perspective into how she helps organizations scale sustainably.

As VP of Marketing, Jess is focused on creating clear pathways for the right women to discover this community, feel aligned with its mission and growth method, and take the next step toward reaching their business goals.

Carter Koontz

Chief of Staff

Carter Koontz serves as a strategic partner to BrainTrust’s leadership team, driving organizational initiatives, managing complex projects, and ensuring the work that matters most gets done with clarity and momentum.

Since joining BrainTrust, she has been instrumental in building the operational foundation that makes scaling possible, bridging communication across the team and removing the bottlenecks that slow growing organizations down.

She came to BrainTrust with a background in marketing, sales, and event planning from the professional sports industry, and before that, a competitive edge honed as captain of her college lacrosse team. Carter brings that same drive and love for community to BrainTrust every day, creating an environment where women business owners feel welcomed, supported, and set up to grow.

Em Wilder

Nashville Market Leader

With over a decade of experience in people leadership, program design, and community engagement, Em has made a career out of building communities that actually move people forward.

Before moving to Nashville with her family in 2023, she spent that decade developing innovative educational experiences for K-12 students across Chicagoland, including launching an entrepreneurship-focused high school program and a summer accelerator for young founders, closing opportunity gaps from the classroom to the startup. Over the following two years, she led the Twendé Program at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, working closely with more than 150 founders and growing it into the NEC’s largest accelerator community with impact across Middle Tennessee and the state.

A partner, parent, and connector, Em is passionate about welcoming women business owners into BrainTrust and supporting them as they grow.

Laurie Schible

Charlotte Market Leader

Laurie Schible leads the Charlotte BrainTrust community with the kind of credibility that only comes from having walked the path herself. After 20 years as a corporate executive in sales, marketing, and global brand leadership, she became a Master Certified Executive Coach in 2017 and has spent the years since helping high-achieving women unlock the success, wealth, and life they are capable of.

What sets her apart is the breadth she brings to every engagement: a transformative blend of neuroscience, somatic bodywork, holistic wellness, and leadership development, grounded in mindset mastery and emotional intelligence and sparked by her improv and performance background at Charlotte Comedy Theater.

She meets members not just where they are, but where they are ready to go, and carries a deep belief in what becomes possible when high-achieving women are fully supported and challenged to grow.

Raechele Smalls

Atlanta Market Leader

Raechele Smalls is an architect of high-trust networks operating at the intersection of venture capital, entrepreneurship, economic development, and wealth creation. For more than a decade, she has helped founders access capital, investors discover opportunities, and institutions build the infrastructure required to accelerate innovation and economic growth.

Today, Raechele serves as the Atlanta Market Leader for BrainTrust, where she leads market growth, strategic partnerships, and member engagement to help women entrepreneurs build profitable companies and scale their impact. Previously, she served as the Founding Director of Invest Blue, a university-affiliated angel investment network, and held leadership positions with Lightship Foundation and Endeavor.

Raechele holds an MBA from Eastern Kentucky University and has completed executive education programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, and 500 Global. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and son.

Lauren Cierzan

Executive Assistant

Personally and professionally, Lauren is driven by creative impulse and a deep curiosity. Time spent as a freelance illustrator has allowed her to apply and nurture both, as well as cultivate the tenacity necessary for operating a small business. With years of experience in service and administrative positions, she’s similarly channeled these skills into collaborating with and supporting teams and clients, developing a keen sense of organization, attention to detail and knack for troubleshooting in the process. Playing the part of Swiss Army knife is her ideal. Whether it’s honing a new skill to bolster a project or puzzling out how best to help someone realize their vision, she enjoys being able to bridge the gaps and assist in any way that’s needed.

Regardless of role, her work is always rooted in a desire to be continually learning, growing and enabling those around her to do the same.

Erin Frase

Account Executive, Charlotte

Erin Frase serves as the Account Executive for BrainTrust’s Charlotte market, a role that is especially meaningful to her as a Charlotte native. With more than five years of corporate sales experience, she is passionate about connecting and empowering female founders, business owners, and leaders throughout the region. Focused on growing brand awareness and membership within the Charlotte community, Erin helps women build meaningful relationships, expand their networks, and access the support needed to grow both personally and professionally. She believes that genuine connection is one of the most powerful catalysts for success and approaches her work with authenticity, curiosity, and a people-first mindset.

Outside of BrainTrust, Erin grew up on Lake Wylie in South Carolina, where she developed a lifelong love for being on the water. She is an active show skier, performing with a local team and embracing the teamwork, discipline, and creativity the sport requires. Erin is also passionate about the arts and performing arts and enjoys supporting the local creative community whenever possible. Whether she’s building connections across Charlotte, spending time on the lake, or adventuring with her beloved dog, Stony, Erin brings energy, enthusiasm, and a strong sense of community to everything she does.