Trish Costello

Ms. Costello is the founder and now CEO Emeritus of the Center for Venture Education.
Prior to this, Ms. Costello spent eight years as an associate of the Kauffman Foundation.
She serves on the national advisory board and on the selection councils of the National Science Foundation for its Small Business Innovation Research Grants.
Ms. Costello serves or has served on the Boards of Directors of The Enterprise Center of Johnson County, the Kansas Women’s Business Center, the Kelce School of Business, Springboard Enterprises, the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program, the Alumni Foundation of Pittsburg State University, and the Corinth Educational Foundation.
She served on the SBA’s Advisory Council under President Clinton and on the SBA Transition Committee under President George W.
Bush.
She was an advisor to the International Conference on Women in Bejing.
Ms. Costello represented the U.S.
and presented at the OECD International Conference on Enterpreneurship in Paris.
She has served on advisory committees to the Committee of 200, the National Association of Women’s Business, the National Venture Capital Association,the International Business Forum and numerous universities and business schools.
Ms. Costello’s professional background includes corporate, non-profit and entrepreneurial experience.
At AT&T, she developed small business products and marketing strategies for the initial divestiture of the Bell System.
As executive vice president at the start-up of Child Health Corporation of America, Ms. Costello assisted with the launch of medical venture companies for an investor group of twenty prominent children’s hospitals and operated the Children’s Health Network, a satellite-based medical education system.
Ms. Costello spent two years as the Executive Director of Rose Brooks Center, a 30-bed residential facility for battered women and their children.
Ms. Costello is a graduate of Pittsburg State University and holds an MBA from Rockhurst.