Episode 35: Conversation with Sarah Beatrice Soenke, Director of Marketing and Communication of CU Denver Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship

Enterprising Young Females

According to many banking sources, Colorado is leading the way as the best state for women entrepreneurs. It has the highest percentage of women-owned businesses in the country, at 10.39%, so any female entrepreneur who launches a business here will be in good company. The state has a 76.86% startup survival rate and one of the highest percentages of new businesses nationally.

That’s why Sarah and I are talking about women and entrepreneurship and the Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship’s role in creating more women entrepreneurs in Colorado. In our conversation, Sarah introduces CU Denver's new master's degree, Masters in Entrepreneurship.

Sarah Beatrice Soenke is the Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications at CU Denver’s Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship. Since joining in April 2019, Sarah has helped the Jake Jabs Center launch a new Master’s in Entrepreneurship program, grow its annual pitch competition THE CLIMB, and launch a number of cross-disciplinary programs such as the Rutt Bridges Venture Fund (RBVF) and a local chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO).

Prior to CU Denver, Sarah worked at a variety of Denver-area tech startups and wrote for magazines such as Denver’s City magazine 5280 Magazine; the Northwest Quarterly in Chicagoland, and InStyle Magazine. Sarah earned her MBA at CU Denver in 2022 and her BS in Journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015. Her passion for storytelling and content creation now informs her work in creating brand narratives that resonate.

CU Denver and the Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship were the lead sponsors for the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Colorado (WED CO) 2023 Summit Jan. 20, 2023. Junior Achievement sponsored several high school girls from Green Mountain High School and Mapleton Career Prep. The Jake Jabs Center hosts Junior Achievement’s Business Bound summer camp. Sarah explains how the partnership came about, how long the summer camp has taken place, and what’s involved with it. Sponsoring and hosting events like the WED CO Summit and Junior Achievement Business Bound summer camp gives young female entrepreneurs a taste of what it is like to attend a world-class university entrepreneurship program.

To contact Sarah you can connect with her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/sarahsoenke or at Business CU Denver https://business.ucdenver.edu/sarah-soenke.