Impact with integrity.

Silvia earned a Ph.D. in marine molecular biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, then an MBA at the Rady School of Management — and discovered that the questions she loved most were about people, capital, and who gets the chance to build. She wrote her first angel check in 2010 and never stopped.

Since then she has invested in more than 160 seed-stage companies with female or BIPOC founders — medical devices, life sciences, SaaS platforms, transformative CPG — from San Diego to Portland to Brooklyn, with eight exits and one IPO along the way. She is a limited partner in 16 emerging-manager funds, served as inaugural fund manager of the San Diego Angel Conference Fund I and co-fund manager for Funds II–VII, and sits on the investment committee of Next Wave Impact.

She founded Stella Foundation, a national conSTELLAtion of organizations walking alongside women-led businesses from startup to sale, and Stella Angels, a group of 40+ female angel investors. She co-founded Ad Astra Ventures, an accelerator and micro-fund for resilient female founders. Through She Invests! she produces a globally recognized podcast, writes books, and teaches the mechanics of investing without mystique.

Today she is Director of Innovation and Associate Professor at Biola University's Crowell School of Business, building an innovation culture where redemptive imagination and entrepreneurship flourish, and a senior advisor at The Brink SBDC at the University of San Diego, where she coaches founders on investor readiness. Her research spans servant leadership in the startup world, impact investing, ethical AI, and the causes of women's entrepreneurial success.