Biography

Cheryl Steets is an award-winning marketing and operations strategist with extensive expertise in helping to launch innovative startups. Since 1999, Cheryl has helped grow technology companies of all sizes, working with angel-funded startups as well as established global corporations to develop growth and exit strategies that have run the gamut from private ownership transitions to the multi-billion-dollar acquisition of a public company.

Having held leadership positions at several innovative B2B technology companies, including InterVU, which created the first distributed global streaming media network, and Bentley Systems, a multinational infrastructure engineering software company, Cheryl has more recently served an independent marketing consultant and interim Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Operating Officer to startups in enterprise software, telecommunications, and blockchain-based technologies, among other areas. Additionally, in the B2C retail arena, Cheryl has launched an all-natural organic skin-care company, Inner Sunrise LLC, and serves as founder and CEO. The Inner Sunrise mission aligns with Cheryl’s lifelong dedication to natural foods and support of organic farming.

A former Teaching Fellow in the Classics department at UCLA, having taught undergraduate courses in Greek and Roman literature and culture, Cheryl is also an academically trained philologist and holds a Ph.D. in Indo-European Studies, with 14 languages studied at the graduate level. As a linguist, her graduate academic specialization was in classical Sanskrit and early Persian languages. Her bachelor’s degree, a double-major in in English and classics, is from URI. With a deep understanding of international cultures and histories, Cheryl excels at maximizing team efficiencies in global, multicultural environments.