Jessi Baker grew up in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a small mountain community that serves as the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and where her grandparents started Ole Smoky Candy Kitchen in 1950. Jessi recalls during her elementary school days, she would walk to the Candy Kitchen to work for her grandmother packing taffy and dreaming of running her own business one day.

After graduating from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Jessi returned home to Tennessee for law school and married her high school sweetheart, Joe Baker. She graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law and worked as assistant district attorney in Sevierville, TN.

In 2009, when the Tennessee legislature passed a bill that legalized distilling spirits, Joe & Jessi decided to follow his family's 230-year history of East Tennesseans and make moonshine. They launched Ole Smoky Distillery in 2010, and Jessi then stepped further into the distilling industry through founding the Gatlinburg Barrelhouse and its signature line of Davy Crockett’s Tennessee Whiskey. Ole Smoky acquired it as a logical step to broaden the brand to include an aged and flavored whiskey component. Their line of moonshine and whiskeys are now sold in all 50 states and 53 countries around the world.

Jessi embraced the many ways moonshine could spice up everything from canning pickles and okra to making cupcakes and cobblers a little bit naughty, and she authored Shining, the Ole Smoky Moonshine Family Cookbook. The book blends craft moonshine and Appalachia history with 65 family recipes (not all of them boozy) that have fed her family for generations.

Jessi lives in Nashville, TN with her husband Joe and their 3 children.

Joe Baker is the founder of Ole Smoky Distillery, the largest craft distillery in the U.S. He began the company in 2010 in his hometown of Gatlinburg, Tennessee using family recipes passed down from his ancestors who were among the earliest settlers of the area, now known as the Great Smoky Mountains.

In 2015, Joe expanded his interest in the beverage industry with the creation of Yee-Haw Brewing Company. During its short history, Yee-Haw Brewing Company has grown from a micro-brewery to a regional player in the craft beer world. Its flagship beer Yee-Haw Dunkel (Dark Lager) has been recognized as a winner of the prestigious World Beer Cup medal.

Prior to his career in the beverage industry, Baker served as an Assistant District Attorney General for the State of Tennessee where he prosecuted felonies. He also honorably served as a United States Air Force JAG Officer assigned to the 134th Air Refueling Wing of Tennessee’s Air National Guard.

Best described as a serial entrepreneur, he currently runs a family office with interests in commercial real estate, hospitality, sports gaming, and entertainment. He is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and the University of Tennessee College of Law.

Joe lives in Nashville, TN with his wife and high school sweetheart, Jessi, and their 3 children.

Melissa L. Bradley is a co-founder of a venture-backed community called Ureeka. Ureeka’s mission is to democratize economic opportunity by enabling community and reducing the cost and risk associated with growing small- to medium-sized businesses. She is also founder and managing partner of 1863 Ventures, a business development program that accelerates “new majority entrepreneurs” from high potential to high growth. She has created a community of over 10,000 new, majority entrepreneurs in three years. Bradley is a venture partner at NextGen Ventures and serves as an advisor to the New Voices Foundation and the Halcyon Fund. She is also a member of the Square and Forbes Small Business advisory team, as well as the Target Accelerators Entrepreneurs Advisory Council and former co-chair of the National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She was named one of the most entrepreneurial women investors of 2018.

Bradley is a professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University where she teaches impact investing, social entrepreneurship, P2P economies, and innovation. She recently received the Ideas Worth Teaching Award, which celebrates exceptional courses that are preparing future business leaders to tackle society’s largest challenges and create a more inclusive, just, and sustainable version of capitalism. She is also a co-founder and managing partner of Sidecar Social Finance, a social impact agency that provides impact investing advisory and capital services to individuals, institutions, and social enterprises.

She currently serves as board chair for My Way to Credit and is a board member of AEO. She is a founding advisor to the Dell Center for Entrepreneurs and a senator with the Board of Governors at Georgetown University.

Bradley received a bachelor of science from Georgetown University in 1989 from the School of Business and a business administration master’s degree in marketing from American University in 1993.

Keshishian joined Autosled initially as a board advisor to assist the company through its strategic planning and funding efforts. During that process, he was asked to join full time to lead the company into its next stage of growth in automotive logistics. As CEO, he is focused on talent acquisition, scaling the business for accelerated growth, and securing funding. A marketing and business professional with high growth operations experience across consumer products, renewable energy, and logistics, Keshishian is uniquely positioned to move the company forward.

A former executive at Tesla, Keshishian is no stranger to the opportunities available in automotive transport, nor the fast-paced environment of a company that’s in demand. Early in his career, he managed brands like Dial Soap, launched new housing developments for Pulte Homes and co-founded one of the first renewable energy companies in the Mid-Atlantic region. After the acquisition of Clean Currents Solar by SolarCity, Keshishian grew from one location in Maryland to over 30 facilities and over 3,000 employees that sold and installed residential and commercial solar and energy storage systems on the East Coast, building the largest region in the largest solar company in America. After SolarCity was acquired by sister company Tesla, he integrated his team and supported the expansion of Tesla products, such as EV charging, energy storage and new roofing products. The team also helped build automobiles in California, construct battery lines in Nevada and delivered autos at quarter endings, exposing him to the logistics challenges.

After leaving Tesla in 2018, Keshishian founded an asset management company for SolarCity customers, KWH Care. This quickly merged with Palmetto Solar- bringing Keshishian on board as Chief Operating officer. At Palmetto, he hired and grew its fulfillment and field operations teams- resulting in a 400% growth in 2 years. As a result, the company has become one of the top companies in the United States. As Covid hit, Keshishian reconnected with his former classmate David Sperau on his new venture, Autosled. Spending time with David and his brother Dan, he became convinced of the market potential and began advising the company.

Eric Woods is the Chief Operating Officer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He is responsible for optimizing operational strategy to foster comprehensive performance growth across the institution, ensuring that the Museum optimizes its assets and meets revenue targets​. Eric’s portfolio includes all operational aspects of the MFA including visitor and security functions, retail and food services, human resources, business development and facilities management.

Prior to joining the MFA, Eric served as the Associate Dean for Administration and Finance at Northeastern University, Khoury College of Computer Science, overseeing all financial, operational, and grant administration aspects for a college. Previously, Eric founded Paladin Ventures, LLC, a consulting firm dedicated to identifying and assisting entrepreneurs and emerging businesses in need of strategic planning, business development, operational expertise, marketing & brand management and investment capital across a variety of disciplines.

Eric began his career in financial services, first at JP Morgan and then at Goldman Sachs.

Eric is a graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He serves on Georgetown University’s Board of Regents and sits on the board of Winchester A Better Chance.