Lunch and Learn with Partake Foods

On Tuesday October 29, a handful of staff and students were lucky enough to have lunch with Denise Woodard, Founder/ CEO of Partake Foods. Denise  founded Partake- a line of allergy-friendly cookies after struggling to find a mainstream snack for her daughter. The company has been featured by People, Black Enterprise and Entrepreneur and in June 2019 closed a seed round of funding led by JAY-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners.

Prior to launching Partake, Denise spent a decade in consumer packaged goods at various Fortune 100 companies. Most recently, she held the title of Director, National Sales in Coca-Cola’s Venturing & Emerging Brands division. Denise holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and an MBA from Arizona State University. She lives in Jersey City, NJ with her husband, Jeremy, and their 4 year old daughter, Vivienne.

Denise talked about her entrepreneurial journey, what it is like being a black woman in the healthy food space, balancing motherhood with business,and answered questions from Shuford students.

After lunch, Denise spent some time speaking to the Econ 393, Shuford capstone course about similar topics. We appreciate Denise taking time out of her (very busy) schedule to share words of wisdom with our entrepreneurship students!