About Us.
Cureate is a for profit, woman-owned, mission-driven small business that is building an empowered food & beverage supply to meet a changing consumer demand.
Meet the Team
Meet our incredible team of Cureators, connectors, storytellers, and advocates for building more resilient, local supply chains.
Kim Bryden, CEO & Founder
Kim Bryden, CEO of Cureate, is an accomplished business development professional with expertise in strategy, marketing, and operations focusing on the food & beverage industry and economic development. Kim has consulted 300+ small businesses on growth strategy, building out diversified revenue streams, and identifying new market opportunities. In addition to her commitment to small business growth at-large, Kim’s expertise has led her to develop multi-sector, public-private partnerships across industries such as governmental agencies, food tech start-ups, and top Fortune 500 retailers and foodservice operators. Now she leads the growth of Cureate throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Heartland regions, as the business continues to grow nationwide.
Kim is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, a member of the Sandbox Network, a Board Director for Land Betterment Corporation, and an advisor to Fair Farms Maryland. She holds a Graduate Certificate in Digital Media Management and Analytics from Georgetown University and a BA in Public Communication & Spanish from American University.
Headshots for Kim Bryden linked here.
Sammar Simmons, Chief of Staff
Sammar Simmons is a dynamic professional with over 15 years of experience in high-growth startups, specializing in cross-functional go-to-market (GTM) strategy and operations. She loves to work closely to gain clarity on their vision and optimize their operations in order to create the best customer experience possible. Her experience spans across multiple industries like EdTech, AI/ML, higher education, non-profits, and FinTech - all focused on being a part of something bigger than herself. She is committed to building trust, balancing solutions across people, processes, and technology, and tailoring frameworks to meet unique needs.
Durham is home for Sammar, where she lives with her husband and two children. They enjoy exploring nature and experiencing new cultures together. Outside of work, Sammar is an active community member, often volunteering at her son's elementary school or organizing community events to foster togetherness.
Maddi Sumners, Content & Community
Madison is a digital content producer, specializing in social media strategy and content creation. She's excited about empowering women of color and other historically underrepresented communities by leveraging the power of visual and audio storytelling. Her favorite food is seafood boil.
Stacey Simmons, Creative Director & UX/UI Developer
Stacey Simmons has over a decade of UX/UI and web development experience, working with a variety of clients including digital marketing agencies, healthcare systems, government agencies, and F&B restaurant groups — which makes her a perfect fit for the Cureate team! Stacey loves supporting the local DC community, in which she is both a homeowner and business owner.
Stacey has a BFA in Fine Arts with a minor in Art History. Her user-centered design and development approach ensures that products are as functional as they are easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing.
Kelly Guglielmino, Supply Chain Coordinator
Originally from NJ, Kelly has always enjoyed sports and being active. This passion continued through to college where she chose to study nutrition and exercise science. She then worked at local YMCAs and gyms implementing nutrition programs and supervising exercise to help members reach their health and fitness goals.
She moved to DC with her husband and pursued other paths, but always stayed enthusiastic about food and nutrition. Her passion coupled with years of experience in administrative roles, led Kelly to Oasis Community Partners where she returned to the realm of food as an executive assistant to the director.
Tessa Velazquez, Facilitator & Coach
Co-owner of Washington DC’s Baked & Wired, A Baked Joint and la Betty. She is also an NYC-based chef, recipe developer, and founder / writer of the cooking newsletter, The Sobremesa.
Tessa has over 20 years of experience in the restaurant industry. Her journey began growing up in the iconic DC bakery, Baked & Wired. There, she learned every job from making lattes, washing dishes, baking cookies, and eventually growing into the Operations Director. Tessa then went on to open and co-own two other DC eateries, A Baked Joint and la Betty. Tessa specializes in brick and mortar restaurant openings, hospitality, team building, community engagement, and operations. She loves mentoring small business owners and sharing her expansive experiences!
Julia Raymond, Mid-Atlantic Regional Director
Julia is an organizational leader with twelve years of experience leading and growing mission-driven organizations at the intersection of food, community and innovation. Prior to joining Cureate, Julia worked closely with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Portland, Oregon through her roles with WeWork, Feastly, Growing Gardens, and Share Our Strength. She's excited to bring her systems-level thinking and relationship building expertise to the Mid-Atlantic, calling Washington DC home.
Supporting and strengthening small businesses through technology, coaching, and partnerships has been at the core of Julia's career. As the Maryland/Washington DC Metropolitan Area Regional Director, she is passionate about driving consumer awareness on the links between food, health, climate, and the economy.
Nic Small, Software Engineer
Nic Small is an experienced full-stack software developer who has worked on corporate, government, and start-up applications. His most recent projects include a motor-vehicle safety platform, a streaming video service, and a real-estate transaction engine. As a passionate environmentalist, he is particularly interested in how our current food systems impact the world. He volunteers regularly with Food Rescue US, a national organization aiming to solve the problems of food waste and food insecurity at the same time. At Cureate, Nic supports a wide range of programming and software engineering needs.
Karl Binns Jr., Facilitator & Coach
Karl Binns is a nationally recognized advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the food system and international speaker. As Founder and Principal at KAVO Consulting, he provides strategic advisement, strategy development project leadership. He recently led national supply chain equity projects as the Black Farmer Equity Manager at Cargill. Prior to this position, Karl was the Director of Diversity and Inclusion for the Manufacturing Institute. Karl has also served in other roles in corporations, where he led strategy and execution for Future Talent and DEI in the U.S. for Merck Animal Health.
Karl has a decade of experience in leadership roles in non-profits, private sector, and higher education. In his past roles, he served as Coordinator of the Agriculture Center of Excellence for the Penn State Small Business Development Center. He also held multiple leadership roles within the School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in recruitment and institutional advancement. Karl is a workforce development expert with a specialty in cultivating talent from underserved communities. He is a former national officer of Minorities in Agriculture Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) and founder of both the Maryland Junior MANRRS Leadership Institute and Maryland World Food Prize Youth Institute.
Mr. Binns is a proud HBCU graduate, a Certified Non-Profit Executive, a LEAD Maryland Class X Fellow, Herrsching International Seminar Fellow, and a Climate Reality Action Fellow.
Candy Schibli, Facilitator & Coach
Candy Schibli is a nature, food and travel lover who likes connecting the dots between environmental and social well-being. A long-time resident of the DMV, she is integrated in the food production space locally, nationally, and internationally through her coffee company, Southeastern Roastery. She enjoys the outdoors, mindfulness meditation, art and trying to refine "relaxation" as an entrepreneur.
Walton Smith, Facilitator & Coach
With over five years of experience in marketing, social media, content creation, community building, and engagement, Walton connects people to their needs. She has used her skills and expertise to create and execute strategies that amplify and support diverse voices and causes at companies like The Grio, The Fifteen Percent Pledge, Women Business Collaborative, and We Are Rosie.
As the founder of Black Woman Owned, she's built a community and online business listing that showcases and promotes Black woman owned businesses, to increase their visibility to help increase their annual revenue.
Charles Myrick, CPA & Owner of Myrick CPA
Charles P. Myrick is the owner of Myrick CPA, a full-service certified public accounting firm in Washington, DC. Myrick CPA has established a reputation in the industry by providing quality financial and accounting services and advice to small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and individuals. The firm also provides tax planning and preparation services, small business accounting services, business problem solving and CFO services, financial and estate planning services, and tax resolution and IRS representation. As a small business, Myrick CPA uniquely understands the issues and concerns of small organizations and provides a wealth of experience and technical skills in developing strategies designed to help your organization grow.
Amanda Arafat, Arkansas Cureator
Amanda Arafat is a culinary creative & educator, event organizer, and community facilitator whose special passion is advocating for, and creating space for, diverse entrepreneurs & community members.
Pre-pandemic, her work experience included a variety of both front and back of house positions in retail and food service. Her creative culinary work began post-pandemic, after she found joy and connection despite the lockdown by sharing homemade brown butter chocolate chip cookies, sprinkled with sea salt, with her neighbors. Once this spark ignited, she knew she had to switch gears and seek work in a kitchen. Amanda’s culinary career has included chef and recipe development positions, owning her own cottage bakery, a Visiting Artist Residency at the Fayetteville Public Library, private chef gigs, co-production manager at a meal-prep startup, baking instructor to teens at the Teen Action Support Center (TASC), as well as chef instructor at Honeycomb Kitchen Shop.
In addition to this work, Amanda is the co-founder and active co-organizer of Big Gay Market (est. 2021), Northwest Arkansas’ first and only makers market dedicated to highlighting the local LGBTQIA+ community of artisans and small business owners.
Certifications
Women-Owned Business
Cureate proudly achieved certification through Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). This puts us – and therefore our Vendors – on the radar of even more large businesses and institutions looking to source from women-owned businesses.
Certified Business Enterprise (CBE)
The CBE program positions our business to better compete in DC government contracting opportunities. As an example, we co-created alongside the Department of Small and Local Business Development a centralized Toolkit for accessing resources, events and new business opportunities between DC-based small business owners and non-profit service providers.