The Bellybar Team
Feb 11th, 2009 by Bellybar Team
CO-FOUNDER
The daughter of a Frenchman, Leslie has always had a deep passion for tasty food consumption. Prior to co-founding NutraBella, Leslie Sagalowicz garnered deep expertise in the fields of marketing, strategy, business development, customer experience and entrepreneurship.
Leslie began her career as an independent marketing and strategy consultant working with many political campaigns and not-for-profit organizations. Leslie is especially proud of her leadership role in the election of the first woman to Congress from Orange County. While attending business school, Leslie held an internship with Creative Good, as a customer experience consultant, and with Oracle, as a member of the Emerging Markets group working on the creation of new businesses. At Kellogg, she was elected Co-Chair of the Women’s Business Association, where she focused her efforts on serving the needs of women MBA candidates.
Following graduation, Leslie returned to her native Bay Area to join Siebel Systems, where her roles spanned the areas of venture capital, customer satisfaction and field marketing in the US and abroad. With a strong desire to return to the development phase of businesses, Leslie joined a growth-stage company called Blazent as Director of Strategic Alliances, where she both built critical partnerships and created new sales markets.
Leslie holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA from Scripps College. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and daughter.
MEREDITH LINCOLN
CO-FOUNDER
With the exception of a profound weak spot for (and occasional over-consumption of) premium chocolate, Meredith has always had an interest in nutritional well-being. Prior to co-founding NutraBella, Meredith Lincoln garnered deep expertise in the fields of marketing and sales, client services, management and finance.
Meredith began her career in investment banking in New York City, working in Mergers & Acquisitions for Chase Securities. While attending business school, Meredith held an internship in consumer marketing at Kraft, as a brand team member working on the launch of cinnamon Altoids. Following business school, and with the Silicon Valley business economy at its peak, Meredith was persuaded to make the move to California and embarked upon a marketing career at Siebel Systems, where she worked with Fortune 500 financial institutions to develop customer relationship management software uniquely designed to meet the specific needs of banking customers.
Sensing a shift in the economy, Meredith began to explore new avenues and built upon her sales and marketing expertise while working as a Market Representative for ProLogis, a multinational Real Estate Investment Trust. With a strong desire to help build new businesses, Meredith joined an entrepreneurial young company, LiveOps, where she was responsible for building and managing a professional client services team that helped drive the company’s successful penetration of the call center industry.
Meredith holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA from Georgetown University.
After a variety of experiences working for companies both large and small, Meredith and Leslie realized that they were ready to make a longtime dream come true. For several years, they had talked about their many friends’ struggle with the only available options for getting critical nutrients before, during and after pregnancy. And, in 2004, the two friends and business colleagues chose to embark on a new venture together and formed NutraBella to serve the nutritional needs of women.
