About Darlene

Darlene is an experienced entrepreneur and CPA with a passion for helping entrepreneurs create and grow their businesses.  Besides coaching new entrepreneurs through the startup stages of their companies, she is also the CFO for BioNorth TX, a nonprofit group for the life science industry of north Texas, a member of the Cowtown Angels investor network, and a VIN Partner in the VIC Investor Network.  

Darlene was the Executive Director for TechFW, a nonprofit technology incubator, from 2006 through September 2018. She created programs to help entrepreneurs get their companies off the ground.  In 2012, she also created the Cowtown Angels to bring local angel investors together to consider investments in local entrepreneurial ventures. During her time with TechFW, Darlene coached over 100 companies from technology protection to sales and helped many others pitch to prospective investors.  

Before joining TechFW, following a successful career as a senior partner in Andersen, at the time the largest worldwide public accounting firm, Darlene co-founded and became the CEO of a pharmaceutical manufacturing company from 1994 to 2006. She successfully raised bank financing and private equity, applied for several patents, and negotiated licenses of her company’s technology. Under her direction, the company was on the Inc 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America for three consecutive years and on the Dallas 100 list for five consecutive years. Darlene was named the 2003 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Life Sciences for North Texas and a 2004 Leading Woman Entrepreneur of the World. 

Darlene has recently served on the Tarrant County Board for the American Heart Association and on the advisory boards for the UTA College of Engineering and the UTA Biomedical Engineering Department.  She has previously served on several other boards, including the UNT Health Science Center Foundation, Junior Achievement, Girl Scouts, DePauw University, the Association for FrontoTemporal Degeneration, the UNT College of Arts & Science, and the TCU College of Science & Engineering.

Professionally, Darlene has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1980, licensed in Texas since 1995.  She graduated from DePauw University with a B.A. and a double major in mathematics and German. She also holds an M.B.A. in accounting and finance with a minor in marketing from the University of Chicago. She is a Certified Quickbooks Online ProAdvisor and also certified as a TSheets Pro Partner Elite  and .

Darlene spends much of her personal time doing genealogy research for her own family and others.  She earned a Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University in 2011.  You can read her blog and follow her research journeys at www.myfamilytreefinder.com.  She and her husband Stormy are also on a quest to visit all of the US National Parks, Monuments, and Historic Sites, and to visit all of the SR71 Blackbird planes and U2 planes in US museums.  Visit www.StormyBdx.com to find out why (hint: he flew most of them).