Joy Schoffler, on Life in a Commune, Real Estate Investing, Emerging Technology and National Security Venture Investing

Joy Schoffler, Principal of Distinctive Edge Partners, is an award-winning global communications and investor relations strategist, with decades of experience building, scaling and protecting global public and private brands.  Clients she has worked with have raised billions in capital, went from start-up to exit, built and scaled cutting edge technologies, executed profitable M&As, grew international sales and distribution channels, closed major customers and created significant share-holder value.  Joy founded and sold strategic marketing and communications firm Leverage PR which worked across technology, financial services and promoted global innovation by representing the Economic Ministries of Japan and Brazil and SXSW, among others. The firm also served numerous financial services firms, resulting in significant AUM increases.  She has devised strategies which educated global markets on blockchain’s applicability outside of bitcoin, worked across hardware, IOT, financial technology and extensively within the artificial intelligence space across both robotics and process automation.  As a financial services leader, Joy sat on the investment committee at Ascendant Industries, evaluating middle market cybersecurity, defense, maritime and engineering technology companies. She served as the Chief Strategy Officer for Casoro Capital. There she built and led the investor relations team which was responsible for raising capital for direct investments ranging from $18-80M and was responsible for building an award-winning, tech-enabled, public non-traded REIT, Upside Avenue. Built at a fraction of the cost of competitors, it won CREs’ best new online capital raising platform and created successful acquisition channels for retail, RIA and institutional investors. As Director of Acquisitions for The PPA Group, she underwrote and acquired $250M in real estate, helped grow the firm from 4 to 75 employees—making the “Inc. 5000” list, twice.  Past and current board positions include SXSW & AARP Accelerator, FinTech Professionals Association and spent 4 years with CFIRA working with the SEC and FINRA on JOBS Act implementation, enabling online investing as we know it today.  A sought-after speaker and media contributor, Joy won numerous awards including Women Communicators “Outstanding Communicators”, CEO Magazine “Entrepreneur of the Year” and Austin Under 40 award. Joy served as an officer in the Army Reserves & Texas State Guard.