Board of Advisors

Ursula Morgan is part of the 2% statistic of women executives who have attracted investment from the Venture Capital establishment. Ursula is a visionary leader with considerable big box and e-commerce experience throughout a range of digital platforms, operations, and technology.

Her superpower is her deep understanding of the sewing and yarn consumer through her experience of leading direct to consumer brands in the home sewing, fashion apparel, quilting, knitting, crotchet, and large craft retail businesses.

Lisa Shepard Stewart is a writer and fiber artist, and the owner of CulturedExpressions.com. She promotes the creative use of African textiles for sewing, quilting, home decor and crafts. After successfully running her business online for 17 years, Lisa opened CE’s first studio location in downtown Rahway, NJ in December 2017.   Here, she offers a curated selection of fabrics and embellishments, plus events and lots of creative inspiration, whether in person, online, or virtually.

Mark Hyland has been in the crafts industry for 18 years, building and growing Handi Quilter and Premier Needle Arts, organically and through multiple brand acquisitions. Today Mark is back at Handi Quilter as CEO. 

Mark’s hands-on leadership style and mentoring approach continue to assist Handi Quilter’s team to focus on core values, strategic growth initiatives driven by data and technology, and creating consumer engagement and loyalty. He’s focused on expanding consumer experiences through digital and hands-on education, and the development of team members to reach their full potential.  Mark has previously held leadership roles at Wal-Mart, Weider Nutrition, Schiff, Fruit of the Loom, EAS/AdvantEdge, VMI manufacturing, and Food Insurance.com.

Lyric Kinard is the co-founder of the Global Quilt Connection, an ongoing vital resource for guilds looking for virtual programming and created The Academy for Virtual Teaching where she teaches creative makers of all kinds the tech skills they need to create educational videos.

As a recognition of her teaching skills she was named the International Association of Professional Quilters Teacher of the Year for 2011. She is the author of the book Art + Quilt: Design Principles and Creativity Exercises. She has written extensively for Quilting Arts and several other magazines, and appeared on Quilting Arts TV, and The Quilt Show. You can read more about her at https://lyrickinard.com

Kate Butler the Chief Content Officer for Golden Peak Media. She leads a team of 35+ content producers and designers across platforms, including digital, mobile, social, television and print for 12 award-winning brands. Golden Peak serves four core enthusiast verticals – quilting, sewing, artistry (painting and collecting) and crafts (knitting, crochet, beading and jewelry). She’s also an award-winning news editor and media executive.