Fellows Directory
| Liat Aaronson | Aaronson | Horizen Labs | Israel | , | Herzliya | Middle East | Marker LLC | 22 | A member of Class 22, Liat served her fellowship under the mentorship of Sham Sandhu at Marker LLC in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Scott Brady of Innovation Endeavors. She also served as a mentor to Eyal Mayer (Class 21). | Liat Aaronson is the co-founder and CSO of Horizen Labs, a blockchain technology company offering developer tools and solutions for businesses needing enhanced trust and transparency when dealing in multi-party environments (i.e. competitors, supply chain members, etc. ). Before that she served as the COO of Selina Hospitality. Prior to the operations role, Liat was an Investment Partner at Marker LLC, a leading Israel-New York based venture capital firm, where she continues to oversee their follow-on annex fund. Prior to joining Marker, Liat was the Executive Director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at IDC. The innovative venture creation program she helped grow and develop in the ten years of her leadership that allows undergraduates in their final year of study at IDC to experience entrepreneurship hands-on taking ideas and developing them in to funded startups. Many successful companies, including Gift’s Project, Wibiya, Wibbitz, Bizzabo and Argus were founded out of the program. Today she remains involved as acting chairwoman of Zell and is the director of the ZEP Fund LTD. which invests and manages a portfolio of 21 Zell alumni companies. She holds a B.A. in political economy of industrial societies (economics and political science, cum laude) from the University of California at Berkeley, an LL.B. and MBA from Tel Aviv University, and an LL.M. in European law from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands (cum laude). She became a member of the Israel Bar Association in 1999, after completing her internship at Kantor, Elhanani, Tal & Co. She attained practical experience in mergers and acquisitions and new ventures, as an associate attorney at Naschitz, Brandes & Co., a position she held until joining IDC Herzliya in 2005. Liat is a board member at Wristcam and at Infinity Pension Fund, and a member of the Friends of IDC’s advisory board. Liat is on the advisory boards of WiSe, Weizman Institute’s entrepreneurship program and Scola, the 81 Unit entrepreneurship program. | She holds a BA in political economy of industrial societies (economics and political science, cum laude) from the University of California at Berkeley, an LLB and MBA from Tel Aviv University, and an LLM in European law from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands (cum laude).
Liat became a member of the Israel Bar Association in 1999, after completing her internship at Kantor, Elhanani, Tal & Co. She attained practical experience in M&A and new ventures as an associate attorney at Naschitz, Brandes & Co., a position she held until joining IDC Herzliya in 2005. | 22 |
| Dan Abelon | Abelon | Two Sigma Ventures | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | VenSeed | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Dan performed his fellowship at VenSeed. | Dan joined Two Sigma Ventures as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in 2015. Today he invests in startups that use advanced tech such as data science, AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics.
Dan is a serial entrepreneur and investor. His investing activities include VenSeed, an accelerator for high-potential venture capital managers, Edge Harris, a family office in New York that he is helping to establish a seed fund. Dan has helped incubate technology products including ReadyGraph, a SaaS tool that allows websites to automate their growth; and SIGNL, a big data tool that detects when private companies start achieving momentum. Previously, Dan co-founded SpeedDate.com, a venture-backed online dating service with over 23 million members that was sold to IAC. In order to bring the speed dating concept online, Dan gained expertise in growth hacking, subscription payments, web analytics, and mobile product development. Prior to launching SpeedDate, Dan worked for IBM’s Business Consulting Services. He also spent time in Lazard’s Technology Mergers and Acquisitions Group and at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation where he sourced investments in agriculture and information technology in the Philippines. | Dan holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He received his BA in economics and philosophy from Columbia University, where he cofounded the Columbia Entrepreneurship Club and grew an advertising business through the university’s incubator.
Dan loves to travel, and has worked in international development as a volunteer in various countries, including Ghana, Thailand, and Ukraine. In his spare time, he enjoys playing the keytar, composing digital music, skiing, and biking. Dan serves as an Endeavor Expert, mentoring entrepreneurs in the developing world, and is a member of the Manhattan chapter of YPO. | 19 |
| Benjamin Abram | Abram | Wylan Energy | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Westly Group | 14 | As a member of Class 14, Ben served his fellowship at the Westly Group under the mentorship of Mike Dorsey and Managing Partner Steve Westly. | Ben is the founder of Wylan Energy. For Ben, this company is the culmination of nearly a decade of research around business ideas that produce significant and scalable energy efficiency savings. Wylan Energy runs rebate and subsidy programs in select jurisdictions to enable everyday consumers to go green, less expensively.
Overlapping his time with Wylan, Ben spent 5 years as an associate-in-residence for The Westly Group, a clean technology-oriented venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. As the second employee of this fund, Ben assisted its founder, Steve Westly, in raising $127 million in their first institutional fund. At Westly, Ben served as a board observer at OhSo Clean, a sanitation company, and at Glacier Bay, a power management company whose battery-powered auxiliary unit enables truck fleets to save one gallon of fuel per hour of use by meeting the air-conditioning needs of their operators without idling their engines. As an individual, Ben is also an advisor to IncentAlign, an enterprise software company that enables large institutions to allocate resources more efficiently and effectively with a market-based approach. Initial applications include allocating sales territories and accounts. | Ben is a graduate of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, graduating with a bachelor's degree with dual majors in civil & environmental engineering and public policy studies.
Ben serves or has served on a number of non-profit boards, including the Chordoma Foundation, FACE AIDS, and the Duke University Board of Trustees. He is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. | 14 |
| Jan Adams | Adams | EMBL Ventures | Germany | , | Heidelberg | Europe | EMBL Ventures | 11 | A member of Class 11, Jan was mentored by Stefan Herr at EMBL Ventures in Heidelberg, Germany. | Jan joined EMBL Ventures in 2002 and is now a Managing Director with the firm, focusing on opportunities in the life science and medical device sectors. He has been representing the firm on various portfolio boards including Endoart Medical Technology, Lipid Therapeutics, Allercra Therapeutics, and Opsona Therapeutics.
Prior to joining EMBL Ventures, Jan was a postdoctoral fellow of the Ernst Schering Research Foundation at the University of Granada, Spain, where his research focused on stem cells. Prior to that he was a fellow of the Boehringer Ingelheim Research Foundation, conducting work on molecular transport mechanisms at the Wellcome CRC in Cambridge, UK. | Jan holds an MS in biochemistry & molecular biology from Tubingen University, Germany and completed a PhD in genetics at the University of Cambridge, UK. | 11 |
| Sola Adeola | Adeola | L.A.T. Clevson | Nigeria | , | Victoria Island, Lagos | Africa | Institute for Venture Design | 15 | A member of Class 15, Sola served her fellowship at The Institute for Venture Design under the mentorship of Muhtar Bakare. | Sola is Head of Corporate Strategy at L.A.T. Clevson, a boutique investment firm with offices in Nigeria and London that invests in African startups. The firm's investment model aims to generate wealth that contributes to economic development. As such, its portfolio companies often sit at the convergence of several sectors; the firm invests proprietary capital or strategic co-investments, custom-tailored to the needs of each venture
Previously. Sola was the Executive Secretary of the Freedom Foundation, a Lagos, Nigeria-based nonprofit whose mission is to reach out, give hope, rehabilitate, educate, and empower impoverished persons in Nigeria through community-based programs and initiatives in order to achieve individual and community transformation. Sola is also the founder of Designing Futures, a business incubator focused on startups in the education sector. DF is a platform for individuals who want to launch initiatives (for-profit and nonprofit) to solve education challenges and be financially sustainable. Earlier, Sola was the Nigerian project coordinator for The Institute for Venture Design (IVD or The Institute), a partnership between Stanford’s Centre for Design Research (CDR) and the FATE Foundation. The Institute aims to increase the level of innovation and technological development in Nigeria through the incubation and building up of a culture of entrepreneurs, innovators, and risk takers. Sola was the lead Nigerian counterpart managing the partnership with Stanford CDR and working to set up the organization and facilitate programs. Sola's past work experience has been in the field of management consulting, working for Accenture and Dalberg Global Development Advisors. | Sola has a Bachelor of Science in foreign service (BSFS) from Georgetown University and a Master's in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she focused on education policy. | 15 |
| Biplab Adhya | Adhya | Wipro Ventures | United States | California, | Mountain View | Northern CA | Wipro Ventures | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Biplab served his fellowship at Wipro Ventures. His mentor was his partner and co-head of Wipro Ventures, Venu Pemmaraju, an experienced corporate investor with 15 years at Intel Capital prior to joining Wipro. | Biplab is Vice President and Co-Head of Wipro Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Wipro Technologies, an $8B technology services firm for Global 1000 enterprises.
Wipro Ventures is a $100M fund that invests in artificial intelligence, open source software, Internet of Things, Big Data, and other emerging technology areas of strategic relevance to Wipro. The fund was started in early 2015 with the goal of participating in the innovation ecosystem, establishing strategic partnerships with early-stage startups, offering those innovative and differentiated solutions to Wipro’s customers, and thereby delivering strategic and financial returns to Wipro. Biplab serves as a board observer for Altizon Systems, Demisto, and IntSights. Prior to this position, Biplab held several operating roles, primarily in the enterprise applications services domain at Wipro, Genpact, and PwC. He also had a brief stint with Trivium Systems, an online CRM startup based out of Bangalore, India. Most recently, he was responsible for managing a $400M P&L at Wipro within the broader Application Services unit. | Biplab earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering from IIT Kharagpur, India, and an MBA with concentration in finance and systems from IIM Bangalore, India. He is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt. | 22 |
| Adzmel Adnan | Adnan | PIVA | , | San Francisco | Piva | 25 | Adzmel co-founded Piva with Ricardo Angel, to invest in visionary entrepreneurs re-shaping the future of industry and energy. Prior to this, Adzmel spent 12 years at PETRONAS, one of Global Fortune 500 energy firms, honing his technical and commercial knowledge across the entire energy value chain. At the early stage of his career, Adzmel was responsible for managing, planning and execution of major capital oil & gas projects in Malaysia, followed by a short stint as a reservoir engineer where he was responsible for the development and optimization of an oil field offshore of Peninsular Malaysia. After successfully completing the development of the project, Adzmel spent time in strategic planning and commercial roles within PETRONAS, where he served as development and subsurface specialist to develop strategies for Malaysia’s upstream petroleum sector, including local industry development, strategic partnership arrangements and new fiscal model for petroleum contracts to prolong the economic lifecycle of oil & gas assets in Malaysia. Most recently, he was instrumental in developing PETRONAS’ Corporate Venture Capital unit, a new approach by PETRONAS to augment its ongoing efforts in future-proofing itself by investing in cutting-edge technology across the new energy value chain. | Adzmel earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School in 2017 and a Master of
Engineering (MEng) in Mechanical Engineering from University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Adzmel is from Malaysia and currently resides in San Francisco. | 25 | |||
| Ashish Aggarwal | Aggarwal | Grishin Robotics VC | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Grishin Robotics VC | 24 | Ashish is serving his fellowship at Grishin Robotics under the mentorship of Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Managing Partner and Founder at Strive Capital and Venture Partner at Grishin Robotics, and Ben Narasin, Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA). He is a member of Class 24. | Ashish has 13+ years of experience as an operator, entrepreneur, and investor. Ashish is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build and scale startups, investing in startups in the consumer, robotics, smart hardware, and AI/ML sectors at Grishin Robotics. Ashish led investments in category-defining deals such as Zume and Yellow, and worked with the portfolio companies on hiring, distribution, and fundraising. Before that, Ashish led M&A and corporate strategy for Opera Software, where he oversaw transactions worth hundreds of millions. Ashish worked in marketing analytics for consumer and enterprise products at Dell. At Yahoo!, he built large-scale enterprise infrastructure for advertising products. leading service-engineering teams to design dev-ops systems and architecting complex advertising systems. Ashish started two companies for the Indian market, one in e-commerce and the other in the social live TV space. He has worked as an investor for OCA Ventures in Chicago. Ashish is an advisor to various startups, VC funds, family offices, and accelerators globally. He also has been an editor for YourStory.com. He has lived and worked in many countries. | Ashish holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and London Business School, a MEM with a focus on design thinking from McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, and a BE in Information Science from RVCE, India. In his spare time, Ashish loves understanding how to develop inclusive communities, traveling to new countries, and learning about new technologies. | 24 |
| Ashish Agrawal | Agrawal | Sequoia Capital, India | India | , | Bangalore | South Asia | Sequoia Capital, India | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Ashish is serving his fellowship at Sequoia Capital under the mentorship of Shailesh Lakhani. | As a Principal at Sequoia Capital in India, Ashish focuses on venture and growth investments in technology startups. Since joining the firm in 2013, he has been involved with Sequoia's investments in companies such as Zomato, Ola Cabs, Oyo Rooms, Go-Jek, and Capitalfloat, among others. He is based out of Bangalore, India.
Prior to joining Sequoia, Ashish worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, and was previously an entrepreneur building mobile applications. | Ashish attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science and engineering. He was awarded the Ratan Swarup Memorial Prize for best all-around performance in his graduating class.
Ashish was featured in the Forbes “30 under 30” India list of 2016. | 23 |
| Imraan Ahmed | Ahmed | Armory Square Ventures | United States | New York, | Syracuse | NY/CT | Radius Ventures | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Imraan served his fellowship under the mentorship of Jordan Davis (Mentor Class 12), Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Radius Ventures. | Imraan Ahmed joined Syracuse, NY-based Armory Square Ventures as a General Partner in 2018. He leads the firm’s investments in the technology-enabled healthcare transformation sector.
Previously, Imraan was an investor with Radius Ventures, a New York-based firm investing in leading-edge, expansion and growth equity-stage health and life sciences companies. In that role, he focused on partnering with innovative health IT and medical technology companies catalyzing transformation within our healthcare system by driving down costs, improving care delivery and outcomes, increasing transparency and access, and serving unmet medical needs. To that end, Imraan was responsible for identifying and executing new investment opportunities and working closely with several Radius portfolio companies as a board designee. Before joining Radius in 2013, Imraan’s career spanned a diverse range of entrepreneurial, investing and investment banking roles. He co-founded the home health division of Atlantis Health System, now a multi-provider, fully integrated, risk-bearing healthcare organization. Prior to Atlantis, Imraan was an associate at New Heritage Capital, a sector-agnostic, Boston-based private equity firm investing in founder and family-owned businesses. Imraan began his career in investment banking, having completed the analyst program with Merrill Lynch’s M&A Group. | Imraan earned an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he was an InSITE Fellow and a member of Foundation Capital’s Young Entrepreneurs Program. He graduated with a BS in finance from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was a Quest Honors Program Fellow. | 20 |
| Brent Ahrens | Ahrens | Canaan Partners | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Canaan Partners | 05 | Brent is a member of Class 5 and performed his fellowship at Canaan Partners under the mentorship of Harry Rein. He was later a mentor to John Pacifico (Class 12) and to Gil Canaani (Class 17). | Brent is passionate about investing in cutting-edge medical technologies, diagnostics, and therapeutic treatments. Since joining Canaan in 1999, Brent has led successful investments in novel medical companies such as DexCom (DXCM), Revivant (acquired by ZOLL), Peninsula Pharmaceuticals (acquired by JNJ), Cerexa (acquired by FRX), Calixa (acquired by CBST), Durata Therapeutics (DRTX), Elevation Pharmaceuticals (acquired by DNPUF); and Spinifex (acquired by NVS).
Brent serves on the boards of Abyrx, a developer and manufacturer of therapeutic devices for use during surgical procedures; EndoGastric Solutions, the leading company offering medical devices for treatment of reflux disease; Iterum Therapeutics, a developer of a broad-spectrum antibiotic to treat serious infections; Relievant MedSystems, a maker of minimally invasive devices to relieve chronic back pain; Semnur, a developer of pain managements solutions; and Unchained Labs, a life science tools company. Prior to joining Canaan, Brent worked in both commercial and technical roles at General Surgical Innovations, Ethicon Endo-Surgery (J&J), and IAP Research. He also has several surgical instrument patents to his credit. | Brent earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton. An avid runner, Brent can also be found tinkering on home carpentry projects when time permits. | 5 |
| Baris Aksoy | Aksoy | Independent | United States | California, | Mountain View | Northern CA | Intel Capital | 17 | Baris served his fellowship at Intel Capital under the mentorship of Keith Larson. He is a member of Class 17. | Most recently, Baris was a Director at Intel Capital, focusing on consumer Internet, specifically gaming, mobile applications, social media, e-commerce, advertising, location based services, and various enabling technologies. Earlier at Intel Capital, Baris was focused on technology investments in Turkey, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions. He wa a board observer for Caring.com, Crowdstar, Nokta Medya, and Sense Networks, and is also involved with Kno, and Yume.
Prior to joining Intel Capital, Baris worked at University Venture Fund, an early stage venture capital firm, where he was involved in equity investments in the internet and digital media sectors. Previously, Baris was an early employee of IPTV startup Calix (NYSE:CALX), where he held product management and development roles. During his tenure at Calix, he led the stategy and development of products delivering IPTV consumer experience. Earlier in his career, Baris started and grew the West Coast sales office for Alcatel’s semiconductor subsidiary, a major DSL chipset manufacturer of that time. | Baris holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a double major in strategy and finance. He earned his BSc in electrical engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. | 17 |
| Abdulaziz Alhargan | Alhargan | Kentune Consultancy | , | Middle East | BADIR Program | 16 | Abdulaziz is a member of Class 16 and served his fellowship at the BADIR Program in Saudi Arabia. He has also served as a mentor to Fahad Alhussain, Class 17. | Abdulaziz founded Kentune, a management consultancy with an exclusive focus on the Middle East, providing strategy, management, and policy consulting services to private and public sector clients in a wide range of industries. Kentune was born out of a desire to develop effective knowledge economy strategies and programs driven by best practices, and to align those programs to the realities on the ground.
Abdulaziz is also a member of the Majlis al-Shura, or Consultative Council, a legislative body that advises the King on issues that are important to Saudi Arabia. He focuses on innovation, entrepreneurship, and knowledge economy. Previously, Abdulaziz was director of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) BADIR Program. As director, he oversaw an international staff operating five technology incubators, a technology entrepreneurship program, a technology investment support unit, and a technology incubation support program. He joined KACST in 2007 as an Assistant Professor in the Computer and Electronics Research Institute, completing research projects in speech recognition, open source business applications, and internet profiling. Abdulaziz has worked in the UAE, the US, and Saudi Arabia in a variety of training, ITC development, publishing, management, and consulting roles for both the private and public sectors. He held ITC development and management positions in the Saudi Ministry of Agriculture, after which he held publishing and IT development jobs in the US for Arbuter Magazine, International Information Services, and the World Bank Group. He has also managed his own IT consulting and real estate investment businesses in Saudi Arabia. | Abdulaziz earned his doctorate in computer science from George Washington University after completing his MSc, also in computer science, from the American University in Washington, DC. His BSc in agricultural engineering was earned at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. He has continued to further his knowledge through conferences and training in leadership, management, finance, and project management. | 16 | ||
| Fahad Alhussain | Alhussain | TAQNIA | , | Middle East | TAQNIA | 17 | Fahad is a member of Class 17 and served his fellowship at TAQNIA HOLDING Group under the mentorship of Dr. Abdulaziz Alhargan (Class 16), CEO of BADIR ICT. | As a seasoned international businessman, Fahad Alhussain has been selected by the board of directors to manage the Saudi Company for Technological Development and Investment (TAQNIA), a new company that will take part in diversifying the Saudi national economy as part of the Kingdom’s plan to move to knowledge-based economy. Prior to joining TAQNIA, Fahad held the position of CEO of ISE and manager of KACST/INTEL center for wireless broadband applications. He is also a Board member of BADAR ICI, a member of Riyadh Chamber of Commerce ICT committee, and consultant to many government and private organizations. He is a well-known and knowledgeable figure in the IT and telecommunication industries of Saudi Arabia. In 2003, Fahad was selected to manage the Saudi ISP industry's major merger of Awalnet, Naseej, and Alalamiah. He was appointed VP of operations and then commerce and finished as president of Awalnet. In less than two years he doubled the revenue of Awalnet, and as CEO, engineered the company's acquisition by STC. At this time Awlanet was by far the biggest ISP in the region, attracting local and international investors. In 2008, Fahad joined ISE, a struggling economic offset company specializing in IT infrastructure and services for defense and the public sector. He rose to the challenge in turning the company around, and in one year ISE grew 600 percent to become a major player in the IT service industry of Saudi Arabia. | Fahad holds a Master's degree in electrical engineering/communications from the University of California in Los Angeles. He also holds a Bachelor's degree in physics from KFUPM in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He spent two years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, training in SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging). | 17 | ||
| Kirk Allen | Allen | Rose Park Advisors | , | Boston | Boston/Northeast | Rose Park Advisors | 25 | Kirk is a Managing Director at Rose Park Advisors, applying the theory of disruptive innovation developed by co-founder Clayton Christensen to invest in companies whose business models are well-suited to take advantage of industry change. Kirk joined Rose Park in 2012, partnering with the lead founder to evolve the strategy and portfolio toward private investments, build the organization, and manage the firm and its funds. He has led investments in companies including Gusto, Seek Thermal, and ProcessUnity, and has supported investments in companies including Coupang, HireVue, and Artemis Health. His prior experience includes management consulting at Bain & Company. | Kirk holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Masters in Public Policy with a Concentration in Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Colby College, where he earned a BA in economics and played basketball. | 25 | ||
| Mohammed Almeshekah | Almeshekah | Outliers VC | , | Riyadh | Middle East | Outliers VC | 25 | Mohammed is the founding partner of Outliers VC, a venture capital firm that invests across MENA and the US. He is also on the advisory boards of a number of companies across the two regions. Prior to founding Outliers, Mohammed was an angel investor in a number of startups including NoonAcademy, SandboxVR, Breadfast and Misfit Markets and others. Previously, Mohammed advised a number of public organizations in Saudi on the topics of technology, cybersecurity and digital transformation. Most notably he was advising the Saudi’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and served as the deputy minister of planing and development. He has also led the cybersecurity steering committee to standardize cybersecurity in the telecom sector.
Mohammed is a technologist, cybersecurity aficionado and a founder who later turned into a venture capital investor. As an ex-Software Engineer, he worked on improving the security of two of the most widely used browsers; Chrome and Firefox working at Google and Mozilla, respectively. After that, he founded Trusted Security, a cybersecurity startup, that he later exited. | Mohammed has studied and worked in three continents during the previous decade. He obtained a PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University in the US; a master’s in Information Security from University of London in the UK; and a B’s degree in Computer Science from King Saud University in KSA. During his scientific endeavor, he earned the prestigious “Outstanding Scientific Award” at the 31st Annual Computer Security Application Conference ACSAC’15.
When not working, Mohammed enjoys spending time with his family and two sons. | 25 | ||
| Areije AlShakar | AlShakar | Al Waha Venture Capital Fund of Funds | Bahrain | , | Riffa | Middle East | Al Waha Venture Capital Fund of Funds | 24 | Areije is a member of Class 24, serving her fellowship at Al Waha Venture Capital Fund of Funds, under the mentorship of Fadi Ghandour (Mentor Class 15), Executive Chairman of Wamda Group, and Marc Benioff, Chairman and Co-CEO of Salesforce. | Areije Al Shakar has over 16 years of experience in banking and entrepreneurship. In her current role at Bahrain Development Bank (BDB), she is a Senior Vice President heading the Development Services Division and leads the fund management team of the Al Waha Venture Capital Fund of Funds (Al Waha Fund), with $100M in assets. Her role and involvement at the bank includes coaching, mentorship, startup seed funding, and entrepreneur and ecosystem development. She has been involved in the development of several support services for entrepreneurs, namely in establishing BDB’s Rowad Program, a holistic entrepreneur support platform; and SeedFuel-Rowad, a startup funding program. Areije has worked in other organizations in Bahrain, including Investcorp, Citibank, and BNP Paribas, as well as at Lehman Brothers in London and Dubai, where she served on the treasury, investment management, and advisory side. | Areije is a “third culture person,” born in Bahrain and raised in Geneva, New York, and London. She holds a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance from the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University; and is a Certified Business Coach and Mentor from the Chartered Management Institute, UK. Areije is fluent in English, Arabic, and French. She enjoys reading, writing, long walks, and functional movement. | 24 |
| Ambar Amleh | Amleh | Ibtikar Fund | Palestine | , | Ramallah | Middle East | Ibtikar Fund | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Ambar is serving his fellowship at Ibtikar Fund under the mentorship of Kate Mitchell (Mentor Classes 21, 22, 23) and Walid Bakr (Class 16). | Ambar is a Co-Founder and the Chief Operating Officer for Ibtikar Fund, a fund that she championed and helped design, structure, and fundraise. Ibtikar fills a critical funding gap faced by Palestinian entrepreneurs between seed and VC.
For the past six years, Ambar has been directly involved in supporting Palestinian entrepreneurs. As the program manager for Palestine for a New Beginning (PNB), a Palestinian nonprofit focused on entrepreneurial development, Ambar grew PNB from an idea and a loose and small board leadership to an established Palestinian institution. Through PNB, Ambar organized the yearly Celebration of Innovation, a Palestine-wide competition of entrepreneurs, and the follow-up support to these entrepreneurs; as well as Global Entrepreneurship Week in Palestine. In March 2018, Ambar was named as one of the “50 Most Influential Women in the Arab World” by CEO Middle East Magazine and “20 Women VCs of MENA” by MENAbytes. | Ambar has an international MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a marketing degree from Arizona State University. | 23 |
| Amit Anand | Anand | Jungle Ventures | Singapore | , | Singapore | Asia | Jungle Ventures | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Amit served his fellowship at Jungle Ventures under the mentorship of Chairman, Peng T. Ong. | Amit is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Jungle Ventures, a Singapore-based venture fund that helps build tech category leaders from Asia. Jungle invests across early to growth stages of startups and has investments in Singapore, Indonesia, India, Australia, and other hotbeds of entrepreneurial activity in Asia.
Amit has over 20 years of experience in go-to-market strategies and corporate development for startups and corporations alike. His corporate life gravitated around Asian market development for public listed tech giants such as Progress Software Corp., and his startup experience is dotted with founding and spearheading new businesses and product roll-outs in the region. Amit is deeply passionate about Asian companies going global and has been leading investments and board positions in companies like Livspace, the world's first online home interior design and renovation platform; Pomelo, an international fast-fashion brand that makes high-street wear accessible to consumers; and Builder.AI, an AI driven platform to build, run, and scale software apps, amongst others. Amit currently sits on the Advisory Council for Ethics in AI & Data by the Singapore Government. | Amit holds a Bachelor’s degree with a major in computers from Mumbai University, India. He is also a graduate of the Advanced Post Graduate Program at the prestigious National Center for Software Technology, an autonomous society involved in research and development under the administrative purview of the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India. | 18 |
| Srini Ananth | Ananth | Intel Capital | United States | California, | Santa Clara | Northern CA | Intel Capital | 23 | Srini is serving his fellowship at Intel Capital as a member of Class 23. He is mentored by Ken Elefant (Class 5, Mentor Classes 18 & 21) of Sorenson Ventures. | Srini is a Director at Intel Capital where he led or supported investments in Joby Aviation, Filament, Delta ID (acquired by Fingerprint Cards), EyeSmart, Keyssa and NewAer. He currently serves as a Board Director at Filament. His current areas of investment include hardware, next gen computing, robotics, small satellites, and urban mobility.
Srini has over a decade of operating experience in high-tech industry spanning product development and management as well as business development across a diverse set of technologies such as cybersecurity, IoT, mobile, and media. Srini led a product launch for a security software-as-a-service signing up Intel’s largest distributor. He also fostered ecosystem partnerships with application software and component technology providers to support Intel’s entry into the highly competitive mobile business. As an electrical engineer, Srini designed components that powered millions of mobile phones and tablets, generating more than $1.5B in revenue at Texas Instruments. Srini has worked on a Kickstarter campaign for a consumer electronics product and is actively engaged in the early-stage startup community. | Srini holds an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management with an emphasis on finance and strategy. He also holds a BS in electrical engineering from National Institute of Technology, India, and an MS in electrical engineering from Arizona State University, Tempe. | 23 |
| Lakshmikanth Ananth | Ananth | next47 | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Bridgescale Partners | 12 | Lak Ananth is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and served his fellowship at Bridgescale Partners under mentor Matthew Cowan. | Lak is the Managing Partner of Siemens' new startup unit, next47, established in 2016 to pool all of its existing startup activities into one business unit, with the goal of fostering disruptive ideas more vigorously and to accelerating the development of new technologies. The group's activities will focus on 5 areas: artificial intelligence; autonomous machines; distributed electrification; connected mobility; and blockchain applications, which are designed to simplify and increase the security of data transfers in areas such as industrial operations and energy trading.
Previously, Lak was VP, Corporate Development, at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), developing strategies and driving all aspects of M&A for businesses with over $40 billion in revenue. He served as an important partner to the CFO, CEO, and board, providing input on strategy and build-buy-partner decisions. Prior to joining HP, Lak worked in the Corporate Development group at Cisco Systems where he led a broad range of large-scale, high-impact transactions including acquisitions, investments, joint ventures, investment-backed alliances, and divestitures. Most notably, he co-led the $2.9 billion acquisition of Starent Networks, which positioned Cisco as the leader in Mobile Internet infrastructure. His board responsibilities with investments included Control4, GridNet, and Vocera. During his fellowship, Lak was an active venture capital investor in Silicon Valley, where he participated in investments in several companies such as Cortina Systems, Digital Chocolate, IMVU, Jasper Wireless, Open-Silicon, and Snapvine (acquired by WhitePages.com). Before his fellowship, Lak was with the private equity group of 3i in Asia, where he specialized in growth capital investments in India and formulated 3i's venture capital strategy for that geography. Earlier, he was a Director with Cambridge Technology Partners, managing large product development teams for clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 50 companies. | Lak earned an MBA, with Distinction, in 2005 from INSEAD, where he completed an exchange program with the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Lak holds an MS in electrical engineering from Kansas State University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi. He also holds a BE in electrical and electronics engineering from Guindy Engineering College, India, where he was a Gold Medalist.
Lak is a published author and has several research papers in IEEE to his credit. He and his wife, Preethi, have traveled abroad extensively and share a passion for south Indian classical music. Lak also loves spending time with his son, Jayanth. | 12 |
| Erin Andrew | Andrew | Live Oak Bank | United States | North Carolina, | Wilmington | Mid-Atlantic/SE | U.S. Small Business Administration | 20 | Erin served her fellowship at the SBA under the mentorship of Javier Saade; she is a member of Class 20. | Erin has 13 years of experience in economic and workforce development, management consulting, entrepreneurship, and policy. She is currently the Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), serving as the senior executive service presidential appointee responsible for women’s entrepreneurship issues as head of the SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership. She manages funding lines in excess of $15M in support of 106 Women’s Business Centers (WBCs) across the country. She also increases participation of women in SBA programs through a specific focus on lending, investing, innovation, exporting, and contracting.
Erin is interested in increasing the number of women in venture capital. She sits on the White House Council on Women and Girls, and created InnovateHER at the SBA to address the dual challenges of increasing the number of women in the investment space and the need for more innovations that enhance women’s lives. Previously, Erin launched the Regional Innovation Clusters Initiative at SBA, and worked for the governor of Iowa at the National Governors Association, at Booz Allen Hamilton, and at an economic development group in Pittsburgh. | Erin is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University where she earned a BS in business administration with a double major in ethics and history from the Tepper School of Business. She also holds an MS in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz School of Public Policy.
Erin is Co-Founder of the Pines Farm Hops business with her brother, Jesse, in West Point, Indiana. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, traveling, camping, and playing intramural sports. | 20 |
| Michael Anstey | Anstey | Cambridge Innovation Capital | United Kingdom | , | Cambridge | Europe | Cambridge Innovation Capital | 22 | Michael served his fellowship at Cambridge Innovation Capital under the mentorship of CIC’s CEO, Victor Christou. He is a member of Class 22. | Michael is an Investment Director at Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), specializing in healthcare investments. He brings expertise to the sector through his experience in research, strategy consulting, startups, and venture capital investing.
Before joining CIC, Michael was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at the Toronto office of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In this role, he advised multinational healthcare companies across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, new launches, R&D and medical strategy, and M&A. Michael is also a co-founder of Proteorex Therapeutics, a Canadian biotechnology company developing small molecule therapeutics for “hard to drug” targets implicated in disease. Prior to BCG, Michael worked at Oxford Capital Partners where he focused on investing in early-stage healthcare and life science businesses. Before Oxford Capital, Mike was an academic researcher in the field of neurobiology and authored papers published in a number of leading academic journals, including Science. | Mike graduated with a 1st Class Honors degree in biology from Queen’s University, Canada, and earned his DPhil in zoology from Oxford University, where he was the Hope Scholar. | 22 |
| Carlos Antequera | Antequera | Novel Growth Partners | United States | Kansas, | Olathe | MW Plains/Rockies | Novel Growth Partners | 23 | Carlos is serving his fellowship at Novel Growth Partners as a member of Class 23. | Carlos is a Managing Director and co-founder of Novel Growth Partners, a new Kansas City-based venture firm that uses revenue-based finance (RBF) to invest in software companies that don’t fit the traditional venture or banking models.
Prior to Novel, Carlos was the Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer of PeopleAdmin, the leader in cloud-based talent management solutions for education and government. At PeopleAdmin, he was responsible for providing product strategic leadership and M&A. In collaboration with PeopleAdmin’s parent PE firm (Vista Private Equity) Carlos completed two K-12 EdTech company strategic acquisitions. Carlos joined PeopleAdmin in 2015 as part of the sale of the company he co-founded, Netchemia, where he was the CEO for 14 years. Under Carlos’ leadership, Netchemia grew from an idea into one of the leading technology companies in K-12 education in the country. Netchemia received many accolades, including being named to District Administration Magazine’s top 100 products for 4 years, named as one of Kansas City’s fastest growing companies by the Business Journal, and selected multiple times as one of “Best Companies to Work For." | Carlos graduated from Washburn University with a bachelor's degree in computer science and he completed his MBA at the University of Kansas.
Carlos is an active early stage angel investor, an active member of the Pipeline Entrepreneurial Fellowship, a mentor for Techstars-KC, Village Capital – Education Sector, and a board member of the LeanLab. Carlos is originally from Bolivia. He has resided in the US since college and calls Kansas City his home. In his free time, he enjoys reading, traveling, dancing salsa, and experimenting with tasty cocktail recipes. | 23 |
| Christoph Antz | Antz | Antz Consulting | Germany | , | Dossenheim | Europe | EMBL Ventures | 10 | A member of Class 10, Christoph served his fellowship under mentor Stefan Herr at EMBL Ventures in Heidelberg, Germany. | Christoph Antz has extensive experience in managing startup and early-phase biotech companies. He recently founded Antz Consulting and currently supports governmental organizations and international research institutions in setting up and financing startup companies within the in life sciences sector.
Previously, Christoph was a Managing Director at EMBL Ventures, where he invested in 6 companies, brought 1 to IPO, and held 4 board seats. In 1998, he co-founded Otogene (in Tübingen and Seattle), and later served as CEO at Abeta (Heidelberg) before joining EMBL Ventures in 2003. | Christoph obtained his PhD in physics/structural biology at the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. | 10 |
| Aaron Applbaum | Applbaum | MizMaa Ventures | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | MizMaa Ventures | 25 | Aaron Applbaum is a General Partner at MizMaa Ventures. He sits on the boards of Varada, AutoFleet, Cheq.ai, Ottopia, Protego Labs, and serves as an observer to the board for Aurora Labs. Aaron was formerly Principal and Director at Strategic Cyber Ventures, a cybersecurity focused Venture Capital fund, where he led the firm’s efforts to identify investments, played a critical role throughout the evaluation and execution process. He held an observer seat on the board of E8 Security. Previously, Aaron worked on the Direct Investments desk of Hudson Bay Capital Management, a multi-strategy, New York based hedge fund. Prior to Hudson, Aaron spent time in both government and non-profit sectors in defense related fields, including at the Department of Defense, the
U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Aaron currently sits on the Board of Trustees at the Institute for National Strategic Studies in Israel. | Aaron was raised in Oakland California where he attended Jewish day schools before moving East for University. Aaron graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public International Affairs, where his independent research focused on the intelligence community, Mideast politics and cybersecurity. At Princeton, he was a senior columnist with the Daily Princetonian, on the Alumni board of the Center for Jewish Life and deeply involved with the pro-Israel community. | 25 | ||
| Alessandro Araldi | Araldi | Honeywell | United States | New York, | Melville | NY/CT | CSK Venture Capital | 12 | A member of Class 12, Alessandro was mentored by Makoto Kaneshiro at CSK Venture Capital. | Alessandro is responsible for leading the corporate strategy and marketing functions for the Americas region of the Honeywell Security Group (HSG), a multi-billion-dollar business unit of Honeywell International and global leader in electronic physical security and connected home and building solutions.
Alessandro was previously a partner at CSK Venture Capital, one of the oldest and most successful Japanese VC firms, managing $250M in committed capital and investing in early stage IT and Biotech companies globally. Prior to CSK-VC Alessandro was with Texas Instruments where he led the product management of the OMAP™ microprocessor platform, growing it from pre-revenues to about $1B in sales to make it the leading mobile microprocessor platform and the fastest growing business at TI. Earlier, he was with the Boston Consulting Group where he was one of the early members of the high-tech and telecom practice. At the beginning of his career Alessandro worked at Telecom Italia Lab, the research center of Telecom Italia, where he developed next generation telecom networks and services. | Alessandro is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Bologna, Italy, holding a BS and MS in electrical engineering. Alessandro also holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. | 12 |
| Austin Arensberg | Arensberg | Okta Ventures | , | San Francisco | Northern CA | Okta Ventures | 25 | Austin leads Okta Ventures, a $50M fund supporting Okta’s mission to connect people and organizations to technology. Okta Ventures invests in enterprise software startups in privacy, security, and identity from Seed to Series B. Prior to joining Okta Ventures, Austin was Head of US Investment for Scrum Ventures, a generalist venture firm based in San Francisco. Austin began his career in Asia, investing in energy and clean technology across 4 different countries. | Austin is a graduate of INSEAD Business School, the University of Colorado Boulder, a 2016 Marshall Memorial Fellow, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Princeton in Asia Fellowship program. | 25 | ||
| Manik Arora | Arora | Rise Group | , | Asia | IDG Ventures India | 12 | Manik served his fellowship at IDG Ventures India under mentor Sudhir Sethi as a member of Class 12. He now serves as a mentor to Class 21 member Adrian Li. | Manik Arora serves as Chairman & CEO of Rise Group, a Singapore-based advisory and holding company for technology ventures.
Previously, he served as Founder & Managing Director of IDG Ventures India, a premier VC firm in India. During his nine years of building the firm, Manik and his colleagues made over 30 early- and expansion-stage technology investments. These include many of today's market leaders, such as Flipkart, Myntra, Firstcry, Lenskart, Xpressbees, and NestAway. Prior to IDG, Manik was a technology investor at Battery Ventures in Silicon Valley and started his investment career with General Atlantic. Previously, he worked in senior sales and operating roles with i-DNS.net, American Express and MasterCard International in New York and Singapore. His early career was as a strategy consultant with The Boston Consulting Group in South East Asia. Manik has been named to the Digirati list of "25 Powerful People in Indian Digital Business." | Manik holds a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College where he received a McCabe Fellowship to pursue his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is also a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). | 12 | ||
| Ariel Arrieta | Arrieta | NXTP Labs | Argentina | , | Bienos Aires | Latin America | Nxtp.Labs | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Ariel performed his fellowship at NXTP Labs. He was later a mentor to Class 20 member Francisco Coronel. | Ariel is a serial entrepreneur, cofounder and CEO of NXTP Labs, a seed-stage fund and business accelerator focused on Latin American companies. Since 1995, Ariel co-founded I-Solution (e-builder), OK-compra.com (ecommerce), Vcommerce (emarketplace), and BizStorming (Internet Marketing Agency). In 2003, he co-founded Digital Ventures and InZearch and grew the business to become one of the leading Ad Networks in Latin America. Both companies were acquired in July 2007 by Fox International Channels, a News Corp. company (NASDAQ:NWS). Post-acquisition, Ariel not only focused on the successful integration of the operation, he also helped shape the international expansion strategy for the ad network (now rebranded as .Fox Networks), increasing revenue four-fold and significantly expanded its global operation from three offices in Latin America to 21 offices spread across 4 continents.In 2009 he founded Nextperience, a creative agency, and in 2011 he created NXTP Labs. Ariel has a particular interest in companies focused on the internet and online media industry. As an angel investor, he owns equity and holds board positions on 22 internet startups. | Ariel was born in Buenos Aires. He graduated as an electronic technician and is a college dropout. He later studied management at Harvard Business School and graduated as part of the Owner/President Management Program (OPM). He is now an active member of the Harvard Club in Argentina and the HBS Angels Club. Ariel serves actively with NGOs such as Endeavor, Red Solidaria, Junior Achievement, Un Techo para mi País, and Kiva. Ariel and his wife have two children, Zoe and Ignacio, and in his spare time he enjoys running, diving and blogging at ArielArrieta.com. | 18 |
| Andy Artz | Artz | Social Capital | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Social+Capital Partnership | 20 | A member of Class 20, Andy served his fellowship at The Social+Capital Partnership under the mentorship of Growth Partner Ray Ko. | Andy Artz is the Head of User Acquisition for The Social+Capital Partnership, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. In this role, he co-founded and leads the firm’s User Acquisition practice—a platform to help portfolio companies grow users and top-line revenue via performance-based marketing.
Andy has a particular interest in consumer companies that are exploiting novel growth mechanisms to reach new industry verticals. He served as a growth advisor to Remind, a mobile messaging company for K-12 education; worked closely with Better, a mobile consumer health concierge service; and advises Sprig, an on-demand healthy meal delivery service, on its local marketing efforts. Previously, Andy was VP of Finance and Analytics at OMGPOP, a social gaming company based in New York City that developed the hit mobile game Draw Something, which sold to Zynga for $180M in March 2012. | Andy is a graduate of Harvard University, where he was the Mather House Co-Chair and Treasurer of the Social Enterprise Club. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics.
Andy is an avid supporter of the Frontiers of Science Institute in Northern Colorado, a program to encourage high school students to pursue careers in science, of which he is an alumnus. | 20 |
| Brian Ascher | Ascher | Venrock | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Venrock Associates | 04 | A member of Class 4, Brian served his fellowship at Venrock under the mentorship of Tony Sun and Ray Rothrock. | Brian joined Venrock in 1998 as a Kauffman Fellow and is currently a Partner based in Venrock's Palo Alto office. He invests broadly across enterprise and consumer internet markets. Brian serves on the boards of Vocera (NYSE:VCRA), Better Finance, Retail Solutions, Inrix, Personal Capital and Dynamic Signal. Past investments include ADiFY (acquired by Cox Enterprises), DATAllegro (acquired by Microsoft), Redbeacon (acquired by Home Depot), Tudou (acquired by Youku), RelayHealth (acquired by McKesson) and Unicru (acquired by Kronos).
Prior to Venrock, Brian was a Senior Product Manager at Intuit responsible for Quicken and Quicken.com, and earlier in his career was a Strategy Consultant at the Monitor Group. Brian has been named to the Forbes Midas List, which ranks the top venture capitalists in technology and life sciences, multiple times. | Brian has a BA degree, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. | 4 |
| Mike Asem | Asem | M25 | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | M25 | 24 | A member of Class 24, Mike is serving his fellowship at M25 under the mentorship of Elliott Robinson (Class 22), Head of Growth Equity at Bessemer Venture Partners. | As a partner at M25, Mike has participated in nearly 100 investments in early-stage companies across the Midwest, including ScriptDrop, where he is a board observer. M25 is a venture capital firm targeting early- stage, tech-enabled startups in the Midwest. Outside of his responsibilities at M25, Mike is a board member at BLCK VC, leading initiatives in the Midwest to connect, engage, empower, and advance Black venture investors. Prior to M25, Mike founded The Anvil, a co-working space and startup incubator on Purdue University's campus, where he helped launch the first Purdue startup to be accepted to Y Combinator. Mike was also the first employee at a nanotech startup, and is formerly a director at the Purdue Research Foundation, where he mentored companies, helped market unlicensed intellectual property, and created and implemented portfolio support strategies. | Mike earned his BA at Purdue University, where he was named the OnePurdue Scholar, a distinction given to the one student who has had the most positive influence on campus. He is also a board director at PicDiversity, a nonprofit that exists to provide teachers with media that mirrors the diversity of their students—inspiring and exposing them to careers and ambitions not typically associated with diverse individuals. Mike lives in Chicago with his wife, Erikka. In his free time, he enjoys making wine, eating sushi, following Chicago sports, and traveling with his wife. | 24 |
| Zaid Ashai | Ashai | Nexamp | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Good Energies | 13 | Zaid is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 13 and is served his fellowship under mentor Michael Ware at Good Energies in Washington, DC. | Zaid leads the firm's Cleantech investing efforts with a focus on energy efficiency. He represents Point Judith on the boards of Nexamp, Power Assure, Powerhouse Dynamics, Retroficiency, and MyEnergy (acquired by Nest).
He joined Point Judith Capital from Good Energies, a leading multi-stage Cleantech venture firm where he led investments in Nexamp (the leading provider of renewable energy solutions in New England, which was co-led by Point Judith Capital), 3Tier (leading provider of renewable energy forecasting and assessment software), Emergence Bioengineering (a developer of alternative energy solutions for low-income and developing countries) Everpower (leading wind power producer) and Kalpan (an independent hydro producer in India). Most recently Zaid worked at HarbourVest Partners, a global private equity firm based in Boston, MA. As an associate, Zaid completed early-stage and growth equity investments in the technology sector and had board level responsibilities on Intertrade Systems, Trellix Networks, Moai Technologies, and Network Engines. Prior to HarbourVest Partners, he was an investment banking analyst in Credit Suisse’s Technology Group. | Zaid holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and an MPA from the JFK School of Government at Harvard where he was selected as a Zuckerman Fellow. He earned his AB, with Honors and Phi Beta Kappa, in international relations from Brown University. | 13 |
| Renana Ashkenazi | Ashkenazi | Grove Ventures | , | Rishon Le Zion | Middle East | Grove Ventures | 25 | Renana comes from a strong technical background with extensive product and managerial experience in the areas of Technology, Global Innovation and strategy. Today, she manages the investment team at Grove Ventures, a leading Israeli early stage, deep technology fund established by Dov Moran.
Prior to joining Grove Ventures, she worked at Applied Materials, a global technology leader, in various product and technical management positions and her position prior to that was an engineering fellow at the Center for Innovation in Global Health Technologies at Northwestern University, developing diagnostic devices for poor resourced countries. She is a captain (res.) in the IDF and served as a technology officer in the military’s elite intelligence unit 8200. | Renana holds a MSc from Northwestern University in Chicago in Engineering and a BSc from Tel Aviv University in Biomedical Engineering. | 25 | ||
| Temi Awogboro | Awogboro | The Abraaj Group | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | The Abraaj Group | 23 | Temi is serving her fellowship at the Abraaj Group. She is a member of Class 23, working in London, UK. | Temi Marcella Awogboro is a Director with the Evercare Health Fund managed by TPG Growth and Co-Founder of Kairos Angels. Temi has more than a decade of experience in finance across developed and growth markets. As an investment professional, Temi has committed over half a billion dollars in private capital across strategic sectors in a bid to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Temi has extensive experience in building and cultivating disruptive, transformative institutions that will emerge initially as regional champions and go on to be tomorrow’s global challengers. She looks for investments with visionary entrepreneurs to build scalable businesses and sustainable innovation ecosystems and seeks to pioneer models that set global standard for investing with impact. Temi started her career at Goldman Sachs International, initially as a derivatives trader and then as an investment analyst where she expanded the firm’s European e-commerce footprint and built out the valuation framework for high-growth, disruptive companies. She was named a Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Scholar and was a recipient of the Goldman Sachs and Institute of International Education’s Global Leaders Award. Education, Personal, and Fellowship Temi holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and Master of Arts (MA) degree with First Class Honors in Economics from Christ’s College, the University of Cambridge, where she was a matriculation scholar. Temi is an African Leadership Institute Tutu Fellow, and was a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and Alumni Ambassador. She is the recipient of the Future Awards Africa Prize for Professional Service, M&A Advisor’s European Emerging Leaders Award and has been recognized as the Female Lead’s Top 20 Women under 20; and, Management Today and The Telegraph’s 35 Women Under 35 in the UK. Temi is serving her fellowship at Evercare Health Fund managed by TPG Growth. She is a member of Class 23, working between London, UK and Lagos, Nigeria. | Temi has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a First Class Master of Arts, with Honors, in economics from the University of Cambridge. Temi is on the board of Generation Enterprise, a nonprofit focused on providing at-risk youth pathways out of poverty through social mobility enterprises.
Temi is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, African Leadership Institute Tutu Fellow, and the recipient of the M&A Advisor's Emerging Leaders Award. She has been recognized as the Female Lead’s Top 20 Under 20, and Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35. | 23 |
| Wale Ayeni | Ayeni | IFC Venture Capital, World Bank | United States | District of Columbia, | Washington | Mid-Atlantic/SE;Africa | Echo VC | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Wale served his fellowship at EchoVC Partners under the mentorship of partners Eghosa Omoigui and Amber Fowler. | Wale Ayeni leads venture capital investments in Africa on behalf of the IFC, the International Finance Organization—part of the World Bank Group. He has over a decade of global technology experience spanning several roles including venture capital, investment banking, corporate development, and microprocessor and ASIC chip design. Prior to the IFC, Wale led early-stage investments in disruptive startups across various technology sectors for Orange in Silicon Valley, including PayJoy (FinTech), Veniam (mesh networks), and Chain (blockchain), WEVR (virtual reality). He also led transactions on behalf of EchoVC, an early-stage Pan African tech fund, in Hotels.ng and Printivo.
Wale started his finance career with J.P. Morgan’s Technology Investment Banking group in San Francisco where he successfully executed over $12B worth of closed transactions spanning mergers & acquisitions to IPOs for large-cap technology clients including Facebook, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Intel, AMD, and Shutterfly. Wale started his career as an engineer. At Intel, he was a microprocessor design engineer, where he led critical aspects of Intel's "CSI" chip architecture—the biggest micro-architecture change in Intel's history. He also led aspects of the very first "Snapdragon" chipsets working at Qualcomm Inc.’s chip design center enabling the initial smartphone designs. | Wale has an MBA from Dartmouth College, and his Bachelor’s degree, with distinguished “Red diploma,” from Moscow University. He is a recipient of the top global "100 Rising Stars" award in corporate venture.
Wale enjoys international travel. He has been to over 40 countries and speaks 4 languages fluently. In his free time he enjoys soccer, movies, cars, and mentoring. | 18 |
| Liron Azrielant | Azrielant | Meron Capital | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | Meron Capital | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Liron served her fellowship at Meron Capital under the mentorship of Blumberg Capital’s Managing and Founding Partner, David Blumberg. | Liron is a General Partner at Meron Capital, a $70M early-stage fund operating in Israel and the US. She has over a decade of experience in early-stage venture capital, private equity, management consulting, and software engineering. Liron has worked with multinational corporations and startups in Israel, the US, Europe, and South America.
Prior to joining Meron Capital, Liron was a Principal at Blumberg Capital in Israel, where she led cyber-security, SaaS, marketing-tech, and infrastructure IT deals. Before that, she was a strategy and M&A consultant at Bain Capital and PwC's PE group in the US, where she led commercial and operational diligence projects for private equity funds and strategic acquirers. She began her professional career as a technical applications engineer for telecommunication test platforms at Agilent Technologies. | Liron earned her MBA from MIT Sloan, and her MS in computer science from MIT’s School of Engineering. She has a BSc in math and physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a degree she started as part of the Israeli Air Force’s Talpiot Program and completed while serving full-time as a technology analyst and developer at the Israeli intelligence unit 8200. | 22 |
| George Babu | Babu | Kindred.ai | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Canada | OMERS Ventures | 18 | As a member of Class 18, George served his fellowship at the OMERS Ventures under the mentorship of CEO, John Ruffolo. | George is a technology entrepreneur with a lifelong fascination with technology’s impact on our world, and with the people and teams that successfully bring beautiful products & innovative technologies to the market. He is currently the co-founder of the startup Kindred.ai, working at the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).
In 2013, George joined OMERS Ventures as a Director, working on early-stage investments in a number of sectors. He lead OMERS’ participation in InteraXon’s Series A round (makers of the Muse, a consumer brain sensing headset), and worked on the deal teams responsible for OMERs’ lead investments in Shopify’s $100M Series C round (Commerce), and Wattpad’s $46M Series C round (Consumer). During this time, he began studying the advances in the robotics and AI sectors, and developed a conviction that we were at the beginning of a long cycle of rapid advances in those fields. Earlier, George was VP Operations for Greylock-backed Wrapp, a Swedish social gifting company. His responsibilities included building out and managing Wrapp’s US-based team and negotiating customer & partnership deals. Before that, he co-founded Rypple, a social enterprise software company (acquired by Salesforce in 2012), where he was responsible for internal operations, recruiting, and assisting with company strategy as well as financing and managing the acquisition process. George began his career at RIM, spending a fascinating decade there during the iconic firm’s rise from underdog to disruptor. He initially worked on RF Circuit & Systems Research & Design, and then managed RIM’s patent portfolios in the areas of RF, Cryptography, and other portfolios. He also assisted with various cross-border IP Litigation cases including NTP and Inpro. | George holds BA.Sc. (engineering science, electrical), JD, and MBA degrees from the University of Toronto. He has also studied product management at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and is a Registered Patent Agent in Canada and the holder of two patents. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Engineering Science at the University of Toronto.
George is an avid biker and runner, and although he can’t swim, he is training for an Ironman Triathlon; he recently developed an addiction to obstacle races. | 18 |
| Paul Badawi | Badawi | Sight Sciences | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | 3i | 09 | Paul is a member of Class 9 and served his fellowship at 3i under mentor Allan Ferguson. | Paul is an investor and entrepreneur specializing in the medical technology space. He seeks out massive unmet clinical needs that can be addressed with simple, elegant, and practical medical device solutions. Paul co-founded and serves as CEO of Sight Sciences, an innovative ophthalmic medical device company based in Menlo Park, CA. He is a co-inventor of the TRAB360 Instrument, VISCO360 System, Helix Microstent, and TearCare Dry Eye Treatment System.
Prior to launching Sight Sciences, Paul led the U.S. healthcare venture capital practice for 3i Group, a global private equity firm. While there, he helped build a portfolio of 12 medical device investments and $120MM invested. He served as a lead investor and board member for Ulthera (acquired by Merz), Xthetix (acquired by J&J), NeoGuide (acquired by Intuitive Surgical), OmniGuide, and Sotera Wireless, and as an observer on the boards of Small Bone Innovations (acquired by Stryker), Zonare (acquired by Mindray), and Transmedics. Earlier in his career, Paul was Vice President of Strategy at Medrium (acquired by Nightingale); he worked as an associate at the Delta Opportunity Fund that invested in privately-held and publicly-traded biotechnology and medical device companies; and conducted and published biochemical genetics research in the laboratory of a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the NIH. | Paul has developed throughout his career as a Research Fellow (NIH), Welsh Fellow, and Venture Fellow (UCLA), and Kauffman Fellow (3i). He holds a BS in biological sciences from the University of Chicago and an MBA from UCLA. | 9 |
| JinA Bae | Bae | Hanwha | Korea, Republic of | , | Seoul | Asia | Hanwha | 23 | A member of Class 23, JinA is serving her fellowship at Hanwha Asset Management under the mentorship of Managing Director, William Hahn. | JinA is the Head of Corporate Venture at Hanwha, where she focuses on developing the group’s strategic investment roadmap, launching new funds and forming investment consortiums with strategic partners, capturing value on investment opportunities, and creating connectivity among the various players in the innovation ecosystem. Hanwha Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Korea and a Global Fortune 250 Company with 60 subsidiaries across 3 main pillars of businesses: Manufacturing - Construction, Finance (AUM $140B), and Service - Leisure.
JinA began her career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco and London where she specialized in developing growth and marketing strategy for global tech and consumer goods companies. Prior to joining Hanwha, she was a founder & CEO of CHOPCHOP, a London-based food tech startup. | As an undergraduate, JinA attended Yale where she received a Bachelor of Arts in ethics, politics, and economics and graduated magna cum laude, with Distinction.
JinA is passionate about the Korean reunification and is involved in various grassroots movements to support the North Korean defector community in South Korea. She is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. | 23 |
| Lea Tarnowski | Tarnowski | Individual | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Northzone | 14 | A member of Class 14, Lea served her fellowship at Northzone Ventures in Stockholm under the mentorship of Pär-Jörgen Pärson. | Lea is an Angel investor in San Francisco. Previously she was an Investment Manager at Northzone Ventures, a leading European Venture Capital Partnership with a Nordic stronghold, focusing on early- and expansion-stage investments in the technology sector.
Previously, Lea founded an advisory business specializing in the digital media and consumer internet space. Prior to business school, Lea spent five years at Morgan Stanley in Paris and London, where she completed rotations through the Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance, Private Equity, and Leveraged Finance divisions. While at Morgan Stanley, Lea identified, evaluated, structured and negotiated a wide variety of transactions. While there, she was awarded a unique opportunity to focus on development of Morgan Stanley’s corporate strategy as a part of the Firm Management team. She led strategic projects, including the Balance Scorecard, First Connect, and Firm Relationship Management initiatives, which established consistent communication with clients and coordinated selling across divisions. Earlier, Lea worked at L’Oreal and McKinsey & Co. in Sweden and at Ericsson in Austria. At L’Oreal she developed brand marketing strategies and marketing plans. At McKinsey, she completed a securitization strategy project within the Financial Institutions Group. At Ericsson she developed a client interface and marketing program for the business-to-business division. | Lea holds an MSc in economics and business administration from Stockholm School of Economics and Hautes Etudes Commerciales, and an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School. Lea is a native speaker of Croatian and Swedish, fluent in English and French and proficient in German and Slovenian. She is also a certified nutritionist and a fitness instructor. | 14 |
| Alex Baker | Baker | Relay Ventures | Canada | Ontario, | Toronto | Canada | RBC Venture Partners | 13 | Alex is a graduate of the Program in Class 13, and served his fellowship under mentor Kevin Talbot at Relay Ventures in Toronto, Canada. | Alex is a Partner at Relay Ventures, an early-stage fund focused exclusively on mobile computing. Alex oversees direct investments in a broad range of mobile applications and services companies. He is an active board member and observer in supporting 7Shifts, Nymi, Influitive, ClearFit, TouchBistro, Kira, and teaBOT.
Alex is a frequent speaker and panelist at corporate and venture capital events, including Mobile World Congress, CIX, CTIA Wireless, IDCEE (Ukraine) and Mobile Monday. Prior to joining the team in 2008, Alex worked as a management consultant with BearingPoint and PwC Consulting. As a senior manager, he lead a wide range of consulting assignments covering business strategy and implementation of retail banking, consumer and commercial credit card and loyalty marketing solutions. Alex has managed large projects for some of the world's most prominent financial institutions, including Visa, American Express, PayPal, Bank of America, BarclayCard and CIBC. Alex began his career at The Loyalty Group where he helped launched the AIR MILES for Business program. | Alex holds a BBA from the Schulich School of Business, York University. | 13 |
| Walid Bakr | Bakr | Ripples Impact | , | Middle East | Abraaj Capital | 16 | A member of Class 16, Walid served his fellowship at Abraaj Capital under the mentorship of Senior Partner Tom Speechley. He now serves as mentor to Ambar Amleh (Class 23). | Walid is a Managing Partner at Ripples Impact in Egypt. He is part of the 2017 class of Eisenhower Fellows.
Previously, Walid was a principal with Riyada Enterprise Development, the growth equity investment platform of the Abraaj Capital Group, the Middle East’s leading PE firm. Based in Cairo, Egypt and reporting to the Chief Investment Officer, Walid was responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and structuring investment transactions. He also led portfolio management and pursued value creation plans to ultimately structure favorable exits. | Walid is a graduate of Alexandria University’s School of Engineering (in Alexandria, Egypt). He holds a Bachelor's degree, with top honors, with a major in communications engineering. | 16 | ||
| Thomas Ball | Ball | Next Coast Ventures | , | TX/South Central | Austin Ventures | 10 | A member of Class 10, Thomas served his fellowship at Austin Ventures under mentor Chris Pacitti. | Tom is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Next Coast Ventures, and has been an entrepreneur and early-stage investor for over 20 years.
Before co-founding Next Coast Ventures, Tom was a General Partner with Austin Ventures, where he spent 10 years investing in and working with entrepreneurs to build great companies. Earlier, he was the founder of Tahoe Domains, an ICANN accredited registrar; CEO and Co-Founder of Openfield and Razorgator Interactive; and Chairman, CEO, and Founder of eCoupons (acquired by Lifeminders-NASDAQ: LFMN). He also worked for a few years as a strategy consultant with Mitchell Madison Group. Tom is active in his local community, serving on the Boards of the local PBS affiliate, KLRU—home of the Austin City Limits television show—and the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas. | Tom earned his MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a BS in finance at the University of Florida. | 10 | ||
| Eric Ball | Ball | Impact Venture Capital | United States | California, | Burlingame | Northern CA | Oracle Corporation | 16 | Eric is served his fellowship at Oracle as a member of Class 16. | Eric Ball is a technology finance professional, investor, and board member. He currently serves as General Partner for Impact Venture Capital, which has made several technology investments. He also chairs the Audit Committee at Glu Mobile, a publicly-traded leader in 3D freemium mobile gaming.
From 2015-16, Eric served as CFO of C3 IoT, a pre-IPO company meeting an urgent demand for enterprise IoT applications that enable organizations in data-intensive industries to use real-time performance monitoring and predictive analytics to optimize business processes. Until 2015, Eric served as Senior VP and Treasurer for Oracle, a $40 billion provider of the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems. He joined the company in 2005 and led a team of 22 in managing the company’s worldwide treasury operations, capital markets activity, investment portfolio, foreign exchange, stock services, and risk management. Eric also managed a $200+ million venture portfolio. His team borrowed over $52 billion to fund acquisitions. Prior to joining Oracle, Eric worked in a variety of headquarters and operating finance roles at Flextronics, Cisco Systems, Avery Dennison, and AT&T. Eric was named by Treasury & Risk Management magazine in November 2003 as one of the “Top 40 Under 40” in Finance, and in June 2011 as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance.” Eric is coauthor (with Joe LiPuma) of the book Unlocking the Ivory Tower: How Management Research Can Transform Your Business, published in October 2012 by Kauffman Fellows Press, and available at amazon.com. The book was also released in Japan in April 2016 by Keio University Press. Eric and Joe also developed an online class based on this book in 2013, available at Kauffman Fellows Academy, Udemy, and Proformative Academy. Eric also wrote "What Can Venture Capitalists Learn from Academics?" in the Fall 2012 Kauffman Fellows Report. | Eric obtained his Bachelor’s degree in economics, with Honors, at the University of Michigan, and earned dual Master’s degrees in economics and business at the University of Rochester. He earned his PhD in 2007 at the Drucker-Ito School of Management. His venture-related dissertation served as the initial draft of a coauthored paper (“Can VCs Time the Market? An Analysis of Exit Choice for Venture-Backed Firms”) in the September 2011 issue of the Review of Financial Studies.
Eric lives in Menlo Park with his wife Sheryl Axline and sons Spencer and Carter. He earned his pilot's license in July 2012. | 16 |
| Rahul Ballal | Ballal | Northern Biologics | Canada | Ontario, | Toronto | Boston/Northeast;Canada | Broad Institute/Novartis Venture Fund | 15 | As a member of Class 15, Rahul served his fellowship at the Broad Institute/NVF under the mentorship of Dr.Gillian Isabelle and Dr. Reinhard Ambros (Novartis Venture Fund). | Rahul is Chief Business Officer for Toronto-based Northern Biologics and also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in Boston at Versant Ventures. Rahul has worked to expand Versant's presence in the Northeast and strengthen the firm's access to academic medical centers in the region. Northern Biologics is part of Versant's portfolio, and is an innovative, discovery-stage therapeutic antibody company tackling cancer and fibrosis.
Previously, Rahul was VP of Business Development at Flexion Therapeutics, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of non-opioid pain therapies, and was advancing a portfolio of injectable drug candidates. Rahul was also on the advisory board of Inception Sciences and Versant Ventures at the time. Before that, Rahul was a business development manager at the Broad Institute of Harvard/MIT. He worked with Broad scientists to start companies, raise venture funding, and license genomic technologies to pharma/biotech. During his PhD studies at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Rahul was a health economics consultant for Novo Nordisk and published findings on their NovoSeven therapeutic. Before his graduate studies, Rahul was an associate with the seed biotech fund ASM Ventures and a volunteer analyst for Bio Ventures for Global Health (BVGH), a Gates Foundation not-for-profit. Before ASM, he was founder and CEO of a venture-backed startup where he raised $12M in venture financing and led the company to acquisition in 2002. | Rahul earned his PhD in biochemistry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and is a Cosmos Scholar. He holds an MS from Johns Hopkins in bioinformatics and his undergraduate degree, in biology, from Brown University. He is an auto enthusiast and loves traveling with his family. | 15 |
| Brentt Baltimore | Baltimore | Greycroft Partners | , | PASADENA | Northern CA | Greycroft Partners | 25 | Brentt is on the investment team at Greycroft, based in Los Angeles. Brentt primarily invests in B2B and enterprise SaaS platforms with open source or channel driven go-to-market strategies. He is currently interested in the convergence of cyber and physical security, edge computing, and data interoperability/automation. He has helped lead Greycroft’s investments in Botkeeper, Mapped, and Agni, serving as an observer or a board director. In addition to his role on the investment team, Brentt leads Greycroft’s data science strategy as it applies to new investments.
Prior to Greycroft, Brentt was an early co-founder of Slope, a content management platform acquired by Smartsheet. He was an early employee at Operator, where he led go-to-market strategy and business development in the conversational commerce space. He also led technology commercialization at Numenta, an artificial intelligence research company developing the frontier of machine intelligence. Before moving to the operating side, Brentt was as an Associate at Detroit Venture Partners helping to raise the first fund and drive the investment process. Brentt started his career in Investment Banking at Credit Suisse, focusing on LBOs. Outside of Greycroft, Brentt is a board member at BLCK VC, leading initiatives in Los Angeles. | Brentt earned his MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and his BA in Economics from Claremont McKenna College.
He is passionate about machinery and the outdoors. His 1967 Pontiac Firebird is a continuous project that he has been working on for nearly 6 years. Driving up the California coast is his description of a wonderful day. | 25 | ||
| Janet Bannister | Bannister | Real Ventures | Canada | Ontario, | Toronto | Canada | Real Ventures | 24 | A member of Class 24, Janet is serving her fellowship at Real Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Parter John Stokes. | Janet is a Partner at Real Ventures, a leading source of capital for Canada’s game-changing entrepreneurs. She has led investments in over a dozen companies and works actively with founders to help them build large, industry-defining companies. In addition to working with her large portfolio of rapidly growing tech companies, Janet is active in the Canadian tech ecosystem; she sits on the boards of Communitech in Waterloo and Vector Institute in Toronto, and is an active advisor at MoveTheDial, DMZ, and Creative Destruction Lab. In 2004, Janet launched Kijiji.ca and grew it to become one of the most visited websites in Canada. Subsequently, she led the Kijiji Global business, launching the site in new countries and accelerating growth in North America, Europe, and Asia. Janet also spent 4 years at eBay in Silicon Valley where she helped transform the company from a collectibles to a mainstream marketplace. Janet started her career as a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble and then joined McKinsey & Co., where she was an Engagement Manager. | Janet received an HBA (Honours Business Administration) degree from Western University's Ivey Business School in Canada, where she was awarded the Gold Medal for the highest standings in her graduating class. Janet also received a Western Athletic Letter for her participation on the varsity cross country, track and field, and Nordic skiing teams. She was on the Canadian National Triathlon team for 3 years and represented Canada at the World Championships. Janet is happily married and has a 13-year-old son, who is the light of her life. | 24 |
| Zach Barasz | Barasz | BMW i Ventures | United States | California, | Mountain View | Northern CA | BMW i Ventures | 23 | A member of Class 23, Zach is serving his fellowship at BMW i Ventures. | Zach has experience in venture, growth equity, and private equity. He currently serves as a Partner at BMW i Ventures and invests in companies that are reimagining transportation, manufacturing, and mobility.
He started investing in 2010 as a Senior Associate at Altamont Capital Partners, a middle market private equity firm focused on active investing in operationally intense situations. He then joined the Green Growth Fund at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he helped make late-stage and growth investments in technology companies that were transforming large, traditional industries. Zach started his career as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, focused on consumer and retail clients in the US and Australia. He has also worked in strategy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a leading international conservation organization. | Zach earned a BA degree in political science and a BS degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School, and he holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Zach is on the Board of Directors of Watermark, a nonprofit membership and development organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in leadership positions. | 23 |
| Rob Barbara | Barbara | Build Ventures | Canada | Nova Scotia, | Halifax | Canada | Build Ventures | 24 | Rob is serving his fellowship at Build Ventures as a member of Class 24. | Rob is co-founder of Build Ventures, a Canadian early-stage venture firm based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Build focuses on the underserved Atlantic Canadian innovation ecosystem. Its second fund was raised in February 2019. Prior to Build, Rob founded Beaujolais Private Investment Management, a private wealth management firm that was part of Burgundy Asset Management. He grew the firm to $400M in assets under management. He also founded eSalveo, a messaging and transaction platform for the primary care physician market. Rob has been an investment banker and an economist as well. | Rob has a Bachelor and a Master of Arts in economics from Queen's University and an MBA from Western University’s Ivey Business School, both schools located in Ontario, Canada. He is also a CFA charterholder. Rob is married (Robin) and has three sons. He is active in his community, currently co-chairing a capital campaign for the Sacred Heart School of Halifax and serving as the Director of the Lunenburg Yacht Club's learn-to-sail program; he is actively competitive in sailboat racing. | 24 |
| Christiana Bardon | Bardon | Burrage Capital | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Boston/Northeast | MPM Capital | 08 | Christiana is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 8 and served her fellowship under mentor Ansbert Gadicke at MPM Capital in Munich, Germany. | Christiana is the founder and portfolio manager of Burrage Capital. The firm is a hedge fund which invests long and short in biotechnology and medical technology companies. Christiana was previously a biotechnology analyst at Pyramis Global Advisors, a Fidelity Investments subsidiary. At Pyramis, Christiana focused on long and short investing of public biotechnology and medical product companies of all market capitalizations.
Christiana joined Pyramis from MPM Capital, where she was a Principal involved in the diligence, execution and management of both public and private biotechnology investments. While at MPM, she was also the co-Founder and VP of Corporate Development for Cerimon Pharmaceuticals, and worked to help Cerimon secure a $70M Series A Financing. | Christiana completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She holds an MD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Medical School and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Her undergraduate studies were completed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Christiana enjoys traveling and working abroad. She is fluent in Chinese, German, and Spanish and proficient in French, Italian, and Portuguese. In her spare time, she enjoys running (Boston Marathon - 3 hours 45 minutes), piano music, and gourmet cooking. | 8 |
| Luis Barrios | Barrios | Ark.Fund | Mexico | DF, | Mexico City | Latin America | THE POOL | 20 | Luis is a member of Class 20 and served his fellowship at THE POOL under the mentorship of Pablo Salazar Rojo (Class 15), Managing Partner at NXTP Labs. | Luis X. Barrios is a Mexican entrepreneur and founder of THE POOL Entrepreneurship Club and CoWork. THE POOL is a club for entrepreneurs united by their common goal of developing and growing new companies that make life better; the camaraderie created by the group’s dedication and support leads to greater achievement. Luis advises and supports entrepreneurial teams in exploiting their talents, pushing them to the next level, and increasing their entrepreneurial success ratio.
The members of THE POOL are a team that inspire, share, and learn from each other’s experiences. The club provides its entrepreneurs with a unique working space, mentorship, training, funding, and an extended network so that members don't have to jump into “the deep end” by themselves. As an individual, Luis is also a co-founder of the ASEM (Mexican Entrepreneurship Association), in collaboration with the same entities in Chile and other countries in Latin America. All these associations are part of the ASELA (LatAm Entrepreneurship Association), a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to create an entity—neither governmental nor privately held—to promote best practices and better the entrepreneurial environment and legislation in each country to reduce barriers of entry of young and talented entrepreneurs building companies of the future. | Luis is a graduate of Franklin W. Olin Graduate School at Babson College, where he was member of the Babson Latin America Entrepreneurship Forum. He holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering.
Luis attended VCX at Draper University, a hands-on venture capital experience imparted by Tim Draper, Mark Maples, Steve Jurvetson, and more. | 20 |
| Michael Beaudoin | Beaudoin | Mark IV Capital | United States | California, | Newport Beach | Southern CA & Hawaii | Mark IV Capital | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Michael is serving his fellowship at Mark IV Capital under the mentorship of Jack Crawford (Class 16), General Partner at Impact Venture Capital. | Michael is an Investment Manager at Mark IV Capital, located in Newport Beach, CA. He invests in private equities, including providing venture capital to rapidly growing early-stage companies. He serves on several boards, including Adroit Worldwide Media, GigaIO, Matrix Sensors, and OnSite Waste Management.
Prior to joining Mark IV Capital, Michael took part in AT&T’s Leadership Development Program, where he created and operated AT&T’s Aspire Accelerator. This accelerator focuses on enhancing education by supporting and mentoring the most promising and innovative edTech companies that have the potential to help every student achieve a bright, successful future. Michael began his career in investment and commercial banking at Bank One and Merrill Lynch, then went on to serve as a Vice President at both JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, where he led teams focused on wealth management. | Michael attended Ball State University where he received a BS in 2001; he earned an MBA from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business in 2011. His MBA degree included certificates in social, ethical, and environmental responsibility and dispute resolution from the Pepperdine University School of Law.
Michael serves on the board of Lions Heart, a nonprofit. | 23 |
| Daniel Becker | Becker | Impact Venture Capital | United States | California, | Burlingame | Northern CA | Samsung Electronics | 16 | Dan is a member of Class 16. He served his fellowship at Samsung’s Open Innovation Center and Media Solutions Center, under the mentorship of Brian Kang (Nautilus Venture Partners) and Seogju Lee (Samsung Corporate Development). | In his role at Impact, Dan focuses on strategy, early-stage media investments, and corporate consulting. His extensive experience with corporate venture and innovation programs provides Impact perspective to its platform of corporate venture services. Currently, he serves as Board Director to Watchwith and Advisor to MOVL (acquired by Samsung).
In addition to Impact, Dan is Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Gracenote, and its parent Tribune Media. He works on capital expenditure projects, acquisitions, and investments in the entertainment data and technologies markets. Dan was previously with Samsung Electronics. He started at headquarters in South Korea as a member of the strategy planning team and helped establish its corporate development group. He transferred to the Bay Area as Director to kick-start investments with the new Open Innovation Fund and run strategy and corporate development for the new Media Solution Center. Earlier, Dan was a management consultant with Accenture’s Media and Entertainment practice where he provided strategy and operations execution on pioneering new media projects for industry clients, including Discovery, Disney, WebMD, Cable Labs, Verizon, Telstra, and The Travel Channel. Dan’s entrepreneurial roots include Founder of AdTag Airport Media; Northwind Services; and Santiago Almada, an agri-business cooperative founded while serving in the Peace Corps. | Dan holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, with majors in finance (PE/VC), entrepreneurship, and media management. He earned his BA from Marquette University, in anthropology and economics.
Dan is an amateur sailor, holding BBC and Spinnaker skipper certifications, and the credentials for wanna-be race crew on the J/105 class. He also enjoys extended treks into the wilderness and off-the-beaten-path travel. | 16 |
| M. Beckmann | Beckmann | Life Science Washington | United States | Washington, | Seattle | Canada | Accelerator Corp./NW Technology Ventures | 12 | Patricia was a member of Class 12. She served her fellowship under mentors Bill Newman at Northwest Technology Ventures and Carl Weissman at Accelerator Corporation. | Patricia's career spans biomedical research, operations, law and venture capital. In 2017 she joined Life Science Washington, the state's life sciences trade association. As VP of Commercialization, Patricia oversees the organization's efforts to assist life science researchers, entrepreneurs, and companies in bridging the gap between discovery and commercialization through free consulting to member companies, educational and company showcase events, and the creation of resources pertinent to the issues faced by technology commercialization in Washington state.
Before her current role, Patricia has been Managing Director of BioStrategy, LLC where she has advised early-stage biotechnology, medical device, digital health, and agricultural-related companies. She was the Chief Technology Development Officer for CDRD Ventures (CVI) in Vancouver, BC. CVI is the for-profit commercialization vehicle of the not-for-profit Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), Canada's national drug development and commercialization centre. Patricia was also President and Executive Director of the non-profit Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute (OTRADI), where she established a small fund and incubator model for Oregon start-ups. Patricia spent several years in venture capital, first as part of the bioscience investment team at Vulcan Capital, and later as a Kauffman Fellow at Accelerator Corp. Beofre her investing career, Patricia spent most of her research career at Immunex (co-inventor of Enbrel, Mobista and Nuvance) as well as several years in the Immunex and Amgen Law Departments performing technology assessment for licensing, intellectual property and litigation support. | Patricia earned her BA in biology, chemistry and art from The Evergreen State College and her PhD in biochemistry and pharmacology from the University of Arizona, College of Medicine. She is a two-time Fulbright Scholar pursuing studies in Sweden and India and was a Visiting Scientist at the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. | 12 |
| Ravi Belani | Belani | Alchemist Accelerator | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Draper Fisher Jurvetson | 11 | A member of Fellows Class 11, Ravi served his fellowship under mentor Andreas Stavropoulos at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. | Ravi is currently the Managing Director of The Alchemist Accelerator, a venture-backed initiative focused on accelerating startups whose revenue comes from enterprises (not consumers). The accelerator backs teams with distinctive technical founders, and provides $40K notes, a fellowship of high-potential founders, highly sought-after mentors, customer development, and a structured path to fundraising.
Since 2012, Ravi has been co-teaching a course at Stanford University called The Spirit of Entrepreneurship, a survey course on entrepreneurship. Earlier, Ravi spent over three years as an Associate at DFJ, where he worked in the area of online advertising, media, and mobility with companies Komli and PubMatic. He held board seats at Desi Hits!, Live Media, Radar, Redux, and Vizu, among others. Ravi brings experience with startup ventures and established companies to his role as a venture capitalist. Before DFJ, Ravi worked in product management at enterprise software startup Zaplet (acquired by MetricStream) and at Extensity (IPO-ed, then acquired by GEAC). As a consultant at McKinsey & Co., Ravi helped publicly traded high-tech and biotech companies address core strategy, marketing, and operational issues. Ravi has also worked in equity research at Bridgewater Associates and in the Strategy & Emerging Technology group at Medtronic. | Ravi is a Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi graduate of Stanford University, holding a BS, with Distinction, and an MS in industrial engineering. Ravi also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. As a Board Fellow at Harvard, Ravi served on the global board of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), where he is still active. | 11 |
| Amy Raimundo | Raimundo | Kaiser Permanente Ventures | United States | California, | Oakland | Northern CA | Advanced Technology Ventures | 12 | A member of Fellows Class 12, Amy served her fellowship under mentor Mike Carusi at Advanced Technology Ventures. | Amy recently joined Kaiser Permanente Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Kaiser Permanente health system, located in Oakland, CA.
Previously, Amy was with Evidation Health, a joint-venture between GE Ventures and Stanford University launched in 2015. Evidation Health is focused on generating real-world clinical and economic evidence for digital health products and platforms. The firm combines health outcomes data with new approaches to predictive analytics to identify and deploy the most effective and efficient patient management strategies and interventions. Before Evidation Amy was a Director at Covidien Ventures, focusing on medical devices, diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals. In 2010, Amy also founded MedTech Women, an organization highlighting women leaders in medical devices and diagnostics; the organization hosts an annual conference, MedTech Vision. Amy served her Kauffman Fellowship at Advanced Technology Ventures, where she spent 4 years as in firm’s healthcare practice, focused on the medical device sector. Before her venture career, Amy worked in global marketing at Guidant where she led their first Drug Eluting Stent launch internationally. She also launched and managed the profitability of angioplasty and radiation therapy products in the US, Europe and Asia. Amy has also worked for Bristol-Myers Squibb on the marketing of a variety of cardiovascular, HIV, and neuroscience products. As a consultant for CSC (formerly APM), Amy worked with healthcare providers and insurers on strategic, clinical, and operations projects. Over her years of consulting, Amy’s projects addressed each aspect of performance optimization including clinical resource management, guideline development, vendor negotiations, operations reengineering, staffing, and strategic program development. | Amy holds an MBA from UC Berkeley and a BA in economics from Yale University. | 12 |
| Nico Berardi | Berardi | ANIMO Ventures | United States | Florida, | Miami | Mid-Atlantic/SE | AGP Miami | 20 | Nico is a member of Class 20 and served his fellowship at AGP Miami under the mentorship of Juan Pablo Cappello. | Nico Berardi is the Founder & General Partner of ANIMO Ventures; a seed-stage focused venture capital firm. ANIMO was founded in 2018 with a U$60m debut fund to lead or co-lead the earliest rounds of financing for tech startups, across the US. He was at Resolute Ventures, a top-decile seed firm, for the two years prior. Previously, Nico got his start in the venture industry by launching Miami Angels, a seed-stage focused angel group in partnership with the Knight Foundation. Miami Angels is the premier angel group in Florida investing U$250k-U$300k in 8-10 startups a year. Nico currently serves on the Board. His career began in the non-profit world, where he spent seven years at leadership of TECHO.org; as it became the largest non-profit in Latin America with an annual budget of U$40m operating in 65 cities. He has spoken at the Global Economic Symposium, TEDx Miami, The Atlantic Start-up City, the Center for Hemispheric Policy and the Americas Society / Council of the Americas. He has been selected as a Young American Leader by Harvard Business School, Top 100 Innovators of Argentina by BGH, Gamechanger by the Miami Chamber of Commerce and showcased at Yahoo! The Innovators series. Nico has a multicultural background having been born in Argentina and lived in Mexico, Venezuela, Boston and Miami. He has a broad profile combining his social activism with a strong interest in academic literature, sports and music. | Nico studied economics at Universidad Torcuato DiTella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received an honorable mention for his graduating thesis, which modeled the incorporation of e-commerce into traditional search models. While growing up, he lived in Mexico for 5 years and in Venezuela for 4 years, attending international schools. He has a broad profile, combining his social activism with a strong interest in academic literature, sports, and several musical instruments. He was selected as a Young American Leader by Harvard Business School and a Top 100 Innovator of Argentina by BGH. Nico spoke at TEDx Miami, the Global Economic Symposium, and the Council of the Americas. | 20 |
| Eivind Bergsmyr | Bergsmyr | Viking Venture Management | Norway | , | Trondheim | Europe | Viking Venture Management | 16 | Eivind is a member of Class 16 and served his fellowship at Viking Venture under the mentorship of Managing Partner Erik Hagen. | Eivind Bergsmyr is a partner with Viking Venture, a leading Scandinavian technology-oriented venture capital firm based in Trondheim, Norway. He is actively involved in sourcing new deals, leading investment processes, developing companies to their full potential, and running exit processes. Eivind has a particular interest in companies focused on ICT and energy-related topics. He is Chairman of the Board of GasSecure (Norway), a company that develops wireless gas detectors for use in the oil and gas industry. He is a board member at Nanoradio (Sweden), a suplier of small, energy efficient WIFI chips for mobile devices; poLight (Norway/France), a company that develops next-generation autofocus lenses for mobile phone cameras; MemfoAct (Norway), a company that develops carbon membranes allowing efficient separation of CO2 and methane from biogas; and EcoWat (Norway), a company developing a new water purification technology based on hydrates. He is a board observer at Read Well Services (UK), a company that offers services related to well logging and integrity to oil companies, and is an advisor to Zilift (UK), a company that offers revolutionary artificial lift technology to the oil and gas industry. Eivind served as the CEO of Nacre from 2002 to 2009, where he grew the company from one employee to a world leader in its field of digital miniature hearing protection and communication headsets for military use. Nacre is one of the most successful Norwegian venture-backed companies and was voted 2007’s Nordic Venture Exit of the Year after being sold to Sperian, now a part of Honeywell (US). | Eivind holds a Master of Science degree in electronics engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He also has extensive management and business education from Siemens and the Norwegian School of Management. | 16 |
| Nik Berman | Berman | KaszeK Ventures | Argentina | , | Buenos Aires | Latin America | KaszeK Ventures | 21 | Nik served his fellowship at KaszeK Ventures as a member of Class 21 under the mentorship of Hernan Kazah. | Nik is a Partner at Kaszek Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in high-impact technology-based companies whose main focus is Latin America. In addition to capital deployment, the firm actively supports its portfolio companies through value-added strategic guidance and hands-on operational help, leveraging its partners’ successful entrepreneurial backgrounds and extensive network.
Before joining Kaszek Ventures, Nik worked for 13 years at MercadoLibre, where he was VP of Advertising, VP of Marketing, Marketing Manager, and covered several roles in the company’s technology and product areas. He led several key projects in search, business intelligence (BI), user experience (UX), and SEO, and created the company’s affiliate program, which is the largest in Latin America. During all these years, Nik has also been a very active advisor and angel investor in the Latin American startup scene. Prior to MercadoLibre, Nik was a Commercial Manager at LG Electronics, where he received the “LG Global Hit Idea” award for his innovative thinking. He currently sits on the boards of several technology companies, including DogHero, Contabilizei, and Pitzi. | Nik earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina).
He served as President of AMDIA (Argentina’s direct marketing association), received an Echo Award by the DMA in 2000, is currently an active mentor for Endeavor Argentina, and sits in the board of Educatina, a company focused on democratizing high-quality education across Latin America. | 21 |
| Scott Bernstein | Bernstein | Lewis & Clark Ventures | United States | Missouri, | St. Louis | MW Plains/Rockies | Lewis & Clark Ventures | 22 | Scott served his fellowship under the mentorship of David Poldoian, Operating Partner at Lewis & Clark Ventures. He is a member of Class 22. | Scott’s career has spanned portfolio management, product strategy, and product development across VC funds, large financial institutions, and startups. He helped launch Lewis & Clark Ventures, St. Louis’ first $100M+ venture fund, using his expertise in investment analysis, marketplace strategy, and startup stewardship to drive Lewis & Clark’s capital deployment, advise portfolio companies, and develop larger fund strategy. Scott actively participates on the boards of both Adarza BioSystems, a proteome-focused biotech company, and OneSpace, a SaaS platform that facilitates freelance work at enterprise scale.
In 2012, Scott brought his technical and strategic expertise to the startup space, joining Coolfire Solutions in St. Louis as a Product Strategy Manager. After building a reputation for helping startups scale, Scott was approached by tech accelerator Capital Innovators, one of the nation’s top-10 accelerators, to lead operations. Scott grew Capital Innovators’ network, led their startup recruitment and diligence process, and actively coached portfolio companies. Scott began his career in Chicago, working in private wealth management at Harris Bank before joining MainStreet Advisors, an investment advisory firm. He then became Program Manager at Omnium, a spinout of Citadel Investment Group, where he led product development initiatives and global hedge fund client implementations. | Scott received his Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Scott serves on the Arch Grants Competition Committee, and acts as a judge for several perennial Washington University in St. Louis startup competitions. Scott was named to the St. Louis Business Journal “40 Under 40” list. | 22 |
| Andris Berzins | Berzins | Change Ventures | Estonia | , | Tallinn | Europe | Change Ventures | 22 | Andris served his fellowship at Change Ventures as a member of Class 22. His mentor was Daniel Blomquist (Class 16), Operating Partner at Creandum. | Andris leads the micro-VC firm Change Ventures, a seed fund based in the Baltic States that invests in Baltic founders worldwide. He began his investing career as a venture partner at Creandum, helped set up the first Startup Wise Guys accelerator program in Estonia, and served as an investment advisor for Estonia’s SmartCap fund. Andris is an advisor, board member, and investor in several of the more successful startups in the Baltic states, including Infogram (recently acquired by Prezi), AirDog, and SonarWorks.
Before venture, Andris served as CMO at Livebookings (Europe’s OpenTable), which was later acquired for $110M. Andris has co-founded several startups, including his share of failures. He joined his first startup, AeroScout, as VP of Marketing and Business Development, later also taking on roles in sales and product management. He led the invention and growth of the company’s flagship WiFi RFID tag product to lead the WiFi enterprise real-time location system market. AeroScout was acquired by Stanley Black & Decker for $240M. Andris worked at Bain & Company in Boston immediately after business school. | Andris holds an MBA from Stanford and completed his bachelor’s degree in London at City University.
Andris co-founded the non-profit foundation TechHub Riga, Latvia’s leading organization supporting the startup ecosystem, helping establish technology startups as a source of vibrant economic growth in the country. He later also co-founded the Latvian Startup Association and is a frequent speaker on digitalization and innovation. He is an advisor to the Minister for Economics in Latvia and was awarded the Human Development Award by the President for his contribution to the future of the nation. Andris is an advisory board member for Riga Technical University and board member for the leading independent weekly news magazine in Latvia. He also spends weekends serving in an infantry battalion of Latvia’s National Guard. | 22 |
| Alessio Beverina | Beverina | Panakes Partners | Italy | , | Milano | Europe | Sofinnova Partners | 13 | Alessio is a member of Class 13. He served his fellowship at Sofinnova Partners under mentor Jean Schmitt in Paris, France. | Alessio recently co-founded a new VC firm, Panakes Partners, that finances medical innovative companies, early-stage startups, and SMEs with extremely promising products and great ambition, in Europe and Israel. Panakes Partners is located in Milan, Italy.
Before this, Alessio spent 9 years in Paris at Sofinnova Partners, one of the largest European VCs, progressing from Analyst to Partner positions. While there he gained extensive experience with European and American markets, and focused on the energy, IoT, cleantech, hardware and semiconductor sectors. Alessio began his career in 1997 as a researcher at LETI, one of the most important European Labs in the electronics research field. From there he worked in the central R&D group for STMicroelectronics, in charge of advanced CMOS technologies. Alessio holds 5 patents and has several publications. | Alessio graduated from Politecnico di Milano, in chemical engineering, with specialization in chemistry and physics of solid materials. Alessio also holds an MBA from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP-EAP). | 13 |
| Binoy Bhansali | Bhansali | Sandbox Industries | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Sandbox Industries | 23 | Binoy is serving his fellowship at Sandbox Industries in Chicago under the mentorship of Mike Spadafore as a member of Class 23. | Binoy is a Vice President at Sandbox Industries, an investment firm that manages ~$1B across three industries: healthcare, food and agriculture, and insurance. Binoy works primarily within Sandbox's healthcare vertical, where the fund team has partnered with BlueCross BlueShield Plans around the country to invest in companies that are of strategic relevance to the group. The team invests in healthcare IT and services companies across stages. Binoy supports the fund's investing (sourcing, diligence, transaction execution), portfolio company management, and client management efforts. He has spent his time in a variety of spaces including patient engagement, pharmacy, and businesses that touch Medicare or Medicaid dollars.
Previously, Binoy worked at another investment firm that specialized in social impact investing. Prior to that, he was a consultant at Accenture where he worked with their M&A group to help healthcare organizations across the spectrum evaluate potential acquisitions and partnerships. Binoy started his career in investment banking at Citi, working predominantly with health systems and insurers on their buy-side and sell-side M&A processes. | Binoy attended Northwestern University where received a Bachelor of Arts in economics and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. | 23 |
| Gurdane Bhutani | Bhutani | FundRx | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | FundRx | 23 | Gurdane is a member of Class 23, serving his fellowship under mentors Mark Jelley (OrbiMed) and Andrew ElBardissi (Deerfield Management). He is based in New York City. | Gurdane is a co-founder of healthcare and life-science venture capital firm FundRx, and serves as the firm's managing partner. Notably, he has championed the firm's build-out of its community-driven investment infrastructure, which is modeled on the scientific peer-review process. Since the firm’s launch in 2015, he has co-led 25+ investments across the biotechnology, medical device, and healthcare IT/services sectors.
Previously, Gurdane worked at Bain & Company in New York, focusing on clients across the private equity and technology industries. Prior to Bain, he worked in the public finance group at Morgan Stanley and was on the team that launched StartUp Health, a leading accelerator and fund for digital health startups. Through a partnership between FundRx and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, he also instructs a course on healthcare venture finance at the university. | Gurdane holds degrees in computer science (BA), public policy (BA), and economics (minor) from Duke University, where he was an Angier B. Duke Scholar. He also attended the University of Oxford as a Lord Rothermere Scholar.
Gurdane is actively involved in Effective Altruism initiatives and is a signatory to both the Giving What We Can and Founders’ Pledges, in addition to working as a mentor with Endeavor Global and America Needs You. He is an amateur triathlete and earlier in his career worked briefly as a professional musician and record label manager. | 23 |
| Derek Bittar | Bittar | IndicatorCapital | Brazil | São Paulo, | Sao Paulo | Latin America | Indicator Capital | 19 | A member of Class 19, Derek served his fellowship at IndicatorCapital under the mentorship of Thomas Bittar, his brother and co-founding partner. | Derek Lundgren Bittar is a co-founding partner of IndicatorCapital, an early-stage VC firm based in São Paulo, Brazil. IndicatorCapital is an equal partnership that envisions to be recognized as “investors for the good”. The firm promotes a convergence among the entrepreneur’s dream, the venture’s success, and return of investors’ capital by offering effective tools of operations, management, disruptive vision, partnership, and durable value creation.
Derek is in charge of the fund’s infrastructure, investment process, legal framework, and governance. He is a board observer at portfolio company Medicinia, the first cross-platform technology that efficiently distributes critical information to doctors, patients, and staff of a hospital or healthcare institution. Before co-founding IndicatorCapital, Derek occupied a senior position as long-term equity investor for Itau Asset Management and has gathered 13 years of industry experience. As an individual, Derek is chairman of his family’s business council. Founded by a Swedish immigrant, Pernambucanas is a 105-year-old Brazilian retail company that has been under the family’s ownership since its establishment. | Derek holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a major in general management. He holds a Bachelor's degree in economics from PUC of Rio de Janeiro. In addition to his native Portuguese, Derek is fluent in English, German, and French. | 19 |
| David Blackburn | Blackburn | Harbour Ventures | United States | California, | Southern CA & Hawaii | Olympic Venture Partners | 02 | 2 | ||||
| Stephen Bloch | Bloch | Canaan Partners | United States | Connecticut, | Westport | NY/CT | Canaan Partners | 07 | As a member of Fellows Class 7, Stephen served his fellowship under mentor Seth Rudnick at Canaan Partners. He was also a mentor to John Pacifico, Class 12. | A former entrepreneur and practicing physician, Steve knows firsthand the challenges of building successful healthcare companies. Unfazed by the complexity in healthcare, whether regulatory, scientific or technical, Steve's mission at Canaan is to find companies that make healthcare delivery more efficient.
As executive chairman, Steve helped Advanced BioHealing (ABH), a leader in regenerative medicine, grow from a seed-stage company to a $750M all-cash acquisition by Shire, generating a 15X return for Canaan. He currently serves on the boards of companies in Healthcare IT (Truveris, DICOM Grid, and Axial Exchange); BioPharma (Envisia, Liquidia, and Marinus Pharmaceuticals); Medical Devices (Mitraspan); and Diagnostics (Sample6). Stephen’s first investment at Canaan, Amicus Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FOLD), creates oral therapies to correct genetic diseases where misfolded proteins are culprit. Since Canaan invested, Amicus’s lead program in Fabry’s Disease has progressed into phase 3 clinical trials in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. Before joining Canaan in 2002, Stephen founded Radiology Management Sciences (RMS), a pioneer in managing radiology benefits for health plans where he was CEO for 6 years. Stephen helped start OmniSonics Medical Technologies, which engineered novel ultrasonic catheters for treating vascular occlusive disease and co-founded TeleRad, an early teleradiology services company. Prior to embarking on start-ups, Stephen was a strategic consultant for Arthur D. Little, a global consulting firm. | Stephen received his medical training in radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and in internal medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital/Cornell Medical School. He earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester, an MA in the history of science and public policy from Harvard University, and an AB degree from Dartmouth College. | 7 |
| Daniel Blomquist | Blomquist | Creandum | Sweden | , | Stockholm | Europe | Creandum | 16 | A member of Class 16, Daniel served his fellowship at Creandum under the mentorship of Johan Brenner. He was a mentor to Andris K. Berzins (Class 22) of Change Ventures. | As Operating Partner of Creandum, Daniel manages Creandum’s operations, LP relationships, investment advisory process, and fund strategy across its offices in Stockholm, Sweden, Berlin, and San Francisco. Before his role as Operating Partner, Daniel spent 10 years as an investor at the firm, focused on business and consumer software, with a passion for analytics. He led Creandum’s investments in Armada Interactive, Resolution Games, and Futureplay Games, as well as SaaS firms Aito Technologies and Its Learning.
Daniel has a solid startup background from the software sector and significant international experience. Prior to Creandum, he was Vice President of Marketing at Ascade and was part of building the company from a small consultancy into a leading international software company. He has also worked for Volvo IT in Great Britain and Gulf Agency Company in Dubai, UAE. | Daniel holds an MSc in Industrial Engineering and Management – International from Linköping Institute of Technology and EPFL in Lausanne, and an MBA from Stockholm School of Economics. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden with his wife and daughter and has previously lived in US, UK, France, Switzerland, and United Arab Emirates. | 16 |
| Jay Boddu | Boddu | Juniper Networks | United States | California, | Sunnyvale | Northern CA | Sofinnova Ventures | 12 | A member of Fellows Class 12, Jay served his fellowship at Sofinnova Ventures under mentor Eric Buatois. | Jay brings 18 years of experience as a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, business manager, and R&D leader. His diverse experience ranges from small venture-backed startups to large multinationals; deep product R&D to launching and managing businesses from concept to scaling into hundred million-dollar enterprises; and investing and managing a mix of early- and late-stage venture-backed startups.
At Juniper Networks, Jay is Head of New Business Incubation activities, reporting to the Founder/Vice Chairman of the Board/CTO of the company. As Juniper's entrepreneur-in-residence, Jay is responsible for shaping ideas into profitable businesses, focusing on mobility, high-performance networking, and cloud computing. Jay completed his fellowship at Sofinnova Ventures where he worked in all aspects of venture investing. He sat on the board of CrestaTech (programmable broadband processors), and was actively involved with the boards of Guavus (real-time analytics SaaS provider) and Contextream (content services platforms). Jay joined Sofinnova from an earlier tenure at Juniper Networks, where he managed several businesses, including a $125M/year security platform. Before that, Jay held a number of technical positions at leading Silicon Valley companies including Sun Microsystems, and Amdahl Corporation, as well as at venture-funded startups. | Jay received a BTech in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India, an MS in electrical and computer engineering from Iowa State University, an MBA from Santa Clara University, and a certification in computer security from Stanford University. He has 14 patents pending or approved and three international publications.
Jay has been a member of core teams for networking and semiconductors SIGs at The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) for the past five years. | 12 |
| Matt Boras | Boras | RXR | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | RXR | 24 | As a member of Class 24, Matt is serving his fellowship at RXR. His mentor is Thrive Capital’s Head of Research, Ryan Pripstein. | Matt leads RXR’s venture capital activities, where he is responsible for executing investments in early-stage real estate technology companies. Matt also works closely with RXR’s business units and portfolio companies to incubate new business ideas and help drive growth. Prior to joining RXR, Matt was a member of the Special Situations Group at Colony Capital, focused on investing in businesses across markets, platforms, and asset classes. Matt previously was responsible for the identification, evaluation, and execution of real estate investments at NorthStar Asset Management Group and Five Mile Capital Partners. | Matt holds an AB in international relations from Brown University. He recently served as a member of the Advisory Board for Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit focused on early childhood education in developing countries. | 24 |
| David Borcsok | Borcsok | Royal Bank of Canada | Canada | Ontario, | Toronto | Canada | Royal Bank of Canada | 20 | David served his fellowship at the Royal Bank of Canada under the mentorship of David Unsworth, General Partner and Co-Founder of Information Venture Partners. He is a member of Class 20. | David is Head, Impact Investing at Royal Bank of Canada, David is responsible for continuing to develop RBC’s leadership and enterprise capacity in impact investing.
Previously, David was the Fund Manager of the RBC Generator; an impact investment fund raised as part of the RBC Social Finance Initiative where he managed an investment program focused on venture capital, social impact bond and outcomes finance structures. In addition to his role at RBC, David has been an Adjunct Professor at Ryerson University Yeats School of Graduate Studies and a Lecturer at the Queens University Smith School of Business Social Impact Academy. David has been recognized as a New Leader by the Carnegie Council, and selected as a David Rockefeller Fellow at the Trilateral Commission. Prior to joining RBC, David was an investor with TrilogyGrowth L.P an early stage consumer and e-commerce focused growth-stage venture capital firm, and began his career in venture capital as a Fellow with Cherrystone Angel Group and Ocean State Angels in Providence RI. | David attended graduate school at Brown University, earning an MPH in Health Economics, and spent time at Harvard University Graduate School as a Visiting Graduate Scholar. He also holds an HBA in Political Science and Anthropology from Wilfrid Laurier University. | 20 |
| Ela Borenstein | Borenstein | BDC Canada | Canada | Quebec, | Montreal | Canada | BDC Canada | 17 | A member of Class 17, Ela served her fellowship at BDC Canada. She also served as mentor to Lesley Esford (Class 20). | Ela joined BDC in 2007 and invested for 9 years in the Healthcare Fund. She brings over 25 years of investing and entrepreneurial experience in the biopharmaceutical industry.
She is currently Program Director with BDC Capital's Market Development team, supporting BDC shareholder programs VCAP ($400 million) and VCCI ($400 million) in fund of funds and high performing funds in Canada. The team is also rolling out new programs that will deliver the necessary tools and training content for venture capital professionals in Canada’s ecosystem to accelerate learning and enhance performance of the industry. Prior to joining BDC, she was Chief Operating Officer and held the position of Vice President in clinical, regulatory affairs, and product strategy for various biotech companies, as well as Senior Vice President for a public pharmaceutical company. Ela’s diversified background also includes key involvement in product acquisition and M&A activities. | Ela holds an Honours B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Western Ontario, an M.Sc. in pharmacology from the University of Toronto and an MBA in bio-industries from L'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). | 17 |
| Gale Wilkinson | Wilkinson | IrishAngels Ventures | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | IrishAngels Ventures | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Gale is serving her fellowship at IrishAngels Ventures under the mentorship of Kate Mitchell (Mentor Classes 21, 22), Partner at Scale VP. | Gale is the founding director of IrishAngels, an investment network affiliated with the University of Notre Dame. Since its formation in late 2012, IrishAngels now has 225 active investors, making it one of the largest angel groups in the US.
Bowman has led 50+ IrishAngels investments totaling over $22 million in seed and Series A capital. She recently founded IrishAngels Ventures and raised a $15 million fund which is also dedicated to early-stage investments. Bowman’s previous work experience includes forecasting and consulting for new product launches (Nielsen) and corporate strategy for hotels (Orbitz). She is happy that she eventually transitioned to the world of startups and early-stage VC, as she truly enjoys advising startup CEOs on their financing and growth strategies. | Gale attended the University of Notre Dame where she received a BBA in marketing in 2005; she earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2012.
She was a founding board member of the C200 Scholars Network, and she is currently a member of the Irish Entrepreneurs Network, which helps Notre Dame students pursue startup opportunities. She also serves as an active mentor to several young alumni who are launching new businesses. | 23 |
| Racquel Bracken | Bracken | Venrock | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Domain Associates | 13 | Racquel is a member of Class 13 and served her fellowship at Domain Associates and Clovis Oncology under the mentorship of Brian Halak. | Racquel recently joined Venrock in their Palo Alto, California office, investing in biotech, diagnostics, and healthcare IT sectors.
Previously, Racquel headed business development at Clovis Oncology, a company focused on acquiring, developing, and commercializing innovative anti-cancer agents in the US, Europe, and additional international markets. She was involved in the in-licensing of CO-1686 from Avila Therapeutics (now Celgene), Rucaparib from Pfizer, and the discovery partnership with Array. Earlier, Racquel was on the investment team at Domain Associates, where her board observer positions include Acureon Pharmaceuticals, Asmacure, Immune Control, Nuon Therapeutics, OmniSonics, and VentiRx. Racquel also assisted Calixa Therapeutics, a biopharmacuetical company dedicated to the clinical development of anti-gram negative therapeutic agents, where she was responsible for business development activities. Before Domain Associates, Racquel was a consultant with Easton Associates (now Navigant Consulting), where she worked with clients ranging from startups to global pharmaceutical and device companies. She advised clients on general corporate strategy, marketing and sales tactics, product life-cycle planning, clinical development plans, M&A opportunities, and business development activities. | Racquel holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from Harvard University, and conducted research on embryonic stem cells as a model for Parkinson’s Disease at Harvard.
Racquel also serves on the Young Leaders Council of the Livestrong Foundation. | 13 |
| Anna Brady-Estevez | Brady-Estevez | National Science Foundation | United States | Virginia, | Alexandria | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Signal Lake | 14 | Anna served her fellowship at The AES Corporation under the mentorship of Gardner Walkup. She is a member of Fellows Class 14. | At the National Science Foundation, Anna directs the Small Business and Innovative Research (SBIR) national portfolio and investments in Chemical, Environmental, and Distributed Ledger (Blockchain, DAGs) innovations. The NSF's investments are at the earliest stages and are comprised of non-dilutive grants, and also include mentoring and networking; the program deploys ~$200M annually.
Previously, Anna was Director of Corporate Strategy at Cummins Inc., a corporation of complementary business units that design, manufacture, distribute, and service diesel and natural gas engines and related technologies. Prior to Cummins she was a Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and a venture partner at the international investment firm 4-Innovation. 4-Innovation's purpose is to seek innovative technology in countries with high industrial scientific output: Israel, Singapore, and the USA. Anna was Director of Strategy at AES Corporation, one of the world’s largest power companies, which owns and operates a portfolio of generation and distribution businesses, from coal to gas to renewables. Before AES, Anna was a Principal at Signal Lake, a venture capital firm focusing on technically innovative solutions to customer challenges in software, telecom, data storage, advanced materials, and energy. Before her investing career, Anna was a National Science Foundation Fellow at Yale University. Her work focused on nanotechnology and advanced materials for cleantech applications. Through this research and peer-reviewed publications, Anna developed a carbon nanotube (CNT)-based hybrid filter for a low-cost, low-energy, filtration system which achieves high viral and bacterial pathogen removal from water. This CNT-hybrid filter may also serve as enabling technology for other separations processes spanning foods, fuels, chemicals and biomedicals. | Anna earned her PhD in chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University, where she was President of the student government representing the 13 graduate and professional schools. Anna earned a BS in chemical engineering and a BA in Spanish from The Johns Hopkins University. At Hopkins she was a captain, MVP, and university record holder for the varsity cross country and track teams. Anna enjoys using her knowledge of several languages for both community service and travel. | 14 |
| Chris Breidahl | Breidahl | Upswell | Australia | Western Australia, | Perth | Australia | Xponova | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Chris served his fellowship at Verona Capital in Perth, Australia. His mentors were Verona Capital Founder and Managing Partner Craig Burton and F2 Capital Managing Partner Barak Rabinowitz. | Chris is the Founder and Managing Partner of Upswell Ventures, an
Australian venture capital fund focused on backing Seed and Series A
stage companies.
Prior to launching Upswell, Chris worked in a family office, developing and managing their venture capital portfolio. Chris also sits on the advisory board of F2 Capital, Israel’s most active seed stage fund. | Chris grew up in rural Western Australia and now calls Perth home. He
graduated from the University of Western Australia with Bachelor of
Engineering and Bachelor of Finance degrees. As part of his studies, Chris
spent a semester at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid.
He enjoys surfing in the Margaret River region and has a passion for woodworking. | 22 |
| Josh Breinlinger | Breinlinger | Jackson Square Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Jackson Square Ventures | 21 | Josh served his fellowship at Jackson Square Ventures as a member of Class 21 under the mentorship of Gardner Hendrie. | Josh is a Managing Director at Jackson Square Ventures, an early-stage tech firm based in San Francisco.
Josh is focused on marketplaces, especially at the early stages working on how to get initial liquidity and build strong network effects. He is a lead investor and board member at OfferUp, Contently, Omniata, and rented.com, as well as a seed investor in Kindly Care. Prior to VC, Josh was one of the founding team members at oDesk and grew the business from 80 to well over 1 million freelancers over the course of 5 years while running sales, product, operations, marketing, and business development. He is a co-founder and board member at Rev, a marketplace providing transcription, caption, and translation services. In 2010, he ran product and marketing for Adroll, a leading retargeting platform. After completing his studies, Josh was an engineering consultant for 4 years, building a wide variety of products including fuel injectors, Stirling engines, fryolators, and body armor. | Josh graduated from MIT with a BS in mechanical engineering.
He blogs about marketplace topics at acrowdedspace.com. | 21 |
| James Brennan | Brennan | Ireland Strategic Investment Fund | Ireland | , | Co. Dublin | Europe | Ireland Strategic Investment Fund | 24 | James is mentored by Brian Caulfield, Venture Partner at Draper Esprit, and Aaron Gershenberg, Managing Partner at SVB Capital. He is a member of Class 24, serving his fellowship at the Ireland Strategic Investment. | James is an Investment Director at the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, a €9B sovereign development fund established in 2014 to invest on a commercial basis in support of economic activity and employment in the country. James is responsible for the ISIF’s venture capital strategy, which has the objective of supporting a vibrant and diverse funding landscape for early-stage, high-potential technology and healthcare businesses in Ireland. He has led the ISIF’s strategic investments across a wide range of venture capital, growth equity funds, and listed patient capital vehicles and leveraged these relationships to deliver a number of unique co-investment opportunities aligned to ISIF's long-term strategic mandate. He has led direct investments into several companies and is currently a board observer at Swrve Mobile and Genomics Medicine Ireland, a population genomics company established in 2015. James is currently the Vice Chairman of the European Venture Fund Investor Network, a pan-European platform for dialogue launched in 2011 by major national investors in European VC. | James holds a BSc in theoretical physics and an MSc in computational science from University College Dublin. He has been a CFA charterholder since 2012. | 24 |
| Adam Bristol | Bristol | Aquilo Capital | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Biotechnology Value Fund | 14 | Adam is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 14 and served his fellowship at Aquilo Capital with mentor Marc Schneidman | In 2010, Adam co-founded Aquilo Capital Management, a life sciences investment fund based in San Francisco, CA. Aqulio focuses on companies with an emphasis on new drug discovery and development.
Prior to Aquilo, he was a portfolio manager at Biotechnology Value Fund (BVF), where he helped manage BVF's venture investment activities and assisted in aspects of BVF's public markets investing. Adam serves as a regular grant reviewer for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, as a speaker at UC-Davis’s Biomedical Entrepreneurship Academy, and as a regular contributor to Trade Secrets, an online blog published by Nature Biotechnology. He is a co-editor of the forthcoming book The Neuroscience of Creativity to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2012. | Adam obtained his PhD from Yale University and did his postdoctoral training at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He enjoys sabermetrics and volunteering, and has acted Off-Broadway and at the Yale Cabaret. | 14 |
| James Broderick | Broderick | Palleon Pharmaceuticals | United States | Massachusetts, | Wellesley | Boston/Northeast | Morgenthaler Ventures | 04 | A member of Class 4, Jim served his fellowship under the mentorship of Bob Pavey and Gary Little at Morgenthaler Ventures in Cleveland, OH and in Menlo Park, CA. | Jim is a successful biotech entrepreneur. He founded and is CEO at Palleon Pharmaceuticals, focusing on immuno-oncology therapies via a a new combination of two biological mechanisms.
Earlier, Jim spent 14 years on the Morgenthaler Life Sciences Team and invested in companies developing innovative therapeutic products in the biotech and medical device industries. Jim was a co-founder and Chairman at Ra Pharmaceuticals, developing a new class of drugs with the diversity and specificity of antibodies, coupled with the bioavailability of small molecules. Jim was the founding CEO and sits on the board of SetPoint Medical, developing implantable neurostimulation devices to treat inflammatory diseases as an alternative to drug therapy. Jim was a co-founder and is a board member at Promedior Pharmaceuticals, developing drugs to treat fibrotic diseases. He is also a board member of OncoMed Pharmaceuticals and Spine Wave. Before his time in venture capital, Jim worked at Mercer Management Consulting, where he focused on strategy and operations engagements for clients in the health care and information services industries. Jim performed his residency at Duke University Medical Center. | Jim received his MD from the University of Massachusetts and his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. | 4 |
| Graham Brooks | Brooks | .406 Ventures | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Boston/Northeast | .406 Ventures | 13 | Graham is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 13 and served his fellowship at .406 Ventures under the mentorship of Liam Donohue. | As a recovering engineer, Graham loves to geek out with techie founders. He joined .406 Ventures in 2007, after 9 years of technology-oriented operating, investing and start-up experience. At .406 he focuses on early-stage investments in big data, healthcare, digital video, and ad tech. Graham also runs the firm’s university outreach initiatives including the .406 Student Fellows program. He actively works with .406 companies WoodPellets.com, Connotate, AbilTo, Iora Health, Attend.com, Compass.com, and Reltio. Prior to .406 Ventures, Graham worked at Bose Corporation where he lead the team that identified, evaluated and structured strategic investment and acquisition opportunities within the digital media and technology infrastructure market. While at Bose, Graham was selected to be part of the internal venturing team where he was responsible for sourcing, evaluating and growing new businesses. Graham has served as an advisor to several seed-stage digital media and web 2.0 start-ups, and was an EIR with the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network where he incubated and co-founded Accentus, a technology company that developed innovative solutions for the financial trading industry. Graham began his career as a programmer and consultant for ALK Associates, a transportation consulting and software provider. Graham was lead architect for ALK’s rail-car tracking software e-Tracker and holds one US patent and one patent pending. | Graham has an MBA, with Honors, from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a BSE in computer science from Princeton. He is a two-time All American fencer and represented the US in the 1991 Cadet World Championships as well as several World Cups. | 13 |
| Jocelyn Brown | Brown | RPMI Railpen | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Finance Wales | 13 | Jocelyn is a member of Class 13 and served her fellowship at Finance Wales under Steve Smith within the early-stage investments team. During her fellowship, Jocelyn founded the Impact Investors Special Interest Group, for Fellows investing for a return broader than the purely financial. | Jocelyn serves as the head of corporate governance for the EMEA and APAC regions at T. Rowe Price. Previously she was a Senior Investment Manager at RPMI Railpen, which invests the £30B assets of the UK Railways Pension Scheme, in the Sustainable Ownership Team. She was an Executive Director with Institutional Shareholder Services, serving as their Global Head of ESG Product Management. She also spent three years at the Financial Reporting Council as a policy adviser supporting the implementation of the UK Stewardship Code. Jocelyn undertook her fellowship at Finance Wales, a provider of debt and equity investment to SMEs in the UK. While there, she made five equity investments at seed and Series A, and led a number of consulting projects on behalf of the CEO. Prior to her fellowship, Jocelyn was a management consultant and began her career as a technical manager in two startups. She gained experience of technology transfer at Imperial Innovations, the incubator for Imperial College London, as part of her MBA scholarship. | Jocelyn earned an MA, with Honors, in history from the University of Cambridge and an MBA, with Distinction, from Imperial College London. She also undertook executive education in finance at London Business School. | 13 |
| Roel Bulthuis | Bulthuis | INKEF Capital | Netherlands | , | Amsterdam | Europe | Merck Ventures | 22 | A Class 22 Fellow, Roel is passionate about continuously changing the status quo. He served his fellowship at INKEF Capital, and his mentor was Antoine Papiernik of Sofinnova Partners. | Roel Bulthuis is a Managing Director and head of the Healthcare investment team at INKEF. Roel combines more than 15 years of experience across venture capital, pharma business development and investment banking.
Prior to joining INKEF he served as an SVP and Managing Director of M-Ventures which he created and developed into a leading CVC fund. Prior to that, he served in senior positions in global business development at Merck Serono and in the investment banking team at Fortis Bank. | Roel studied biopharmaceutical sciences at Leiden University in the Netherlands; it took him 2 years of research in molecular toxicology to find out that he lacked the talent to become a successful scientist. Later, he did his MBA at the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland.
Roel is the proud father of an 10-year-old rugby player and a 12-year-old soccer-playing little girl with early-teenage ambitions, both produced in partnership with his wonderful scientist-turned-designer wife. He loves cycling, running, long-distance swimming, and the occasional triathlon. | 22 |
| Sarah Burch | Burch | Rippleworks | , | San Francisco | Northern CA | Rippleworks | 25 | Sarah has helped finance and scale emerging market entrepreneurs for over a decade. Currently, Sarah is the Head of Venture Growth at Rippleworks, which is focused on helping social enterprises grow by partnering with world-class operating expertise. The Venture Growth team manages high-impact projects that leverage Silicon Valley executives as advisors and solves a specific operational challenge within the startup. Since joining Rippleworks as a founding team member, Sarah has worked hands-on with 40+ founders and managed a portfolio of social ventures across 60 countries.
Prior to joining Rippleworks, Sarah helped launch and grow Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), an early-stage innovation fund within the U.S. Agency for International Development. At DIV, she led the due diligence and closing of $22M into 20+ deals in 10+ countries. | Sarah was raised in the Pacific Northwest and is a proud member of the Delaware Tribe. She lives in San Francisco where she enjoys exploring Bay Area parks, trying different coffee roasts at Philz, and avoiding the fog. Sarah holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame. | 25 | ||
| Terri Burns | Burns | GV | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | GV | 24 | A member of Class 24, Terri is serving her fellowship at GV under the mentorship of General Partner Jessica Verrilli. | Terri Burns is a Principal at GV (Google Ventures), working on the investing team on sourcing and deal flow. GV’s investments focus on the enterprise, life sciences, consumer, and frontier technology sectors; the firm spun out of Google in 2009 and runs as an independent fund, with Alphabet as its sole LP. Terri is also on the fundraising team of the nonprofit All Raise, which aims to increase the diversity of funders and founders in the technology industry. Prior to joining GV, Terri was a product manager at Twitter, where she helped improve the home timeline, and a developer evangelist at Venmo prior to that. | Terri graduated from the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences with a degree in computer science. Terri is an international speaker—covering topics related to how technology impacts various communities—and also a freelance writer on the topics of technology, diversity, and inclusion, having been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Scientific American, and Teen Vogue, among others. She is also a board member of the nonprofit Brave Initiatives, which teaches coding skills to girls from underserved geographic and economic communities. | 24 |
| Patrick Burtis | Burtis | Amadeus Capital Partners | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Amadeus Capital Partners | 11 | Pat served his fellowship in London with Amadeus Capital (and jointly with Imperial College), mentored by the firm's CEO and co-founder Anne Glover. He is a member of Class 11. | Pat is a venture capitalist with strong operational and strategy background, focused on mobile, online services, digital media, ad tech, med tech, online education, cleantech/energy/resource efficiency, and anything else that catches his interest.
Pat joined Amadeus in 2006 and is a partner focused on high tech companies in the US, Latin America, UK, Europe, and Israel. He began his career in Amadeus' London office and is now based in San Francisco. He serves on the Boards of GreenRoad and Bidu, and is an observer at AMEE. Previous investments have included Tobii, ClickTale, Optos, Glysure, Transmode, and Power ID. He served as GreenRoad's interim CEO and CFO for 16 months. Pat began his career with five years in Bain & Co.’s Boston office, where he advised clients in the telecom, financial services, insurance, steel, automotive, PC, and FMCG industries. From 1997-2004, Pat was an independent consultant in the cleantech, high tech, health care, and materials fields. Additional past roles include Director of Finance and Operations for H2onsite, a California-based hydrogen start-up, and Practice Area Fellow at McKinsey & Co. | Pat holds a BA from Dartmouth College, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and an MA in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he focused on energy and climate change. Pat is an American citizen, speaks Spanish, and has traveled extensively. | 11 |
| Noramay Cadena | Cadena | MiLA Capital | United States | California, | Los Angeles | Southern CA & Hawaii | MiLA Capital | 23 | Noramay is serving her fellowship at Make in LA as a member of Class 23. | Noramay is an engineer, investor, and former nonprofit leader. Her professional career has taken her across a diverse range of operating and investing environments, from early-stage startups to Fortune 50 companies. Over the last three years, she has built an innovation hub in Los Angeles to attract and support technology-enabled hardware companies. As a partner in the Make in LA venture fund and accelerator, Noramay focuses on partnerships that give the team a deal flow edge and deliver services critical to the support and growth of portfolio companies.
Noramay started her career as an engineer and spent over a decade focused on product development and operations leadership at The Boeing Company. While there, she led affordability initiatives; held P&L accountability; managed the assembly, integration, and testing of hardware from subsystem delivery through space launch; and supervised staff of 10-100 members, from unionized shop floor labor through high-skilled engineering and leadership teams. | Noramay attended the Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program in management and engineering at MIT where she earned a master’s in engineering systems and an MBA. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.
Noramay serves as a commissioner on the Housing Authority Commission of Los Angeles and leads one of the Time’s Up Tech initiatives. She was also the former head of the Latinas in STEM Foundation and is a member of the founding board for Excelencia Charter Academy, a new K-8 charter school in LA. | 23 |
| Mete Cakmakci | Cakmakci | TTGV | Turkey | , | Ankara | Middle East | TTGV | 16 | Mete is a member of Class 16 and served his fellowship at the TTGV under the mentorship of Cengiz Ultav of VESTEL. | Mete is the Secretary General of the Technology Development Foundation of Turkey (TTGV), a public-private partnership based in Ankara, Turkey. In his role, he manages various technology and innovation programs currently being operated by TTGV with public funding. Mete’s current professional goal is to lead the transformation of TTGV, a unique structure in Turkey, into a best practice in the smart management of public money. He spends most of his time developing a new communication strategy and a new business model for the organization to mobilize stakeholder buy-in. As an individual, Mete is involved in various initiatives to promote venture capital and entrepreneurship in Turkey and serves on public committees and working groups to strengthen public policy on innovation-driven industrial policy. | Mete is a graduate of Middle East Technical University’s Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department. He also holds MS and PhD degrees in engineering from Syracuse University, with a minor in manufacturing engineering. He occasionally teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on innovation at various universities. | 16 |
| Jeff Calcagno | Calcagno | Johnson & Johnson Innovation | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Scale Venture Partners | 11 | A member of Class 11, Jeff served his fellowship at Scale Venture Partners under the mentorship of Lou Bock. | Jeff is a senior healthcare business executive and investor focused on fostering innovation in healthcare and technology. Based in Johnson & Johnson's California Innovation Center, which he helped to establish, he is responsible for identifying new technologies to better treat patients for Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the world's largest healthcare company. Jeff joined the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in February 2011 and helped to establish the California Innovation Center. He also worked for 18 months making and managing venture investments for Johnson & Johnson. A licensed physician, he has over two decades of diversified healthcare and business experience: as a senior operating executive, business development professional, venture investor, entrepreneur, and clinician.
Jeff began his business career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. He later served as a healthcare research analyst at JP Morgan Hambrecht & Quist. As an entrepreneur, he ran corporate development and operations for WIDCOMM, a technology company acquired by Broadcom, and served as CFO & CBO for Vela Pharmaceuticals, a venture-backed drug development company. From 2006 to 2010 he was a Principal and Kauffman Fellow at Scale Venture Partners, a venture fund with over $1 billion under management. | Jeff graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Biology from Harvard College and earned an MD from Harvard Medical School, where he was a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar. He completed his medical-psychiatric internship and psychiatry residency at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute and served as program chief resident. Afterwards, he was awarded and completed a clinical neuropharmacology fellowship, focusing on the care of treatment-refractory patients. He is conversational in six languages. | 11 |
| Lisa Calhoun | Calhoun | Valor Ventures | United States | Georgia, | Atlanta | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Valor Ventures | 23 | Lisa is mentored by Michael Kim, founder of Cendana Capital, and Michael Mansfield of Mansfield Oil, ranked #46 in Forbes private companies. She is a member of Class 23, serving her fellowship at Valor VC. | Lisa’s experience and entrepreneurship has contributed to over a billion dollars in exit value from emerging technologies. Since before founding Valor, Lisa focused on finding quality founders who create high-performance outcomes. She founded an Atlanta digital marketing agency recognized by Hubspot as one of the “Top 10 Agencies for Tech Startups” in the US, where she directly supported hundreds of high-growth, high-tech startups in early scale.
At Valor, Lisa is known for creating platforms and programs that connect private capital to transformational investment opportunities. She runs an active CIO/CTO Innovation Advisory board that connects emerging software founders to potential enterprise customers. She founded the Startup Runway Foundation, which runs the largest pitch event for minority and women founders seeking seed capital in the Southeast. In her early career, Lisa worked in IT consulting, helping large organizations solve complex problems with code. | Lisa earned her MBA from the University of Texas with a concentration in management science and quantitative methods. She credits her graduate stat professor, who worked for Bell Helicopter, with opening her mind to the beauty of math as-applied-to finance. The first in her family to complete a degree, Lisa earned her BA, with Honors, on a National Merit Scholarship at Baylor.
Lisa is Chair of the Startup Runway Foundation and sits on several private company boards, including MyAgData and Women Who Code. She writes a national innovation column for Inc. | 23 |
| Maddie Callander | Callander | Boost VC | , | San Francisco | Northern CA | Boost VC | 25 | Maddie Callander is VP Accelerator & Portfolio at Boost VC, the $500k accelerator for Sci-Fi tech, co-founded by Adam Draper and Brayton Williams in San Mateo, CA. Since she joined in 2015, she’s built out their accelerator programs, manages Boost VC's 250+ portfolio investments and scaled their portfolio support infrastructure with new platform initiatives.
Before moving to the Bay Area, she built out the private aviation department for the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana, where she managed member air transportation: marketing, selling and arranging private shuttles (Boeing 737s), private flights (XOJET), and shared-ride options. In Fall 2013, she attended Draper University which challenged her both physically and mentally, and introduced her to the Silicon Valley startup / venture capital ecosystem. In 2014, she helped Tim Draper and Diego Alcaino start “VCx,” a venture capital training program, bringing international family offices and high-net worth individuals for a week in Silicon Valley to learn from top VCs, founders and startup ecosystem builders. Additionally, she's held operations, marketing and sales roles in healthcare and real estate & freelanced as an event coordinator for NYC event firm Van Wyck & Van Wyck. | Maddie has a BA in Art History and Spanish from Denison University in Granville, Ohio.
She’s co-chaired the 2017 and 2019 Women in VR Showcase for the US National Committee for UN Women’s Global Voices Film Festival (SF Chapter) -an event that combines virtual reality with incredible storytelling by female film directors from all over the world. In 2018, Maddie, alongside a crew of impressive Denison Alumni, organized Denison University’s first Entrepreneurship Summit -REMIX. She was a mainstage speaker at REMIX 2019 with, “Making Science Fiction a Reality: a Silicon Valley perspective on investing in emerging technology and the importance of liberal arts entrepreneurs.” | 25 | ||
| Everardo Camacho | Camacho | Capital Indigo | Mexico | DF, | Mexico | Latin America | Capital Indigo | 16 | Everardo served his fellowship at Capital Indigo in Mexico City as a member of Class 16. | Everardo is Managing Partner of Capital Índigo, a Mexico-focused private equity firm. He holds a seat in the Board of Directors of AMEXCAP (Mexican Private Equity Association). He is also member of the Sustainable Minds Network of New Ventures; an Endeavor Mentor; and a member of the Advisory Boards of Brucklat Financial Services and Interdeli, S.A. de C.V. Until November 2009, Everardo led the private equity fund SINCA GBM, where he managed a total of US$255 million in capital commitments. During his time in private equity, Everardo has participated in origination, structuring, closing, management, and exit of multiple transactions in numerous industries. Everardo has been member of the Board of Directors of several companies, including SINCA GBM, Publimetro, Biosistemas, Eficiencia Informativa, and Grupo Ybarra. Everardo also led the Investment Banking and Corporate Finance department of GBM where he was involved in multiple investment banking transactions, which jointly exceeded US$1 billion. | Everardo is a graduate of the ITAM (Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico), where he graduated with a major in economics with a specialty in finance. He has attended executive education at Kellogg School of Management (Corporate Financial Strategies for Creating Shareholder Value), Columbia Business School (Value Investing), and Harvard University (Capital Markets and Investment). | 16 |
| Felipe Camposano | Camposano | Independent | Chile | , | Santiago | Latin America | Austral Capital | 16 | Felipe is a member of Class 16 and performed his fellowship at Austral Capital under the mentorship of John Hamer from Burril & Co. | Felipe was previously a partner at Austral Capital, an early-stage firm based in Santiago, Chile, where he served on the boards of Nimbic, BAL, GPB, Scanntech, Junar, and Andes Biotech. He also served as President of the Board for ASEMBIO (the Chilean Biotech Association) and Director for Chile Biotech (a public-private initiative to promote Chilean biotechnology).
Prior to Austral, Felipe directed new business development at Fundación Chile creating and investing in new technology companies. Felipe was co-founder of Lucien Biotech S.A. (AgBiotech company targeting polyphenol pathways), founder and CEO of INTRA (delivering internet-based enterprise knowledge management solutions to Global 1000 firms), and co-founder of NEXION (providing technology development services to Latin American companies in China). Felipe has served as consultant and advisor to CORFO-Invest (promoting international investment in Chile) and ProChile (promoting Chilean technoogy abroad); worked on new project valuation at OPS&S in Argentina, Brazil and Chile; and was a technology advisor to CORFO-Innova, the Chilean Development Agency. Felipe serves on the Board of Gesta Mayor, the technology transfer office and incubator for Universidad Mayor, and works on initiatives to strengthen the country’s technology transfer capability. | Felipe holds a BSc in computer sciences and an MSc in industrial engineering from Universidad Católica de Chile. He has taught Technology Entrepreneur Marketing and Programing courses at Universidad Católica de Chile, as well as courses and workshops on venture capital, bio business, and entrepreneurship at other universities. | 16 |
| Gil Canaani | Canaani | Hearst Ventures | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | Canaan Partners | 17 | As a member of Class 17, Gil served his fellowship at Canaan Partners under the mentorship of General Partners Izhar Shay and Brent Ahrens (Class 5). | Highly passionate about technology, innovation, and venture capital investments, Gil enjoys working together with early-stage entrepreneurs to help build and grow successful high-tech companies. Gil joined Hearst Ventures in 2016 as General Manger of Hearst Ventures Israel, directing all of the firm's investments in the country; he is based in Tel-Aviv. The firm is the corporate venture capital arm of the Hearst publishing and media organization, with over $1 billion invested in companies operating at the intersection of media and technology.
Gil comes to Hearst after spending two years at 2B Angels, where he was focused on new investments in the areas of enterprise software and mobile platforms. Before that, he worked at Canaan Partners, where he was part of the global tech investment team, focused on the firm's Israel Investments. While at the firm Gil took a leading part in two early-stage investments, CallMyName and ViewBix. Prior to joining Canaan, Gil was the Vice President of Business Development and co-founder of a mobile travel services startup. Previously, Gil held several positions at AudioCodes (Nasdaq: AUDC) in the marketing and research & development departments. In his most recent role as Marketing Project Manager, he led offshore product development, new joint ventures, and product launch. His understanding of technology is rooted in his service as pat of an elite technological unit of the Inteligence Corps in the Israel Defense Forces. | Gil earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA in computer sciences from Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College.
Gil serves at the Managing Director of the Young Venture Capitalists Forum (YVCF) in Israel. He is an Advisory Board Member at StartHub, the Tel-Aviv Academic College entrepreneurship accelerator. Gil is a frequent guest lecturer and panelist at BizTech, 3DS, StartTAU, 8200 EISP, and StartHub. | 17 |
| Ashley Carroll | Carroll | Social Capital | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Social Capital | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Ashley served her fellowship at Social Capital under the mentorship of Co-founder and Partner Mamoon Hamid (Class 11). | Ashley is a Partner at Social Capital, a Palo Alto-based investment firm whose mission is to transform society by using technology to solve the world’s greatest problems.
Ashley focuses on early-stage enterprise software/SaaS businesses and has a particular interest in data and analytics products. She serves on the boards of mParticle, a mobile-first data automation platform for marketers, mPharma, a pharmaceutical data and commerce platform for emerging markets, and Sempre Health, an individualized healthcare platform that improves medical adherance. Prior to Social Capital, Ashley held product management leadership roles at DocuSign, Optimizely, and SurveyMonkey. She's also held product and marketing roles at Amazon Web Services, oDesk (now UpWork), and Shutterfly. | Ashley has a BA in economics, an MA in education, and an MBA from Stanford. As an undergraduate, she was a member of the varsity track and field team and the symphony orchestra. As a graduate student, Ashley was a tutor for Stanford’s Athletic Academic Resource Center and a member of the business school’s High Tech Club.
Ashley grew up in Michigan, but now considers the Bay Area home. She lives in Menlo Park with her husband and their 11-year-old Weimaraner, Moose. She is an avid runner and classically trained cellist. | 21 |
| Fredrik Cassel | Cassel | Creandum | Sweden | , | Stockholm | Europe | Creandum | 12 | Fredrik served his fellowship as a member of Class 12 under mentor Staffan Helgesson (KFP Class 10) at Creandum in Stockholm, Sweden. | At Creandum, Fredrik has led the first institutional rounds of financing in several companies that have grown to dominate their respective markets, among others Cint, Spotify and Videoplaza. Focusing on digital media b2b and b2c companies, he also leads Creandum’s work with 13th Lab and Xeneta.
Currently based in Stockholm, Sweden, Fredrik has also lived and worked in Germany, France, Switzerland, Norway. In the internet middle ages, before Fredrik joined Creandum, Fredrik ran the largest online search service in the Nordics at Scandinavia Online. Earlier he was part of the team launching the daily free newspaper 20 Minuten in Cologne, Germany. | Fredrik holds a Master of Science in engineering physics, specializing in materials physics and semiconductor physics. He studied at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden and at the EPF in Lausanne, Switzerland. He speaks German, French and Russian in addition to English and Swedish.
Fredrik is currently re-learning programming on codeacademy. | 12 |
| Ramphis Castro | Castro | ScienceVest | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Expansive Ventures | 19 | Ramphis is a member of Class 19. He served his fellowship at Mindchemy and Expansive Ventures under the mentorship of Expansive Ventures’ founder, Adeo Ressi. | Ramphis is the co-founder of ScienceVest (YC F3), a fund and platform for hard-tech and life science companies, and Impact Science Angels, an angel group focused on investing in companies that can impact 1M+ lives.
As an individual, Ramphis has worked extensively in creating a full-stack startup ecosystem acceleration and support roadmap that deploys programs facilitating experiential education to all stakeholders in a country. From entrepreneurs to emerging managers in the venture industry, Ramphis has supported ecosystem growth in dozens of countries around the world. Most recently, he successfully executed the first Startup Weekend in Cuba. In 2016, upon invitation of the White House, Ramphis was part of the US delegation with President Obama on his historic visit to Cuba. As a long-time Global Facilitator for UP Global/Techstars, a global organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship, grassroots leadership, and strong communities, Ramphis has helped train hundreds of academics and lean startup instructors around the world on the principles and practices used for the Lean Launch Pad and iCorp programs. He serves as Adjunct for the New York City Regional Innovation Node's I-Corp Program. He has served as policy adviser on entrepreneurship, technology, and economic development policy to leaders in Puerto Rico, Norway, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guatemala, among others. As an entrepreneur, he has launched and successfully commercialized intellectual property now used across multiple industries around the world. | Ramphis is a licensed professional engineer with an undergraduate degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez computer engineering program, and holds a JD from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law with a focus on AI and robotics law. He has earned certificates in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, and public policy from MIT, Stanford, and the Harvard Kennedy School, respectively. | 19 |
| Brian Cayce | Cayce | Gray Ghost Ventures | United States | Georgia, | Atlanta | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Gray Ghost Ventures | 13 | Brian is a member of Fellows Class 13, and served his fellowship at Gray Ghost Ventures in Atlanta, GA, under the mentorship of Pete Peyton. | Brian brings experience in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors in developed and developing countries. He has been involved with sourcing, underwriting, monitoring and managing direct investments in innovative early-stage ventures since joining GGV in 2005. He was instrumental in establishing the Impact Ventures team, as well as building the initial GMC social investment portfolio.
Gray Ghost’s investment portfolio has achieved numerous leading accolades in the industry, including the GSMA’s “Best Use of Mobile Technology for Social and Economic Development” (CellBazaar) and the Financial Times’ “Best Use of Technology for Sustainable Finance” (M-Kopa). Brian was an early employee of Benevolink, where he was involved in a variety of aspects of product, technology, and business development. He has also held positions at CARE International, where he was Deputy Director for the southern Balkans offices, and KPMG, here he served as a consultant in the business valuations practice. Brian began his career as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkmenistan, Central Asia. | Brian holds an MBA from Georgia State University and a BA from the University of Georgia, having graduated summa cum laude from the university’s Honors Program. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
When he is not trying to keep up with his energetic daughter and son, Brian enjoys mountain biking, playing soccer, and CrossFit. He serves as an Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Brian resides with his wife and family in Decatur, Georgia, in the United States, where Mayberry meets Berkeley. | 13 |
| Anthony Chang | Chang | TL Ventures | China | , | Central | Northern CA;Asia | TL Ventures | 07 | Anthony served his fellowship as a member of Class 7 at TL Ventures under mentor Mark DeNino. | Anthony is a Managing Director at TL Ventures, and is also CEO of Global Education Learning, a startup focused education business for young kids in China. His venture investment focus includes consumer-focused opportunities as well as wireless and semiconductor-related companies. Anthony joined TL in 2002 as the firm’s first Kauffman Fellow. His venture experience began in 1998, when he co-founded and built Magictel.com, Inc., one of the first voice-over-IP service providers in Greater China and Southeast Asia. Anthony subsequently joined GE Equity in Hong Kong where he focused on early-stage venture opportunities in Asia. He was also part of the private equity team at Peregrine Investment Holdings (one of Asia’s largest investment banks during the 1990s) where he handled technology and communications-related investments. Since joining TL, Anthony has developed the firm's capabilities in Asia to support the firm’s portfolio companies with supplier, distributor, and customer relationships. He leverages his strong ties in both Silicon Valley and Asia in sourcing and evaluating new opportunities, as well as assisting various TL portfolio companies in garnering Asian customers. Anthony began his career at the San Francisco Consulting Group, a strategic consulting firm focused on the communications industry. He also worked briefly in Lucent’s Mobility Solutions Group. | Anthony holds a BA, with Honors, from Stanford University and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. He is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and proficient in Shanghainese. | 7 |
| Mark Charest | Charest | Phenomic Capital | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Boston/Northeast | Panorama Capital | 15 | A member of Class 15, Mark served his fellowship at Panorama Capital under the mentorship of Dr. Rod Ferguson and Dr. Gaurav Aggarwal. He was the recipient of the 2012 Jeff Timmons Memorial Award in recognition of his contributions to the Kauffman Fellows organization and service to the Kauffman Fellows Program. | Mark provides strategic advisory services and conducts fundamental, thesis-driven investments in the life sciences. He is currently Portfolio Manager at Phenomic Capital, a life sciences investment and advisory firm.
Previously, Mark was SVP at Tekla Capital Management, focused on public and private healthcare technology investments. Before that, he was Portfolio Manager at New Leaf Venture Partners, focused on public healthcare technology investments. Mark performed his fellowship at Panorama Capital, focused on public and private healthcare technology investments. While at Panorama, Mark served on the boards of directors of Itero Biopharmaceuticals and was a board observer at Presidio Pharmaceuticals and PowerVision. Mark has also previously worked as a Consultant at ZS Associates, a healthcare-focused management consultancy, and as an Associate at Great Point Partners, a healthcare-focused public and private equity investment firm. Prior to joining Great Point, Mark held an operating role in the oncology area as a Medicinal Chemistry Lab Manager at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. During his graduate studies, Mark completed the chemical synthesis of tetracycline and made key contributions to intellectual property out-licensed to found Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ TTPH). | Mark earned his PhD in chemistry and chemical biology from Harvard University as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, his MS in chemistry and chemical biology from Harvard University, and his BA in chemistry, with Highest Honors, from Rutgers University. | 15 |
| Jonathan Charles | Charles | Samsung Catalyst Fund | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Samsung Catalyst Fund | 21 | A member of Class 21, Jonathan served his fellowship at the Samsung Catalyst Fund under the mentorship of Richard Irving. Richard serves as an independent Venture Advisor to the fund, and is a Founding Managing Partner at POND Ventures in the United Kingdom. | Jonathan is a Senior Investment Manager at the Samsung Catalyst Fund, an evergreen $100M early-stage fund with offices in Silicon Valley, London, Tel Aviv, and Seoul. Investments are strategic and tied to various Samsung initiatives in the IoT, autonomous and connected car, digital health, and cloud infrastructure sectors.
At Catalyst Fund’s Silicon Valley office, Jonathan works on all aspects of the venture capital process, including investment thesis development, deal sourcing, negotiations, due diligence, and various portfolio management activities. Jonathan is also heavily involved in the development of licensing and commercial agreements, where he works closely with founders and Samsung product teams. Jonathan is specifically responsible for the IoT sector and also spends significant time on the autonomous and connected car sector. While Catalyst Fund activities are typically held confidential, Jonathan has most recently worked on driving the investment process for a publicly announced investment in Afero, a Silicon Valley-based early-stage startup focused on building an IoT platform. He will be serving as board observer at Afero. | Jonathan holds both an MBA and an MHA from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He also holds a joint MS degree from the Carnegie Mellon Schools of Computer Science and Business and has completed an MPH from the Tulane School of Public Health. His undergraduate studies in life sciences were completed at Loyola Marymount, a Jesuit university in Los Angeles. | 21 |
| Becker Chase | Chase | Chartline Capital Partners | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Chartline Capital Partners | 21 | Becker served his fellowship at Chartline Capital Partners under the mentorship of Phil Stern and Ben DuPont. He is a member of Class 21. | Becker is a Managing Director at Chartline Capital Partners, where he leads investment analysis, pricing, and corporate governance oversight. He is also responsible for managing the firm's investment themes and industry coverage. Currently he serves as a director at RF CODE as well as observer at Cognitive Scale and Razberi.
Prior to joining Chartline, Becker worked at Booz & Company where he was seconded to a private equity fund led by a former senior partner from Goldman Sachs and focused on global growth opportunities. Becker managed teams for origination, due-diligence, valuation and financial modeling, and presentations to the Investment Committee. His work covered energy, mining, infrastructure, media, and business services across North American, Brazil, and Asia. Becker was also a management consultant with Booz & Company in the Energy, Chemicals, & Utilities practice. While there he served Fortune 500 executives in cost-cutting, marketing strategy, and operational improvements. Becker came to Booz through the acquisition of his prior firm, Katzenbach Partners, in 2009. He began his career as an apprentice at a New York litigation firm where he had the opportunity to write an appellate brief and sit “second chair” at a federal jury trial (representing a venture firm in breach of fiduciary duty case), which inspired his life-long commitment to helping companies successfully navigate through challenging periods in their lives. | Becker holds a BA in political science from Columbia University and is an alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy. He was chosen as a Carnegie New Leader in 2010 and served on several nonprofit boards. He lives in New York City. | 21 |
| Tanguy Chau | Chau | Mayfield Fund | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Formation 8 | 20 | A member of Class 20, Tanguy served his fellowship under the mentorship of Formation 8 founding partners Jim Kim, Brian Koo, and Joe Lonsdale. | Tanguy is a Venture Investor with Mayfield Fund in Menlo Park, California, focusing on the enterprise sector.
Previously, Tanguy was an Investment Principal with Formation 8, a $1B+ venture firm in San Francisco, where he focused on IT and diversified technology investments. Prior to Formation 8, Tanguy managed teams and projects for McKinsey & Company’s tech and healthcare practice in Palo Alto. Before that, he led energy investments with the Angeleno Group, a growth equity firm in Los Angeles. Tanguy also founded Sample6 Technologies (formerly Novophage), a synthetic biology company enhancing food safety. | Tanguy earned his PhD and MS degrees in chemical engineering, as well as his MBA in finance, from MIT. He was also a University Medal Finalist at UC Berkeley, where he completed his undergraduate studies.
Tanguy served on the Board of Directors for the Harvard COOP, and was elected to the MIT Board of Trustees in 2012. He has competed internationally as a member of the Belgian national sailing team and the Belgian chemistry Olympiad team. | 20 |
| Mira Chaurushiya | Chaurushiya | 5AM Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | 5am Ventures | 21 | Under the mentorship of Managing Partner Kush Parmar (Class 16), Mira served her fellowship at 5AM Ventures in Boston, MA. She is a member of Class 21. | Mira is a principal at 5AM Ventures, an early-stage life sciences venture firm with offices in Menlo Park, CA and Boston, MA. In this role, she performs scientific and company due diligence on new investment opportunities and supports portfolio companies as a board observer.
Mira has a particular interest in early-stage therapeutics companies as well as life science research technologies. She is a board observer for Precision Nanosystems, Chrono Therapeutics, and Purigen Biosystems. Precision Nanosystems has developed a manufacturing technology for lipid and polymer nanoparticles, providing tools for nanomedicine drug development and cell-specific delivery to study, diagnose, and treat disease. Chrono Therapeutics is developing a new nicotine delivery technology for smoking cessation that is currently in clinical trials. Purigen leverages a new implementation of a classical analytical chemistry process to purify high quality nucleic acids from complex clinical and research samples. Mira is also an advisor to the Bay Area Biotech Consulting group, a nonprofit that matches life science graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with startup companies for short-term consulting projects. These opportunities give students exposure to industry and give startups access to scientific experts whose insights inform scientific, business development, and sales and marketing strategies. | Mira holds a BA in biology from Carleton College and a PhD in biological sciences from the University of California, San Diego and The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where she studied infectious diseases. Mira completed her postdoctoral training at Genentech in cancer biology. | 21 |
| John Chen | Chen | Phoenix Venture Partners | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northern CA | Battery Ventures | 10 | John served his fellowship under the mentorship of Ken Lawler at Battery Ventures as a member of Fellows Class 10. | John is a Managing General Partner and Co-Founder of Phoenix Venture Partners (PVP) and brings over 25 years of experience in venture capital, startups, industry, and R&D to his work. His current investments at PVP include Senova Systems, Vixar, Imprint Energy, and NBD Nanotechnologies.
Previously, John was a Kauffman Fellow at Battery Ventures, where he formulated Battery’s advanced materials strategy, sourced over 1,200 investment opportunities, led and managed several investments with applications in IT and cleantech (Lion Cells, Stonybrook Purification, and Nanoconduction (acquired)), and managed several of the firm’s corporate partnerships. John began his venture career at DFJ New England and Navigator Technology Ventures in Boston. Before venture, John held leadership roles in business, technology, and product development at several startups and leading corporations in the advanced materials sector, including Luminus Devices, EM Logix, Surface Logix, and Raychem (acquired). He also led advanced materials technology scouting and business development in the areas of energy storage, fuel cells, photonics, self-assembly and, more broadly, nanotechnology in the Advanced Technology and Business Development Group at Tyco Electronics, following its acquisition of Raychem. He is the holder of three US patents. | John earned his BS in physics, PhD in materials science and engineering, and an MBA from MIT.
John serves on the Commercialization Advisory Board for Oregon Built Environment & Sustainability Technologies (BEST), is an active mentor to several startups through the MIT Venture Mentoring Service, and is a long-time member of the Materials Research Society. | 10 |
| Alice Chen | Chen | Accelerator Corp. | United States | Washington, | Seattle | Northwest | Accelerator Corp. | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Alice served her fellowship at Accelerator Corporation under the mentorship of CEO Thong Le and CSO Dr. David McElligott. | Alice Chen is the Principal at Accelerator Corporation, a venture-backed investment vehicle based in Seattle, Washington for identifying, evaluating, financing, and managing innovative life science opportunities from a broad range of proprietary sources. As the Principal, Alice focuses on portfolio company operations as well as sourcing and scientifically evaluating emerging biotechnologies for Accelerator.
Alice is particularly interested in early-stage life science technologies that have the potential to address critical problems and underserved medical needs. To manage the intrinsic risks associated with early-stage developments, Alice aims to establish a rigorous and streamlined diligence process and construct a well-defined development path for each Accelerator portfolio company. Before joining Accelerator in 2013, Alice served as a scientific and project management consultant for several biotechnology companies. Prior to her consulting role, she was the Director of Technologies at Qwell Pharmaceuticals, a venture-backed biotechnology company developing novel, small-molecule drugs focused on cancer and inflammation. | Alice received her PhD in chemical engineering from Stanford University as the Stanford Gerald Lieberman Fellow. Her doctoral work focused on protein engineering and protein characterization. She received her BS in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley as a Regents Scholar, and was an Engineering Fellow at Merck & Co. | 19 |
| Amy Chen | Chen | Alpha Square Group | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Alpha Square Group | 24 | As a member of Class 24, Amy is serving her fellowship at Alpha Square Group under the mentorship of Robert Chiu, President of Shanda Group, and Alex Crisses, Managing Director of General Atlantic. | As a Managing Director of Alpha Square Group, Amy leads the firm’s investment development department, sourcing opportunities in all asset classes with a strong focus on venture and forming long-term strategic partnerships globally for the firm. She also assembles and manages the firm's venture partners, outside experts, and advisor network. Amy has backed companies in retail-tech, Internet services, and FinTech. These investments include Boxed, a fast-growing online wholesale retailer that offers direct delivery of bulk-sized packages; and Figure, a FinTech company with the mission of leveraging blockchain AI to unlock new access points for consumer credit products. A media professional by training, Amy spent six years working at international TV stations as an on-air personality, covering business and political news. Before her TV career, she worked for the United Nations in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Support Unit (formerly known as the Millennium Development Goals Support Unit). | Amy earned a Bachelor of Arts in investigative journalism from Nanjing University and an MA in media, culture, and communication (MCC) from New York University. She’s a Milken Young Leader. | 24 |
| Victoria Cheng | Cheng | Citi Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Core Innovation Capital | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Victoria served her fellowship at Core Innovation Capital under the mentorship of Arjan Schütte, Managing Parter and Founder of Core Innovation Capital. | Victoria specializes in investing in fintech companies that serve America’s emerging middle class (unbanked and underbanked). She holds the belief that companies with scalable businesses – building products with the interests of the end consumer in mind – will succeed both from a financial and social impact perspective. Her areas of interest include: credit, payments, mobile, banking, big data, risk management, investment management, and tools for financial capability.
Victoria is a Vice President on the Venture Investing Team at Citi Ventures, the Palo Alto, CA-based corporate venture capital arm of Citi. The firm focuses on startups looking to change the future of financial technology and support a better ecosystem for financial services. Previously, Victoria was a Senior Associate at Core Innovation Capital, a financial technology and services-focused venture capital firm based in Los Angeles. She was involved in all aspects of the investment process, from sourcing to investing to portfolio management, and was responsible for tracking the fund’s deal flow, performing industry and business due diligence, and aiding portfolio companies with corporate strategy, product development, and business development. | Victoria graduated with honors from Columbia Business School, where she was an InSITE Fellow, Vice President of the Private Equity & Venture Capital organization, and a member of the Foundation Capital Young Entrepreneurs Program. She holds a BS from Georgetown University, where she graduated magna cum laude. Victoria serves as an advisor for the InSITE Fellowship Program, a program that brings together graduate students across universities and disciplines to support the startup community and aid students in the pursuit of their entrepreneurial interests. | 19 |
| Yoel Cheshin | Cheshin | 2B Angels | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | 2B Angels | 20 | Yoel is a member of Class 20 and served his fellowship at 2B Angels Group. His mentor is Izhar Shay (Mentor Class 17) of Canaan Partners. | Yoel Cheshin is Founder and Chairman of 2B-Group, a private family office investment fund with over $50M under management. Founded in 2009, 2B-Group investment activities are performed under four independent platforms: 2B-Angels (a seed-stage technology venture fund with over 40 companies in its portfolio), 2B-Finance (investments in public capital markets), 2B-Community (a social entrepreneurship investment fund), and 2B-Involved (covering the group’s philanthropy).
Yoel is a Limited Partner in the Explore.Dream.Discover incubator, sponsored by Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist. Explore invests in seed-stage startups, matching government grants with private venture funding. Recently, he became an LP in Takwin Labs Incubator, a seed-stage fund focused on startups led by Arab entrepreneurs targeting the MENA markets. Yoel is an active member in the Israeli venture capital and entrepreneur community, as well as a frequent guest speaker and panelist in many of the leading conferences and meet-ups. Yoel served in a Special Forces unit in the Israel Defense Forces. | Yoel holds an LLB (summa cum laude) from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was a research associate and lecturer at Tel Aviv University and The Hebrew University. He worked closely with the distinguished legal scholar Ruth Gavison, and his research areas included ethnic conflict, the protection of minorities, human rights, political theory, judiciary law, and others.
Yoel lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and daughter. In his free time he enjoys spending quality time with his family as well as scuba diving, cycling, and skydiving. He also practices meditation on a regular basis. | 20 |
| Punit Chiniwalla | Chiniwalla | SingTel Innov8 Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Panorama Capital | 13 | Punit served his fellowship under mentor Shahan Soghikian at Panorama Capital as a member of Class 13. | Punit recently joined SingTel Innov8 as a Director and is focused on the fund's North American investment activity. Punit joins SingTel as a broad technology investor with a number of years of venture experience. He comes most recently from Panorama Capital where he was instrumental in the firm’s investments in JiWire, Fixmo and Tynt, Validity and Neoconix. Prior to joining Panorama, Punit led the technology team of the Frankel Commercialization Fund, a seed stage investment vehicle focused on university spinouts where he sourced the fund’s first investment, Arbor Photonics. Punit has also worked with RPM Ventures.
Punit's operating experience includes more than nine years of business development, product and technology research in the areas of server technologies, devices, interconnect subsystems, and optoelectronic packaging most notably at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. He has authored a number of papers in each of these fields and has multiple US patents currently under review. | Punit holds a BS in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in chemical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. His PhD thesis work resulted in multiple journal publications and established the basis of a product that today has a presence in the electronic materials market. Punit earned his MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan as a Frankel Fellow and Mondry Scholar. | 13 |
| Sung Cho | Cho | D20 Capital | , | San Mateo | Northern CA | D20 Capital | 25 | Sungjoon is a General Partner at D20 Capital, a technology investment firm based in San Francisco. Sungjoon focuses on early stage investments and is a director at StructionSite. Prior to D20 Capital, Sungjoon was a partner at early stage venture firms including Formation 8 and Amasia, where he worked closely with companies such as Beeswax, Memebox, NextVR, and Lunit.
Sungjoon started his career at Samsung Electronics as a product manager of the mobile processors that powered the early smartphones. Sungjoon also served on the executive staff of Samsung's Vice Chairman, where he managed Jay Y. Lee's international affairs across all of Samsung Group's subsidiaries. Before jumping into the world of venture capital, Sungjoon was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he focused on technology driven growth and large CapEx projects. | Sungjoon received his MBA from Columbia Graduate School of Business, MS in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University, and BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
Sungjoon's second job, hobbies, and entertainment are all provided by his preschool twins. Once a week, Sungjoon is able to sneak off to play basketball. | 25 | ||
| Ben Choi | Choi | Legacy Venture | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Storm Ventures | 11 | Ben is a member of Class 11, and served his fellowship under mentor Ryan Floyd at Storm Ventures. He now serves as mentor to Kelli Cullinane (Class 21). | Ben brings with him the diverse perspectives as an investor, entrepreneur, and operator. In his role at Legacy Venture, he helps shape the fund’s strategy, manage its investments, and tap the power of venture capital to help Legacy members amplify their philanthropic impact in the world.
As a venture capitalist, Ben focused on early stage investments. He loved the thrill of strategizing at the most nascent stage of product creation with great entrepreneurs. In over a decade of investing at Maveron, Storm Ventures, and RRE Ventures, he generated significant returns for his investors. For example, his early investment in Marketo resulted in a public company now valued at over a billion dollars. As an executive, Ben ran product management for Adobe’s Creative Cloud offerings, the company’s most significant strategic shift in decades. Previously, Ben directed strategy at Greystripe, a mobile ad network acquired by ValueClick. He also cofounded mobile commerce startup CoffeeTable, where he earned his stripes raising financing, building a team, and ultimately selling the company. Ben enjoyed several years of his early career in Singapore, where he had the privilege of leading humanitarian relief teams to Bangladesh and Afghanistan. | Ben received his MBA from Columbia Business School, with Dean’s List and Beta Gamma Sigma distinctions, and his BA in computer science, with Honors, from Harvard University. Born in Peoria, raised in San Francisco, and educated in Cambridge, Ben now lives in Palo Alto with his wife and twin boys, who both keep him young and age him fast. | 11 |
| Scott Chou | Chou | Gabriel Venture Partners | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northern CA;Asia | CID Equity Partners | 03 | Scott spent his fellowship at CID Equity Partners and at ONSET under mentors Kevin Sheehan and Darlene Mann as a member of Class 3. | Scott Chou has been in the venture capital industry since 1997 and has been recognized in the AlwaysOn Top 100 VC List. He is known for his focus on disruptive technologies and for authoring Maxims, Morals, and Metaphors - A Primer on Venture Capital.
Scott’s passion for early-stage technology ventures extends back to high school when he joined his first startup as a software engineer. He has since worked for five more technology ventures including Poqet Computer and ICE, in addition to world-renowned research and development organizations such as Bellcore and IBM. His broad expertise in technology spans the industry from manufacturing to software development to chip design. Scott completed the Kauffman Fellows Program in 1999 with Onset Ventures. He later joined Gabriel Venture Partners where he focused on research labs for fundamental innovations. His first investment at Gabriel was in the seed round of NextG Networks which eventually sold to Crown Castle for $1 billion. While at Gabriel, Scott also founded the Employee Stock Option Fund to capitalize on special situations. | Scott earned a BS in electrical engineering, with Honors, from the California Institute of Technology, an MS degree in engineering from Stanford University and an MS in computer science from Harvard University.
Scott has been an active volunteer in relief charities during recent disasters such as Katrina, Myanmar, and Sichuan. Most recently he has conducted book signings with all proceeds going towards the Sunflower Foundation, a micro-finance charity dedicated to assisting under-privileged women through entrepreneurial self-sufficiency. | 3 |
| Chrys Chrysanthou | Chrysanthou | Kindred Capital | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Notion Capital | 21 | Chrys started his fellowship at Notion Capital under the mentorship of Managing Partner Stephen Chandler, and completed it at Kindred Capital. He is a member of Class 21. | Chrys joined Kindred Capital in 2018 as a General Partner. The firm invests in early-stage companies in the United Kingdom.
Most recently, Chrys was a Partner at Notion Capital, an early-stage B2B-focused fund based in London, UK. Chrys was responsible for the firm’s sourcing strategy and for recruiting and managing the Associate pool; he also led and managed investments across several market segments and geographies. Chrys oversaw the firm’s thematic research and sourcing in IoT, infrastructure, and security, as well as the majority of the Big Data and AI/ML investments. He has also a particular interest in the HR sector. Chrys led the firm’s investments in Workable and Smartup, and helped lead investments in Panaseer and GoCardless. He was a board observer at MoveGuides and Wercker. Prior to joining in Notion 2015, Chris was a VP for Accel Partners’ London team. He also led business development efforts for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the startup ecosystem across EMEA and was a COO at an IoT startup, Living PlanIT. He started his career in Cisco where he spent 10 years across IT, operations, and a long term leading investments and acquisitions for Cisco’s Services division. | Chrys holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of California, San Diego and an MBA from the Judge Business School at Cambridge University. | 21 |
| Christopher Chu | Chu | Samsung Catalyst Fund | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | CMEA Ventures | Charter | Chris served his fellowship under mentor Tom Baruch at CMEA Ventures as a member of the Charter Class of Kauffman Fellows. | Chris has joined Samsung Catalyst Fund as Investment Director. He currently focuses on mobile health investments, but also covers cloud computing, human–computer interface, mobile technologies, and security.
Previously, Chris worked in Corporate Development at AnyDATA, a wireless device solutions provider for Connected Health and Connected Home, where he worked on strategic partnerships, technology evaluation, business development, and intellectual property. In addition, Chris was a Partner at Pacific Venture Partners and involved with semiconductor and communications companies for the past fifteen years. His board involvement included Virtual Silicon and WISchip International. Before that, Chris was a Principal at Crescendo Ventures, where he focused on telecom, wireless, and semiconductor investments. He was also an Associate at Worldview Technology Partners as well as a Kauffman Fellow at CMEA Ventures. Some of Chris’s past investments and company involvement include Alpha & Omega Semiconductor, IC Media, Legend Silicon, and Silicon Spice. Chris has held engineering positions at VLSI Technology, National Semiconductor, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and IBM Watson Research. | Chris holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology. | 0 |
| Jehan Chu | Chu | Kenetic | , | Hong Kong | Asia | Kenetic | 24 | Jehan is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 24, serving his fellowship at Kenetic. | Jehan Chu is co-Founder and Managing Partner at Kenetic, a Hong Kong-based blockchain VC investment fund and cryptocurrency trading fund. A former front-end developer, he started investing in bitcoin in 2013 and in 2014 he founded the Ethereum HK community and co-Founded the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong; in 2016 he founded the Hyperledger HK community. Jehan serves as co-Chairman of the Blockchain Committee at Hong Kong Fintech Association and is co- Founder and Board member of Social Alpha Foundation, a blockchain for social impact nonprofits. | Jehan graduated from Johns Hopkins University, receiving a double major bachelor’s degree in international relations and East Asian studies. He also received an MA in cultural enterprise from Hong Kong University and Central St. Martin’s, University of the Arts London. Jehan is a Singapore University of Social Sciences Fellow and has lectured at Hong Kong University, HK Polytechnic University, and the City University of HK MBA program; he was also a Google Empowering Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) Mentor. Jehan sits on the boards of Global Patrons of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Para Site Art Space, and Design Trust HK. | 24 | |
| Patrick Chung | Chung | Xfund | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | New Enterprise Associates | 09 | A member of class 9, Patrick completed his fellowship at NEA under mentor Peter T. Morris. Patrick was also a mentor for Sujay Jaswa, a member of Fellows Class 13. | Patrick is a founding partner of Xfund. Formed in January 2011, Xfund is the first-ever partnership between four venture capital firms—NEA, Breyer Capital, Accel Partners and Polaris Partners—and Harvard University. Xfund is an early-stage venture capital firm dedicated to investing in technically-gifted liberal arts entrepreneurs and supporting them with the intellectual firepower of an incredible university community.
Before joining Xfund full-time, Patrick was co-head of NEA's consumer and seed-stage investing practices. He was a director of 23andMe, eeGeo, Euclid, GoodGuide, Loopt, Lytro, Pixelberry, Pulse, and is actively involved with Rock Health, GrubWithUs, and Fanhattan. Prior to joining NEA, Patrick helped to grow ZEFER, an Internet services firm (acquired by NEC) to more than $100 million in annual revenues and more than 700 people across six global offices. Prior to ZEFER, Patrick was with McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in hardware, software, and services companies. | Patrick received a joint JD-MBA degree from Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, where he served as an Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Patrick was a Commonwealth Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned a Master of Science degree. Patrick earned his AB degree at Harvard University in Environmental Science. He is a member of the New York and Massachusetts bars, and a member of the Committee to Visit Harvard College. | 9 |
| Antonio Cianci | Cianci | Advanced Materials | Italy | , | Bolzano / Bozen | Europe | Agency for the Promotion of Innovation | 16 | Antonio served his fellowship at the Agency for the Promotion of Technologies for Innovation as a member of Class 16. | Antonio is co-founder and CEO of Advanced Materials GmbH/Srl, an innovative company that is a leader in air purifying technologies. The firm has recently started marketing its patented product, Airlite, a revolutionary air purifying paint that uses titanium dioxide nanotechnology to convert air pollutants into inert compounds. Through the use of light energy, the paint reduces pollutants, eliminates odors, prevents mold, and destroys harmful pathogens. Thanks to its high-reflecting power, it can also reduce cooling costs by 15% to 50%.
Antonio was previously Advisor to the Minister for Innovation in the Italian government, working in the National Agency for the Promotion of Technologies for Innovation. In this role, he has developed the “Italy for Innovators” project, promoting innovative Italian companies both in international markets (China, Russia, Brasil, India, Mexico, Argentina, S. Korea and, of course, USA) and to international investors. As an investor, Antonio has a particular interest in companies focused on environment, energy savings, healthcare, but also looks at every innovative field. Prior to joining the government, Antonio was co-founder and CEO of an energy savings consultancy, specializing in Kyoto Protocol projects and operating in Italy and China. As an individual, Antonio is a writer, specializing in scientific and economic divulgation. His two books on “innovations that changed our lives,” have been a great success in Italy, and are now to be translated in several countries. His book on Chinese characters had been the top selling in Italy on this topic. | Antonio is an engineering PhD of Politecnico di Milano, where he worked for five years as contract professor in mathematics. Antonio serves as scientific advisor for Innovare, the official magazine of the national association of small enterprises, and is member of GEI – Enterprise Economist Group. | 16 |
| Murphy Clark | Clark | Wells Fargo Securities | United States | North Carolina, | Charlotte | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Kitty Hawk Capital | 05 | Murphy Clark completed his fellowship as a member of Class 5 with mentor Walter Wilkinson at Kitty Hawk Capital, the oldest venture capital firm in the Southeastern United States. | Murphy is Managing Director, Middle Market Investment Banking at Wells Fargo Securities, where he focuses on M&A as well as equity and debt financings for middle-market sponsors and their portfolio companies. In an earlier role, Murphy was in Wells Fargo Securities’ (previously Wachovia) Investment Banking Equity Private Placement group, leading the firm’s efforts across all industry sectors in raising private equity, structured equity, and mezzanine debt capital to support the growth initiatives of Wells Fargo’s clients.
Earlier, Murphy was a partner with a boutique M&A advisory and merchant banking firm. In that firm’s largest principal transaction, he helped lead the negotiations to secure additional equity and bank financing sources, helped recruit a new CEO, and was instrumental in negotiating and closing the transaction. That investment was sold in 2008 and returned roughly 30% IRR for investors. Murphy completed his fellowship at Kitty Hawk Capital where he focused on regional investment opportunities and spent the second half of his fellowship working directly in operating roles with two of Kitty Hawk’s portfolio companies. He then moved to TL Ventures, where he was responsible for identifying and managing investments in information technology, software, and communications. Prior to Kitty Hawk, Murphy made private equity investments in media and entertainment companies for GE Capital on behalf of NBC. In that role, he was the lead Associate on NBC’s successful minority investment in ValueVision (cable television’s ShopNBC), the third largest home shopping cable network in the US. Murphy began his career as an Investment Banking Analyst with Smith Barney’s Technology Group in San Francisco. | Murphy received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and his BA in economics from Stanford University. | 5 |
| Tyson Clark | Clark | GV | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | GV | 21 | Tyson served his fellowship at GV under the mentorship of Managing Partner David Krane as a member of Class 21. | Tyson is a General Partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures), where he invests broadly in enterprise technology companies.
Prior to joining GV, Tyson was a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he was on the corporate development team and advised enterprise portfolio companies. He led acquisitions in the enterprise SaaS space for Oracle’s corporate development group, and worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, where he oversaw IPO and M&A transactions for a variety of cloud companies. Before embarking on his career in business, Tyson spent six years in the United States Navy, serving on fast attack submarines as both a nuclear propulsion officer and Navy scuba diver. | Tyson holds a BS in industrial engineering from Stanford, with Honors, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Tyson serves as a board member for ReSurge International, a nonprofit that seeks to increase access to surgical care internationally by empowering local doctors abroad to surgically repair congenital abnormalities, such as clefts, and injuries, including. | 21 |
| Taylor Clauson | Clauson | OpenAir Equity Partners | United States | Missouri, | Kansas City | MW Plains/Rockies | OpenAir Equity Partners | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Taylor is serving his fellowship at OpenAir Equity Partners under the mentorship Scott Ford (Class 11). | Taylor has a passion for technology and working with startups. He joined OpenAir Equity Partners in July 2012 and focuses on engaging in market and financial analysis, problem-solving, and strategic thinking around existing portfolio companies and sectors for potential investment.
Prior to OpenAir, Taylor worked as Director of Operations at EcoFit Lighting, a cleantech startup that designed, manufactured, and marketed outdoor LED lighting products. At EcoFit, Taylor worked at supply chain management, logistics, and financial planning and analysis, as well as helping to fundraise. Taylor’s career began as an investment analyst for the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation (KTEC), a public–private partnership that invested in seed-stage technology companies for the state of Kansas. | Taylor holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Kansas State University. He resides in Overland Park, Kansas with his wife and two children, and enjoys Royals baseball, fishing, and tinkering with new technologies. Taylor volunteers as a Big Brother for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City. | 23 |
| Austin Clements | Clements | OPV Capital | , | Los Angeles | Southern CA & Hawaii | OPV Capital | 25 | Austin Clements is the Managing Partner at On Purpose Ventures (OPV) in Los Angeles. OPV is an early stage venture firm created to address the unmet investment needs of small business owners and the technologies that support them.
In addition to OPV, Austin is Managing Director at Grid110, a startup accelerator and community development non-profit. There he leads the South LA expansion, bringing high-quality guidance and resources to communities that have historically been underrepresented in the innovation economy. He was previously a Principal at TenOneTen Ventures and began his career in investment management with AllianceBernstein. He also founded Pi Digital Media, an LA based firm which developed web and mobile applications for SMBs. | Austin serves as the Chair of PledgeLA, an initiative created by the Annenberg Foundation and the Mayor of Los Angeles to promote civic engagement and diversity within the tech community. He also serves on the board of HBCUvc and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.
Austin is a proud graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He received his MBA from NYU Stern School of Business. He lives in Downtown Los Angeles with his wife and son. | 25 | ||
| Lisa Coca | Coca | GE Ventures | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | GE Ventures | 21 | Lisa served her fellowship at GE Ventures as a member of Class 21. Her mentor was Karen Kerr (Charter Class; Kauffman Fellows board member). | Lisa is a Managing Director and investor in GE Ventures’ Enterprise Practice, which invests in startups focused on corporate productivity and operational efficiency. In this capacity, she is a contributing member to the boards for HourlyNerd and Ascendify. She was the architect and led GE Ventures' EDGE program, which leverages the global scale, expertise, and resources of GE to provide startup partners with programs and tools to help them grow and scale their enterprises.
Prior to joining GE Ventures, Lisa’s professional career spanned a number of other disciplines including finance, sales and marketing, strategy, and business development at major financial institutions such as GE Capital, Bankers Trust, and Deutsche Bank. | Lisa graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, with Honors, and earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
Lisa serves on the Board of BizWorld, a nonprofit whose mission is to inspire children to have an entrepreneurial spirit and do amazing things. She is a also member of the Executive Committee for Bay Area Women’s Philanthropy Network and serves as a mentor for SHE-CAN, which builds female leadership by supporting disadvantaged young women from post-conflict countries in their pursuit of higher education. Lisa lives in Los Altos with her husband and three children. | 21 |
| Daniel Cohen | Cohen | Carmel Ventures | Israel | , | Herzeliya | Middle East | Gemini Israel Funds | 11 | Daniel Cohen is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 11 and served his fellowship under mentor Yossi Sela at Gemini Israel Funds in Menlo Park, CA. | Daniel Cohen is a General Partner at Carmel Ventures, specializing in Consumer Internet, Digital Media and Software-as-a-Service investments. He currently serves on the board of Tapingo. Daniel joined Carmel Ventures in April 2013 after 11 years at Gemini Israel Ventures. At Gemini he invested in various companies including Amadesa (Sold to LivePerson), SupportSpace, Adap.tv (Sold to AOL for $405M), Outbrain, Watchdox, Massive Impact, and Eyeview. Daniel began his career as a SW developer and product manager in a few Israeli high-tech companies. In his last position he ran strategic marketing for Commtouch (NASDAQ: CTCH). Danny has a BA in computer science and psychology from Tel-Aviv University and an MBA from INSEAD. | Danny has a BA in computer science and psychology from Tel Aviv University in Israel and an MBA from INSEAD in France. | 11 |
| Bennett Cohen | Cohen | PIVA | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Royal Dutch Shell | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Bennett served his fellowship at Royal Dutch Shell under the mentorship of VP Innovation Chris Laurens. | Bennett brings 15 years of experience at the intersection of energy, mobility and innovation spanning venture capital, startups, large corporations and consulting. Most recently Bennett established the venture capital arm of Royal Dutch Shell in San Francisco, where he led $50 million of investments focused on the future of energy and mobility, served on the boards of portfolio companies, and chaired the global mobility investment committee. Before moving into venture capital, Bennett was based at Shell headquarters in Europe developing the strategy that underpins the company’s New Energies division, which develops business globally in renewable power and storage, smart grid, electric mobility, and energy access. Bennett has also worked as a consultant at Rocky Mountain Institute, where he reported directly to Amory Lovins, and as a Director of Business Development at CPower, a demand response startup that was acquired by Constellation in 2010.
Bennett’s professional passions are sustainability, entrepreneurship, teamwork and the challenges facing the global energy industry. | Bennett holds a BA in Economics (summa cum laude) from Columbia University and an MSc. in Industrial Ecology from TU Delft | 20 |
| Anthony Coia | Coia | Novartis AG | Switzerland | , | Basel | Europe | BioVentures Investors | 14 | A member of Class 14, Anthony served his fellowship under mentor Marc Goldberg at BioVentures Investors. | As Global Senior Director with Novartis in in Basel, Switzerland, Tony evaluates innovative external assets to build the firm's internal portfolio within inflammation/autoimmunity, dermatology, and cell-therapy areas. He also leads evaluations for senior management on possible acquisitions. Earlier, Tony was Senior Global Director of Marketing and New Products where he led commercialization and marketing efforts for multiple therapeutic assets focused on chronic conditions, and set strategy and performed tactical planning for new product development.
Previously, Tony was a Principal with BioVentures Investors in Boston where he led due diligence efforts and held Board seats with companies in the BVI2 and BVI3 Funds. He led a number of investments and participated actively in efforts with CardioSolutions, Claros Diagnostics, Cylene Pharmaceuticals, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Spirus Medical, Hydra Biosciences, Rcadia Medical Imaging, Hydrocision, Verax Biomedical, Vital Sensors, and Momelan Technologies. Before venture, Tony was with L.E.K. Consulting, working with pharmaceutical, biotech, and private equity clients on projects that addressed asset valuation, strategic planning, and investment due diligence. He was also the Director of Technology Development for Partners Healthcare, where he helped to commercialize technology from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). Tony has conducted research in the areas of neurodegenerative disease with the University of Pennsylvania and in regenerative medicine with the Johns Hopkins Hospital. During business school, he also co-authored work published in the journal Nature Biotech on the subject of “Value Drivers in Licensing Deals” (Nov. 2002). | Anthony holds an MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he focused on internal medicine and regenerative research, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management where he focused on strategy, finance and decision analysis, and a BS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Syracuse University (Tau Beta Pi, magna cum laude).
Prior to medical school, Anthony was an officer in the United States Air Force, where he served as an aviator in the F-111 airframe. He was discharged from the USAF having received the Air Force Achievement Medal for Leadership. He was also an active volunteer for the Southwest Corridor Park Conservancy, part of Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, a series of parks, in Boston. | 14 |
| Robert Coneybeer | Coneybeer | Shasta Ventures | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | New Enterprise Associates | 02 | As a member of Class 2, Rob completed his fellowship at New Enterprise Associates under mentor Peter T. Morris. He was a mentor to Jacob Mullins (Class 22) and Ann Kim (Class 24) of SVB. | Rob Coneybeer brings to Shasta Ventures deep experience in building early-stage companies. He is particularly interested in startups that have discovered creative new ways to connect the "real world" to the Internet. Around this theme, he actively pursues investment opportunities in mobile & wireless, technology applications, and infrastructure. Rob’s expertise in communications and networking – both as a line engineer and as a successful venture investor – is particularly valuable to infrastructure entrepreneurs at the earliest stages of company and product development. Rob likes to work with companies as they develop their initial business plans, build out the core team, and plot their go-to-market strategies. His understanding of networks and strong connections at leading systems vendors is particularly helpful to semiconductor startups.
Prior to co-founding Shasta Ventures, Rob was a general partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) where he led 15 investments in core infrastructure technologies spanning semiconductors, software and networking equipment. Prior to joining the venture capital industry, Rob served as a lead integration and test engineer in the Astro Space division of Martin Marietta where he helped build the first EchoStar spacecraft. | Rob earned a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia. He also holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Palmer Scholar. | 2 |
| Laura Constantini | Constantini | Astella Investimentos | Brazil | São Paulo, | São Paulo | Latin America | Astella Investimentos | 23 | A member of Class 23, Laura is serving her fellowship at Astella Investimentos under the mentorship of the firm’s CEO and Founder Edson Rigonatti. | Laura is co-founder of Astella Investimentos, a tech VC firm based in São Paulo, Brazil focused on scalable platforms. Astella is searching for solutions that meet the needs of thousands of consumers (e commerce and education), that connect people and businesses (marketplaces), or that solve the problems of companies and governments (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS). The firm consists of investors and an operational team helping entrepreneurs master customer acquisition, product development, and company training—from defining a strategy to creating routines for client acquisition, from identifying critical features to developing a roadmap for scalability, from helping founders hire talented people to creating a corporate culture, from making industry contacts to connecting with other investors. Astella is present in all stages of business development.
Laura and Edson Rigonatti founded Astella in 2008 and since then constituted three vehicles and invested in 19 startups. Astella has attracted two other partners to join the team. Previously, Laura worked at Cicerone Capital, an M&A boutique focused on the TMT sector, and before that worked at Santander and Credit Suisse/Garantia as an equity research analyst. | Laura holds a degree in business administration from Fundação Getulio Vargas.
She dedicates part of her time to Endeavor in São Paulo mentoring entrepreneurs and helping organize events and panels to foster the entrepreneurial ecosystem. | 23 |
| Francisco Coronel | Coronel | NXTP Labs | Argentina | , | Buenos Aires | Latin America | NXTP Labs | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Francisco served his fellowship at the NXTP Labs under the mentorship of Ariel Arrieta (Class 17). | Francisco Coronel is Co-Founder and Managing Director at NXTP Labs, the most active early-stage technology investment fund and accelerator in Latin America. NXTP Labs has already invested in more than 160 companies, and plans to complete a portfolio of 300 companies in the next 3 years.
At NXTP Labs, Francisco has actively participated in the fundraising process, receiving $30M from 120 investors worldwide, both private and public, to date. He successfully completed a sophisticated due diligence process to receive funding from Inter-American Development Bank, the government of Chile (CORFO), the government of Mexico (INADEM), and the the city of Buenos Aires. Francisco brings a combination of strong entrepreneurial experience and corporate finance professionalism to his work. He focuses on digital business, management best practices, expansion strategy, financial analysis, tax planning, and legal ramifications. As part of the NXTP Labs accelerator, Francisco helps founders reach investment readiness by supporting their pitches for additional funding to expand their operations. More than 70% of such accelerated companies have received a qualified financing event of $750K (average). | Francisco was recognized as a Global Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2007. His performance as Co-Founder & CFO at Archpartners, one of the projects he successfully developed, was honored by an international Endeavor panel.
Francisco is a Certified Public Accountant who graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and has completed a postgraduate specialization in finance at the University of California at Berkeley. As an individual, Francisco has actively participated as an advisory board member in a wide range of projects with local, regional, or global impacts. | 20 |
| Jack Crawford | Crawford | Impact Venture Capital | United States | California, | Sacramento | Northern CA | Velocity Venture Capital | 16 | Jack served his fellowship at Velocity Venture Capital as a member of Class 16. He serves as mentor to Michael Beaudoin (Class 23). | Jack is a Sacramento, California native whose 20-year career in local company building has evolved from CPA to entrepreneur to venture capitalist. As a CPA with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Jack saw a wide range of businesses and was inspired to start his own – including one of the first ISPs in Sacramento, and three more software companies through the 1990s. In 2000 he was chosen as Entrepreneur of the Year by the Money Hunt television show, broadcast in 160 US markets.
Since 2000, Jack has focused his energy on venture capital as the critical component of company building for seed and early-stage technology companies. Jack launched Velocity Venture Capital in 2005 to provide capital for entrepreneurs focused on information technology products that will positively impact the world. Jack is combined his front-line entrepreneurial operating experience with venture capital investments to help drive the success of some of the most promising companies in Northern California. Jack worked closely with company founders to fine-tune strategies, build management teams, recruit key members of the Board of Directors and Advisory Boards, grow revenues, raise capital, and facilitate a positive exit. Operating primarily inside California’s technology triangle (bounded by San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento), Velocity Venture Capital has a long history of investing in early stage companies including the first round investment in Soft Machines, recently acquired by Intel for $270 million. Since 2009, Velocity has been running innovation programs for startups, graduate students, and corporate venture groups from across the U.S. Following years of co-investment and corporate portfolio management in collaboration with Dixon Doll (Mentor Class 15) and Eric Ball (Class 16), Jack joined forces with the two Silicon Valley investors to launch Impact Venture Capital in 2016. Jack is also the co-founder and Chairman of Social Venture Partners, a foundation that has mobilized the next generation of philanthropists in Sacramento to give time and money to nonprofits focused on education. SVP has donated more than $1M and thousands of hours in support of improving education. | Jack completed Harvard Business School's "Private Equity & Venture Capital" executive program and is a graduate of the Venture Capital Institute. He earned a BS in accounting from Arizona State University and is a CPA.
Jack lives in the Sacramento area with his wife and three children and enjoys golf, swimming, cycling, and running. To establish a culture of fitness in his family and his community, Jack trained and completed 2 full distance Ironman triathlon events, a 50-mile ultra-marathon, and a 200-mile bike race. | 16 |
| Randall Crowder | Crowder | TEXO Ventures | United States | Texas, | Austin | TX/South Central | Texo Ventures | 15 | A member of Class 15, Randall served his fellowship at TEXO Ventures under the mentorship of Dr. Philip Sanger and Jerry DeVries. | Randall is passionate about new venture creation and the innovative spirit that fuels entrepreneurs. As an active investor and entrepreneur, he understands what it takes to successful launch and grow a new business. He regularly publishes articles on entrepreneurship, venture capital and healthcare, which can be found under News & Events. Randall is also a member of The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only membership organization comprised of the world’s most elite and successful young entrepreneurs.
Randall focuses on Health IT, Technology-Enabled Health Services and Personalized Medicine Technology. He currently sits on the board of TEXO portfolio companies SwipeSense and OpenMarkets. Prior to TEXO, Randall worked to expand the entrepreneurial eco-system in Texas. As Executive Director of the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN), he increased CTAN’s investment activity by 6x and led it to becoming the 4th most active angel network in the country according to the Angel Capital Association (ACA). Like many angel networks, however, CTAN lacked the proper resources to effectively scale its operations. Leveraging his relationships within the University of Texas at Austin, Randall conceived and co-founded Texas Venture Labs (TVL) to not only support the local investor community with valuable graduate student resources, but also provide the mentoring, team-building, market and business plan validation, technology commercialization and domain knowledge needed to start and grow innovative ventures. Entrepreneurs rarely lack passion or vision, but often fail to properly prepare and execute. This level of planning and attention to detail is something Randall internalized as an officer in the United States Army. After Airborne and Ranger School, Randall went on to receive two Bronze Stars for actions during two separate combat deployments to Iraq, where no playbook or historical precedent existed. In the absence of clear guidance and with lives on the line, innovation and execution were paramount to success. | Randall earned his MBA from McCombs at the University of Texas at Austin where he served as Director of Venture Fellows and was awarded the 2010 McCombs Student Leadership & Service Award. He holds a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point in General Management and Environmental Engineering.
Randall enjoys mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs as an advisor for the Prison Entrepreneurship Program and Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Program. He also has experience teaching several forms of martial arts, to include Kuk Sul Won, Krav Maga and CQD for the Army. | 15 |
| Daniel Crowley | Crowley | ARCH Venture Partners | Ireland | , | Dublin | Europe | NDRC | 16 | A member of Class 16, Dan served his fellowship at ARCH Ventures and NDRC under the mentorship of Paul Thurk (Fellows Class 6) of ARCH Venture Partners. | Dan Crowley is a Venture Partner at ARCH Ventures and an entrepreneur. He has had a direct role in the formation and financing of over 40 companies in sensors, advanced materials, energy, network technologies, bioinformatics, medical devices, and image processing. He previously served as a Director with NDRC, a leading early-stage technology incubator and investor in Dublin, Ireland, where we has the founding director of VentureLab, one of Europe's first science venture accelerators.
Before NDRC, Dan was co-founder and chief executive at KDM Valentia Partners, a firm focused on sustainable engineering and construction technology, and a founding executive at 3D graphics startup Kusp, which he helped lead from greenfield to IPO on the ASX. Dan has served in senior operational roles in the software, internet, and energy industries, and held research and engineering roles at Hitachi, the 3DO Company, and Trinity College Dublin. | Dan earned his MBA at Cornell where he was an Angear Merit Scholar, and a Master's diploma in strategy and innovation at Oxford. He holds a BA and an MSc in computer science and distributed systems from Trinity College Dublin.
When not working or spending time with his family, Dan loves to read, hike, and play chess. He has a deep interest in ancient art and history, and spends a lot of time thinking about the past and future of technology and its impact on humanity. | 16 |
| Code Cubitt | Cubitt | Mistral Venture Partners | , | Ottawa | Canada | Mistral Venture Partners | 25 | Code is the Founder and Managing Director of Mistral Venture Partners–an early stage venture capital firm with headquarters in Ottawa, Canada. Code has more than 25 years of experience as a company founder, operating executive and venture investor. He has invested in more than 50 technology companies across North America, and currently serves on the boards of several portfolio companies including Ceipal, Expeto, Stratuscent, Soundpays, Symend, Edly and BlueJ Legal. He also serves as chairman of the board for the Ottawa International Airport Authority.
Prior to Mistral, Code was the COO of Zephyr Technology (acquired by Covidien NYSE: COV), an investing Partner at Motorola Ventures and a Principal at Gabriel Venture Partners, both based in Silicon Valley. Code began his career as a radio frequency (RF) design engineer at IBM in Toronto Canada, and CIENA in Baltimore Maryland. | Code has a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Alberta, and an MBA from the Smith School of Business–University of Maryland.
Code is a Canadian, and while he's lived in 21 different cities in four countries, he now calls Ottawa home – where he lives with his wife and two teenage sons. Code is an avid sailor and has completed more than 10,000 offshore miles including a transatlantic crossing. | 25 | ||
| Kelli Cullinane | Cullinane | Legacy Venture | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Legacy Venture | 21 | Kelli is a member of Class 21 and served her fellowship at Legacy Venture under the mentorship of Managing Member Ben Choi (Class 11). | As Partner and CFO at Legacy Venture, Kelli leads day-to-day financial management and reporting process along with back-office operations. She also manages all aspects of the firm’s operations including investor relations, human resources, and IT infrastructure. Under her leadership, the finance team has grown to six professionals. As a member of the investment team, Kelli conducts firm analysis, performs due diligence, and monitors venture capital funds and the venture industry. As Chief Compliance Officer, Kelli ensures Legacy Venture’s compliance with standards set by the Registered Investment Advisors Act.
Before joining Legacy, Kelli worked on the finance team at HRJ Capital, focused on all aspects of the firm’s 13 venture capital fund-of-funds. HRJ is a multi-asset class fund-of-funds firm. She began her career as an auditor with Ernst & Young, serving primarily financial services clients in Chicago and information technology companies throughout Silicon Valley. Kelli has a deep knowledge of financial management, with a special focus on the financial services industry, venture capital fund-of-funds, as well as current GAAP developments and requirements. | Kelli is a certified public accountant, and earned her BA in economics and master’s degree in accounting from the University of Michigan. She and her husband, Brian, have two young daughters and an English bulldog. She has a philanthropic interest in girls’ education and mental health. | 21 |
| Jackson Cummings | Cummings | Salesforce Ventures | , | Oakland | Northern CA | Salesforce Ventures | 25 | Jackson Cummings is an Investor at Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce’s strategic investment arm that invests in innovative enterprise cloud companies, with 300+ portfolio companies across 20+ countries. While at Salesforce Ventures, Jackson has worked on or led 30+ investments including Forter, RunaHR, Ureeka, Sitetracker, Highspot, OwnBackup and BigID.
Previously, Jackson was an investor at Top Tier Capital Partners, a global venture-focused Fund of Funds, where he supported investments in fund managers as a Limited Partner, venture secondaries, and direct co-investments. While at Top Tier Capital Partners, Jackson worked to help develop and build an emerging micro-VC focused investment fund. Jackson was recognized in 2020 by HBCUvc for its venture capital focused 31 Under 31 List alongside other investors, fund managers, and organizational leaders. Jackson is also actively involved in the BLCK VC Leadership Team with a focus on Corporate Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and Startups. | Jackson graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s of science in Science, Technology and Society and was a member of the football team. While at Stanford, Jackson was a running back and special teams member -successfully heading to four consecutive BCS bowl appearances including Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl victories.
Jackson lives in Oakland is passionate about supporting more diversity in tech and the broader VC community. He volunteers at organizations like The Hidden Genius Project and is actively advising underrepresented founders. In his spare time, you can find Jackson playing pickup basketball or discussing automotive design and engineering. | 25 | ||
| Stephen Curtis | Curtis | MPM Capital | United States | Massachusetts, | Cambridge | Boston/Northeast | 2M Companies | 20 | Steve is a member of Class 20, and served the majority of his fellowship at 2M Companies under the mentorship of Melissa Krauth, former Principal of the firm’s bioscience ventures group, and completed his fellowship at Eli Lilly & Co. | Stephen joined MPM Capital in 2018, focusing on the firm's main BioVentures fund; he also supports the fund's other activities, including the Oncology Impact Fund. He is located in the firm's Cambridge, Massachusetts office.
Previously, Stephen was Director of Business Development - Emerging Technology and Innovation for Eli Lilly & Company. The Emerging Technology and Innovation team complements therapeutic area-specific external research efforts and specializes in connecting partners to Lilly expertise and deploying flexible funding models. In addition to traditional business development activities, Steve focused on Lilly's strategic limited partnerships in venture funds, direct equity investments in selected biotechnology companies, "build-to-buy” investments, and other “shared-risk” drug discovery and early development relationships. Prior to joining Lilly, Steve co-led the Bioscience Ventures group within 2M Companies, the Dallas-based family office of Morton H. Meyerson, focusing on Seed and Series A biotech investments and portfolio management. Before that, Steve ran the technology evaluation and in-licensing program at Reata Pharmaceuticals, leading cross-functional efforts to identify and acquire novel therapeutic programs within a variety of disease areas. Steve also interned at Siemens Venture Capital in Boston, analyzing markets of strategic interest. | Steve completed his PhD in biological and biomedical sciences at Harvard Medical School in Boston. His doctoral studies focused on the cellular biology and genetics of lung cancer development, propagation, and progression. Steve graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University, earning a dual BS degree in molecular biology and applied economics and management.
Steve has a personal interest in teaching and enabling students to expand their horizons across disciplines. To that end, he has served as a mentor to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, giving them the ability to explore venture capital, entrepreneurship, and broader opportunities in the biotech industry. Additionally, Steve serves as an advisor to various incubator and accelerator programs. | 20 |
| Simone Brody | Brody | Bloomberg Philanthropies | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Ascend Venture Group | 12 | As a member of Fellows Class 12, Simone served her fellowship at Ascend Venture Group with mentor Darryl Wash. | Simone is Executive Director of What Works Cities, a Bloomberg Philanthropies organization, in New York City. Simone is leveraging her extensive experience in business and education to lead this new organization. Launched in April 2015, What Works Cities's mission is to elevate and accelerate cities’ use of data and evidence to engage citizens, make government more effective, and improve people’s lives
Before her current role, Simone spent 3 years at the New York City Department of Education as the Senior Executive Director, Research, Accountability, and Data. During her venture capital career, Simone was a Senior Associate at Ascend Ventures for 6 years. Ascend focuses on applied technology and education companies. The firm invests primarily in early-stage and selective late-stage opportunities. Simone served as a board observer at Tabula Digita and at ClassLink. Simone joined Ascend in 2005 after completing her graduate studies. Prior to graduate school, Simone worked in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman, Sachs, focusing on mergers and acquisitions and capital raisings for financial institutions. Simone has also spent time working with a range of education service providers and public school districts. | Simone attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she received an MBA (Wharton), a Master of Education, and a BA in political science, philosophy and economics (PPE). | 12 |
| Vlad Dabija | Dabija | IgniteIP | United States | California, | Mountain View | Northern CA | CMEA Ventures | 05 | Vlad is a member of Class 5 and completed his fellowship under mentor Gordon Hull at CMEA Ventures. | Vlad Dabija is a technologist, a technology investor, a business strategist and an entrepreneur who has worked in four countries on three continents and has led technology development teams worldwide.
Vlad is a Managing Director at IgniteIP, a private equity firm focused on the placement and monetization of intellectual property (IP) directly into industry. The firm invests in and manages all aspects of the commercialization of IP. Vlad recently served as CEO of Green Border Technologies, a venture-backed company he co-founded. Before that, he was a Partner at CMEA Ventures where he invested in numerous early stage technology start-ups. Vlad brings 20 years of experience in computer technology, including software, artificial intelligence, enterprise security and networking. At Sun Microsystems, he held managerial positions in corporate development and software architecture and development. Previously, at Ashton Tate Corporation, Vlad worked as senior software engineer. He has also consulted with numerous high-tech start-up and venture capital firms on business strategy and technology issues. Vlad is co-author of the book Planning for Real Time Event Response Management, Prentice Hall, 2000. | Vlad holds a PhD in computer science from Stanford University, and an MBA, with Distinction, from the Wharton School of Business, where he was a Palmer Scholar. He also holds a Diplomat Engineer degree in control and computer engineering from the Polytechnic Institute in Bucuresti, Romania. Vlad has also served on the faculty of Stanford and the Polytechnic Institute. | 5 |
| Rajeev Dadoo | Dadoo | SR One Ltd. | United States | Pennsylvania, | Conshohocken | NJ/PA | SR One | 09 | As a member of Fellows Class 9, Rajeev served his fellowship at SR One under the mentorship of Phil Smith. | Rajeev joined SR One in 2003 and is now a Partner. He currently works with portfolio companies Adheron, IlluminOss Medical, True North Therapeutics, and SetPoint Medical. Rajeev has also been involved with SR One's investments in Cydex, Hypnion, iPierian, Inc., Predix Pharmaceuticals, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Octoplus, Trigen, Nucleonics, and Pinnacle Pharmaceuticals.
In addition to his role at SR One, Rajeev spent time with the Competitive Excellence group within GSK working on company-wide strategic projects for GSK’s Corporate Executive Team. Prior to SR One, Rajeev worked at Genentech, where his role included technology and clinical development, and at Bio-Rad Laboratories in a product development role. Rajeev worked at Genome Therapeutics in a business development role and earlier was a co-founder of Unimicro Technologies, a company that was created to develop and commercialize instrumentation for biomedical analysis. | Rajeev holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University, and a BA in chemistry and mathematics from Knox College. | 9 |
| Jervis Danquah | Danquah | Databank Private Equity | Ghana | , | Accra | Africa | Databank Private Equity | 10 | Jervis completed his fellowship as a member of Class 10 under mentor Ken Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta at Databank Private Equity located in Ghana, and has the distinction of being the first Kauffman Fellow from the African continent. | Jervis is the Senior Vice President of Databank Financial Services Group in Ghana, and is the General Manager of the Funds under Databank Private Equity Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary. The Funds, targeting entrepreneurs and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), consist of the Women’s Flagship Fund, Entrepreneur’s Empowerment Fund and the Databank Universities Entrepreneurial Fund. Jervis is also the lead consultant and advisor for a World Bank- and InfoDev-sponsored incubator program where young entrepreneurs are nurtured.
Prior to this position, Jervis was a vice president in the Corporate Finance Department of Databank where he spearheaded several high-profile investment banking activities as well as corporate advisory services, including the first ECOWAS cross-border listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange of a Gambian bank. Before his financial career, Jervis worked for a decade in the pharmaceutical industry, first with the country’s regulatory Agency for Food and Drugs and later as a pharmaceutical and medical representative for Alcon International of the USA. Jervis was able to grow Alcon’s business ten-fold in five years from its humble beginnings by instituting an innovative distribution network across the country. His responsibilities expanded to include oversight of training for all Alcon representatives for Anglophone West Africa. | Jervis, a CFA Charterholder, is the first to be awarded this designation in the financial sector in Ghana. He received his International MBA from the Nyenrode Business Universiteit of the Netherlands with a focus on general management and finance. Jervis also holds an honors degree in pharmacy from the University of Science and Technology in Ghana and is a member of their Pharmaceutical Society. | 10 |
| Thomas Darden | Darden | Reliant Equity Investors | , | NJ/PA | Advent International | Charter | Thomas is a member of the Charter Class of Kauffman Fellows, and served his fellowship at Advent International in Boston under mentor Larry McKenna.
Thomas serves on the Board of Directors for the Center for Venture Education. | Thomas is the founder of Reliant Equity Investors, a management-centric private equity firm that invests in later-stage, middle-market companies.
Thomas spent several years away from investing, moving into the arena of public education. He is a member of the 2009 class of the Broad Superintendents Academy and went on to serve on the executive staff of the School District of Philadelphia, comprising 164,000 students. While there, he was responsible for ensuring the equitable distribution of the district’s resources and compliance activities across the district’s schools and central office operations in areas including teaching and learning; school operations; business operations; human resources; Title I; state, federal, non-profit and corporate grants; as well as special populations (special education, ELL and gifted and talented). Prior to founding Reliant, Thomas worked for 6 years in other private equity firms and has 17 years of experience in a range of management roles at both startups and Fortune 100 companies. Thomas was a Managing Director with Wind Point Partners and led five Wind Point investments. Thomas also served as a Vice President in the Boston office of Advent International and focused on industrial and technology investments. Before his start in venture, Thomas held management and engineering positions at three startups, all financed by private equity investors: UltraCision Inc., GTech Corp., and Surgilase Inc. (twice on Inc. Magazine’s List of 500 Fastest Growing Companies in America). During his startup career, Thomas was involved in the development, market introduction, and growth of 12 successful new products. Thomas started out as an engineer, spending 7 years with the Detroit Diesel Allison Division of the General Motors Corporation. | Thomas holds a BSME from the General Motors Institute of Technology and a MBA, cum laude, from Babson College. He sits on the board of trustees of the Community Preparatory School, a private inner-city school focused on preparing middle school students for college preparatory high schools. | 0 | ||
| Omar Darwazah | Darwazah | AAF Management Ltd. | , | New York | NY/CT | AAF Management Ltd. | 25 | Omar has over 15 years of international experience in corporate finance, strategy, investor relations and venture capital. He is a General Partner and Chief Financial Officer at AAF Management Ltd. (AAF), an early stage venture capital firm he co-founded in 2016. AAF focuses on top tier venture-backed Seed and Series A investment opportunities in US-based startups that have international expansion potential.
AAF invests across Fintech, Consumer, Enterprise Software and Healthcare and its portfolio includes Synthego, Tamara Mellon, Current, Even Financial, Portfolium (acquired by Instructure), HeyDoctor (acquired by GoodRx), Supr Daily (acquired by Swiggy), among others. Omar is also an angel investor in various technology companies including Andela, Blockstack and FiscalNote. He sits on the Board of the Middle East Investor Relations Association (MEIRA) and is also a mentor to the NYU Steinhardt EdTech Accelerator. Previously, Omar spent 10 years of his career with OCI N.V. in Cairo and New York focusing on strategy, corporate finance and investor relations where he worked on over $35 billion worth of corporate transactions. Prior to that, he was with Deloitte in Chicago and Deutsche Bank’s Leveraged Finance team in London. | Omar holds a BA in Economics and Political Science with Honors from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Omar was born in Cairo and lived in London, Chicago, Montreal and Paris. He now resides in New York City with his wife Bouchra and twin son and daughter Zayn and Layla. Omar enjoys scuba diving and is an avid travel photographer having visited 85 countries around the world. He also has an interest in film production and has been an Executive Producer on several short feature films including Baby Mine (2017) and Lab Rat (2018). He was named one of Wharton’s 40 under 40 in 2017. | 25 | ||
| Dilek Dayinlarli | Dayinlarli | ScaleX Ventures | , | Europe;Middle East | 212 Ltd. | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Dilek began her fellowship at 212, Ltd. under the mentorship of Ali Karabey and Managing Partner Numan Numan, and is completing it at ScaleX under the mentorship of Magdalena Yesil. | Dilek brings 12+ years experience in Turkey and the US as an entrepreneur, investor, and company-builder to her role at ScaleX. She has extensive experience in forming, funding, running, advising, and investing in technology businesses.
She is also founding member and leader at Arya Women Investment Platform, Turkey’s only women-focused investment platform, channeling smart money to women-led businesses. Previously, Dilek was Principal and Partner for 4 years at 212, Ltd., an early-stage technology VC in Istanbul, Turkey. She invested in companies like IyziCo, the biggest fintech company in the region; Insider, making global marketing automation software; and Hemenkiralik.com, an online marketplace for short-term rentals. Prior to 212, Dilek was Director of Strategy and Analysis at Groupon, a management consultant at Accenture, and in business development at Koc Group. She started her career in the US, where she held various project management positions and created her own startup. | Dilek received her BS in mechanical engineering from Yildiz Technical University and a Master of Business Administration in strategy from Johnson & Wales University.
Dilek was chosen as one of the most successful Women Leaders in Turkey by Dunya Gazetesi in 2017, based on her contributions and impact on tech sector. | 18 | ||
| Guilherme Decourt | Decourt | monashees+ | Brazil | São Paulo, | Sao Paulo | Latin America | Monashees Capital | 20 | Guilherme is a member of Class 20 and served his fellowship at Monashees Capital under the mentorship of Co-Founder and Managing Partner Eric Acher. | Guilherme Decourt is a General Partner at Monashees Capital, a Brazilian venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies in technology and education. He is responsible for the firm’s investment thesis in SaaS and Big Data, in addition to analyzing deal-flow opportunities and supporting portfolio companies in these segments.
Guilherme joined Monashees Capital as an analyst in 2008, when the team had 5 people and 5 portfolio companies. Since then, Guilherme has had an active role in developing Monashees together with his partners, expanding the team to 20 people, investing in more than 40 companies, and raising over $200M. He directly supports 9 portfolio companies by serving on their boards and working with their teams in day-to-day challenges related to business and funding strategies, recruiting, financial planning, and go-to market strategy. Prior to joining Monashees Capital, he worked at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. | Guilherme holds a BS in civil engineering from Unicamp (Universidade Estadual de Campinas). At Unicamp, he was a research fellow of the Computational Mechanics Laboratory and co-funded an association to support students in career planning. He was awarded by Unicamp for achieving one of the top 30 scores on the writing test for admission out of the 43,000 students who applied.
Guilherme is passionate about reading, traveling, cooking, and appreciating wine. Studying the wine world became a good way of mixing these passions, and he is about to be certified as a professional sommelier by the Brazilian Sommelier Association. He is married and is about to have his first child. | 20 |
| Itxaso Palacio | Palacio | Notion Capital | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | EC1 Capital | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Itxaso served the first part of her fellowship at EC1 Capital under Partner Julian Carter, and completed her fellowship at Lepe Partners under founder Jonnie Goodwin, who also co-founded Founders Forum with Brent Hoberman. | Itxaso is an Investment Director at Notion Capital, the leading B2B focused VC in Europe. Prior to that Itxaso launched M12 (former Microsoft Ventures) in Europe and led the investments in companies like Onfido, Unbabel and Beamery.
Previously, Itxaso was a Principal at Lepe Partners where she led investments in venture growth companies in digital media and consumer technologies. Prior to that, she was at EC1 Capital investing in early stage startups and helping them build and commercialize their technologies. | Itxaso holds a BSc and MSc in Engineering as well as a PhD focused on Economics and Venture Capital. Itxaso has also taught entrepreneurship in many institutions including Imperial College and University College London. Itxaso has particular interests in technologies related to health, fitness and wellness industry, and she is passionate about empowering people to live active, healthier and happier. | 18 |
| Marco DeMeireles | DeMeireles | Balyasny Asset Management (BAM) | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Balyasny Asset Management (BAM) | 23 | Marco is a member of Class 23, serving his fellowship at Balyasny in New York City under the mentorship of Lior Susan, Managing Partner of Eclipse VC. | Marco DeMeireles is a Principal at Balyasny Asset Management (BAM), a multi-billion dollar investment firm, where he founded and leads their growth equity business focused on private technology investments across consumer Internet, digital media, FinTech, enterprise software, healthcare, and IT infrastructure globally.
At BAM, Marco is responsible for proprietary sourcing, investment idea generation, transaction leadership, and portfolio company board oversight. His current investments and directorships include Acorns, AUTO, Avant, Coinbase, Cuebiq, Intangible Labs, Orbital Insight, Spotify, Spring Labs, Peloton, and Zola, where he serves as Balyasny’s shareholder representative. Additionally, Marco serves on the Advisory Committee of Primary Venture Partners and Work-Bench, two leading New York-based venture capital firms, and remains an active angel investor as a partner in Tribeca Angels. Prior to joining BAM, Marco was with Technology Crossover Ventures, focused on growth-stage investments, and began his career in Morgan Stanley’s Technology Investment Banking Division in Menlo Park. | Marco attended Williams College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and was a member of the men’s varsity lacrosse team.
He has a philanthropic interest in education and entrepreneurship, serving on several related nonprofit boards, and remains an active supporter of the Ethereum Foundation, Echoing Green, and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). | 23 |
| Henri Deshays | Deshays | StartX | United States | California, | Stanford | Northern CA | StartX | 21 | Henri served his fellowship at StartX as a member of Class 21. His mentors were Niko Bonatsos, Partner at General Catalyst, and Cameron Teitelman (Class 16), CEO of StartX. | Henri is VP of Strategic Initiatives at StartX, a nonprofit startup accelerator and community of entrepreneurs affiliated with Stanford University, based in Palo Alto, California. Henri is in charge of the internationalization of StartX, the creation of investment vehicles financing the development of StartX-affiliated startups, and outreach to entrepreneurs and mentors.
Henri leads StartX’s enterprise neighborhood and the early-stage neighborhood, where he has mentored 50+ startups to date. Prior to joining StartX, Henri was COO of AmigoCloud, a mobile GIS startup, and founder and CEO of ModeWalk, a luxury fashion marketplace that was sold to Moda Operandi. As an individual, Henri is also an angel investor in several US and European startups as well as accelerators bridging Europe and the US. He is also board member at Softway Medical, the leading French Health Information Systems provider. | Henri is a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business and holds a master’s in corporate finance and international capital markets from Sciences-Po (France) and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Université Paris IX-Dauphine (France).
Henri is a mentor and jury member at organizations promoting French entrepreneurship, including UBI.io, The Refiners, NETVA, and The Family. | 21 |
| Ajit Deshpande | Deshpande | Salesforce.com | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Opus Capital | 17 | Ajit served his fellowship at Opus Capital with mentor Dan Avida, general partner. He is a member of Class 17. | Ajit has a broad-based interest in the technology sector and is especially excited about new investment avenues being created through rapid strides across the IT spectrum. Ajit is Director of Marketing Business Planning at Salesforce.com, where he is responsible for planning and ROI for marketing initiatives run within the CMO's organization.
Previously, Ajit was a senior associate for Opus Capital, where he sourced and evaluated investment opportunities, and contributed business and technical assistance to portfolio companies. Opus Capital is an early-stage, IT-focused venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. Early on in his career, Ajit worked for eight years as a robotics and automation engineer in the semiconductor (Novellus Systems) and cleantech (Solyndra) industries. He had short stints in internal corporate venturing (Juniper Networks), seed/early-stage investing (CalCEF Angel Fund), and technology investment banking (Jefferies & Co.). Immediately prior to Opus Capital, Ajit worked with the co-founders of the startup Velocloud to build the business plan in the cellular cloud access and network services space. Velocloud is now a mid-stage startup that has been funded by NEA, Venrock, and others. | Ajit holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, as well as Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering from IIT Bombay and Stanford University, respectively.
Ajit is an avid long-distance runner, having completed four marathons and five 191-mile, 12-person relay runs so far. He has also been involved in fundraising for literacy initiatives in rural India. He enjoys playing badminton, dabbling with the piano, and believing in a bright future for the Golden State Warriors. | 17 |
| Gianluca Dettori | Dettori | dPixel | Italy | , | Milan | Europe | dPixel | 14 | A member of Class 14, Gianluca performed his fellowship at dPixel. He was mentor to Class 15 member Alessandro Santo. | Gianluca is founder and partner of dpixel, a seed- and early-stage venture capital fund focused on internet and digital media startups with global ambitions.
Gianluca has 16 years of experience in Internet startups. He began his career as marketing and sales director in 1994 at Italia Online, a leading Italian ISP that was later acquired by the Olivetti Group. He then served as managing director of Lycos Bertelsmann in Italy, where he started up all operations for the initial two years. In 1998 Gianluca co-founded Vitaminic, a leading digital music company in Europe. He also raised $50 million in two VC rounds and the IPO at the Nuovo Mercato in Italy, serving as CEO until 2003 and as an executive director in charge of M&A for the following 2 years. A serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Gianluca founded, managed and funded over 10 startups in the digital media and Internet space. He co-founded and chaired the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) in Italy. | Gianluca holds a degree in business from the University of Torino, and spent the last year of his secondary education in the United States as part of the AFS foreign exchange student program. | 14 |
| Susan Devine | Devine | Independent | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Slated, Inc. | 19 | Sue is a member of Class 19 and served her fellowship at Slated under the mentorship of Chairman and CEO, Stephan Paternot, and as an independent investor. | Sue is Director of Investor Relations for Slated, Inc. and Managing Member of Slated Securities LLC. Slated is an online marketplace for finance, dealmaking, and networking in the film industry. In addition to managing all activities and communications for the 1,100+ investors on Slated, Sue spearheads investor acquisition and runs Slated’s social media and marketing strategy.
Sue recently co-founded an offshoot entity called Filmonomics Talks, a first-of-its-kind film finance think tank and networking event, whose mission is to create an association of investors in independent film and a larger sustained pool of funding. Sue is interested in bringing greater efficiencies to film finance and driving more and smarter investment into film. Sue’s career in entertainment started in commercial production then led to the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills, where she worked on some of the firm’s largest deals and also produced and directed a feature-length film and some shorts. After earning her MBA Sue was a private wealth advisor at Goldman Sachs. Her entrepreneurial spirit then led her to SoFi (Social Finance), where she built and ran the NY sales team, which sourced institutional and high net worth investors for student loan funds. Create communities around student loans ultimately inspired Sue to explore ways to innovate in film financing and packaging. | Sue’s experience in film producing led her to Columbia Business School where she focused on finance and entrepreneurship. She holds a Bachelor’s in creative writing from Hamilton College.
Sue loves sailing and races weekly in New York Harbor, and was on the first U.S. team to participate in the Annual Mayor’s Cup Regatta in Qingdao, China. | 19 |
| Mike DeVries | DeVries | Wakestream Ventures | United States | Michigan, | Grand Rapids | MW Plains/Rockies | EDF Ventures | 09 | Mike served his fellowship at EDF Ventures under mentor Mary Campbell as a member of Fellows Class 9. He now serves as a mentor to Mee-Jung Jang (Class 21). | Mike is the Chief Investment Officer at Wakestream Ventures, the venture arm spun out of the Start Garden accelerator in 2016. With 30 years of startup experience in both operating and investing in early-stage companies, Mike brings a valuable perspective in guiding startups through the process of capitalizing and growing their businesses. Wakestream Ventures and Start Garden are located in Michigan, and established an accelerator to help grow their portfolio companies.
Mike is also a Managing Director with EDF Ventures, a firm that focuses on young companies developing breakthrough technologies to address large, well recognized problems and transform existing markets. Mike sits on the boards of CardioMetrix and Direct Flow Medical. Before joining EDF, Mike served as President and CEO of A-Med Systems, a California-based cardiac device company. Prior to A-Med, Mike was Director of Ventures/Cardiac Surgery with Medtronic, a developer of technologies to treat heart disease, neurological disorders and vascular illnesses. Mike’s background also includes serving on the management team at DLP, a Michigan-based cardiac device company which was acquired by Medtronic. | Mike holds an MBA from Grand Valley State University and a BA from Calvin College. | 9 |
| Javier Diaz | Diaz | Colombia Securities Exchange | Colombia | Capital District, | Bogota | Latin America | Andes Capital | 14 | Javier is a member of Fellows Class 14, and served his fellowship at Grupo Aval. | Javier is Vice President of Investor Relations at Grupo Aval, Colombia's largest financial group. Since 2010, Javier has overseen Grupo Aval's registration with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and participated in local and international securities issues for over $1.7 billion. Previously, Javier acted as Managing Director of Andes Capital, a Colombian venture fund manager.
Prior to founding Andes Capital, Javier spent six years at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC. During this time, Javier served as chief counsel to the Multilateral Investment Fund, a financial innovation and inclusion fund, and advised on private equity, project finance, microfinance, and asset-backed lending. Javier played a key role in several high-profile transactions, including the $850 million financing of the Camisea gas pipeline in Peru and the $500 million replenishment of the Multilateral Investment Fund. Javier has worked on Latin American financial and business transactions for fifteen years, from different positions in New York, Washington, DC, and Colombia. He also served as a local advisor to MIDAS, a USAID-sponsored program for private equity and venture capital reform in Colombia. | Javier holds a Master of Arts in International Business from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a JD degree from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. Javier has completed several continuing education programs in securities laws and venture capital, including the 2005 Venture Capital Institute in Atlanta. | 14 |
| Gil Dibner | Dibner | Angular Ventures | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe;Middle East | Genesis Partners | 13 | As a member of Class 13, Gil served his fellowship under mentor Yair Shoham at Genesis Partners in Herzliya Pituach, Israel. | Gil is an AngelList syndicate lead. His focus is on a select group of European and Israeli companies with strong technology underpinnings, highly differentiated offerings, and validation from sophisticated buyers.
Previously, Gil was a Partner at DFJ Esprit and a Principal at Index Ventures in London. At Index, Gil sourced and evaluated investment opportunities in London, Berlin, Stockholm, Dublin, Oslo, and Tel Aviv, and was involved in all aspects of the deployment of over €4M in seed- and early-stage capital. While at Index, he sat on the boards of several seed-stage startups in Europe and Israel. Before moving to London, Gil spent 5 years as a venture capitalist in Tel Aviv, focusing on application software, infrastructure software, and services. At Gemini Israel Funds, he sourced, structured, led, and closed investments in The Gifts Project (acquired by eBay), LoyalBlocks, and J-Frog. He also led due diligence for new investments and follow-ons, and built relationships with industry experts in the U.S. and Israel to validate investment decisions and support portfolio companies. Before that, Gil was a Principal at Genesis Partners, where he was involved in the deployment of over $70M in venture funding and played an active role in Genesis’ investments in bSolar, Innovid, Profitect, SiSense, SolarEdge, and Yedda (acquired by AOL). He was also heavily involved in Genesis' operations, deal flow management, and investor relations. Gil began his career in CIBC World Markets technology investment banking unit in New York in 1999, where he was involved in several IPOs and mergers. In 2000, Gil joined the New York equity research team at Goldman Sachs. He covered Internet infrastructure companies such as Akamai, Exodus, and Webex, wireless carriers such as AT&T Wireless, Nextel, and Sprint PCS, and specialty finance companies such as Ambac, American Express, MBIA, and Capital One. | Gil holds a BA, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in economics and an MBA in finance and marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. | 13 |
| Michael Diem | Diem | Amicus Therapeutics | United States | Pennsylvania, | Wayne | NJ/PA | SR One | 12 | Mike is a member of Class 12 and served his fellowship at SR One under mentors Phil Smith and Russell Greig. | Mike joined Amicus Therapeutics in September 2017 as Senior Vice President, Business and Corporate Development. He brings many years of global experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as well academic and clinical medicine. Prior to joining Amicus, Dr. Diem was Senior Vice President of Corporate and Business Development at Aevi Genomic Medicine, where he led all business development and licensing activities.
Previously, Mike was a Vice President at AstraZeneca, where he was responsible for driving business strategy, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, and investments to bolster the core growth platforms and therapy areas. His core responsibilities included corporate strategy, corporate development, and MedImmune Ventures. Earlier, Mike was the Director of Business Development for GSK Rare Diseases for 3 years and was responsible for partnerships, licensing, and M&A. Before that, he was a Partner at SR One, the venture capital subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline. Mike joined SROne as an associate in 2005, and during his tenure there he was responsible for many of the firm’s investments and was a member or observer to the boards of Aileron Therapeutics, CalciMedica, Protez (acquired by Novartis), Synovex, Trinity Biosystems, and Nupathe. Before joining SR One, Mike was an associate at Frantz Medical Ventures and practiced as an attending physician for 6 years. | Mike holds a BA in biological sciences from Rutgers University and an MBA from the Waterhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Mike earned an MD from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and completed his residency training at Duke University Medical Center. | 12 |
| Brian Dixon | Dixon | Kapor Capital | United States | California, | Oakland | Northern CA | Kapor Capital | 21 | Brian served his fellowship at Kapor Capital under the mentorship of Founding Partner Mitch Kapor. He is a member of Class 21. | Brian is a Partner at Kapor Capital, a seed-stage social impact venture capital firm based in Oakland, CA. He joined Kapor Capital as a pre-MBA intern in 2011. Brian’s passion for tech, enthusiasm for solutions that promote a social good, and commitment to empowering underrepresented entrepreneurs have inspired him to excel at Kapor Capital for the past five years.
Brian’s role comprises six main activities: pre-investment, post-investment, management, operations, budgeting, and strategy. Every year, Kapor Capital makes about 20 new investments, ranging from $100-250K per company (in addition to follow-on investments). When Brian is not meeting with prospective companies, he is working with over 100 active companies in the portfolio. The guidance, resources, and connections he provides founders typically center on business development, product development, hiring, and fundraising. In addition to sourcing new companies and supporting the current portfolio, Brian manages four other investment team members. All four are new to Kapor Capital and new to venture in general, so Brian spends many hours each week mentoring them and furthering their development. Prior to joining Kapor Capital, Brian was a software engineer at Citigroup through their selective IT analyst training program, and has worked as a product and project manager at Education First and Babyzone (Acquired by Disney). Brian has also founded multiple tech startups, starting at the age of 16. | Brian holds a Bachelor of Science in computer and information science from Northeastern University and an MBA from F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. Brian has been selected as a Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) Fellow, Babson Fellow, and Springworks Scholar. Most recently, he was a “40 Under 40: Tech Diversity – Silicon Valley” awardee and listed as one of “The 46 Most Important African-Americans In Technology” by Business Insider. | 21 |
| Katelyn Donnelly | Donnelly | Independent | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Pearson Affordable Learning Fund | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Katelyn served her fellowship at the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund under the mentorship of Sir Michael Barber. | Katelyn is co-founder and Managing Director of the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund (PALF), a venture firm focused on emerging market education companies. PALF was founded inside Pearson PLC, the world’s largest education company. Katelyn co-founded the fund and set investment parameters, raised commitments of up $65M, and directs all investment activity.
Katelyn has a particular interest in companies focused on addressing large societal challenges in traditionally highly regulated and government-dominated sectors. She is a board member of Omega Schools in Ghana, SPARK Schools in South Africa, Avanti Learning Centres in India, and APEC Schools in the Philippines. She the co-author of several industry-leading publications about the future of education including Alive in the Swamp, Oceans of Innovation, and An Avalanche Is Coming. Outside of venture, Katelyn is a founding partner of Delivery Associates, the leading public sector advisory group focused on the implementation of large-scale reform and establishment of delivery units. The deliverology method has been successfully applied in 6 continents globally across education, health, economic development, infrastructure, and other areas of government. Prior to PALF, Katelyn was a consultant with McKinsey & Company in their San Francisco and New York offices. While at McKinsey, she presented her work on credit market sustainability at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos. | Katelyn is a graduate of Duke University's Trinity, with High Distinction, in economics. At Duke she was president of the Duke University Union, the largest student organization on campus, and president of the debate team, competing internationally. In high school, Katelyn was a competitive slalom skier. | 21 |
| Louis Dorval | Dorval | VOTO Mobile | , | Northern CA;Africa | MEST Incubator | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Louis is served his fellowship at the MEST Incubator under the mentorship of Jorn Lyssegen, Founder and CEO of Meltwater, and Arjuna Costa, Investment Partner at Omydiar Networks | Louis co-founded VOTO Mobile in 2012. VOTO is a Ghana-based social enterprise that seeks to create a more effective conversation between decision-makers in Africa and the populations they are meant to serve. The firm has developed a cutting-edge software solution that allows organizations to engage with large populations.
Previously, Louis was the Managing Director of the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) Fund and Incubator based in Accra, Ghana. In this role, he invested in early-stage software companies and managed a portfolio of 15 startups. Louis’ focused on building the tech entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ghana and Africa, and relentlessly supported the entrepreneurs as they grew world-class companies that compete with the best of the best in Silicon Valley. Many of the MEST portfolio startups are cash-flow positive, have secured investments internationally, and have already earned global recognition. As an individual, Louis invests in and advises Africa-based social entreprises. He also supports Rent-to-Own, an equipment distribution and financining organization targeting small-holder farmers. | Louis is a graduate in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Canada where he was awarded the Gretta Chambers award for top university leader. He also earned an MBA degree from Oxford University as a member of the Dean’s list and was on a full scholarship from the Skoll Center from Social Entrepreneurship. Louis serves on the board of Engineers Without Borders Canada, where he volunteered and worked for nine years. | 18 | ||
| Kathryn Doyle | Doyle | Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation | 21 | Kathryn served her fellowship at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation under the mentorship of Managing Partners Jim Bildner and Christy Chin. She is a member of Class 21. | Kathryn’s work experience centers on using business models to create social impact. She is a Senior Associate for the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK), an early-stage impact investing foundation based in Menlo Park, California, where she sources, funds, and supports entrepreneurs solving critical social problems.
Kathryn invests domestically and internationally, across sectors. She is particularly excited by ideas that tackle systemic poverty, from companies that market to low-income consumers to innovations that change the systems that drive poverty. Previously, Kathryn helped drive strategy at Digital Divide Data (DDD), a social enterprise that jump-starts economic growth in developing countries by importing demand for business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs. DDD then trains and employs bright, poor youth in Cambodia, Laos, and Kenya to deliver the work. Kathryn helped run business operations and chart the growth strategy that led to DDD’s expansion to Africa. Kathryn also consulted with the World Wildlife Fund to find and evaluate investment opportunities in sustainable commodity supply chains. | Kathryn earned her MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, where she helped manage the Global Social Venture Competition. She graduated with a BA in economics from Yale University. | 21 |
| Daphne Dufresne | Dufresne | GenNx360 Partners | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Weston Presidio Capital | 05 | Daphne is a member of Class 5 and served her fellowship at Weston Presidio Capital under mentor Michael Lazarus.
Daphne is an Emeritus Kauffman Fellows board member. | Daphne joined GenNx360 Partners in 2017. She brings extensive investment experience to the firm and is engaged in all aspects of the firm’s investment activities and portfolio management; she is a voting member of the firm’s Investment Committee and Chair of the firm’s Exit Committee. GenNx360 invests in middle-market industrial manufacturing and business services companies.
Previously, Daphne was a founding partner and Managing Director at RLJ Equity Partners, a middle-market private equity firm founded by Robert L. Johnson and The Carlyle Group. She was responsible for sourcing, executing and monitoring investments, the day-to-day management of the firm— including fundraising—and she sat on the firm’s Investment Committee. Daphne was Chairman of portfolio companies Fleischmann’s Vinegar and Media Source until they were sold; was a board member of LAI International; and led the investment in J&J Africa. Daphne joined RLJ Equity Partners from Parish Capital Advisors, where she managed the direct investment and co-investment program. She served her fellowship at Weston Presidio Capital, a private equity organization with $3.4 billion of assets under management. Daphne previously led business development for the online trading platform of Interactive Investor, a London-based financial advisory site. She began her investment career as an Associate Director in Bank of Scotland’s Structured Finance Group. | Daphne earned her BS in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. Daphne is happily married with three children. | 5 |
| John Duong | Duong | Lumina Foundation | United States | Indiana, | Indianapolis | MW Plains/Rockies | Lumina Foundation | 23 | John is serving his fellowship in Indianapolis at Lumina Foundation under the mentorship of Chris Eyre of Legacy Venture. He is a member of Class 23. | John serves as the Managing Director and Head of Lumina Impact Ventures, the impact investing arm of Lumina Foundation. He sources, structures, underwrites, and negotiates impact investments to support Lumina’s strategic priorities towards Goal 2025.
John most recently served as program and portfolio officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, managing a $100+ million mission-driven and program-related investments portfolio and making grants to further the field of impact investing. He earlier held positions at J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch as an investment banker in various roles including M&A advisory, credit risk analysis, equity research, capital structure optimization, and corporate finance in both debt and equity products. He is the founder of Potencity, a social venture to match diverse talent to opportunities, focused on mid-, senior-, and board-level positions. | John earned his BA from Yale University and an Executive MBA from Kellogg School of Management; he also spent a semester studying at The Chinese University of Hong Kong as a Boren Fellow.
Born in Cambodia, John immigrated to the US at a young age as a survivor of the Khmer Rouge concentration camps; he and his family were sponsored to the United States by the Catholic Sisters of St. Francis in Wisconsin where he grew up. | 23 |
| Jens Eckstein | Eckstein | SR One Ltd. | United States | Massachusetts, | Cambridge | Mid-Atlantic/SE | TVM Capital | 10 | Jens is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 10 and served his fellowship under mentor Gert Caspritz at TVM Capital in Boston, MA. He was also a mentor to Vikas Goyal (Class 17).
Jens lives with his family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is always pining for summers and sails on North Haven Island in Maine where he is currently Commodore at the North Haven Casino. | Jens is President of SR One, the corporate venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline. He joined SR One from TVM Capital where he was last a venture partner, entrepreneur-in-residence and appointed CEO and president of SelectX Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, he was a general partner in TVM's Boston life sciences practice where he focused on earlier-stage investments. Jens was the founder of Akikoa Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology start-up company focusing on hearing loss, and North Haven Systems, a life science IT company. Prior to joining TVM Capital, he led drug discovery programs at Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Mitotix, Inc.
Jens is currently chairman of the board of directors of Thrasos Therapeutics and a director at Palleon Pharma, Decibel Therapeutics, ZappRx, Gladius Pharmaceuticals, and BioHealth Innovation (BHI). He was previously a member of the board of directors for Alios Biosciences, CoNCERT Pharmaceuticals, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, SelectX Pharmaceuticals, Rapid Micro Biosystems, Anchor Therapeutics, and an advisor and board observer to Sirtris Pharmaceuticals. | Jens earned his doctorate, summa cum laude, in biological chemistry in the laboratories of Prof. Ghisla at the University of Konstanz and Prof. Hastings at Harvard University. As a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Santi at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Jens combined structural studies and mechanistic enzymology for thymidylate synthase drug design.
He is the author of multiple scientific publications and holds several issued and pending patents. As a Kauffman Fellow and angel investor Jens enjoys mentoring young entrepreneurs. He was the Creator, Judge and Mentor of OneStart, the largest life sciences accelerator, run by SR One and Oxford Biotech Roundtable. | 10 |
| Joseph Edgar | Edgar | Petros Partners | United States | Texas, | Austin | TX/South Central | Cromwell & Schmisseur | 19 | Joe is finishing his fellowship at Petros Partners as a member of Class 19. His mentor was Managing Partner Mansoor Ghori. | In 2014, Joe co-founded TenantCloud.com, a cloud-based marketplace connecting tenants, landlords and service professionals. He is also a principal with Petros Partners, based in Austin, TX.
Previously, Joe managed the J4T Venture Fund, a $46.5M fund focused on Texas early-stage companies. He was also a member of the U.S. Treasury SSBCI Venture Capital Steering Committee, which aims to share best practices across state lines in regards to venture capital and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Prior to managing the J4T Venture Fund Joe was with Texas Governor Perry’s office and managed over $450M in state authority with a focus on early-stage Texas companies. Before joining the governor’s office, he was the Managing Partner of E.I. Investments a $10M fund focused on early-stage investment in Oregon and Texas. | Joe holds a Bachelor of Science degree with a focus in economics from the University of Oregon, with High Honors, and an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management.
Joe is an active investor and sits on a number of advisory boards for Austin-based startups and is an active member of the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN). He hails originally from Chiloquin, Oregon, where he developed an affinity for the outdoors. He also enjoys a regular game of basketball and practicing the powers of prestidigitation. | 19 |
| Tom Egan | Egan | Optum Ventures | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Launch Capital | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Tom served his fellowship at LaunchCapital under the mentorship of David Cohen, founder and co-CEO at Techstars. | Tom brings a combination of operating experience, empathy for the entrepreneur, and a commitment to clear communication and knowledge sharing to all of his interactions with founders.
Tom is a Principal at LaunchCapital, where he leads investments in companies that use data to address large problems in technologically underserved markets. He is an active board member or observer with REsurety, Karmic Labs, and Gridcure, among others. Since joining the team in 2009, Tom has played an active role in leading diligence efforts, building out internal research processes, and developing investment strategies for LaunchCapital. Prior to joining LaunchCapital, Tom was an Associate at Techstars. He started his career as a high school teacher before moving to an operating role at auctionPAL, a venture-backed startup. | Tom earned his BA in economics from Middlebury College. He spent his junior year abroad studying economics and finance at the London School of Economics and attended the Tuck Business Bridge Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. In the last few years, Tom has completed several courses via EdX/MITx on data science and the SQL/R/Python languages.
Tom plays men’s league hockey weekly. On the weekends, he can usually be found hiking, fly-fishing, or skiing in Northern California. He is looking forward to adding playing with his newborn son to his list of favorite activities. | 22 |
| Kara Egan | Egan | Emergence Capital | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northern CA | Emergence Capital | 23 | Kara is serving her fellowship at Emergence Capital as a member of Class 23. Her mentor is founding General Partner Jason Green (Charter Class, KF Board of Directors). | Kara is on the Investment Team at Emergence Partners. She brings over 10 years of experience growing tech startups, as both an investor and operator. She’s actively involved with the Emergence portfolio and is a board observer at UpKeep, Top Hat, and Zinc.
Kara’s expertise is in B2B product and partner marketing from seed stage companies through to IPO. She joined Zendesk, prior to its going public, to help the company expand from upmarket from SMB to mid-market and enterprise companies. She successfully launched their enterprise product, with tight coordination between product, sales, customer success, and external telephony partners. Before moving to the operating side, Kara blended her passion for venture and entrepreneurialism as the founding Associate of .406 Ventures. At .406, Kara played an integral role in launching the firm, raising the $170M fund, and driving the initial investments in SaaS, health IT, and security companies. | Kara earned her MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and her BS in management science and engineering from Stanford University. At Stanford, she was All-American and captain of the nationally ranked Stanford sailing team.
She is an avid traveler. Her more of adventurous travel—backpacking in Sapa, Vietnam or summiting Cotopaxi in Ecuador—has now shifted to beaches, lakes, and pools that she can enjoy with her 1 year old son. | 23 |
| Ken Elefant | Elefant | Sorenson Ventures | United States | , | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Battery Ventures | 05 | A member of Fellows Class 5, Ken completed his fellowship at Battery Ventures under mentor Tom Crotty. He has served as a mentor to Marlon Nichols (Class 18), Vijay Reddy (Class 21), and Srini Ananth (Class 23). | Previously, Ken was at Intel Capital, where he served as managing director of the software and security group and Vice President of Intel Corp. He led investments in numerous game-changing technologies, including AtHoc (Blackberry), Prolexic (Akamai), DocuSign, Forescout, AlienVault, Venafi, Vectra Networks, Gigya, and BrightEdge.
Ken joined Intel Capital from Opus Capital where he was a founding general partner focused on Internet and software investments. While there, Ken served on the boards of Alert Enterprise, Jivox, SuperSecret and TrustedID and was involved with several prior investments including Spock Networks (Intelius), Transpond (Webtrends), Virsa Systems (NYSE: SAP) and Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq: RVBD). Earlier, Ken was a Senior Associate at Lightspeed Venture Partners and a Senior Associate and Kauffman Fellow at Battery Ventures. Before his venture career, Ken was Director of International Sales and Marketing at Radius Inc. A member of the executive staff, he opened the company's first sales and marketing office in the Benelux region of Europe. Before Radius, Ken held various marketing and business development positions at Claris Corporation (the software subsidiary of Apple Computer) and RealNetworks. | Ken holds a BS in economics from the Wharton undergraduate division at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. | 5 |
| Tamara Elias | Elias | Becton, Dickinson & Co. | United States | New Jersey, | Franklin Lakes | NY/CT | Essex Woodlands Health Ventures | 13 | Tamara is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 13 and served her fellowship under mentor Immanuel Thangaraj at Essex Woodlands.
For her fellowship research project, Tamara interviewed 25 LPs about the venture capital asset class and what that meant for the future of the industry. The work was published in several journals including Venture Capital Journal and Venture Capital Review, and the Kauffman Fellows Report. | Tamara Elias has been avidly involved with healthcare for over 25 years, beginning with medical school, extending into surgical residency, and followed by healthcare strategic consulting and investing.
Tamara recently joined Becton, Dickson & Co. (BD) as Head of Corporate Strategy and Business Development to further the growth of the company since the $12B acquisition of Carefusion. BD is a medical technology company that manufactures and sells a broad range of medical supplies, devices, laboratory equipment and diagnostic products. Tamara is a member of the Leadership Team and works to advance the overall strategic direction and growth for the medical segment, identify and execute key strategic initiatives, and pursue targets for business development. Tamara was previously a Partner with Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, where she co-led the firm's healthcare services and healthcare IT growth equity practice and assisted with the strategic management of the medical device growth equity portfolio and practice. She served on the boards of Millennium Pharmacy Systems, BreatheAmerica, Medseek, and ATS Medical. Tamara joined Essex Woodlands as a Principal in the New York office in 2007, and was appointed Partner in 2013. Tamara is a personal and professional advocate for the participation and advancement of women in the healthcare industry. She has been on the Core Committee for MedtechWomen since its founding in 2010. The organization gathers women leaders in the industry and hosts an annual MedtechVision conference to discuss and propose solutions to the most challenging issues facing the medtech sector. Prior to Essex Woodlands, Tamara leveraged her medical training while at McKinsey &Co., where she advised large pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and device companies in product commercialization and M&A. | Tamara graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts degree with dual majors in biology and anthropology, with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. She obtained her MD degree, with AOA Honors, from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Tamara was a general surgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and was awarded one of four national grants in plastic and reconstructive surgery during a research fellowship at New York University in the lab of Dr. Joseph McCarthy. Tamara resides in the suburbs of NY with her husband Rick and two children, Isaac and Emily. | 13 |
| Jake Ellowitz | Ellowitz | Tribe Capital | , | Mountain View | Northern CA | Tribe Capital | 25 | Jake is a Partner at Tribe Capital -- a generalist early-stage VC that leverages data in ways that are grounded by deep industry, investment and operating expertise. He focuses on how to augment and multiply knowledge and decision making with data and analytics, and how this can be applied to identifying and guiding outlier outcomes for entrepreneurs and LPs. In doing so, Jake covers the spectrum from investor to researcher to engineer to data architect.
Prior to joining Tribe Capital, Jake was a Data Scientist at Social Capital where he applied data and analytics to investment decisions. Before Social Capital, Jake was an Investment Engineer at Bridgewater Associates. In that role, Jake focused on systemizing Bridgewater's deep macroeconomic understanding into investment machines that expressed those views. | Jake holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago, where he studied theoretical and computational fluid dynamics, often with the aid of large-scale computer simulations. He received his BA from Clark University in Physics and Mathematics. | 25 | ||
| Karim Elsahy | Elsahy | Elves | Egypt | , | Giza, Cairo | Boston/Northeast;Middle East | Sawari Ventures | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Karim served his fellowship at Sawari Ventures with the mentorship of its Chairman Ahmed El Alfi and Dave McClure of 500 Startups. | Karim Elsahy is a winning serial entrepreneur with a current emphasis on with a current emphasis on bots, machine learning, and ai. He founded Elves in 2016, a mobile app that connects the user to a personal concierge who can help find, book, buy, and deliver things. He is also Founder and CEO of Konnecti, a matchmaker for local businesses based on their mutual business and growth opportunities.
Karim has started and led several successful companies; the first of which, founded in his early twenties, reached more than $1 million in revenue in its first year of operation and currently employee’s more than 250 people with offices globally. More recently Karim founded Genius Ventures (Genius.VC), a VC firm which was itself also acquired (Sawari Ventures). Karim frequently consults with Fortune 500 companies, well-known business and political leaders, and many VC-backed tech companies. Karim has served as an expat on advisory boards to the Egyptian Ministry of Communication, focusing on how to expand and brand Egypt as an outsourcing destination, and has traveled with several Egyptian Ministers on trade mission to other counties. | With a Master's in architecture, Karim initially started his career as an architect and designer for a firm in Boston that specialized in Iraqi reconstruction. That was combined with political writings in several top publications with interviews ranging from Noam Chomsky to the Egyptian Ministerial Cabinet in addition to being a frequent guest political analyst for BBC radio; Karim has serious political passion.
Karim is married to Abeer, whom he still considers his college sweetheart, and has two crazy Bohemianesque boys. They divide their time between Boston and Cairo. | 18 |
| Hani Enaya | Enaya | STV | Saudi Arabia | , | Riyadh | Middle East | STV | 24 | Hani will be serving his fellowship at STV; he is a member of Class 24. | An investor with a background in deep tech, Hani Enaya is a partner at STV, MENA’s largest venture capital fund. Hani sources and structures deals with businesses of interest to STV and supports their management after deal close, sitting on the boards of many STV portfolio companies. Prior to his work with STV, Hani led investments in TAQNIA and Riyad TAQNIA Fund, a $120M VC fund focused on investing in technology startups in the fields of energy, advanced materials, and ICT. Hani has served as the Director of the Center of Excellence for Green Nanotechnologies (CEGN) at the University of California, Los Angeles and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Riyadh. During his time with CEGN, Hani co-founded Carbonics, a UCLA and KACST spinout that employs earth- abundant carbon nanomaterials to vastly improve the performance of next-generation electronics. | Hani obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in physics and PhD in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University, where he graduated as valedictorian. Hani holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. | 24 |
| Claire England | England | Portfolia | United States | Texas, | Austin | TX/South Central | Central Texas Angel Network | 21 | A member of Class 21, Claire served her fellowship at Central Texas Angel Network under the mentorship of CTAN board member Rosa McCormick (Class 18). She is a mentor to Class 23 member Andrew Vranjes. | Claire is an experienced executive, early-stage investor, and startup leader. She works with national and international economic development entities to build meaningful startup investing communities, based upon proven strategies and best practices. She also serves as a Partner with Portfolia Venture Funds and is a Lead Investor for Portfolia's FemTech Fund.
From 2014 to 2019, she was the chief executive of Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN), one of the largest, most active angel investing groups in the U.S. with 200 members and $108M invested in 174 startups since 2006. As CTAN's longest-serving executive, she developed the organization into an international model of angel investing best practices. Under her leadership, CTAN members invested $14M annually into 40-50 companies with professional due diligence and a group return significantly higher than the national average. For the first time in its history, CTAN was ranked as the #1 most-active angel investing group nationally during her tenure. Prior to CTAN, she developed international startup ecosystem strategy for clients such as SXSW Interactive, Tech Ranch, St. Edward's University, and Hamburg Startups. Claire was also Executive Director of the RISE conference; under her leadership, RISE became a Forbes national "Must-Attend 2013 Conference for Entrepreneurs." She spent the first 10 years of her career directing charitable nonprofits' communications, events, and fundraising programs and was subsequently the first full-time employee for a social media services startup, spurring her passion for entrepreneurship. Claire is a public speaker, panelist, and pitch judge for global innovation conferences. She serves on St. Edward's University's Business School Board of Advisors and volunteers as a mentor at startup accelerators, including Techstars and MassChallenge. In 2018, she received the Kauffman Fellows Leadership Award. She was also a 2013 Finalist for Austin Business Journal’s Profiles in Power Award. | Claire is a cum laude graduate of Texas State University with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and public Relations, and a minor in music (cello and vocal performance). | 21 |
| Patrick Ennis | Ennis | Madrona Venture Group | United States | Washington, | Seattle | Northwest;Asia | ARCH Venture Partners | 04 | Patrick Ennis is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 4 and served his fellowship under mentor Bob Nelsen at ARCH Venture Partners in Seattle, WA. He served as a mentor to Dave Rosenberg (Class 22) of GE Ventures. | Patrick has more than 30 years of experience as a scientist, engineer, and venture capitalist. He joined Madrona Venture Group in 2019 as a Venture Partner. Patrick was at Intellectual Ventures for more than 10 years running seed investments, startup incubation and technology commercialization around the world with a special focus on Asian markets.
Previously Patrick was a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners where he funded and built early stage startups for ten years. His investments included Impinj (Nasdaq: PI), and Innovalight (acquired by DuPont). Prior to joining the venture capital industry as a Kauffman Fellow in 1998, he held positions with Lucent Technologies, AT&T, and Bell Labs. Patrick led engineering projects for software development, speech recognition, network design and operations. He also worked in product management for the optical networking business and marketing where he led new product launches. Before joining Bell Labs, Patrick conducted research in Nuclear Physics in North America and Europe. He published many articles in scientific journals including The Physical Review, Zeitschrift für Physik and Nuclear Instruments and Methods. Patrick has served on many corporate, educational, and non-profit boards. He is an inventor on several patents, has written extensively about innovation and is a frequent speaker at conferences. | His degrees include: a PhD, MS, and MPhil in Physics from Yale, an MBA from Wharton, and a BS in Mathematics and Physics from the College of William and Mary where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. | 4 |
| Ali Erfan | Erfan | IBH | , | Europe | 3i | 10 | Ali is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 10 and served his fellowship under mentor Jo Taylor at 3i in London. | Via a number of vehicles, Ali focuses on venture capital and private equity in the technology and natural resources sector. Ali has been in senior roles in the venture capital and private equity industry for over 17 years. Most recently, he was a senior partner at 3i Group's London headquarters, focusing on early- and late-stage opportunities with a particular interest in clean technologies. Ali currently holds several board seats and senior investment roles, including Draper Oakwood Technology Acquisition (a NASDAQ listed SPAC) and Electrum (a global leader in natural resources investing).
In the ten years prior to 3i, Ali established three different businesses: a film production company making documentary films that sold in 20 countries; a fashion design company based in New York that he subsequently sold to a trade buyer; and a pioneering software-based risk management company that sold its products and services to over 100 Fortune 500 companies before also being purchased by trade buyers. Ali has been a featured speaker on the BBC World Service and several conferences around the world on the subject of starting, financing and growing businesses. | Ali has an MBA from the London Business School and a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University.
Ali is the founder of the Cogito Scholarship Foundation, which gives scholarships to gifted refugees to study at the most prestigious schools in the UK. | 10 | ||
| Luke Erickson | Erickson | CapitalG | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | CapitalG | 24 | A member of Class 24, Luke is serving his fellowship at CapitalG. His mentor is Mamoon Hamid (Class 11, Kauffman Fellows board member), Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). | Luke is a Vice President at CapitalG, the growth equity investment arm of Alphabet, Inc., based in San Francisco. Luke leads consumer analytics & portfolio-facing growth marketing, where he analyzes consumer diligence metrics and advises growth-stage businesses on user acquisition, marketing analytics, and profitable user growth. Luke has consulted or personally managed growth strategy for over 60 enterprise and consumer businesses, spanning seed-stage to Fortune 500 companies. He uses the perspective gained through operating to advise on consumer investments with a focus on informing long-term go-to-market strategy and user acquisition trends. Prior to his role at CapitalG, Luke was a Product Manager and Growth Associate at Social Capital, an early- stage venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. In addition to consulting to Social Capital's portfolio companies, Luke worked with a team of engineers to develop portfolio-facing products and bring the productized investment platform, Capital-as-a-Service, to market. | Luke is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, with a Bachelor of Science in human and organizational development. He is Texas-born, now living in Cole Valley, San Francisco, by way of Nashville and Washington, DC. | 24 |
| Lesley Esford | Esford | LifeSciences British Columbia | Canada | British Columbia, | Vancouver | Canada | Accel-Rx | 20 | A member of Class 20, Lesley served her fellowship at the LifeSciences BC under the mentorship of Ela Borenstein (Class 17), a Managing Partner in the Healthcare Fund at BDC Capital. She began her fellowship at Accel-Rx. | Lesley Esford is the President of LifeSciences BC, a not-for-profit industry association that supports and represents the life science community of British Columbia through leadership, facilitation of investment and partnering, advocacy, and promotion of the province’s world-class science and industry.
Previously, Lesley was the Director of Programs for Accel-Rx, a national Canadian health sciences accelerator based in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she managed Accel-Rx investment competitions. Before joining Accel-Rx, Lesley spent over 15 years in academia, industry, and government in positions supporting the growth of the life science sector, including 8 years as an Industrial Technology Advisor (ITA) with the National Research Council–Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP). As an ITA, she assisted life sciences companies through every aspect of the innovation process from concept to product, providing technical and business advice including competitive technical intelligence (CTI), referrals, and other services as needed. As a special initiative while working at NRC-IRAP, she organized the Lion’s Den, giving life science companies an opportunity to pitch to a select group of investors. She organized the event to ensure that the investors—in addition to indicating their interest in the opportunity—would give the companies valuable feedback, helping the companies become investor-ready more quickly. | Lesley is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, where she obtained her PhD from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. In addition, she has degrees in both business administration (BAdmin, with Honors, in finance) and science (BSc, MSc) from Brock University.
Lesley serves as a member of the Program Advisory Committee for the Joint UBC/BCIT Biotechnology Program. | 20 |
| Casandra Espinoza | Espinoza | Homeroom | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Greylock Partners | 16 | A member of Class 16, Casandra served her fellowship at Greylock Partners under the mentorship of Partner Reid Hoffman and was the recipient of a peer-selected award for class leadership at graduation. | Casandra is a cofounder of Homeroom, a marketplace that connects parents directly to early education teachers that are looking for professional, supplemental income. Homeroom’s mission is to create learning opportunities for children outside of the classroom by connecting them to teachers that design and lead small group sessions.
Prior to Homeroom, she was at Delphix, an enterprise software company that offers database virtualization, delivering agility to enterprise application and modernization projects. At Delphix, she was tasked with leading marketing efforts that primarily focused on healthcare companies. Casandra spent two years with Greylock Partners after completing her undergraduate degree at Stanford. At Greylock, Casandra worked with the operations team to focus on new ways to view and analyze the venture sector. She was also involved with due diligence, marketing, network development, and deal flow efforts. Casandra believes that knowledge is the most powerful force. She is committed to ensuring that children have access to an education that enables them to discover their own unique abilities and talents. Throughout college and post-college, she volunteered with QuestBridge, a nonprofit that helps place and increase the number of talented low-income students in top universities such as Stanford, Yale, and Princeton. She is also an advisor to The Young Vets, a nonprofit dedicated to preparing the next generation of student-athletes to achieve long-term success through sport. | Casandra graduated Stanford University with a BA in public policy. She served on the board of Stanford Finance, a student group that actively prepares students for internships and jobs on Wall Street. Throughout her time on-campus, she was actively involved with Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE), a student-run company with $14 million in assets and was COO during her senior year. | 16 |
| Fernando Fabre | Fabre | Endeavor Global | United States | New York, | New York | Latin America | Endeavor Mexico | 14 | Fernando is a member of Class 14 and performed his fellowship at Endeavor Mexico. As President of Endeavor Global, he has mentored numerous Fellows: Joanna Harries (Class 17), Tarek Sadi (Class 17), Catherine Townshend (Class 18), Sati Rasuanto (Class 18), and Baily Kempner (Class 18). | In 2011 Fernando assumed the role of president of Endeavor Global. Endeavor selects, mentors, and accelerates the best high-impact entrepreneurs in 11 countries around the world. Before this, Fernando is the Managing Director of Endeavor Mexico for 7 years and a part-time faculty professor of entrepreneurship at Anahuac University, southern campus for over a decade. For 8 years he participated as co-teacher in the class Strategic Risk Management in Emerging Economies, a joint class between Claremont Graduate University and Anahuac del Sur, along with Dr. Richard Smith. In 2002 both professors were appointed by the Partnership for Prosperity Program in conjunction with the Mexican government to develop a set of guidelines to build an entrepreneurial culture in Mexico.
He currently serves on the board of the National Committee of Innovation which oversees a US$5 billion budget of the Mexican government on innovation; and on the board of directors of Lumni Inc, a leading student lending program. In 2003 the magazine Lideres Mexicanos called him a "Leader of the Future"; in 2005 the magazine Fortuna called him the "top entrepreneur supporter in Mexico"; and in 2007 the magazine Expansion called him one of the "30 under 30" Mexican leaders. | He holds a Master's degree in economics from Claremont Graduate University in California and an MBA and BA in Managerial Economics from Universidad Anahuac del Sur. | 14 |
| Renato Ribeiro | Ribeiro | Temasek Holdings | Brazil | São Paulo, | Sao Paulo | Latin America | Temasek Holdings | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Renato served his fellowship at Temasek under the mentorship of Managing Director, Matheus Villares. | Renato Fairbanks Ribeiro is a Director of Investments for Temasek, a Singaporean investment company. He is based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Renato has been at Temasek since 2008, as one of the first members of the company in Brazil. In this role, he tracks the company's deal flow, leads teams through the sourcing, analysis, due diligence, and negotiation phases of the investment process. Renato invested in companies at different stages of development and in various sectors in Brazil – including several late-venture-stage companies such as Netshoes and Amyris, and pre-operational early private equity stage companies such as BR Properties, Odebrecht Oil & Gas, and Hidrovias do Brasil Prior to joining Temasek, Renato was an Associate at Value Partners consultants, where he participated in projects in a wide range of industries. Prior to that he was a consultant at Accenture, where he worked with clients in the Telecom industry. As an individual, Renato is an advisor to Iugu, an electronic payment solutions company that provides billing services to mobile and web developers and allows them to accept multiple payment methods while focusing on their core businesses. Renato is also an advisor to Pet Delicia, a pioneer company that offers natural pet food for dogs and cats in Brazil’s big and growing pet market. | Renato holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a major in general management. He received a BA at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, in Brazil. | 18 |
| Julia Li | Li | Seven Bridges Genomics | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Lion’s Head Global Partners | 20 | A member of Class 20, Julia completed her fellowship under the mentorship of Christopher Egerton-Warburton, Partner at Lion’s Head Global Partners. | Julia is Senior Vice President at Seven Bridges Genomics based in London and is passionate about precision medicine. She works on accelerating biomedical discovery through whole genome analysis for cancer and rare diseases.
Julia is focused on oncology R&D and biomedical innovation using innovative finance. Previously, she helped originate, launch, and manage the pioneering $108M Global Health Investment Fund that focuses on innovation for diseases which disproportionately affect developing countries. The Fund was structured by Lion’s Head Global Partners, JP Morgan, and Chase and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and launched during the UN General Assembly in 2013. The LP base included pension funds, national governments, pharmaceutical corporate venture arms and individuals. During her career, Julia has served the World Health Assembly on special task forces on R&D financing and coordination. As a policy adviser, Julia has advised the UK government on international health policy and government of the Northwest Territories (Canada) on sub-national sovereign wealth funds structured to sustain benefits for future generations. She started her career in the national biotechnology practice of KPMG Canada and healthcare investment banking in China with the Balloch Group. | Julia completed her MPhil in bioscience enterprise and PhD engineering at St. John's College, University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar. She holds a BCOM, with Honours, in finance and immunology from the University of British Columbia and is a Canadian Chartered Accountant.
Julia is a David Rockefeller Fellow at the Trilateral Commission, Trustee of the Gates Cambridge Scholarships, and was a Press Operations volunteer at three successive Olympic Games in Beijing (2008), Vancouver (2010), and London (2012). She also co-founded the African Innovation Prize business plan competition to spur entrepreneurship in Rwandan universities. | 20 |
| Dany Farha | Farha | BECO Capital | United Arab Emirates | , | Dubai | Middle East | BECO Capital | 24 | Dany is a member of Class 24, serving his fellowship at BECO Capital; he is mentored by Managing Partner Yousef Hammad (Class 21) and Alex Bangash, Founder and CEO of Trusted Insight. | Dany co-founded BECO Capital, a VC firm that provides early-stage growth capital and hands-on operational support to technology companies in the MENA region with a focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council area. Prior to co-founding BECO Capital, Dany was a serial entrepreneur, building one of the largest business support services companies in the UAE before co-founding the region’s largest jobsite, Bayt.com, from 2000 to 2010. Dany still works very closely with Propertyfinder Group, the leading property portal in the MENA region, and is very excited to work with Swvl and Kitopi, which are exporting business model innovation from MENA to the world. He started his career in London with 3 years at Lehman Brothers in fixed income. | Dany grew up in Dubai and completed his education in London at Westminster School; he then studied statistics, computing, operations research, and economics at University College London. | 24 |
| Amir Farha | Farha | BECO Capital | United Arab Emirates | , | Dubai | Middle East | BECO Capital | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Amir served his fellowship at BECO Capital under the mentorship of BECO Capital CEO, Dany Farha and Mohsen Khalil, founder & CEO of MAKVEST. He was a mentor to Yousef Hammad (Class 21). | Amir has over a decade of experience with a wide range of early stage ventures as an entrepreneur, mentor and investor. He started his career in 2003 as a Systems Analyst at Mars in the UK before moving into venture capital in 2005 at CLS Capital Partners, the Corporate VC arm of CLS Holdings Plc based in London. Amir spent 3 years at CLS Capital Partners and was part of their investment team, managing 12 investments in the early stage technology space in London and Sweden, most notably Lunarworks, which was the largest social network in Sweden at the time. He then moved back to Dubai in 2008 to join what was then the first seed capital fund in the MENA region, the Arab Business Angel Network. At ABAN, Amir managed an angel network of 40 investors, and a $15m fund that invested into 6 companies during his time there.
After leaving ABAN in 2009, Amir went on to start several service-based companies, including a PR agency (which he successfully exited in 2011), a facility maintenance company, a web development agency and a strategy and financial advisory firm that supports startups and small businesses in the MENA region (which he successfully exited in 2017). In 2012, Amir founded BECO Capital, a $33m VC fund that focuses on investing in early stage technology startups in the Middle East. Some notable investments under management include Careem, Propertyfinder and Fetchr. | Amir attended the University of Bath, where he received a Bachelor of Science (with honors) in Computer Information Systems and a Masters of Science in Management.
Amir is a Director at the Founder Institute, Dubai Chapter, and an active mentor with 1776, Flat6Labs and Intelak. He also sits on the Steering Committee at In5, a platform for startups and entrepreneurs in Dubai Internet and Media City. | 22 |
| Andrew Farquharson | Farquharson | InCube Ventures | United States | California, | San Jose | Northern CA | Angels Forum/Halo Funds | 09 | Andrew is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 9 and served his fellowship under mentor Carol Sands at The Angels' Forum/Halo Funds. He served as a mentor to Mar Perez (Class 19) and Terence Lam (Class 23). | Andrew is an investor and entrepreneur with two decades of success shaping and building companies in life sciences. The co-founder of VentureHealth and InCube Ventures, his passion is biomedical innovation that dramatically improves lives. Andrew's current board seats include Channel Medsystems, Rani Therapeutics, and Sonoma Orthopedic Products, among others.
Prior to joining InCube, Andrew was an active investor with The Angels' Forum and a Partner in the Halo Funds, where he completed his Fellowship and led investments in a portfolio of life science firms. These investments include Intrapace (obesity), Penumbra (ischemic stroke), Sonoma Orthopedic Products, SwitchGear Genomics & Spinal Modulation (pain management). Prior to becoming a professional investor, Andrew helped to build Operon Technologies into the world's most successful DNA synthesis company, then became a member of the senior executive team within QIAGEN. He began his career at Genentech, where he led teams in various operational and research roles. | Andrew holds an MBA from Harvard University and a Bachelor's, with High Honors, from the University of California at Berkeley. | 9 |
| Lisa Feria | Feria | Stray Dog Capital | United States | , | MW Plains/Rockies | Stray Dog Capital | 22 | Lisa served her fellowship at Stray Dog Capital as a member of Class 22. Her mentor was Keith Harrington (Class 20), a founding partner of Fulcrum Global Capital and founder of Upstart Partners. | Lisa is the CEO of Stray Dog Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage, mission-driven companies that aim to take animals out of the supply chain with innovative products and services.
Prior to Stray Dog Capital, Lisa spent over 15 years in general management, operations, and engineering at blue-chip companies like General Mills and Procter & Gamble. During that time she gained deep experience in operations, marketing, P&L management, and strategy for category-leading, billion-dollar brands. | Lisa graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in chemical engineering and was a member of the Chemical Engineering Honor Society. While at Georgia Tech, she served as the president of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and participated in other community-focused organizations.
In 2006, Lisa completed her MBA at the University of Chicago and was named one of the “Top 25 MBA Students” in her class by the school newspaper. She also led Giving Something Back, the largest student organization in the MBA program. Lisa is into reading, movies, and triathlons; most recently, she completed the Muncie Half Ironman Triathlon. She is an animal lover and shares her home with three senior Dachshunds, two kids (Lucas and Alan), and her husband, Dennis. | 22 | |
| Maïlys Ferrere | Ferrere | Bpifrance | France | , | Paris | Europe | bpifrance | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Maïlys is serving her fellowship at Bpifrance under the mentorship of Paul-François Fournier, Head of Innovation. | Maïlys leads Bpifrance Large Venture, a late-stage venture capital capacity investing in French companies to help them grow into global leaders. Large Venture has a total capacity of €1B with an evergreen approach. Maïlys and her Investment team have invested in over 30 companies in the IT, life sciences, and cleantech spaces. More than 50% of the portfolio are listed on the Euronext or US markets.
Before joining Bpifrance Large Venture, Maïlys was Investment Director at the Fonds Strategique d'Investissement, the French Sovereign Fund. Previously, she was an equity capital markets banker and was active in various deals such as IPOs, capital or convertible issues, and mergers. | Maïlys is graduate of Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (SciencesPo) and has a law degree from Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne.
Maïlys is member of the French Investment Analyst Association, and she sits on various corporate boards, such as DBV Technologies, Innate Pharma, Sequans Communications. | 23 |
| Jenny Fielding | Fielding | Techstars | United States | Colorado, | Boulder | NY/CT | Techstars | 23 | Jenny is a member of Class 23, serving her fellowship under the mentorship of Brad Feld of The Foundry Group (KF Board of Directors, Mentor Class 20). | Jenny is a Managing Director at Techstars where she invests in Internet of Things, FinTech, and healthcare companies. She is also the General Partner of The Eclectic Fund, a first check tech-focused fund.
Previously, Jenny headed up Corporate Venture and Digital Innovation at the BBC where she made strategic investments and led business development deals. She has started several tech companies in her career, most notably Switch-Mobile, a mobile VoIP company that was acquired in 2009. Jenny began her career as a lawyer and later spent time in banking at JP Morgan. | Jenny is a graduate of Columbia University where she also serves as an adjunct professor. | 23 |
| Ty Findley | Findley | Ironspring Ventures | , | Austin | TX/South Central | Ironspring Ventures | 25 | Ty Findley is a Managing Partner at Ironspring Ventures. In this role he is responsible for end-to-end deal execution through sourcing investments, leading diligence efforts, negotiating financings and managing investments with a focus on innovation within the industrial supply chain.
Prior to joining Ironspring, Ty spent a decade in various operating and investing roles focused on industrial innovation. Most recently he was a Vice President investing in early stage venture with Pritzker Group Venture Capital. Prior to that he was a Senior Associate investing in early and growth stage venture at GE Ventures. He began his career as a product development engineer at Boeing after developing a passion for industrial innovation from watching his father and grandfather found industrial product companies. | Ty earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BS in mechanical engineering from Baylor University, where he was a walk-on for the football program.
He lives in Austin, TX with his wife, daughter and son. | 25 | ||
| Annette Finsterbusch | Finsterbusch | EnPower, Inc. | United States | , | Northern CA | Applied Ventures | 11 | A member of Class 11, Annette served her fellowship under mentor J. Christopher Moran at Applied Ventures. She is a mentor to Lindsay Knight (Class 23).
Annette is the inaugural recipient of the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award, which – in the spirit of generosity that Jeff sought to cultivate – recognizes outstanding contributions to the program. | Annette has a passion for cutting-edge technology and is an enthusiastic student of ideas that make technology more available and useful for everyone.
Annette is a consultant to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank. She supports the IFC's venture capital fund with west coast deals, and advises the Climate Business Group's venture capital group on current and prospective investments in solid state lighting globally. She was originally hired to develop an investment strategy for late-stage solid state lighting / energy efficiency investments in World Bank countries (India, China, Russia, Turkey, LATAM), and her role expanded to include complete technical and business diligence on targets and to support investment recommendations with senior IFC management. Previously, Annette was CEO of Firefly Green Technology (in stealth mode at the time; now called Ketra), commercializing an intelligent LED-based lighting system. She defined company and product strategy, built technical and marketing teams, raised Series A funding from top-tier Silicon Valley investors, and licensed non-essential IP to extend the company’s runway by 30%. Annette spent 7 years as an investor at Applied Ventures in the Corporate Business Development group of Applied Materials. She was responsible for identifying, recommending, and managing venture investments. Prior to Applied Ventures, Annette served as the CEO at MindShadow.com, a technology spin-out of DaimlerChrysler's Research and Technology Center. She also held the position of investment manager for DaimlerChrysler Venture Capital where she was responsible for enterprise software investments. Annette has also worked internationally for Applied Materials, leading its business development efforts in Russia, Belarus and Armenia from 1996 through 2000 and chartering the company's first office in Moscow. | Annette received Bachelor of Science degrees in both economics and geology from the University of Houston and an MBA in strategy and finance from San Jose State University, where she was honored with Outstanding Graduate Student for the College of Business in 2001 and the Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award in 2004.
Annette is a member of the National Science Foundation's SBIR/STTR Advisory Committee. | 11 | |
| Justin Fishner-Wolfson | Fishner-Wolfson | 137 Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Founders Fund | 14 | Justin performed his fellowship at Founders Fund. He is a member of Class 14. | Justin is the founder and managing partner of 137 Ventures, an investment firm focused on private technology companies. Previously, he worked at Founders Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm, where he was responsible for all aspects of the investment process and led the firm’s financial and operations functions. While there, he guided the investment in SpaceX, the first private company to develop a liquid fueled rocket to achieve Earth orbit. He also served on the boards of Clickable, Inigral and Prior Knowledge; and he remains involved in those companies since his departure from Founders Fund.
Prior to Founders Fund, Justin was the CEO of Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE), a conglomerate of businesses at Stanford University. He led SSE to the largest expansion of revenue and profitability in the organization’s history. Earlier in his career, Justin was the director of sales at Cellfire, a mobile promotional marketing service and worked as an engineer at Raytheon/Texas Instruments. Justin also served under Alan Larson, the Undersecretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department. | Justin holds an MS in computer science and a Bachelor's degree, with Honors, in management science and engineering from Stanford University. | 14 |
| Liz Fleming | Fleming | Adara Ventures | Spain | , | Madrid | Europe | IE Business School/Vitamin K | 19 | A member of Class 19, Liz served her fellowship at Vitamin K under the mentorship of Founder Iñaki Arrola. Liz’s challenge is to set up Vitamin K Fund II, raising €30M to invest in Spain, Latin America, and Europe. Based in Madrid, Vitamin K invests in gaming, ecommerce, SaaS, and consumer web. | Liz is an investor at Adara Ventures in Madrid, investing in Series A, deep-tech enterprise startups, with a particular focus on cybersecurity, big data, AI, and other digital enterprise areas.
Previously, Liz ran content at South Summit, one of Europe´s largest startup events, and continues to support the team as an adviser. She also designed and implemented the €40m Spain Startup Co-investment Fund, with IE Business School and Enisa, building a network of 100+ coinvestors. Liz also ran the Venture Lab at IE Business School in Madrid, the school’s flagship startup program, accelerating 150+ student teams in 3 years. During that time she organized 6 demo days with teams raising €15m, generating €5m+ in revenue, and creating +130 jobs. Liz also headed up the Venture Network, an international pitch slam event that started in Madrid and expanded to 15 cities in 5 countries, building a network of 1200 entrepreneurs. Liz started out as an Investment Advisor with Enterprise Ireland, a public fund that invested €40M per year into 70 high-potential startups; and Programme Manager for HBAN, Ireland´s national business angel network, establishing 7 syndicates with an investment capacity of €20M. | Liz is an Honors graduate of University College Cork and the Dublin Institute of Technology and holds a Bachelor of Commerce with Spanish degree and a Master’s in international business. She is passionate about food, family, friends, travel, surfing, gaelic football, basketball, and recently took up mountain biking. | 19 |
| Suzanne Fletcher | Fletcher | StartX | United States | California, | Stanford | Northern CA | StartX | 21 | Suzanne is a member of Class 21 and served her fellowship at StartX under the mentorship of Cameron Teitelman (Class 16) and Kate Mitchell (Mentor Class 21, 22, 23) of Scale Venture Partners. | Suzanne manages the Stanford-StartX Fund, a direct investment vehicle for Stanford University and Stanford Health Care. The fund was established in 2013 to invest in the companies accepted to StartX, a world-class accelerator program supporting Stanford-affiliated founders. Based in Palo Alto, California, StartX is industry- and stage-agnostic. As Fund Manager, Suzanne has overseen investments in over 175 StartX companies across over 250 rounds, from seed through Series D, in industries including enterprise, consumer, hardware, and medical.
Suzanne's passion is working closely with entrepreneurs as they grow their companies. The quantity and breadth of the companies she oversees puts her in a unique position: she has both a detailed view of startup activity across many sectors as well as numerous relationships within the venture community. Suzanne leverages both for the benefit of her startup founders, via fundraising advice as well as introductions to potential venture partners. She also does outreach on behalf of StartX, presenting at conferences and working to deepen relationships with top-tier venture funds, seed funds, and angels. Suzanne also has a passion for increasing diversity in the industry. Prior to joining StartX, Suzanne was a Managing Director with Paul Capital Partners. She started her career in the technology financial sponsors investment banking group at Morgan Stanley. | Suzanne earned her MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and graduated from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, magna cum laude, with a BS in economics. She lives in the Bay Area with her entrepreneur husband, toddler twins, and “a whole lot of pets.” | 21 |
| Joseph Floyd | Floyd | Emergence Capital | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northern CA | Emergence Capital Partners | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Joe served his fellowship at Emergence Capital Partners under the mentorship of General Partner and Kauffman Fellows Class 11 member Kevin Spain. | Joe Floyd is a Principal for Emergence Capital Partners, an enterprise cloud software venture capital firm based in San Mateo, California. In this role, he is responsible for deal sourcing, performing due diligence on new investment opportunites, and working with portfolio companies. Joe has a particular interest in mobile-first business applications and vertically focused SaaS applications. He is a Board observer at Replicon (time and expense management software), Bill.com (accounts payable software), and PivotLink (retail focused business intelligence software). Prior to joining Emergence, Joe was a Senior Associate in American Capital’s technology group where he focused on consumer internet and software. While there, Joe was involved with investements in HomeAway (Nasdaq: AWAY) and PeopleMedia (acquired by IAC). Joe was also an Associate at McKinsey & Co. in their corporate finance practice. | Joe earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While at Wharton, Joe won 1st place at the International Venture Capital Competition. He also holds a BA in economics and a BS in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley. When not tethered to a computer, Joe enjoys traveling, eating out, and exercising. Luckily, the last two balance each other out. | 18 |
| Jennifer Fonstad | Fonstad | Aspect Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Draper Fisher Jurvetson | 03 | Jennifer is a member of Class 3, and served her fellowship under mentor Tim Draper at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. | Jennifer is a respected mobile and software investor with special interests in enterprise and mobile applications, application services, and healthcare IT.
Jen recently co-founded Aspect Ventures, and she serves as Chairman of the Board of Flurry, and sits on several other private boards including iCix, Intematic, and Nantero. She also recently co-founded Broadway Angels, an angel investing group comprised of high-ranking women from venture capital and technology companies. Previously, Jen was a Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where she invested in early-stage companies in mobile applications, consumer and enterpreise applicaiton services, and energy management. Investment successes include Athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), Lumenos (acquired by Wellpoint, NYSE: WLP), Achex (acquired by First Data, NYSE: FDC), and NetZero (NASDAQ: UNTD). In addition to her investing responsibilities, Jennifer was on the investment committees for DFJ Frontier, DFJ's partner fund in California, and DFJ Tamir Fishman, DFJ's partner fund in Israel. She also served as advisor to the DFJ China and Vietnam teams. Jennifer joined DFJ as a Kauffman Fellow in 1997, becoming partner in 1998. She began her career with Bain & Co. after spending a year teaching high school math in sub-Saharan Africa. | Jennifer graduated cum laude from Georgetown University and holds an MBA, with Distinction, from the Harvard Business School.
With an active commitment to service, Jennifer is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Castilleja School and is Chairman of the Board of the Somaly Mam Foundation. Jennifer was also a founding member of Mitt Romney’s Senate campaign staff and served on the Economic Policy Committee advising Meg Whitman’s bid for Governor of California. A mother of four, Jennifer spends weekends running around with her children. | 3 |
| Scott Ford | Ford | OpenAir Equity Partners | United States | Missouri, | Overland Park | MW Plains/Rockies | Sprint | 11 | Scott is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 11 and served his fellowship under mentor John Burris at Sprint in Overland Park, KS. He is mentor to Taylor Clauson (Class 23). | Scott Ford is a Managing Director of OpenAir Equity Partners, a venture capital and private equity firm focused on the explosive growth of mobility and the associated industries impacted by wireless technology. OpenAir Equity Partners is organized with seasoned wireless operating veterans who are adept in identifying and mentoring early and growth-stage wireless ventures in a highly complex industry. Employing an experiential lens of practicality and a vast global network, the firm is equipped to optimize high-potential opportunities operating to thrive within the Mobile Revolution.
Scott is founder and former general manager of Sprint Nextel Ventures (SNV), Sprint’s corporate venture capital unit. During his time as leader of SNV, Scott and his team funded and managed direct investments in strategic wireless start-up companies. He also led business development efforts for Sprint, directing a team responsible for discovering, executing, and managing hundreds of partnerships delivering greater than $1B in contract value. Scott is recognized in the wireless industry as a knowledgeable industry influencer with the rare experience of carrier-side innovation realization coupled with a very solid venture and start-up market reputation and network Scott has been selected by the CTIA - The Wireless Association®, to serve on its VC Innovation Council. He and select venture industry colleagues communicate with CTIA on wireless innovation trends, best practices, and global developments that are affecting their investment choices, and the impact on the wireless industry. The Council serves to assist the CTIA in guiding the industry to enable innovation realization, a key driver of broad wireless growth into the future. Scott is a Desert Storm veteran and flew more than 300 combat hours (3,000 total) aboard Navy P-3C aircraft. It is through his military experiences that he developed his passion for mobile technologies having operated sophisticated airborne electronic warfare equipment during his years as a Naval Aviator. | Scott holds a BA in Management and Human Relations at MidAmerica Nazarene University. | 11 |
| Corey Ford | Ford | Matter Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Matter Ventures | 17 | Corey is a member of Class 17 and served his fellowship at PublicMediaX fund with mentor Jake Shaprio of PRX. | Corey Ford is Founder and Managing Director of PublicMediaX, an impact acclerator changing media for good. Providing mentorship, space, and funding for entrepreneurs building media ventures that strengthen our civic society and enrich our culture, PublicMediaX is the disruptive playground for entrepreneurs to invent the future of media from the outside in. It is financed by a $2.5M seed grant from the John S. and James L. Knight foundation and supported by Public Radio Exchange (PRX). Corey most recently built and ran Runway, a pre-team, pre-idea incubator for entrepreneurs at Innovation Endeavors, Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s early stage venture capital fund. Graduates of Runway include Lumoback, a mobile health start-up developing a smart posture sensor that prevents back pain through real-time posture feedback. Corey works at the intersection of design thinking, early stage entrepreneurship, and media. He taught design thinking innovation at the Institute of Design at Stanford University (known as “the d.school”) and is a member of The Designer Fund. Corey began his career in public broadcasting managing the production of 17 films for the PBS/WGBH series FRONTLINE, earning an Emmy and a duPont-Columbia Gold Baton Award. | Corey earned his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he concentrated on entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation. He was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he majored in journalism and international studies. He lives in Palo Alto, CA with his wife Jenna and his two daughters. | 17 |
| Andras Forgacs | Forgacs | Modern Meadow | United States | New York, | Brooklyn | NY/CT | Richmond Global | 14 | Andras is a member of Class 14 and served his fellowship at Richmond Management with mentor Peter Kellner. | Andras is an entrepreneur and venture investor in technology and life science. He co-founded Modern Meadow, a development-stage company applying tissue engineering methods to create a new class of biomaterials for consumer applications, in 2011. Before Modern Meadow, Andras co-founded Organovo, a leader in tissue engineering which pioneered the use of 3D bio-printing to create human tissue for a range of medical applications. Organovo’s bio-printer was named one of the top inventions of 2010 by Time magazine and the company was recognized by MIT Technology Review on its TR50 list of most innovative companies for 2012. Earlier, Andras was a Managing Director with Richmond Global, an international technology-focused venture fund, and a consultant in the New York office of McKinsey & Company focused on biopharma and private equity. He was also a founding member of Citigroup’s corporate and investment banking e-commerce group where he led a team that developed award-winning financial technology products and advised large cap corporate clients on a range of corporate finance challenges. | Andras holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Harvard University. Andras also serves as a Corporate Leader with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Andras is a founding Board member of The Resolution Project, a non-profit organization aimed at fostering a sense of civic and social responsibility among young leaders around the world. | 14 |
| Brady Forrest | Forrest | Independent | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Machine | 22 | Brady served his fellowship at Machine as a member of Class 22. | Brady is a Managing Director with Machine.
Most recently, he co-founded and served as Vice President of the hardware accelerator Highway1, established in 2013. In this role, Brady helped more than 70 startups (including Navdy, Cue, Modbot, and Ringly) with early-stage prototyping, team-building, product development, and fundraising; in total, Highway1 companies have raised more than $115M in subsequent funding. Brady shares his knowledge and experience in talks around the world (TechCrunch, O’Reilly, Gigaom, Summit, SXSW), and co-wrote The Hardware Startup. He is co-founder of Ignite Talks PBC, a franchised global talk format that has been adopted by Google, the White House, the Gates Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Previously, Brady worked on the investment team at Khosla Ventures and was a Venture Advisor to 500 Startups’s first fund. Earlier, he chaired conferences around the world for O’Reilly Media, including the Web 2.0 Expo, Where 2.0, ETech, and Foo Camp. Brady also wrote for the Radar blog and worked with OATV, the venture capital arm of O’Reilly. Earlier in his career, Brady joined Microsoft through their acquisition of the music streaming startup MongoMusic, which later became MSN Entertainment. Later at Microsoft, he was on the founding team of Bing, launching search features and developer outreach programs. Brady started his career as a supply chain management consultant and system designer at Numetrix and i2. His first job was as a busboy in a New Jersey diner. | Brady attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial management engineering. He sits on the board of the nonprofit CAST, which purchases and renovates buildings for arts organization around the San Francisco Bay Area; recently, he joined the board of advisors of the Association for Women in Science. He attends Burning Man most years. | 22 |
| Victoria Fram | Fram | VilCap Investments | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | VilCap Investments | 22 | Victoria served her fellowship at VilCap Investments as a member of Class 22. Her mentor was Kelly Michel, Village Capital board member and VilCap Investments capital member. | Victoria has had a varied career in early-stage venture capital, private equity fund-of-funds, entrepreneur support and training, and international development. Since 2012, Victoria has been a co-founder at Village Capital and is Managing Director of VilCap Investments, a seed-stage investment fund that she co-raised and now manages. VilCap Investments invests in companies that are addressing the world’s greatest social and environmental challenges. As fund manager, Victoria is responsible for all fund functions, including structuring investments and fund strategy, providing portfolio support, investor relations and reporting, and fund administration.
Prior to Village Capital, while in business school, Victoria was on the Program Related Investments team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; before that she was an Investment Associate at Metropolitan (a real estate-focused private equity fund-of-funds acquired by Carlyle). Victoria started her career as an Insight Fellow, living and working in China, the Netherlands, Kenya, and Uganda designing and implementing projects focused on international development and conflict resolution. | Victoria attended Stanford University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in international relations with a minor in Mandarin, and later returned to earn an MBA at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where she also received a certificate in public management.
Victoria sits on various corporate and nonprofit boards, including those of Pear Deck and Coupa Foundation, and also participates as an investment committee member for Stanford GSB’s Student Impact Fund. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two-year-old son. | 22 |
| Jennifer Fried | Fried | ExplORer Surgical | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Park Lane Ventures | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Jennifer began her fellowship at Park Lane Ventures under the mentorship of Immanuel Thangaraj (Mentor Class 13), and completed it at ExplORer Surgical. | Jennifer is the CEO and Co-Founder of ExplORer Surgical. The firm has created a surgical "playbook" for the operating room that allows doctors and nurses to most efficiently prepare for surgery as well as coordinating during the procedure.
Jennifer and ExplORer Surgical have been featured in periodicals like the Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and Crain’s Chicago Business. They received the 2017 Up-and-Comer Chicago Innovation Award, and several new-venture competitions. Previously, Jennifer was a Vice President at Park Lane Ventures, a healthcare-focused fund spun out of Essex Woodlands. For over two years, she was the only non-managing director on the investment team, joining three other members with decades of investing experience. She also served as healthcare associate at Hyde Park Angels, during which time she was sourcing, diligencing, and evaluating early-stage healthcare businesses in the Chicago area. Jennifer began her career as a consultant at Bain & Company in Chicago after graduating from business school. | Jennifer earned an MBA, with Honors, in finance and entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She also holds a BA, with Honors, in mathematical methods in the social sciences and economics from Northwestern University.
She received numerous awards and funding during her time at Booth, including a $70,000 Forte Fellow scholarship that paid a portion of her tuition and a $2,500 annual prize from the University of Chicago Women’s Business Group, recognizing her as an MBA student likely to advance the interests and achievements of women. | 20 |
| Jonathan Friedman | Friedman | LionBird | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | LionBird | 24 | Jonathan is serving his fellowship as a member of Class 24 at LionBird under the mentorship of Chaim Friedman, Managing Partner. | Jonathan is a Partner in LionBird and is based in the firm's Tel Aviv office. LionBird provides pre-scale capital and assistance to founders re-engineering the status quo. Previously he co-founded Green Revolution, a sustainable consumer products startup, serving as its CEO. Following this role, he served as Operations Director at Dupree, a multinational consumer products company, managing new product launches and sales operations, reporting directly to the CEO. | Jonathan holds a BA degree in economics and organizational studies from University of Michigan and an MBA in entrepreneurship and innovation from IDC Herzliyah. He’s been frequently featured in TechCrunch and VentureBeat, and also compiles the popular LionBird Bites newsletter, which is read by most of the VC industry in Israel. | 24 |
| Carl Fritjofsson | Fritjofsson | Creandum | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Creandum | 21 | A member of Class 21, Carl served his fellowship at Creandum under the mentorship of General Partner Johan Brenner (Mentor Class 16). | Since mid-2016, Carl has been a full-time Principal at Creandum, the leading Nordic VC firm, responsible for its US presence and primarily looking for European entrepreneurs scaling into the US. He is particularly interested in foodtech, marketplaces, and any products leveraging data transparency and collaboration.
Carl is a battle-scarred entrepreneur and investor who has seen many sides of the tech ecosystem. He started his career in management consulting and went on to co-found the digital ad network AdProfit, bootstrapping the business into one of the leading digital channels for B2B advertising in the Nordics. He then joined Creandum as a member in the investment team but soon left to co-found Wrapp, which became a portfolio company not only of Creandum but also of prominent VCs such as Greylock and Atomico. As COO of Wrapp, Carl was responsible for scaling the company internationally across 18 markets and raising an aggregate of $27M in venture funding. After close to four years with Wrapp, Carl left to work with the world’s most active seed investor, 500 Startups, in San Francisco, coaching and mentoring early-stage companies through an intensive four-month accelerator program. In parallel to this work, Carl was a part-time Venture Partner with Creandum, supporting its portfolio in the US market and later transitioning to full-time Principal. | Carl is a graduate of Uppsala University (Sweden), from which he holds an MSc in business administration and finance. | 21 |
| Winston Fu | Fu | Individual | , | Northern CA | US Venture Partners | 03 | Winston Fu is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 3 and served his fellowship under mentor Steve Krausz at USVP. | Winston Fu was most recently s a General Partner at USVP. He enjoys helping entrepreneurs build teams that are passionate, fun-loving, and fanatical about their pursuit to build great companies. Winston's investment focus is on the application of technologies in areas such as adaptation to climate change, energy efficiency, and a variety of IT sectors. Winston was a co-leader of USVP's activities in China, and served on the boards of Active-Semi, Box.net, Contour Energy Systems, Jeda Systems, Redwood Systems, Qnovo, and Xicato.
Prior to joining USVP, Winston served in technical and marketing roles at Vixel Corporation, which made its initial public offering in 1999 (NASDAQ: VIXL) and was subsequently acquired by Emulex (ELX) in 2003. As director of product marketing, he was responsible for developing new applications for the VCSEL device product line at Vixel. Prior to helping launch Vixel, Winston researched and developed technologies in the areas of semiconductors, lasers and superconductors at Stanford University, Sandia National Labs and MIT. | Winston holds a Bachelor's degree in physics from MIT, a PhD in applied physics from Stanford University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, where he was an Austin Scholar. | 3 | ||
| Ernestine Fu | Fu | Alsop Louie Partners | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Alsop-Louie Partners | 17 | Ernestine is a member of Class 17 and served her fellowship at Alsop Louie Partners under mentors Stewart Alsop and Gilman Louie. | Ernestine Fu is a Venture Partner at Alsop Louie Partners. She joined the firm in 2011 and landed her first investment within two months. To develop an investment thesis in commercializing university research, she supervised the firm’s campus associate program, recruiting talent at colleges ranging from UC Berkeley to UT Austin. As an investor and board director, she takes a hands-on approach in supporting portfolio operations on product development, partnerships, and sales.
Combining her business background with her engineering research and focus on emerging technologies, Ernestine has authored numerous publications ranging from autonomous vehicles to renewable energy. A champion of connected cars and smart cities, she programmed a full-vehicle driving simulator at Stanford University’s Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab. She subsequently published research on human operator and autonomous vehicle interactions with system bias and transitions of control. To address our world’s pressing environmental issues, she researched climate change and renewable energy, leading her to co-author Renewed Energy with energy economist John Weyant. Ernestine has also studied how frontier technologies such as additive manufacturing and 5G will shape our next economy. Participating as active citizens in our democracy is a core belief that Ernestine advocates. After starting a nonprofit to serve the community through music and art, she co-authored Civic Work, Civic Lessons with former Stanford Law School Dean Thomas Ehrlich to encourage community engagement with informed moral and civic judgments. The two have since published several articles on political engagement and higher education. Ernestine has served as a board director for nonprofits such as Ad Council and lobbied for immigration reform in DC. | Ernestine completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Stanford University. Graduating with Tau Beta Pi and Phi Beta Kappa honors, she was awarded the Kennedy Prize for the top undergraduate thesis in engineering and the Terman Award as one of the top 30 graduating seniors in engineering. More recently, she has designed and taught courses on emerging technology, venture capital industry changes, and business-to-government startups. | 17 |
| Ezra Galston | Galston | Chicago Ventures | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Chicago Ventures | 18 | Ezra is a member of Class 18 and performed his fellowship at Chicago Ventures. | Ezra is currently an MBA Candidate at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business concentrating in entrepreneurship and strategic management. Outside of school, Ezra is a Senior Associate at Chicago Ventures, an early stage Venture Capital fund where he focuses on evaluating IT deals across the Midwest, and engaging with entrepreneurs. Ezra also serves as an Entrepreneur Fellow at Foundation Capital, sourcing deals for the firm in the Chicago region and within the city’s universities. In addition to his institutional roles, Ezra is an active angel investor and advisor with seed investments in DraftDay, Furnishly, BloomNation, Hold’em Manager, PocketGuide, and Instant Fantasy Sports (acquired by NBC Sports). Prior to Chicago Booth, Ezra raised nearly a million dollars from high net worth individuals to co-found The Poker Financing Fund, a poker specific “hedge fund,” investing in over 100 unique players across 3,000 tournaments at The World Series of Poker. The fund’s algorithm and diversification was built off Ezra’s extensive experience as a professional poker player, successfully winning at high stakes poker games over several years. Before founding his Poker Fund, Ezra served as Director of Marketing at CardRunners – an online poker training platform – helping them scale from 1,000 paying subscribers on a $500k annual run rate to nearly 15,000 subscribers on a $5 million run rate in two years. While at NYU, he worked as Director of Interactive Marketing at Buzz Marketing Group, an NYC-based boutique youth/entertainment marketing firm consulting for clients such as Sony Records, Epic Records, and MTV. | Ezra is a 2nd year MBA student at Chicago Booth and holds a BA from New York University. Ezra is the proud father of a new baby boy, and in his spare time enjoys blogging, cooking, and red wine. His varying interests have also led him to produce a festival screened short firm and launch a record label yielding a Grammy nominated artist. | 18 |
| Samrat Ganguly | Ganguly | Velos Partners | Singapore | , | Singapore | Asia | Global Environment Fund | 11 | As a member of Class 11, Samrat served the first year of his fellowship under mentor H. Jeffrey Leonard at Global Environment Fund (GEF) in Washington, DC, and his second year in Singapore under Rick Rieder at Lehman Brothers. | Samrat is a Managing Partner with Velos Partners, a consumer growth capital investment firm with offices in Los Angeles, London and Singapore. Samrat is based in Singapore and is the head the Asia Pacific region for the firm.
Previously, Samrat was Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner for SREI Venture Capital Limited, the fund management arm of SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited, a publicly-listed infrastructure finance company operating in India for over 20 years. Before that, Samrat was a Managing Partner with Capital Square Partners (CSP), a private equity firm focused on growth capital and middle-market buyouts in Asia, with specific emphasis on South Asia and South East Asia. CSP looks at investments in various sectors including: technology; financial services; retail; industrials; supply chain & logistics; energy & natural resources; alternate energy; and healthcare. Earlier in his career, Samrat was the Head of Asia Private Equity for Global Principal Strategies, a proprietary multi-strategy investment arm of Lehman Brothers, and served as a Principal at Global Environment Fund (GEF), a private equity firm dedicated to emerging markets, clean technology, healthcare and sustainable forestry. He had earlier tenures at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he handled US, European, Asian and cross-border private equity transactions; and at the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the UN Security Council. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland, serving in the capacity of a senior ministry officer with the Swaziland Environment Authority. | Samrat holds an MBA from Edinburgh Business School in the United Kingdom, and received a JD as a James Kent Scholar from the Columbia University School of Law. Samrat was awarded a BS with a dual major in Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and Economics, with Distinction, from Yale University. | 11 |
| Mala Gaonkar | Gaonkar | Lone Pine Capital (UK) | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | JP Morgan Partners | 02 | Mala Gaonkar is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 2 and served her fellowship under mentor Michael Hannon at JP Morgan Partners in New York. | Mala is a partner and managing director at Lone Pine Capital, a $6 billion private investment partnership that consists of three equity hedge funds. She oversees the fund's media, technology, and telecommunications investment portfolio.
Earlier, Mala served her fellowship at JP Morgan Partners and worked on investments in telecommunications and media, evaluating both early-stage technology ventures and leveraged transactions. Prior to her graduate studies, Mala was with the Boston Consulting group, where she devised new product development and market entry strategies for clients in the United States, Germany, and India. She also served as a consultant with the World Bank in Mongolia, working with a United Nations team on the privatization of Mongolian industry; and as a research analyst with a hedge fund at Templeton Investment Counsel, Inc. | Mala received both her AB in economics, magna cum laude, and her MBA from Harvard. She received both a Harvard College scholarship and a Ford Foundation grant for her thesis research.
Mala’s community interests have included mentoring inner-city students and teaching at Mother Teresa's Children's Home in Kolkata. She was appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to be a trustee of the Tate, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Clinton Climate Initiative. | 2 |
| Juliana Garaizar | Garaizar | Texas Medical Center Venture Fund | United States | Texas, | Houston | TX/South Central | Houston Angel Network | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Juliana served her fellowship at the Houston Angel Network under the mentorship of HAN Chairman, David Steakley. | Juliana Garaizar is the new Director of the Texas Medical Center Venture Fund. Board Member of the Angel Capital Association, Juliana is also a Senior Advisor of the Portfolia Consumer Fund and Rising Tide Fund and a Kauffman Fellow. Juliana was the Managing Director Houston Angel Network (most active US network in 2015-2017) and of the Sophia Business Angels network (best European network in 2010). Previously Juliana managed Antipolis Innovation Campus, the Business Innovation Centre in the French Riviera, as well as several International Projects funded by the European Commission. She started her career in Singapore: first as an International Trade Consultant for the Trade Commission of Spain in a broad range of industry sectors and then as a Project Manager for the Asia Technology Office of Citigroup, leading projects at international level in Europe, Latin America and Japan. | Juliana obtained an MBA at the London Business School where she majored in entrepreneurship and was Co-President of the LBS Net Impact Chapter. Juliana is a graduate of the Universidad Comercial de Deusto in Spain, and holds a Bachelor's degree in business administration with a major in finance.
Juliana continues her engagement with entrepreneurship by teaching at Skema Business School and mentors several companies in Houston and globally | 18 |
| Martin Garcia | Garcia | Sozo Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Sozo Ventures | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Martin served his fellowship at Sozo Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Member, Koichiro Nakamura (Class 12). | Martin Garcia is a Principal at Sozo Ventures, a cross-border venture fund focusing on assisting U.S.-based technology startups in global expansion, especially in the Japanese market; the firm has offices in Palo Alto and Tokyo. Martin is responsible for the firm’s finances as well as financial due diligence for targeted companies.
Martin comes to Sozo Ventures with vast international business experience that includes work in the US, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Puerto Rico. His projects have spanned five continents in an array of diverse countries (US, Spain, Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, Libya, France, Italy, and many more), and he has travelled to 58 different countries. He is half-American and half-Spanish and is native-level bilingual in English and Spanish, and speaks fluent Portuguese. Martin’s professional experience includes working for large financial firms where he performed financial due diligence on both large and small transactions for multinational companies. He has also worked for small venture-focused firms such as Innovation Kitchen, a Mitsubishi Corporation’s incubation firm. In this position, he managed all U.S. operations and ensured that early-stage portfolio companies in Japan received U.S. exposure in order to secure U.S. market and financing opportunities. | Martin has undergraduate business degrees from the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija (Spain) and the University of Tampa. He also received an MBA from University of Chicago and holds a CPA license. | 19 |
| Graham Gardner | Gardner | Kyruus | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Boston/Northeast | Highland Capital Partners | 12 | Graham is a member of Class 12 and served his fellowship under mentor Bob Higgins at Highland Capital Partners. | Graham recently Co-Founded and serves as CEO of Kyruus, producer of the Kyruus p3 platform that creates a unified view of the professional personas of physicians based on the "virtual footprints" that they leave across numerous information sources. These data drive powerful, multi-faceted analytics and proprietary algorithms that inform the matching, management, and measurement of physician interactions..
Graham was previously a Venture Executive at Highland Capital Partners, focusing on healthcare investments and specializing in medical devices and healthcare IT. Graham was actively involved in Highland's investments in Pervasis Therapeutics, iPerian, and RedBrick Health. While at Highland, Graham co-founded Generation Health and served as the company's Chief Medical Officer through the acquisition of a majority of the shares by CVS Caremark Prior to his fellowship at Highland, Graham completed his training in internal medicine and cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, where he also served as chief medical resident. He is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and co-patented a medical device designed to provide hemodynamic support to patients with end-stage heart failure. In the past, Graham has served as a consultant to several pharmaceutical and medical device companies including Boston Scientific where he worked with the eMarketing Group to develop a corporate physician extranet. | Graham received his AB, with Honors, from Brown University, studying history and biology. He earned his MD, with Honors, from Brown Medical School and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. | 12 |
| Akshay Garg | Garg | FinAccel | Singapore | , | Singapore | Asia | Komli Media | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Akshay is serving his fellowship at Komli Media under the mentorship of Amar Goel, Founder and CEO, Komli Media, and Dr. Ashish Gupta (Class 7), Senior Managing Director, Helion Venture Partners. | Akshay is co-founder of Komli Media, Asia’s leading venture-backed digital media and advertising technology company. Headquartered in India, Komli has raised over $80m in venture capital and has over 300 employees worldwide. Akshay currently serves as VP, International and Managing Director for Southeast Asia. Since co-founding Komli over six years ago, Akshay has held a variety of roles including Business Head and GM for its India and North American operations and finally VP, International where he was tasked with the international expansion of the company. Over the last 2.5 years in that role, he has directly managed the acquisition and integration of four companies across Australia, UK, and Southeast Asia, totaling more than 200 people and contributing 50% of Komli’s revenues. At Komli, Akshay has built deep expertise in scaling a startup, and in the online media and advertising technology ecosystem. Prior to co-founding Komli, Akshay was the founder of a boutique market research and consulting organization in China and the founder of India’s first dedicated Mandarin language training school (still active). He has also been a research economist with the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland and a business analyst with Deloitte Consulting in Seattle, USA. | Akshay has a Bachelor’s degree in economics and political science (double major) from Whitman College and completed graduate studies in economics at The Graduate Institute, University of Geneva, Switzerland. Akshay has also completed Mandarin language study at Yunnan University, China. Akshay is passionate about entrepreneurship and follows the startup ecosystem across Asia very closely. In his spare time, he enjoys tennis, hiking, and dreams about traveling the backroads of Yunnan in southwest China. | 18 |
| Sofia Garrido | Garrido | General Atlantic | Mexico | Federal District, | Mexico City | Latin America | ALLVP | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Sofía began her fellowship at ALLVP and finished it at General Atlantic. Her mentors were Susana García Robles (Mentor Class 18) of the Multilateral Investment Fund and ALLVP's Managing Partner Federico Antoni. | Sofía Garrido joined General Atlantic’s Mexico City office in 2017. She is in charge of monitoring the healthcare, and retail and consumer portfolio companies, as well as assessing new investment opportunities in these sectors throughout Latin America.
Previously, Sofia was a Principal at ALLVP, the most active early-stage venture capital firm in Mexico, where she took part in 19 investments across three years. She was in charge of monitoring 7 portfolio companies as well as managing the relationship with the fund’s LPs. Before entering ALLVP, Sofia was CFO at salaUno, a social enterprise dedicated to providing eye care services to the base-of-the-pyramid. She was responsible of the financial and administrative processes, from budgets to treasury. She led the process of raising USD$4M from IFC and Adobe Capital. Previously, she worked at Credit Suisse in equity research, where she covered the construction and infrastructure sector. During college, she co-founded 180 Degrees Consulting, a student consultancy for NGOs. | Sofía holds a BA in economics from ITAM where she graduated summa cum laude in the top 3% of her class. She has a diploma in social impact investment, passed the CFA Level I, and has pursued further studies in venture capital at Stanford. | 21 |
| Rayfe Gaspar-Asaoka | Gaspar-Asaoka | Canaan Partners | , | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Canaan Partners | 25 | Rayfe is currently an investing principal at Canaan Partners, an early stage venture capital firm that leads Seed, Series A, and Series B investments in emerging technology and healthcare companies.
Rayfe focuses on leading investments in frontier tech, including AI / ML, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and space tech, as well as B2B enterprise and infrastructure software. Prior to Canaan, Rayfe has worked in strategy consulting, data science, and hardware engineering. | Rayfe earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, where his research focused on ASIC design. He also holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, with a focus on digital signal processing, from the University of Southern California, where he graduated top of his class in 3 years, and was also a member of the NCAA water polo team.
Rayfe was born and raised in Hawaii, and in his free time enjoys eating, and any and all water-related activities. | 25 | ||
| Andrew Gershfeld | Gershfeld | Flint Capital | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Flint Capital | 24 | Andrew is serving his fellowship at Flint Capital as a member of Class 24. His mentor is Sergey Gribov. | Andrew is a Partner at Flint Capital—an investment company formed in Boston now with worldwide offices— focused on supporting entrepreneurs from Israel, Europe, and the US in the early stages of business. Andrew brings deep consumer startup expertise to the team, with his particular interest in healthTech, lifestyle, social, and marketing topics. Andrew serves on the boards of Flo.health, JobToday, Yva.ai, CreamFinance, and YouDo. He has also sourced an investment in ManyChat and is active with the company. Prior to his career in venture capital, Andrew was an entrepreneur who successfully built and sold one of the Groupon clones of Eastern Europe. As an entrepreneur, Andrew was keen on e-commerce business and contributed significantly to building the leaders of kids, furniture, and fashion online retailers of Eastern Europe. Previously, he was a consultant in the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) practice with a top management consulting company. | Andrew earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in applied physics and math, and an Innovation Management professional degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University). Andrew is keen on alpine skiing, backcountry freeride, and yachting. He goes on exotic expeditions with the goal of finding untouched powder snow and wild bays. | 24 |
| Ekaterina Gianelli | Gianelli | Inventure | , | Helsinki | Europe | Inventure | 25 | Ekaterina is a Partner at Inventure, a Nordic early-stage VC firm. Based out of Helsinki, she leads and manages investments across multiple domains, with a special interest in consumer opportunities, digital health, and food technology. Ekaterina is also active in all aspects of fund management, from investment strategy to operations and talent development.
Prior to joining Inventure, Ekaterina was part of the team scaling Fjord from a small consultancy into a leading design & innovation firm globally (Fjord was later acquired by Accenture Interactive in 2013). She has also worked with product and sales at an advertising technology startup. | Ekaterina holds a bachelor’s of economics from Moscow State University and an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea University of Applied Sciences.
Ekaterina's passion is helping entrepreneurs succeed. As an active community builder, she has been contributing to multiple initiatives strengthening the Nordic tech ecosystems. In addition to her work at Inventure, Ekaterina has been actively coaching and mentoring younger professionals through multiple accelerator programs, and participating in selection committees for various innovation grants. Given her background, she is especially interested in initiatives bridging the gap between design, business, and technology. | 25 | ||
| Samuel Gil | Gil | JME Ventures | Spain | , | Madrid | Europe | JME Ventures | 24 | As a member of Class 24, Samuel served his fellowship at JME under the mentorship of Javier Alarcó, Partner and CEO. | Samuel is partner at JME Ventures, an early-stage, sector-agnostic VC firm based in Madrid, Spain. From idea to exit, the firm strives to support its portfolio companies through their entire financing lifecycles, helping them scale and compete on a global scale by providing strategic, operational and financial support. Before joining JME, Samuel was an investment manager at Faraday Venture Partners. Prior to his career in venture capital, Samuel worked as energy trader at Iberdrola and as technology consultant at Accenture. | Samuel holds an MBA from the IESE Business School and an MS in electrical and computer engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain. He is also a CFA charterholder. Samuel is passionate about family, reading, travel, dogs, and electric guitars. | 24 |
| Aziz Gilani | Gilani | Mercury Fund | United States | Texas, | Houston | TX/South Central | DFJ Mercury | 14 | Aziz is a member of Fellows Class 14, and served his fellowship under mentor Blair Garrou at DFJ Mercury. | As a Director at DFJ Mercury, Aziz brings significant experience as an operator, consultant, and investor in technology companies, with a particular focus on enterprise and consumer software. His current investment activities include work with Black Locus, Datical, Epic Playground, GameSalad, Infochimps, Koupon Media, and ShareThis.
Prior to joining DFJ Mercury, Aziz was a Senior Engagement Leader with Infosys Consulting where he led the Enterprise Asset Management practice. Before that, Aziz was a Director at ABB Performance Services where he held a variety of roles including Manager of Global Operations Analytics, Global Quality Director and Global CMMS Director. Earlier, Aziz was a Senior Consultant at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young working with ERP implementations in the Energy Chemicals and Utilities practice. | Aziz has a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business where he was a TILF Scholar and holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where he was an FC Austin Scholar, Kellogg Board Fellow, and Chairman of the Kellogg Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference. | 14 |
| Karim Gillani | Gillani | Luge Capital | , | Etobicoke | Canada | Luge Capital | 25 | Karim has an extensive background in fintech, mobile tech, engineering, finance and strategy. He is currently the Co-Founder and General Partner at Luge Capital, a fintech-focused venture capital fund with $85M under management. Prior to Luge, Karim led Corporate Development and M&A activities for PayPal in Canada.
Before that, Karim started the Corporate Development practice at Xoom, a leading cross-border remittance company that went public on the NASDAQ in 2013 and was subsequently acquired by PayPal in 2015 for USD $890M. Prior to Xoom, Karim led M&A and strategic investments for BlackBerry in Silicon Valley. Karim was also responsible for establishing BlackBerry's largest partnerships, and he developed the company's overall strategy for mobile payments and commerce, including NFC payments, P2P and App World. Karim spent several years working for Redknee Solutions in the UK where he designed telecom network infrastructure, including mobile money solutions, for operators in East Africa and Western Europe. In addition to serving on several startup boards, Karim is a Charter Member of the C100, a Board Advisor for Village Capital and a member of the Fintech Advisory Committee for the Ontario Securities Commission. | Karim has a BASc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an MSc in Finance and Economic Policy from the University of London, and an LLM Master of Laws from the University of Toronto. For part of his education, Karim studied engineering in Singapore at Nanyang Technological University.
Karim is happily married with a 3 year old son and a baby girl on the way. | 25 | ||
| Hian Goh | Goh | Openspace Ventures | Singapore | , | Asia | NSI Ventures | 20 | Hian is a member of Class 20 and served his fellowship at NSI Ventures under the mentorship of General Partner Shane Chesson. He was a mentor to Vishal Harnal (Class 22) of 500 Startups. | Hian Goh is a Founding Partner of NSI Ventures, a Series A venture capital fund focused on technology and Internet companies in Southeast Asia. The fund has invested into 8 companies, including Gojek, Redmart, Chope, and Zimplistic, the makers of Rotimatic.
NSI Ventures is part of the Northstar Group, a private equity firm managing more than $1.2B in committed equity capital, dedicated to investing in growth companies in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The Northstar Group has invested over $2.2B with its co-investors in the region. Prior to NSI Ventures, Hian was the founder of the Asian Food Channel (AFC), a 24-hour food and lifestyle pay TV network, which was acquired by Scripps Networks in 2013. Hian began his career as an investment banker and in 1999 was a founding member of the Salomon Smith Barney technology investment banking practice in Asia (now part of Citigroup). | Hian graduated with a degree in jurisprudence (law) from Trinity College, Oxford, and an MBA from INSEAD. He is also a Reserve Officer with the Singapore Navy and is a board member of the Singapore Science Centre. | 20 | |
| David Goldberg | Goldberg | Corigin Ventures | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Corigin Ventures | 22 | David served his fellowship at Corigin Ventures under the mentorship of Corigin Chairman Ryan Freedman. He is a member of Class 22. | David is a General Partner at Corigin Ventures, a New York-based seed fund investing in the future of how we live, work, and play. Since helping form Corigin Ventures in 2014, David has led the firm’s investment into 31 companies across various sectors, including consumer goods/services, marketplaces, real estate technology, IoT, and FinTech. He currently sits on the boards of directors of Minibar, Meural, and Perch Interactive, and is a board observer of Zeel.
Prior to jumping over to the investor’s side of the table, David spent 3 years as founder & CEO of FreshNeck, a collaborative consumption fashion-technology startup, through its exit in 2014. David began his career in law as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York. After three years as a crime-fighter, he moved over to traditional finance—first in Wealth Management at Merrill Lynch, then later as a Vice President at Jefferies & Co. | David attended the University of Miami, where he earned a Bachelors of Business Administration in marketing and sports management. He then graduated with a joint JD/MBA from Fordham University’s Graduate Schools of Law & Business. | 22 |
| Andrew Goldner | Goldner | GrowthX | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | GrowthX | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Andrew served his fellowship at GrowthX; his mentor was Carlos Ramon of COMPAS Advisory. | Andrew is a Founding Partner at GrowthX where he helps lead the fund, identify investment opportunities, and craft and guide the overall vision, keeping everyone pointed toward a common North Star. His background as founder, funder, operator, advisor, and technology attorney in the United States and Asia Pacific allows him to help entrepreneurs and companies from inception through exit.
GrowthX focuses on the importance of market development more so than product development, allowing Andrew to evaluate opportunities across all industries and sectors. He is a mentor at Dynamo (a Chattanooga-based accelerator focused on the logistics industry to change the face of supply chain management); a mentor at Matter (a San Francisco- and New York City-based accelerator looking for early-stage media ventures with the potential to make society more informed, connected, and empowered); and an advisor at Quibb, a media startup working to make industry news social without being overwhelming. After finishing law school, Andrew spent 7 years in private and corporate law positions, which led him to a 7-year career at Thompson Reuters, where he was Senior Counsel for two years and then moved into global news strategy, business development, and commercial strategy. As a member of the global News Leadership Team and then Managing Director, he spent several years in Hong Kong to develop the firm’s Asia Pacific products and markets, and managed editorial, sales, and product teams in India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Australia, and UAE. | Andrew is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was awarded the Saint Thomas More Award for Excellence in the Area of Legal Ethics. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a focus on finance and international business from the University of Cincinnati.
Andrew is blessed with an extraordinary partner in life, his wife, Caryn, and they are the proud parents of two wonderful daughters, Ava and Lily. | 21 |
| Enrique Gonzalez | Gonzalez | Softbank Kaikaku Fund | China | , | Hong Kong | Asia | Kaikaku Fund | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Enrique served his fellowship at the Kaikaku Fund and IP Ventures under the mentorship of Kabir Misra, Managing Partner at Softbank Capital. | Enrique is a serial entrepreneur and a partner at the Softbank Kaikaku Fund, primarily focused on the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Enrique originates opportunities and oversees the implementation of deals and deployment of capital. Having an entrepreneurial background, Enrique stays in close alignment with founders of portfolio companies and works to add value at a strategic level.
Enrique has backed companies in finance and business (F&B), retail, Internet services, and fintech. These investments include Caliburger, a fast growing premium burger brand reaching 50 stores by end of 2016. Enrique also sits on the board of Digital Paradise, which owns and operates Netopia, the largest and only Internet convenience center chain in the Philippines. Netopia is a one-stop-shop for surfing, printing, payments (bills and government services), and remittance. Enrique also sits on the board of Arthaland (publicly listed real estate developer), IP-Egames (publicly listed games publisher), and other well-known retail and Internet businesses. | Enrique graduated from Middlebury College with a diploma in international politics and economics, and pursued a Master’s degree in entrepreneurship at the Asia Institute of Management (Philippines). He also completed the Owner/President Management (OPM) program at Harvard Business School.
Enrique is on the board of trustees of Asia Society (Philippines), and is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). | 21 |
| Ger Goold | Goold | Kernel Capital | Ireland | Cork, | Bishopstown | Europe | Kernel Capital | 17 | Ger served his fellowship with Kernel Capital under the mentorship of Managing Partner Niall Olden. He is a member of Class 17. | Ger Goold is a Partner with Kernel Capital, an ICT-oriented venture capital firm headquartered in Cork, Ireland. Ger's investment focus is on early-stage and Series A investments and he sits on the firm’s Executive Investment Committee.
Ger has been directly involved in driving Kernel Capital’s early stage fund over the last five years, which has a current portfolio of over 30 investees and is still actively investing. This fund has a focus on early-stage ICT and MedTech companies and entrepreneurs. Its current investments include: FeedHenry, building mobile app solutions for enterprise; Radisens Diagnostics, developing a point-of-care diagnostics platform; Tapastreet, a crowd-sourced photo and video-discovery app; and Amartus, automating service delivery for networks. Ger is also on the board of Series A investments in MPSTOR, a leading provider of software-defined storage solutions, and BioAtlantis, a biotech company in the agri sector. Prior to joining Kernel Capital Ger spent six years with KPMG where he managed services to a wide range of clients, from NYSE- and NASDAQ-quoted multinationals to indigenous Irish tech start-ups; Ger has also worked in Australia in the energy sector. | Ger is a graduate of University College Cork from which he holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree, majoring in economics. He is also an Associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. Ger likes to travel, being curious to experience new cultures and foods. At home he enjoys music, reading, sports, and the outdoors and above all spending time with his wife, family, and friends. | 17 |
| Vikas Goyal | Goyal | SR One Ltd. | United States | Massachusetts, | Cambridge | Boston/Northeast | SR One | 17 | A member of Class 17, Vikas served his fellowship at SR One under the mentorship of Jens Eckstein (Fellow Class 10). | Vikas is a Principal at SR One, GlaxoSmithKline's corporate venture unit. Vikas joined SR One in January 2011, after interning with SR One since 2009.
Prior to joining SR One, Vikas was a consultant at McKinsey and Co, a co-founder of Extera Partners, and a business development manager at Infinity Pharmaceuticals. Over his career, Vikas has supported business and corporate development activities for nearly 50 large and small public, venture-backed, and angel funded life science companies. | Vikas received his BA in neurobiology from Harvard University, and his MBA in Health Care Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. | 17 |
| Jason Green | Green | Emergence Capital | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northern CA | Venrock Associates | Charter | Jason Green is a member of the Charter Class of Kauffman Fellows and served his fellowship under mentor Ted McCourtney at Venrock Associates in New York. He has served as mentor to Jake Saper (Class 20) and Kara Egan (Class 23).
Jason is the founding Chairman and currently serves on the Board of the Center for Venture Education | Jason is a founder and General Partner of Emergence Capital and has over eighteen years of experience in the venture capital business. Prior to founding Emergence in 2003, Jason spent 6 years as a General Partner with USVP and as an associate and Kauffman Fellow with Venrock, the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family. Earlier in his career he worked at Bain & Co. and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Jason has led successful early-stage venture investments that became market leading public companies such as SuccessFactors/SAP, DoubleClick/Google, aQuantive/MSFT, Visual Networks (VNWK) and Ask Jeeves (ASK). He also led investments in Yammer (acquired by MSFT) and EchoSign (acquired by Adobe) and currently serves on the boards of CoTap, Digital Airstrike, Lotame, Replicon, ServiceMax, TouchCommerce, and xAD and is a Board observer at Box. Jason joined the board of the National Venture Capital Association in 2012. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Center for Venture Education and on the board of the Kauffman Fellows Program, the leading educational fellowship in venture capital. Jason served as Chairman of the West Coast Research Center for Harvard Business School and on the HBS Global Advisory board. He is also a Founding Board member of Endeavor, a non-profit serving the needs of entrepreneurs in emerging markets. | Jason graduated cum laude with an AB in economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard, with Distinction. Jason was selected as the Charles Williams Fellow at Harvard's Graduate School of Business for post-graduate research in Entrepreneurship and Finance.
Jason serves on the Advisory Board of the Arthur Rock Center of Entrepreneurship at Harvard and on the Steering Committee of the West Coast Research Center. He is a Founding Board member of Endeavor, a non-profit serving the needs of entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Jason is married with two children. | 0 |
| Kevin Greene | Greene | LogiAnalytics | United States | Virginia, | McLean | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Flagship Ventures | 12 | Kevin is a member of Fellows Class 12. He served the first year of his fellowship at Flagship Ventures with mentor Jim Matheson, and served the second year of his fellowship at Valhalla Partners with mentor Art Marks. | Kevin is part of the leadership team at LogiAnalytics, a firm whose mission is to help companies understand their data, discover insights, and create a shared understanding that drives business forward.
Previously, Kevin was a Partner at Valhalla Partners, where he served on the boards of GetWellNetwork, BlueStripe Software, and WellAWARE Systems, and was a board observer for Flat World Knowledge. Before Valhalla Partners, he was a principal at Flagship Ventures, a $600 million early-stage venture capital firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he served as a member of the investment team and worked closely with a number of Flagship's portfolio companies. Before his career in venture capital, Kevin worked for IBM out of its Research Triangle Park, North Carolina campus where he was responsible for establishing, retaining and growing relationships with IBM business partners across the globe. He also held a variety of product marketing positions at IBM, including managing the WebSphere Application Server product portfolio. Prior to IBM, Kevin worked for several years at Goldman Sachs in its New York and Hong Kong offices where he executed over $30 billion in equity, equity-linked, and M&A financing transactions for technology, healthcare, media, and energy-related clients. | Kevin earned a BS in finance and marketing from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce where he also captained the varsity swimming team. He earned his MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Kevin lives in Vienna, Virginia with his wife and daughter. | 12 |
| Benjamin Grol | Grol | Atomico | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Atomico | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Benjamin is serving his fellowship at Atomico under the mentorship of Atomico Partner Hiro Tamura. | Benjamin is a Partner and the Head of Growth at Atomico, where he focuses on helping portfolio companies grow and evaluates new investment opportunities. His areas of focus are consumer applications, subscription/SaaS businesses, marketplaces/e-commerce, games, FinTech, and HealthTech.
Benjamin has led growth workshops and coached executive teams of TrueCaller, H&M, Rovio, Masterclass, Monzo, Yousician, Habito, Farmdrop, Gympass, CloudNC, Hinge Health, Quid, Bossa Games, Rekki, Pipedrive, GoEuro, JobandTalent, Uniplaces, Mapillary, LendInvest, SmartNews, and several other pre-seed companies. Prior to Atomico, Benjamin worked in product and growth leadership roles on four billion-user products: Gmail, Google Maps, Facebook, and Facebook Messenger. Some of Benjamin's notable launches include growth features that added tens of millions of monthly active users to Facebook, place reviews and photo uploads in Google Maps, and an enterprise-grade contact manager for Gmail for Enterprise. | Benjamin has a BS degree in computer science from Stanford University and an AOS in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America (and completed some night school classes in automotive repair at Skyline College).
Benjamin dropped out of high school to pursue a career as a professional chef. He worked in some excellent restaurants across the US, Italy, and France refining his craft, but eventually the draw of bits over bites was too much for him to resist. | 23 |
| Florent Gros | Gros | Novartis Venture Fund | Switzerland | , | Basel | Europe | Novartis Venture Funds | 12 | Florent Gros is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and served his fellowship under mentor Reinhard Ambros at the Novartis Venture Funds. | Florent Gros is a Managing Director of the Novartis Venture Funds in Basel, Switzerland. He serves on the boards of AIT, Atlas Genetics, Gensight Biologics, Merus, MyoPower, Opsona, and Vaxin, and his prior investments into Evolva (CH), Cellerix (BE) and Neovacs (FR) resulted in successful listings on European stock markets.
Florent brings experience with intellectual property, licensing, and M&A. Before his venture career, Florent worked 14 years in intellectual property, holding senior positions at Nestlé, Aventis Pasteur and Novartis. He was in the leadership team of several pharmaceutical product developments, was the head of IP Transactions at Novartis, and was particularly involved in the biologics strategies. His startup experience includes managing patent groups, licensing assets either from or to startups, and managing intellectual property conflicts with startups. | Florent is a graduate of the Louis Pasteur University (France), holding a biotechnology engineering degree with diploma thesis made at Glaxo Vaccine (Belgium). Florent is also a European and French patent attorney, and holds a Master's in private law from the University of Haute Alsace (France). | 12 |
| Dan Grossman | Grossman | Amazon.com | United States | Washington, | Seattle | NY/CT | Venrock Associates | 06 | Dan Grossman is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 6 and served his fellowship under mentor Mike Brooks at Venrock Associates in New York. | Dan is Director of Worldwide Corporate Development at Amazon in Seattle.
Previously, Dan is a portfolio manager at SAC Capital Advisors and focused on investments in public technology and media companies. Dan worked actively with Epic Technology, MaXXan, and Teranetics. Dan served his Kauffman Fellowship at Venrock Associates. Earlier, Dan was at Garage Technology Ventures, where he helped launch a new Boston office, and at Advanced Technology Ventures, where he invested in early-stage technology companies. Earlier, Dan spent three years at McKinsey & Company, including thirteen months in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he assisted in the launch of McKinsey's Southeast Asia presence. Prior to that, Dan developed software tools for Baxter Healthcare. | Dan graduated from the University of Illinois with degrees in computer science/engineering and international studies. He received an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Dan is on the board of Friends of Island Academy, an organization that helps young people being released from Rikers Island break the cycle of incarceration through job training, counseling, mentoring, and youth leadership development. | 6 |
| Ewa Treitz | Treitz | Amazon Web Services (AWS) | Germany | , | Munich | Europe | 3M New Ventures | 19 | A member of Class 19, Ewa served the first part of her fellowship at the VC unit of 3M under the mentorship of Christian Schuchert and President Stefan Gabriel. She completed her fellowship at Black Pearls Ventures. | Ewa Treitz started working for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2018 with the aim of growing the AWS business and offerings for startups in DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
Ewa previously was a Venture Partner at Black Pearls, a Polish venture capital firm, based in Munich, Germany. Her areas of expertise included energy, materials, electronics, SaaS, and robotics. Ewa is also founder and CEO of an advanced robotics company; the firm builds on years of research in artificial intelligence and robotics at the Technical University in Munich. Ewa has served in multiple management roles at VC and CVC funds in Germany, Sweden, and the United States. Before joining Black Pearls, Ewa was responsible for venture investments in innovative European startups for 3M (based in Munich). She worked closely with 3M´s Energy & Electronics Business Group to expand 3M's product portfolio. She focused on smart materials for buildings and infrastructure, asset management solutions, and software and hardware products for wearables and next-generation electronics. Ewa was a board observer at Mersive, a collaboration software provider allowing high-quality wireless media sharing. Earlier, Ewa worked as an associate at Sustainable Technologies Fund in Stockholm, a mid-size cleantech expansion-stage fund with a focus on the Scandinavian market. | Ewa is a graduate of Uppsala University in Sweden (MSc) and Jacobs University in Germany (BA), where she studied environmental sciences and economics. She is a scholar of the Foundation of German Business and German National Academic Foundation as well as the Swedish Institute. Until 2013 Ewa served on the Board of the Jacobs Alumni Association.
Ewa is a native Polish speaker and is fluent in English, Swedish, and German. | 19 |
| Jessie Guo | Guo | Legacy Venture | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Legacy Venture | 23 | Jessie is serving her fellowship at Legacy Venture as a member of Class 23. Her mentor is Jenny Lee (Mentor Class 22, KF BOD), Managing Partner of GGV Capital. | Jessie is a Principal at Legacy Venture, a Palo Alto, California-based venture capital fund-of-funds with a philanthropic mission. She enjoys helping investors amplify their positive impact in the world through investing in the best venture managers. In her role, Jessie conducts extensive analysis, performs due diligence, and monitors venture capital funds and the venture industry.
Jessie has a wealth of industry knowledge and relationships from the China venture capital market. Jessie was an Associate with China International Capital Corporation Ltd. (CICC), a leading investment bank in China. In this role, she focused on private equity and venture capital funds investment. Jessie was a key member in developing a funds research platform and several new investment products for CICC’s wealth management business. She was also part of the pioneering team that initiated CICC’s fund-of-funds business. Before CICC, Jessie worked for China Renaissance Partners, a boutique investment bank, where she helped technology startups raise capital from venture funds. | Jessie received her master’s degree in finance as well as bachelor’s degrees in finance and psychology from Peking University in China, all with Honors. She earned her MBA from the University of California at Davis, with Highest Honors.
Jessie and her husband immigrated from China to the US for their graduate studies and now have a young son. | 23 |
| Ashish Gupta | Gupta | Helion India | United States | California, | Palo Alto | South Asia | Woodside Fund | 07 | Ashish is a member of Class 7 and served his fellowship with mentor Vince Occhipinti at Woodside Funds in Redwood Shores, CA. He was later a mentor to Akshay Garg (Class 18).
Ashish is an emeritus member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Venture Education. | Dr. Ashish Gupta is a co-founder of Helion. He has co-founded two successful companies - Tavant Technologies and Junglee (AMZN). He has also worked at Woodside Fund, Oracle Corporation and IBM research.
Ashish is a co-founder of Helion and serves on several boards including InfoEdge (NAUKRI), Kirusa, Komli, MySmartPrice.com, Pubmatic, and SMSGupshup. He has invested in over 35 companies in the US and in India, includingSome of his past investments include redBus (MIH), Mu Sigma, Daksh (IBM), Odesk, and MakeMyTrip. Before his fellowship at Woodside Fund, Ashish was involved with several start-up companies in the US and in India as an advisor, board member, and investor. Ashish also worked at Amazon.com as a director of engineering, and at Junglee as co-founder, board member and VP of Engineering, co-founder and board member. Junglee was a pioneer in data integration technologies and the Application Service Provider business model. Ashish also worked as a senior technical contributor at Oracle and at IBM's Almaden Research Laboratory. He has to his credit several patents, international publications, and a book by MIT press. | Ashish holds a PhD in database technology from Stanford University and a Bachelor's degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, where he was awarded the President's Gold medal.
Ashish is an avid traveler and is interested in international business development and education. In addition to traveling, Ashish likes watching theater, playing racquet sports, and woodworking. | 7 |
| Swapna Gupta | Gupta | Qualcomm Ventures | , | Bengaluru | Asia | Qualcomm Ventures | 25 | As an Investment Director at Qualcomm Ventures in India, Swapna focuses on venture and growth investments in technology startups. She is responsible for the fund's Indian portfolio, investments, and pipeline. Since joining the firm in 2014, She has led investments in companies such as Shadowfax, Ninjacart,Stellapps, Moveinsync and Reverie (acquired by Reliance) among others. She is based out of Bangalore, India.
Prior to joining Qualcomm, Swapna worked as an Investment Banker at EY leading M&A and private equity fund raise, and was previously a corporate finance expert at Vodafone. | Swapna attended the National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, where she received bachelor’s degree in Electronics and communication engineering. She also has an MBA from prestigious Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi.
Swapna is very passionate about food, travel and technology. | 25 | ||
| Neeraj Gupta | Gupta | Cervin Ventures | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Cervin Ventures | 20 | A member of Class 20, Neeraj served his fellowship at Cervin Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Director Preetish Nijhawan. | Neeraj Gupta is Managing Director of Cervin Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. In this role, he is involved in all aspects of fund operations, including deal sourcing, portfolio company support, LP management, and fundraising. He is on the board or in observer positions in various companies including Nexient, Zephyr, Punchh, and ArmorText.
Most recently, Neeraj was a member of the executive team at Patni, a publicly listed IT services company where he led global sales and marketing with top-line responsibility for $700M. Prior to that, he was a General Manager at Patni with responsibility for telecom, media, and growth industries. Neeraj founded Cymbal Corporation, an IT services company focused on telecom operators that he led as CEO from its inception to successful exit to Patni Computers (NYSE: PTI). In his earlier career, Neeraj held engineering and product management positions at Octel (acquired by Lucent) and Genesys Telecom (acquired by Alcatel). He has had significant global experience including stints in the UK and India. | Neeraj has bachelor’s degree in electronics and electrical engineering from Panjab University in India and master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama. | 20 |
| Victor Gutwein | Gutwein | M25 Group | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | M25 Group | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Victor served his fellowship at M25 under the mentorship of the 50 South Capital’s Trey Hart (Class 20). | Victor founded M25 in 2015 to help fill a gap in the venture capital market: early-stage tech startups in the Midwest. Using an analytics-based, “index-like” model, he quickly invested in over 20 tech startups and turned his $1M angel fund into an $11M micro-VC with over 40 LPs participating as of mid-2016. Now, with 37 investments and counting, M25 is becoming the hub for access to top Midwest startups and a great partner for entrepreneurs and VCs across the region.
Before M25, Victor worked in corporate retail in both the fashion and e-commerce industries in a wide variety of cross-functional roles, ranging from marketing to merchandising, to international and omnichannel retailing.
Victor has a passionate history with startups that includes a vending machine business and kick scooter company, along with being on the board of the University of Chicago’s first student-run venture fund. He has also served as an industry chair and was the youngest member of Hyde Park Angels, the most active angel group in the Midwest. | Victor grew up in northwestern Indiana in a family of multigenerational farmers. He attended the University of Chicago and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics.
Victor lives with his wife on Chicago’s South Side. He actively serves as a board member of Living Hope Church and regularly volunteers at his wife’s nonprofit, Familyhood Ministries. He is very active in sports—including marathons, triathlons, biking, and tennis—and loves backpacking, traveling, and playing board games. | 22 |
| Hernando Guzman | Guzman | XB Ventures | Mexico | Mexico State, | Huixquilucan | Latin America | Latin Idea Ventures | 16 | As a member of Class 16, Hernando served his fellowship at Latin Idea Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Partner Alex Rossi (Mentor Class 14). | Hernando is a passionate entrepreneur and investor. He currently serves as a managing partner and is a co-founder of XB Ventures, and is also an angel investor. XB Ventures is Mexico-based VC fund manager that invests in early-stage startups with high-impact models, high growth potential, innovative components, and high-potential founder and management teams. XB Ventures invests in startups that are already operating in international markets, and for which the Mexican market represents an important business opportunity, or for which the Mexican market represents an opportunity for technological development, cost reduction, and highly specialized labor advantages. XB Ventures also invests in top-performer Mexican startups with potential for growth and expansion into other markets.
Before XB Ventures, Hernando was with Latin Idea Ventures, which he joined as an associate in 2010. Latin Idea is a Mexico-based private equity fund manager whose mission is to empower Mexican entrepreneurs to build, finance, and operate technology-related business in the Mexican market. Hernando was involved in the sourcing, due diligence, and structuring of investment opportunities. He was also actively involved in the optimization of operational, administrative and financial processes, and on the implementation of administrative and corporate governance best practices for portfolio companies TecnoIdea (niche sportscar manufacturer), Saber Lite (cleantech lighting), ScreenCast (cinema advertisement), and Interfactura (electronic invoicing and collaboration). Previously, Hernando founded a search fund in Mexico where he launched a high-tech and a retail startup. He also led the restructuring efforts of a privately held company. From 2001 to 2005 Hernando worked as a consultant for Accenture and BearingPoint where he successfully managed consulting projects throughout Mexico for leading manufacturing, oil, and gas companies. | Hernando holds an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He graduated, with Honors, from Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City with a BS in mechanical and electrical engineering. He is fluent in Spanish and English. Born in Mexico City, Hernando is an avid marathon runner and is a lecturer at Universidad Iberoamericana’s Industrial Engineering School. | 16 |
| Jan Habermann | Habermann | Credo Ventures | Czech Republic | , | Prague 5 | Europe | Credo Ventures | 19 | Jan performed his fellowship at Credo Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Partner Ondrej Bartos. He is a member of Class 19. | Jan Habermann is a founding partner of Credo Ventures, a Central European early-stage, technology-oriented firm based in Prague, Czech Republic. As a Partner, Jan is responsible for building his pipeline of deals and monitoring and supporting his portfolio companies and he also supervises the fund operations and reporting to limited partners.
Jan is interested in early-stage, B2B-oriented companies using internet and technologies to provide unique services to their customers. In particular he is passionate about ad-tech, media, and data and analytics. He is a Board observer at TVBeat, a company providing real-time TV audience measurement to pay-TV platforms, broadcasters, and media buyers. | Jan is a graduate of University of Economics in Prague. He holds a Master's degree in finance with specialties in financial management and business combinations.
Jan is a passionate aviator and certified flight instructor and in his spare time gives ground and flight instruction to student pilots. | 19 |
| Sylwia Hadaj | Hadaj | Evolution Equity Partners | Switzerland | , | Zurich | Europe | Evolution Equity Partners | 24 | As a member of Class 24, Sylwia is serving her fellowship at Evolution Equity Partners under the mentorship of Richard Seewald (Class 16), Founder and Managing Partner. | Sylwia is a Principal at Evolution Equity Partners, focused on sourcing and monitoring investment opportunities across technology sectors with a specific focus on enterprise software. Sylwia has over a decade of experience in private equity, corporate finance, and investment management gained while working for family offices and boutique financial advisory firms in Spain and Switzerland. She advised on numerous M&A transactions, including turnaround situations, and debt and equity offerings across a diverse set of industries including retail, semiconductor, technology, renewable energy, and infrastructure. Responsible for post-acquisition management, she implemented financial and operating improvements, working closely with management teams and boards. | Sylwia earned an MS in international finance from the joint program of IEB, the London School of Economics Political Science, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds an MA in economics from the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. | 24 |
| Holly Hagens | Hagens | Scout Venture Partners | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Domain Associates | 05 | Holly Hagens is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 5 and served her fellowship under mentor Brian Dovey at Domain Associates in Princeton, New Jersey. | Holly is the founder of Scout Venture Partners, providing a range of services to early-stage life science companies as well as leading venture investment firms with a focus on medical devices and specialty pharmaceuticals. During her venture career, Holly has been involved in a broad range of successful life science companies, including Nanostream, NuVasive, Northstar Neuroscience, Orquis Medical, Pharmion, and Xcel Pharmaceuticals. She has been involved in venture investments totaling over $100 million of equity capital, including two of the largest medical device venture deals ever completed.
Previously, Holly was a Vice President at AEA Investors in New York City, where she led both growth equity and buyout investment for prospective life science companies. Her responsibilities at AEA included building the life science practice within the firm; screening and sourcing potential investment opportunities; negotiating and managing various aspects of the due diligence process; and working closely with management teams as an active board participant. Prior to AEA, Holly was a Kauffman Fellow at Domain Associates, a venture capital firm focused on early stage life science investments. Her previous experience includes working as an investment analyst at Apax Partners (formerly Patricof & Co.) as a member of the healthcare team and also as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley. | Holly received an AB in economics and international commerce from Brown University, where she was a four-year varsity soccer player. She has an MBA in healthcare systems and entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School, where she was awarded a Kaiser Foundation scholarship. She is the recent mother of a boy, Tyler Sisitsky. | 5 |
| Jonathan Hakakian | Hakakian | SoundBoard Angel Fund | United States | New Jersey, | Morristown | NY/CT | SoundBoard Angel Fund | 19 | Having served his fellowship at SoundBoard Angel Fund, Jonathan was mentored by Richard Magid, co-founder and member of the Board of Advisors. He is a member of Class 19. | Jonathan Hakakian is Managing Director of SoundBoard Angel Fund, which he co-founded in 2012 in order to build a community of experienced entrepreneurs to formally invest in early-stage companies outside the major city centers.
The fund was born from Jonathan’s involvement in the Mid-Atlantic startup scene (Washington, DC to NYC), along with his experience in coaching entrepreneurs and consulting into their organizations. From his extensive knowledge of the entrepreneurial journey and general business strategy, he has been able to work with entrepreneurs to structure atypical agreements and provide innovators with a valuable network of investors. | Jonathan is a graduate of the George Washington University where he received a BBA, concentrating in finance with a minor in Spanish. He is also certified in meeting facilitation and conducts a number of leadership development seminars.
Jonathan maintains a position as an active advisor to his family’s business, the largest high-end flooring retailer in New Jersey, J&S Designer Flooring. | 19 |
| Justin Hall | Hall | Golden Gate Ventures | Singapore | , | Asia | Golden Gate Ventures | 20 | Justin is a member of Class 20 and served his fellowship at Golden Gate Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Director Vinnie Lauria (Class 17). | Justin is Partner at Golden Gate Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund based in Singapore that invests across Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Justin manages the firm’s existing portfolio while sourcing investments across the Asia-Pacific region (APAC). In addition, he is director for Golden Gate Ventures Annex Fund, focused on follow-on funding for existing portfolio companies.
Justin is also a co-founder of numerous community-building events, including SuperHappyDevHouseSG and WalkAboutSG. He is a board observer at Hyperactiv and an adviser to Shoppr. Before Golden Gate Ventures, Justin was an Account Manager for Rakuten LinkShare Corporation, based in New York, and managed online e-commerce sales for prominent web-based retailers and service providers. | Justin is a scholar from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (part of the National University of Singapore), having specialized in entrepreneurship policy. He graduated with First Class Honours from Trinity College, Dublin, majoring in history and political science.
Justin is a New York transplant and fitness fanatic, as well as a huge fan of chicken rice and kopi gau. | 20 | |
| Eric Hallstein | Hallstein | Nature Conservancy | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Omidyar Network | 15 | As a graduated member of Class 15, Eric began his fellowship at the Omidyar Network under the mentorship of Managing Partner Matt Bannick, and continued it at CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund. | Eric Hallstein, economist and director of conservation investments, works at the confluence of economics, finance and conservation science for the Nature Conservancy California.
Previously, Eric was a Venture Partner with the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, bringing his diverse background in business, academia, and technology to his work helping talented entrepreneurs build disruptive cleantech companies. Earlier, Eric served as a Director of Investments at Omidyar Network and as a Project Leader for the Boston Consulting Group. Eric has also held cleantech-related academic positions with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pacific Institute, the Native American Renewable Energy Education Program, and the University of California, Berkeley. Eric caught the entrepreneurial bug during his doctoral work at the University of California Berkeley when he led consumer research and advanced web analytics for the award-winning startup GoodGuide (safety, health, and greenness information aimed at household consumers), which secured a venture-backed spinout from the University. | Eric earned his PhD from the University of California Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. He also holds dual MS degrees in Environmental & Civil Engineering and Energy & Resources. Eric is a graduate of Harvard University.
Eric has published on energy policy, trade, and consumer behavior in popular press and top journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. | 15 |
| Mamoon Hamid | Hamid | Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | US Venture Partners | 11 | A member of Class 11, Mamoon served his fellowship under Chris Rust at USVP. He now serves as a mentor to Ashley Carroll and Brigette Lau, both of Class 21. | Mamoon joined Kleiner Perkins in August 2017, as a General Partner and Managing Member. He invests in early-stage tech startups, with a focus on enterprise software
Before KPCB, Mamoon was the co-founder of Social Capital, a stage-agnostic fund focused on entrepreneurs in healthcare, education, financial services, and internet technologies. The firm's mission is to advance humanity by solving the world’s hardest problems. Previously Mamoon was a Partner at USVP investing primarily in business and consumer services software companies. Mamoon led or co-led USVP's investments in Act-On Software, Box.net, Castlight Health, Supplyframe, and Yammer and also represented USVP as a board member for these companies. He was an advisor at Yelp since its inception and worked closely with Optichron (acquired by Netlogic for $200m). Prior to joining USVP, Mamoon spent 8 years in various engineering and marketing roles at Xilinx. During his tenure, he was responsible for defining and implementing sales and marketing strategies that grew the company's consumer electronics and automotive market segment revenues five-fold to $100M in a span of three years. Mamoon also brings experience from having worked for Deutsche Bank. | Mamoon holds a BS in electrical engineering from Purdue University, an MS from Stanford University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Mamoon was also a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 11.
A native of Pakistan, Mamoon grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, where he developed his love for playing, watching and coaching soccer. Mamoon is multi-lingual in German, Urdu and Hindi. | 11 |
| Yousef Hammad | Hammad | BECO Capital | United Arab Emirates | , | Dubai | Middle East | BECO Capital | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Yousef served his fellowship at BECO Capital under the mentorship of Managing Partner Amir Farha. | Yousef is a Managing Partner with BECO Capital, a Dubai-based venture capital firm. Yousef is in charge of managing investment opportunities from deal sourcing to closing, as well as post-acquisition management and support of portfolio companies.
Yousef sits on the board of directors at Bayzat, a healthcare insurance comparison and management platform, as well as at Duplays, a sports league and event management company that leverages technology to connect players and efficiently manage sports facilities. As an individual, Yousef is also on the board of Chemya, a chemicals and oils trading company that leverages the unused capacity of Saudi-based manufacturers to replace international brands with a branding and marketing approach. Prior to joining BECO Capital, Yousef held various roles with General Electric, most recently as a Commercial Operation Director for GE’s aviation business, responsible for managing sales campaigns for Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and earlier, in the GE & Mubadala $5B joint venture. He co-founded multiple businesses in Saudi Arabia: Cafea Arab, an artistic and social space cafe; Eventana, a corporate event management firm; and Chemya, an industrial chemicals distributor. Yousef has also been an active angel investor over the past several years, investing in multiple startups, regionally and internationally. | Yousef is a graduate, with Honors, of King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (Saudi Arabia), the top-ranked university in the Middle East. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics. | 21 |
| Elizabeth Han | Han | SV Life Sciences | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Boston/Northeast | SV Life Sciences | 20 | Elizabeth is a member of Class 20 and served her fellowship at SV Life Sciences under the mentorship of Elizabeth Campbell and Tom Flynn. | Elizabeth is an Associate at SV Life Sciences, a life sciences and healthcare venture capital and growth equity firm based in Boston, MA. In this role, she is involved in all aspects of the investment process, from sourcing to investing to portfolio management.
Elizabeth specializes in healthcare services and technology investments. Her areas of interest include data analytics, telehealth, networks, and wearable devices, having developed an investment thesis on healthcare technology based on her experiences as a former management consultant in healthcare and work with healthcare tech startups. Prior to SV Life Sciences, Elizabeth was an associate at Hyde Park Angels and Hyde Park Venture Partners in Chicago, where she identified and assessed early-stage investment opportunities in the Midwest. Elizabeth also served as a D4Lab and Healthcare Lab Fellow during business school, developing ways to measure outcomes across surgeries and apps for patient engagement. | Elizabeth earned an MBA in entrepreneurship and finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude from UCLA, receiving her BA in business economics and accounting.
Elizabeth is passionate about the fusion of ideas across sectors and co-organizes an intimate TEDx conference in Menlo Park, California every year. She also enjoys exploring themes on curated experiences and discovery, especially those related to food. | 20 |
| Jeffrey Harbach | Harbach | Kauffman Fellows | United States | California, | Palo Alto | TX/South Central | Central Texas Angel Network | 16 | Jeff served his fellowship at the Central Texas Angel Network under the mentorship of Rick Timmins. He is a member of Class 16. | As President of Kauffman Fellows, Jeff Harbach leads the team in delivering a world-class experience for each Fellow, providing leading-edge content around capital formation, and creating networking opportunities to help Fellows maximize their personal and professional development. As a Fellow from Class 16, he has brought a unique perspective and passion for the organization to the team since he joined as Managing Director for recruitment and class design in June 2014.
Jeff has been an entrepreneur and investor since 2002, and was Executive Director of the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN), based out of Austin, TX, from 2011–2013. He has led multiple startups, including two 7-Eleven stores, a luxury furniture store and interior design firm, a golf destination club, and a private country club golf network. He was also an angel investor himself with the Vegas Valley Angels. | Jeff holds a BS in business management/information systems from Brigham Young University and an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where he served as the Director of the Venture Fellows program and the co-founder of Texas Venture Labs.
He is married to his sweetheart and has four beautiful daughters, with whom he spends much of his time away from work. Jeff is also an ecclesiastical leader in his church and spends 15+ hours each week serving the members of the congregation. He enjoys all sports and outdoor activities, particularly golf, tennis, and running. | 16 |
| Vishal Harnal | Harnal | 500 Startups | Singapore | , | Singapore | Asia | 500 Startups | 22 | Vishal served his fellowship at 500 Startups as a member of Class 22. His mentors were Hian Goh (Class 20), Founding Partner of NSI Ventures, as well as 500 Startups Managing Partner Khailee Ng. | Vishal is a General Partner at 500 Startups, a global venture capital firm and ecosystem builder headquartered in Silicon Valley. 500 has invested in over 1700 companies across 60 countries from a family of 14 funds over the past 7 years.
Vishal is based in Singapore; with his expertise, he co-leads 500’s investments and operations in Southeast Asia through the 500 Durians Funds. Vishal has been investing in the region for over 2 years; in that time, he has built 500 Startups to become a renowned and active early-stage SEA investor, with over 150 portfolio companies in 8 countries. Prior to joining 500, Vishal practiced law for 5 years at a top law firm, specializing in international investment-related dispute resolution. In that role, he advised and represented conglomerates and governments on some of the world’s most complex, high-stakes, sensitive issues and disputes, both commercial and political. Vishal is also no stranger to entrepreneurship, having founded and built an education skills training company while still in university, well before he was familiar with the words “venture” and “startup.” | Vishal attended the National University of Singapore and received a Bachelor of Laws, with Honors, from the university’s Faculty of Law. He was also a member of the inaugural class of Stanford University’s Venture Capital Unlocked program, jointly organized with 500 Startups. | 22 |
| Rafa Haro | Haro | Cometa | , | Mexico City | Latin America | Cometa | 25 | Rafael is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Cometa (formerly VARIV Capital). Founded in 2012, Cometa is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies doing business in Spanish-speaking markets worldwide. Some investments within Cometa's portfolio include $1BN+ companies like Cabify and Wallapop, post-series B platforms like Bitso, Conekta, Gaia and Kueski, and global Hispanic fintech players like Bnext and Welcome Technologies. He currently serves as Board Member of AMEXCAP (the Mexican Private Equity and Venture Capital Association) where he is the Chairman of the Venture Capital Committee.
Rafael teaches a fintech course for undergraduate students at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM), Mexico's most renowned business school. He is also Co-Founder of Lifedots, a New York-based software company. Before Cometa and Lifedots, Rafael was an investment-banking associate in the M&A Group at JPMorgan in their London office, an associate attorney at the New York law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, and a consultant in international trade at SAI, a consultancy in Mexico City. | Rafael studied law at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, specialized in international law at the Universite Pantheon-Assas in Paris and the Universite Jean Moulin in Lyon, has an MBA from NYU's Stern School of Business in New York with coursework at Peking University in China, and specializations in private equity and venture capital from Harvard Business School.
He speaks English, Spanish and French fluently, as well as basic Portuguese. | 25 | ||
| Joanna Harries | Harries | Endeavor Global | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Endeavor Global | 17 | Joanna is a member of Class 17 and served her fellowship at Endeavor Global under the mentorship of Endeavor's President, Fernando Fabre (Class 14), and Matt Harries, Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures. | Joanna is Endeavor's Vice President for the U.S. and Canada. In this role, she is responsible for establishing and growing Endeavor’s presence in these countries. This includes leading expansion, supporting existing affiliate operations as well as managing the global pre- and post-selection experience for entrepreneurs. In 2013, she launched Endeavor’s first U.S. affiliate in Miami. Joanna joined Endeavor in January 2010 to head Endeavor’s expansion in the Middle East and North Africa. She is responsible for the launch of Endeavor Lebanon, Endeavor Saudi Arabia, and Endeavor Morocco. Prior to joining Endeavor, Joanna spent six years with Unilever North America in brand management, brand development and sales. She was awarded an Acumen Fellowship in 2009, and worked in Mumbai on market access solutions for a social enterprise delivering emergency medical services. Joanna is based in New York City. She serves on the World Economic Forum’s Gender Parity Task Force and is a board member for Unltd USA. | She earned her BBA and MBA degrees from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council. | 17 |
| Matt Harrigan | Harrigan | Company Ventures | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Company Ventures | 24 | Matt is serving his fellowship at Company Ventures as a member of Class 24 under the mentorship of Chris Fralic, Board Partner at First Round Capital. | Matt is Co-founder and CEO of Company; he is also Managing Partner at Company Ventures. In 2013 Matt cofounded Grand Central Tech, a highly-competitive no-equity-fee, year-long accelerator program. By 2018 the value of curating and co-locating top tier companies had made itself clear and the decision was made to expand. GCT thus evolved into what is now Company, a 1.1 million- square-foot, multi-tenant tech campus in the heart of Manhattan. Tenants range from the firm’s community of 150 startups, to VC firms, to divisions of Fortune 500 companies. Company Ventures focuses on the startups that inhabit Company, leveraging the advantages of time and proximity to both support and evaluate the companies. In addition to his role at Company, Matt serves on the boards of The Advisory Council for NYCx, New York City’s municipal tech engagement program; and WiTNY, Women in Tech New York. Matt started his career at Booz Allen Hamilton in international economic development. His clients were primarily USAID and the World Bank, leading Matt to spend the better part of 3 years living and working in Africa: Ghana, Zimbabwe, and primarily Tanzania. After Booz, Matt worked as an innovation strategy consultant at Fahrenheit 212. From there, he moved to ESPN, overhauling the analytics infrastructure across all mobile products. | Matt is a graduate of Rice University, earning a BA in history and foreign policy studies. He currently sits on the board of the NYC Leadership Council for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Matt is a New York native and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Rebecca, and their son, Henry. He is an avid skier, and a loyal, if also laboring, Mets and Rangers fan. | 24 |
| Keith Harrington | Harrington | Novel Growth Partners | United States | Missouri, | Kansas City | MW Plains/Rockies | Kansas Bioscience Authority | 20 | Keith began his fellowship at KBA under the mentorship of CEO Duane Cantrell, and completed it at Upstart Partners. He is a member of Class 20, and mentored Lisa Feria (Class 22). | Keith is Managing Director and founder at Novel Growth Partners, a firm investing in companies that don’t fit the typical VC model. Prior to Novel, Keith founded Upstart Partners to help connect Midwestern entrepreneurs to early-stage capital and further develop the innovation ecosystem in Kansas City.
Previously, Keith was a Managing Director at Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA), a state-sponsored life sciences venture capital firm in Kansas City. In this role, Keith developed KBA’s investment thesis and led investments in healthcare and animal health. Prior to joining KBA, Keith held leadership roles in engineering, corporate development, and M&A for Birch Telecom, a telecom startup in Kansas City. Keith advises several entrepreneurs and is active in the Kansas City startup community. He serves as a TechStars mentor, serves on the selection committees for InvestMidwest and KC Digital Sandbox, and has advised entrepreneurs going through the PIPELINE entrepreneurial fellowship. Keith also serves on the board of the DARTnet Institute. | Keith earned his MBA from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Park University.
Keith serves on the Board of Advisors for the Blue Valley CAPS program, a nationally recognized, innovative high school program for high-achieving students. He also volunteers at Heart to Heart International and was named to Ingram’s Magazine’s “40 Under 40” class for 2014. When not at work, Keith relishes his time with his 12-year old son, Jack. | 20 |
| Kirby Harris | Harris | Base Ventures | United States | California, | Berkeley | Northern CA | Base Ventures | 21 | Kirby served his fellowship at Base Ventures as a member of Class 21; he was mentored by Christopher Redlitz of Transmedia Capital. | Kirby is co-founder and Partner at Base Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm based in Berkeley, California. Base Ventures has invested in 50 companies since its founding in 2012 including StyleSeat, 6sense, Mayvenn, Surf Airlines, and World View Enterprises. Prior to Base Ventures, Kirby was a Vice President at Impact Capital Management where he managed a variety of responsibilities including due diligence and investment execution.
Kirby enjoys helping entrepreneurs and acts a formal and informal adviser to a variety of young companies. He is curious about blockchain, particularly its applications in fintech and beyond. | Kirby is a graduate of California Sate University-East Bay School of Business and Economics where he earned an MBA in finance. Kirby earned his BA in marketing from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
Kirby enjoys coaching youth sports and spending time with his two wonderful daughters. | 21 |
| Stuart Harrison | Harrison | Syngenta | United States | North Carolina, | Research Triangle Park | Mid-Atlantic/SE | LSPvc | 13 | Stuart Harrison is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 13 and served his fellowship at LSP in Cambridge, MA, under the mentorship of Jorg Riesmeier and at Syngenta in Singapore. | Stuart is an experienced R&D manager and investor spanning agricultural, industrial and pharmaceutical biotechnology. Stuart is currently managing the Global Technology Platform development for Biological Assessment for Syngenta R&D, based out of Research Triangle Park (RTP) in North Carolina. Before this role, Stuart was the Head of Research and Development in Asia Pacific for Syngenta's seeds business, based in Singapore. There he was responsible for all product development activities within the region, focusing primarily on field crops and vegetables.
Stuart was previously an Investment Manager at LSP (Life Sciences Partners), a trans-Atlantic venture capital firm with offices in the Netherlands, Germany and the US. Stuart’s work in LSP’s Cambridge, MA office focused on agriculture, industrial and food biotechnology, cleantech and platform technologies. Prior to LSP, Stuart spent 10 years in academic, startup and corporate research and development, with his most significant role as a technical and project leader for seven years with Syngenta. His different roles at Syngenta spanned the spectrum of R&D and included leading successful multidisciplinary teams in both agriculture and pharmaceutical biotechnology projects in the US, UK and the Netherlands. Earlier, Stuart was a postdoctoral scientist at the John Innes Centre in the UK where he was focused on research to understand the genetics of disease resistance in legumes. | Stuart received his BSc in Biochemistry and Microbiology from the University of Queensland, Australia, and was awarded First Class Honors in his final year. He continued on and obtained his PhD in Biochemistry there. During his postgraduate studies, Stuart isolated and characterized a range of bioactive peptides which eventually led to two granted patents.
Stuart is married with two children and when not working enjoys travelling, mountain biking, hiking, snowboarding, tennis, and golf. | 13 |
| Trey Hart | Hart | 50 South Capital Advisors, LLC | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | 50 South Capital Advisors | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Trey served his fellowship at 50 South Capital Advisors under the mentorship of Bob Morgan, Managing Director of 50 South's global alternatives platform. He also served as a mentor to Victor Gutwein (Class 22) of M25 Group. | Trey Hart is a senior vice president at 50 South Capital Advisors, a subsidiary of Northern Trust. Trey is responsible for sourcing and analyzing venture capital and buyout partnership investment opportunities in the US, Europe, and Asia. He also is responsible for fundraising activities and portfolio management. In addition, Trey is responsible for leading the firm’s value-add platform in conjunction with Northern Trust’s Chief Technology Officer suite.
Trey has a particular interest in developing relationships with new emerging venture capital firms, as well as expansion-stage direct investments in the security and infrastructure spaces. He serves as a limited partner advisory board member to several venture capital firms in this capacity. He is also the founder of the Chicago Area Limited Partners Association (CALPA). | Trey is a magna cum laude graduate of Washington and Lee University and of the University of Maryland School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif. While in law school, Trey was an Associate Editor of the Maryland Law Review and worked at New Enterprise Associates, the global venture capital firm, in its Baltimore, Maryland office. Trey is a member of the University of Maryland School of Law Alumni Advisory Board, where he also teaches a course on venture capital and entrepreneurship as an adjunct faculty member. | 20 |
| Heather Hartnett | Hartnett | Human Ventures | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Human Ventures | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Heather is serving her fellowship at Human Ventures; her mentor is Hunter Walk of Homebrew. | Heather comes from a long line of entrepreneurs, and started her first company when she was 12 years old. She was buying a portfolio of domain names in the early 1990s, building business plans around each one. She has spent her career at the intersection of company building, investing, and philanthropy.
Heather serves as CEO and Partner of Human Ventures, where she leads the investment team and supports portfolio founders through the beginning stages of company creation. She was recently featured in The Information as “the new breed of VC”, and Business Insider called her “the first female-led startup studio, bringing a fresh new perspective to the tech scene.” She serves on the Leadership Council for tech:nyc, and is a mentor to both the NYC MIT Startup Studio and 1776 Accelerator. She is also a contributor to Forbes, where she uncovers impactful startups, investors, and founders of our time. Prior to Human Ventures, Heather incubated companies within City Light Capital—an impact investment fund focused on companies generating measurable social good in addition to financial returns. | Heather holds a BA in economics and business management from Maharishi University of Management (MUM), and a certificate in fundraising and development from New York University.
Heather is a founding member and sits on the Board of Directors for the David Lynch Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the prevention and eradication of traumatic stress among at-risk populations. | 23 |
| Mark Hasebroock | Hasebroock | Dundee Venture Capital | United States | Nebraska, | Omaha | MW Plains/Rockies | Dundee Venture Capital | 22 | Mark served his fellowship at Dundee Venture Capital under the mentorship of Sharon Carlton. He is a member of Class 22. | Mark is the founder of Dundee Venture Capital, an Omaha, Nebraska-based venture capital firm investing in seed-stage growth companies in the Midwest. Dundee VC’s three funds, comprising $50M in total capital, have invested in 30 companies in Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, and Boulder. He is founder of StraightShot, a local accelerator, as well as Interface Web School.
Mark is a co-founder of Omaha-based Hayneedle.com, one of the largest online retailers of home furnishings. Prior to co-founding Hayneedle, Mark was a co-founder of GiftCertificates.com.
Before his entrepreneurial pursuits, Mark was a Managing Director of the investment banking firm McCarthy Capital. | Mark received his BA from the University of Nebraska and his MBA from Creighton University.
An Omaha native, Mark and his wife Jane have 8 children and reside in the city’s Dundee neighborhood. Mark is a member of the board of directors of Children’s Hospital in Omaha; he also plays ice hockey in the Beer and Pretzel Hockey League (the six-time-champion Gold Team ☺). | 22 |
| Takaaki Hata | Hata | Miraca Holdings, Nihon Stery | Japan | , | Tokyo | Asia | Asia United Capital | 16 | A member of Class 16 | Taka is the CEO of Nihon Stery, a leading medical equipment sterilization servicing company in Japan. Nihon Stery, with over 3500 employees, aims to become the medical partner for hospitals by expanding its service lines as well as growing globally outside of Japan. Nihon Stery is a subsidiary of Miraca group a publicly listed company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Prior to Nihon Stery, Taka was co-founder and partner at Asia United Capital, a cross-border venture capital firm focusing on Japan-China growth/arbitrage opportunities based in Tokyo, Japan. Taka founded Asia United Capital in July 2011 with his long-time friend and GE colleague O Koo (China) and seeks to invest in innovative IT and consumer retail ventures. Earlier, Taka was a Partner at Globis Capital Partners (Tokyo), one of the leading independent Japanese VC firms, where he led the IT services and the retail services investment initiatives. Before becoming a venture capitalist 7 years ago, Taka worked at GE Capital (UK) integrating a newly acquired venture, i-group. He was also on the GE Corporate Audit staff (US, France, UK, Australia, China, Singapore, Philippines, & Japan) and on a global task force driving new GE initiatives, in addition to consulting, process re-engineering, internal audits, and special projects. He was at a new location, with a new team, and a new assignment every 4 months. Prior to GE, Taka worked at Mitsui & Co. managing a palm oil/fatty acid derivative joint venture in Malaysia and distributing their products globally. | Taka holds an MBA from London Business School. He holds a BA in law and politics from Gakushuin University, where he was captain of the equestrian team, leading it to Best 8 in the All-Japan equestrian games. Taka spent 6 years of his elementary days at Houston, Texas. He is now happily living in Tokyo with his wife Rieko, and newborn son Tiger Hata, and a black toy poodle “Sherlock”. He is a sports lover and plays tennis every weekend. | 16 |
| Ray Hatoyama | Hatoyama | Sozo Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Sozo Ventures | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Ray served his fellowship at Sozo Ventures under the mentorship of Sozo’s Founder and General Partner, Phil Wickham (Charter Class). | Ray is a Venture Partner at Sozo Ventures. He is highly experienced in corporate strategies for globalization, corporate governance, and innovation in IT and the entertainment industry.
In his earlier role as the Managing Director of Sanrio Co. (owner of the wildly popular Hello Kitty brand), Ray executed Sanrio’s global expansion strategy. Not only did Hello Kitty become an iconic brand worldwide, Ray also succeeded in the acquisition of a UK brand, Mr. Men Little Miss, and brought the franchise to Hollywood. As a global strategist, he saw the firm’s market cap rise from $500 million to over $6 billion in the five years after he joined the company in 2008. Ray serves on various company boards as an independent director, including LINE Corp. (the largest SNS in Japan), Pigeon Corp. (Japan’s leading childcare and nursing products company), and Transcosmos Inc. (focused on business process outsourcing in Asia). He also advises ANKI (known for Cozmo), Pokemon, UUUM, LVMH Group (Asia), and Level 5 Abby, among others. Ray is also the CEO of Hatoyama Studio, his own research and consulting arm. | Ray graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University’s School of International Politics, Economics, and Communication in Tokyo, and earned his MBA at Harvard Business School. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University.
In 2015, Ray was named as one of the 31 most successful Harvard Business School graduates by Business Insider. | 22 |
| Thomas Hawes | Hawes | Sandbox Industries | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Sandbox Industries | 15 | Tom served his fellowship under the mentorship of Matt Downs, a Managing Partner of Sandbox Industries and BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners. He graduated as a member of Class 15. | Tom Hawes is a Managing Director of the BlueCross BlueShield Venture Fund. The firm's current investment efforts are focused on the food and agriculture and healthcare sectors. Tom serves on the Boards of Directors of AbilTo, HeartFlow, ID Experts, Lumiata, Healthify, BehaveCare, Oncology Analytics, Patientco, and Phreesia. He has held board seats preivously at InVivoLink, Nexidia, and Wellspring Healthcare.
Before joining Sandbox, Tom matched at Yale School of Medicine for residency and completed his first year of medical training at Greenwich Hospital. During his medical training, he worked on clinical studies at the ISK Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and on outcomes research at the National Cancer Institute and NYMC’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department. Tom is on the National Advisory Board of the Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation. | Tom holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Brigham Young University, an MD from New York Medical College, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. | 15 |
| Julia Hawkins | Hawkins | LocalGlobe | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Universal Music Group | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Julia served her fellowship at Universal Music Group under the mentorship of David Sharpe, COO. | Julia joined LocalGlobe, an London, England-based VC firm, in 2018 as a Partner. LocalGlobe invests in UK technology firms; Julia focuses on media and HealthTech investments.
Previously, Julia was a Digital Strategy Manager at Universal Music, setting up the company’s first corporate venture arm. She joined Universal Music from BBC Worldwide, where she worked in the Central Corporate Strategy team across the portfolio of digital businesses. Prior to that, Julia was Last.fm’s 35th employee, hired to establish their commercial efforts and was there through the CBS acquisition. She started her career at Goldman Sachs in Credit Research before moving to support the Chief of Staff on cross-divisional special corporate projects, including evaluating the opportunity for Goldman Sachs in Russia and other Emerging Markets. | Julia is a graduate of London School of Economics, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in social policy and administration. | 18 |
| Daniel Heaf | Heaf | Burberry | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | BBC Worldwide | 15 | Daniel is a graduated member of Class 15. He served his fellowship at BBC Worldwide. | Daniel Heaf is Senior Vice President for Digital Commerce at the global luxury brand Burberry.
Previously, Daniel was Director of Digital at BBC Worldwide, where he was responsible for growing existing businesses as well as launching and investing in new ones. BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is a fast-growing global media and entertainment company. As digital director, Dan oversaw an international portfolio of businesses including BBC.com which attracts 54m global visitors a month and has, since its launch in 2007, attracted 600 global advertisers. The division also has a portfolio of category-leading websites including lonelyplanet.com and topgear.com. Daniel has a particular interest in business to consumer web service and product companies. He was a board member at MyBuilder.com, the UK's largest online marketplace for consumers to find great builders. Prior to joining BBC Worldwide he ran 4iP, Channel 4’s digital investment fund for early stage UK technology companies. Daniel was the lead on 12 investments in a 2 year period. As an individual, Daniel is also a non-executive director for Newspaper Club and Patients Know Best. Newspaper Club is a fast moving UK startup that allows users to create and print beautiful newspapers. Patients Know Best is a medical informatics company based in Cambridge, England. | Daniel is a graduate of The University of Nottingham’s School of Geography, where he was student of the year two years in a row and university graduate of the year in his final year. He holds a 1st class bachelor's degree. His executive education includes time at Harvard and Ashridge business schools. In 2010, he was named one of Wired Magazine’s Wired100. | 15 |
| Kiran Hebbar | Hebbar | Social Tables | United States | District of Columbia, | Washington | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Valhalla Partners | 11 | Kiran served his fellowship under mentors Art Marks and Scott Frederick at Valhalla Partners in Vienna, VA as a member of Fellows Class 11. | Kiran Hebbar is COO at the Saas startup Social Tables, which provides event planning and management software. Kiran leads products, engineering, and finance, and is responsible for scaling the growing company.
Kiran previously spent over a decade at Valhalla Partners, and remains involved as a partner with the firm. At Valhalla, Kiran focused on companies spanning the domains of software, Internet, and technology-enabled services, and served on the boards of Adaptly, Fishbowl Marketing, PlaceIQ, Shareablee, ShopSocially, and Zonoff. He also worked closely with Custora, Vistar Media, and Vubiquity (formerly Avail-TVN). Before his fellowship, Kiran was the Director of Product Management at RichFX, a venture-backed rich media applications company targeting online retailers. While there, Kiran orchestrated the conceptualization, development, and market launch of the company’s SaaS platform and marketed products to 200 online retail customers. Before RichFX, Kiran was a Product Manager at Siebel Systems where he was given responsibility for managing CRM products for the high-tech, semiconductor and industrial manufacturing verticals. He began his career as a software engineer at Bentley Systems, where he led the development team for mechanical CAD software products while also managing offshore development partners. Kiran also worked at Mellon Ventures in New York. | Kiran has an MBA from the Wharton School, where he was chairman of the Wharton India Economic Forum. He earned a Bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and an MS from the University of Maryland, both in Mechanical Engineering. Kiran is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a non-profit organization promoting entrepreneurship.
Kiran lives in Vienna, Virginia with his wife and two children. | 11 |
| Staffan Helgesson | Helgesson | Creandum | Sweden | , | STOCKHOLM | Europe | Creandum | 10 | Staffan is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 10 and served his fellowship under mentor Phil Whickham at Creandum in Stockholm, Sweden. Completing the circle, Staffan is now himself a mentor to Fredrik Cassel, Class 12. | Staffan is a General Partner at Creandum in Stockholm, Sweden, and has worked in the Nordic venture industry since the 1990s. He brings significant company-building experience, drawing lessons from the many ventures with which he’s been associated. Staffan has set up two venture firms and been involved in over 30 Technology investments, across all sectors. Staffan is currently on the board of Edgeware, Norstel and Xtract. He is Chairman of the Board of the Nordic Venture Network.
Before founding Creandum, Staffan was the founder and Managing Partner of the VC firm Startupfactory. He also brings extensive international management experience from McKinsey & Company, Procter & Gamble and IKEA, working in the Nordics, Europe and Asia. | Staffan holds a BSc degree in Managerial Economics from the University of Lund where he graduated top of his class.
Staffan is active in fencing, skiing and sailing. He has been national team player, national team coach and the President of the Swedish Field Hockey Association, as well as an advisor to the Swedish Fencing Association and the Swedish Olympic Committee. He has also won the European Cup Championship for Skerry cruisers. | 10 |
| Estela Hernandez | Hernandez | Arrowhead Innovation Fund | United States | New Mexico, | Las Cruces | Southwest | Arrowhead Center | 20 | Estela served her fellowship at Arrowhead Innovation Fund GP, Inc. under the mentorship of Ebetuel (Beto) Pallares (Class 18); she is a member of Class 20. | Estela is the Fund Manager, President, and Chairman of Arrowhead Innovation Fund, a venture capital fund based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Arrowhead Innovation Fund is focused on seed- and early-stage investments to commercialize promising technologies developed by affiliates of New Mexico State University (NMSU).
Estela has a particular interest in seed- and early-stage companies. She launched a business design strategy firm in Las Cruces in 2012, working at the intersection of design thinking and business strategy, helping entrepreneurs and startups design innovative business models and compelling customer experiences using new frameworks and tools. She served as a board advisor to the Las Cruces Green Chamber of Commerce, a organization that works to foster the success of local economies in New Mexico and promote businesses committed to the triple bottom line. Estela is an Enterprise Advisor at Arrowhead Center where she teaches design thinking innovation and advises clients of the Arrowhead Techology Incubator and Studio G student business accelerator, preparing them for the due diligence process. | Prior to earning an MBA in design strategy from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Estela earned a Bachelor of Community Health from NMSU and studied interior design with a focus on healthcare facility design at The Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago. | 20 |
| Jaclyn Hester | Hester | Foundry Group | , | Boulder | MW Plains/Rockies | Foundry Group | 25 | Jaclyn enjoys all things venture. She works closely with early-stage venture capital fund managers and startup founders as they launch and scale their businesses.
Jaclyn is a Principal on Foundry Group’s investment team and is active across the portfolio. She helped launch the firm's partner fund strategy and works closely with their partner fund managers, while also leading new fund investments. She has built an extensive network of early-stage venture capital investors across North America and loves helping emerging managers with fundraising, strategy, and firm-building. Jaclyn also helps manage the firm's direct investments, working with existing portfolio companies and making new investments, typically alongside Foundry's partner funds. Prior to joining Foundry, Jaclyn practiced corporate law at Perkins Coie LLP and Baker & Hostetler LLP. As an attorney, she advised startups and private equity firms as well as buyers and sellers in M&A transactions. She also worked closely with her husband and his family on their SaaS startup, FareHarbor (acq’d by Booking.com), from the earliest stages through acquisition. | Jaclyn earned a JD/MBA from University of Colorado, Boulder, and a BBA from Emory University. During graduate school, she worked with founders and other entrepreneurial leaders in her role as Executive Director of Startup Colorado.
Jaclyn lives in Boulder with her husband and their two children (one daughter, one black lab). With Red Rocks in the summer and skiing in the winter, this East Coast native is thrilled to call Colorado home. | 25 | ||
| Miki Hirai | Hirai | Independent | Japan | , | Tokyo | Asia | Univeristy of Tokyo Edge Capital | 16 | Miki served her fellowship at the University of Tokyo Edge Capital under the mentorship of Managing Partner Tomotaka Goji as a member of Class 16. | Most recently, Miki Hirai was a Principal with the University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC), where she focused on seed- and early-stage information technology investments. Miki authored an article in the Kauffman Fellows Report about UTEC's work, entitled Introducing a Global Ecosystem for Japanese Technology Entrepreneurs: The University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC).
Before UTEC, Miki was an intern at TTP Ventures (UK), and before that worked at Nomura Securities in Japan and the US where her specialty was IPOs, focused on the technology industry. Her responsibilities included analysis of companies’ financial and historical data, due diligence, and pricing. She met with and evaluated 300 venture-backed companies, advised on financial and business plans, and completed several IPOs. Working with these passionate and idealistic venture-backed companies sparked Miki’s interest in the venture ecosystem in Japan, and how she can bring a western approach to the more traditional Japanese environment. She believes that cross-border collaboration among VCs is a critical element for fueling innovation. Miki’s team, CamGaN, won the first prize from the Cambridge Business plan competition and Intel Technology Challenge in Europe. While at Cambridge, she organized several international technology events as the head of the external relationship team of the Cambridge University Technology and Enterprise Club. She also organized workshops for entrepreneurs as a facilitator of the Ignite Programme at Cambridge's Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning. | Miki completed her MBA in the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. She has a BA from the University of Tokyo in South European Literature and Languages. She was awarded a full scholarship for top academic performance and the Italian Government Scholarship to study in Italy. In her free time, Miki enjoys travel, fishing, opera, and Italian culinary arts. | 16 |
| Sofia Hmich | Hmich | Future Positive Capital | , | Gagny | Europe | Future Positive Capital | 25 | Sofia is Founder of Future Positive Capital, a new venture firm seeking Europe’s boldest entrepreneurs who use advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, synthetic biology, genetics, and other deep technologies to solve problems such as feeding the world’s growing population sustainably, tackling climate change and coping with an ageing population. Her investments includes Ynsect – the global leader in alternative protein supply, Meatable, who are pioneering the next generation of lab-grown meat, BioBeats, the world’s first unified computational platform for preventative mental health and What3Words – the global multi-award winning location technology company, providing unique 3-word identifiers for any location.
At the intersection of entrepreneurship and investment, her career has encompassed tech innovation throughout with stints at Index Ventures, Europe’s top venture capital firm, and Deezer, the worldwide digital music service, where she was tasked with raising investment round funds of $130M before becoming the business’s Global Strategy Manager, coordinating international expansion and opening 15 worldwide hubs. Sofia has been recognized by Forbes as “30 Under 30”, by the World Economic Forum as a “Global Shaper", by the French government as expert in defining France 2020, 10 years ago and top 100 BAME in tech in the UK. | Sofia earned a degree in Entrepreneurship at HEC Paris. | 25 | ||
| Jeff Hoogendam | Hoogendam | 360Connect | United States | Texas, | Austin | TX/South Central | Intersouth Partners | Charter | Jeff is a member of the Kauffman Fellows Charter Class and served his fellowship at Intersouth Partners under the mentors Mitch Mumma and Dennis Dougherty. | Jeff Hoogendam is the CEO of 360Connect, a top B2B online customer acquisition and lead generation company. 360Connect serves in a marketing capacity for over 700 customers in 40 different B2B industry segments such as business VoIP services, business copiers, and construction. Jeff is also involved in 360Partners, a digital ad agency focused on paid and organic search marketing.
Before 360, Jeff was Co-Founder & CEO of venture-backed startup SmartPrice.com. SmartPrice helps businesses and consumers compare, select, and manage telecommunication services. Jeff co-founded the company while he was an entrepreneur-in-residence at SSM Ventures. Previously, Jeff was CEO of InfoGlide Software, a leading provider of fraud detection and alias identification software solutions for insurance companies. In this role, he oversaw the launch of the company’s first products, secured the first customers, and raised $10 million in additional capital. InfoGlide was acquired by FICO in 2013. Jeff also has over four years of experience in the venture capital industry, as a partner with Intersouth Partners, an early-stage firm. Earlier in his career, Jeff served as a technology consultant for Accenture. | Jeff earned his MBA, with Honors, from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and his BS in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University. Jeff speaks at numerous technology and marketing strategy functions, and currently serves on the boards of several startup companies in the Austin area, including SingleCups, LLC.
Jeff is married with four children, and in his free time enjoys skiing, playing basketball, and restoring classic Ford Mustangs. Jeff lives in Austin, Texas. | 0 |
| Roxanne Horesh | Horesh | Union Tech Ventures | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | Union Tech Ventures | 22 | Roxanne is a member of Class 22 and served her fellowship at Union Tech Ventures under the mentorship of Boaz Dinte, co-founder of Qumra Capital. | For the last four years Roxanne has worked with her family’s business, The Union Group, which is the exclusive distributor of Toyota, Lexus, and Hino vehicles in Israel and is the exclusive franchisee in the country for the Swedish fashion brand H&M. Roxanne has been active in these investments, and through them has gained experience in a diverse range of asset classes, including public and private equity as well as fixed income. She has spearheaded Union Tech Ventures, the technology investment arm of The Union Group, which focuses on technology investments in the mobility sector.
Roxanne sits on the boards of several Union Tech Ventures portfolio companies: Inuitive, Anagog, and Guardian Optical Technologies. Roxanne’s work has taken her to a number of geographies and work environments. Prior to her investment career, Roxanne worked in policy at the European Commission in Brussels and as a journalist for Al Jazeera English in Doha during the height of the Arab uprisings. | Roxanne completed her undergraduate degree in history and Middle Eastern studies at Brown University; she continued her studies at Oxford University and received a Master of Philosophy in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. Most recently Roxanne earned her MBA from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya Israel, with an exchange program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Schoool.
Roxanne is active in politics and is a supporting member in the Movement of Quality Government in Israel that works to promote anti-corruption activities. She is also involved in the modern art scene and helps to curate exhibits of emerging Israeli artists at an art gallery in the heart of Tel Aviv. | 22 |
| Kenneth Horne | Horne | Symic Biomedical | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | TauTona Group | 17 | Ken is a member of Class 17 and served his fellowdhip at TauTona Group under the mentorship of Mark Foley.
Ken was awarded the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award, recognizing his outstanding service to his class and the Kauffman Fellows Program. | Ken has 12 years of experience in the life science industry as an executive, entrepreneur and investor. He joined the San Francisco-based biotechnology company Symic Biomedical as CEO in 2014.
Earlier, Ken was a Vice President and a founding member of TauTona Group, a healthcare venture capital firm started in 2010 and based in Menlo Park, California. TauTona Group combines an incubator and operational capabilities with its funding activites. Generally, the investment philosophy is to seed early-stage when needed, and fund and operate startups in-house until a critical inflection is reached, necessitating a spin-off or facilitating an exit or partnership. In his roll, Ken is involved with all aspects of the firms activities, including investment sourcing, due diligence, incubation,and business development across all investments, and operational responsibility for one of the firm’s portfolio companies he co-founded. Aline Aesthetics was founded in 2008 and is developing a novel biomaterial, which will be initially targeting the aesthetic market. Ken is interested in all aspects of healthcare, including medical devices, pharma, and mobile health. He is particularly inclined towards working with entrepreneurs and physicians at an early stage. He currently serves on the Board of Curo Medical, a medical device startup in the Bay Area, founded by a group of doctors. TauTona Group is considering mobile health as an investment area, and Ken is currently advising numerous mobile health startups. | Ken holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He participated in the Stanford BIodesign program, which he continues to be involved in. He is slated to be an advisor to Stanford Start-X Med, an affiliated incubator for Stanford students and alumni. Ken serves as a Board member of the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, California. He is fluent in Japanese, and holds 19 issued patents in the US. | 17 |
| Greg Horowitt | Horowitt | Jun Capital Partners | United States | California, | LA JOLLA | Southern CA & Hawaii | T2 Venture Capital | 15 | As a member of Class 15, Greg served his fellowship at T2 Venture Capital under the mentorship of Leo Spiegel from Mission Ventures. | Greg Horowitt is the Managing Director of T2 Venture Capital; a seed and early stage fund focused on high impact investments in the technology and healthcare sectors. He is a serial entrepreneur, author, lecturer, and advisor to governments and economic development organizations around the world including the World Bank, U.S. State Department, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), USAID, and Aspen Institute. He is also the co-author of the best selling book on innovation, 'the Rainforest: the Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley. In addition, he is co-founder of Global CONNECT, a think tank based at the University of California, San Diego, which focuses on the development and growth of innovation economies.
Under his leadership, Global CONNECT has grown to encompass one of the world’s largest networks of innovation hubs: more than 40 programs in 20 countries. He was formerly the interim Managing Director of CONNECT, an organization which is generally credited with San Diego’s success as a technology leader. He is also a lecturer and advisor to UC San Diego’s Rady MBA Ventures Program. He has served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence for a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and was President and CEO of a venture-backed enterprise software company in Silicon Valley. Before that, he held senior executive positions with a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company. | Greg graduated with high honors in Biochemistry, (and minors in Economics and Music Performance), from the University of California, San Diego. Greg's personal interests include surfing, yoga, adventure travel, good food, and great wine. | 15 |
| Paul Hsiao | Hsiao | Canvas Venture Fund | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | New Enterprise Associates | 08 | As a member of Class 8, Paul served his fellowship under mentor Scott Sandell at New Enterprise Associates in Menlo Park, CA. | Paul is a General Partner at Canvas, where he focuses on partnering with innovators building mobile software, proprietary data graphs, and large peer networks. A seasoned entrepreneur, operator and venture investor, Paul is on a mission to find early-stage companies that are tackling big, intractable problems and driving progress in marketplaces, enterprise, education, real estate and gaming, where he has deep domain expertise.
Paul joined Canvas in May 2014 from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a global investment firm with $14 billion in assets under management. Paul spent 10 years as a partner in the firm’s Menlo Park office where he worked with 7 companies that have since gone public on the NASDAQ or NYSE and helped lead tens of companies to successful acquisitions. Some of his more noted investments include Houzz, Gaikai, Boingo, Elance-oDesk, SayMedia, and 42Floors, where he served on the boards. Before taking the plunge into the world of venture capital, Paul founded a venture-backed startup called Mazu Networks, a pioneer in network security that was built from technology developed at MIT. Today, the company provides enterprise IT organizations with the ability to manage, secure and optimize their business services. Paul went on to serve as President and later VP of Product at Mazu, before the company’s sale to Riverbed Technology in 2009. Paul began his career working in product development at medical device giant, Medtronic, and leading market entry strategy for China at McKinsey & Company. | Paul received his MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied mechanical engineering with a strong focus on product design and bioartificial liver research. | 8 |
| Jonathan Hsu | Hsu | Tribe Capital | United States | California, | Northern CA | Social Capital | 22 | A a member of Class 22, Jonathan served his fellowship at Tribe Capital under the mentorship of Phil Deutch, Managing Partner of NGP ETP and Oasis Investment Partners, and former President and COO of Social Capital. | Jonathan is one of the founding partners at Tribe Capital. Tribe Capital was started in mid-2018 with a focus on generalist early-stage venture capital and an emphasis on leveraging data in all aspects of the investment process.
Prior to Tribe Capital, Jonathan spent four years at Social Capital where he was a Partner and SVP of Quantitative Investing and Data Science. In that role Jonathan pioneered the application of data to early-stage venture across multiple activities including evaluation, sourcing, and portfolio services. Prior to joining Social Capital, Jonathan spent over four years at Facebook where he was one of the early data scientists and went on to build out the data science and analytics function for the company while also leading several large data teams focusing on many aspects of the product. Before joining Facebook, Jonathan led analytics at the social gaming company Slide which he joined via acquisition of a social utility application that he co-founded in the early days of social gaming. Prior to that, Jonathan had started his career in Product Management in web search at Microsoft. | Jonathan attended the University of California, Berkeley where he received a Bachelor of Science in engineering physics and mathematics. He went on to Stanford University where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy in physics while studying black holes and cosmological inflation in string theory.
Jonathan is a jazz guitarist and performs regularly at several venues in the San Francisco Bay Area in a variety of groups as both leader and sideman. | 22 | |
| Zheng Huang | Huang | Yu Capital | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA;Asia | ImmCapital | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Zheng served his fellowship at Yu Capital. | Zheng has spent half of his 14-year professional career working in the US, and the other half in China, giving him a unique perspective on the globalization of business and finance. He is passionate about leveraging his experiences in strategy, M&A, business development, and general management in high technology and finance to make sustainable and scalable impact.
An experienced technologist, entrepreneur, and investor, Zheng is founder and Chairman of Yu Capital, the premier end-to-end financial services firm in the United States servicing Chinese clients. The firm has become a trusted partner to Chinese investors as well as development professionals in the United States. Zheng oversees the firm’s deal flow and directs investor outreach in China and deal selection in the US. Borne out of the EB-5 immigration program in the US, Yu Capital matches qualified Chinese investors with high-growth, job-creating projects and companies in the US for investments. Yu Capital aims to bring to the US up to $500M annually in equity and debt financing through the EB-5 program. | Zheng was educated at Stanford University, with an MS in computer science, a BS in industrial engineering, and a BA in economics. He also earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Zheng serves as a Board member of the China Exploration Research Society. In his spare time, Zheng dabbles in exploration and contemporary arts. He will play basketball for work. | 20 |
| Charlotte Hubbert | Hubbert | Autism Impact Fund Connect Message | United States | Washington, | Seattle | Northwest | Accelerator Corp. | 14 | Charlotte served her fellowship at Accelerator Corporation under the mentorship of Carl Weissman as a member of Fellows Class 14. | Dr. Charlotte Hubbert is Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer with the Autism Impact Fund where she leads the Life Sciences practice. Charlotte has over fifteen years basic science research background and over ten years biotech investment experience across a broad range of sectors, therapeutic modalities, and stages. Charlotte has a proven ability to combine deep scientific expertise and business development acumen to identify innovative opportunities to drive both returns and impact. Charlotte was previously Partner and head of Gates Foundation Venture Capital, a $500mm initiative at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund where she oversaw investing in innovative technologies that supported the foundation’s programs in global health and agriculture. Notably she led investments and served on the board of directors of Synlogic (Nasdaq: SYBX), Sera Prognostics, Lodo Therapeutics, Agtech Accelerator, Vedanta, and Vir Biotechnology (Nasdaq: VIR). Charlotte currently serves on the BODs of Entrinsic Health and Galileo Biosystems.
Prior to joining the foundation, Charlotte was a vice president at H.I.G. BioVentures, investing broadly in healthcare. Charlotte began her career in early stage biotech, investing at Accelerator Corporation, where she was part of the founding team and oversaw management of five companies: Oncofactor, Groove Biopharma, Acylin Therapeutics, Xori, and Pharmselex. | Charlotte earned a B.S. in microbiology from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in pharmacology and cancer biology from Duke University for which she received the prestigious Harold Weintraub Award. She did her post-doctoral work in stem cells and regenerative medicine at the Institute for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at the UW. Charlotte is a member of the Kauffman Society of Fellows (Class 14) and serves on the BOD of Life Science Washington, and the steering committees of the Fred Hutch Cancer Institute’s Evergreen Fund, UW Innovation Roundtable and Columbia University Lab-to-Market initiative. Charlotte has been honored as a Fierce Woman in Biopharma 2016 by FiercePharma, and as a leading Woman in Life Sciences 2016 by Life Science Washington. | 14 |
| Forsan Hussein | Hussein | Zaitoun Ventures | Israel | , | Tel Aviv-Jaffa | Southern CA & Hawaii;Middle East | Invest4Good | 19 | Forsan served his fellowship at Invest4Good under the mentorship of Managing Partner Ami Dror. He is a member of Class 19.
Forsan is the recipient of the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award for outstanding service to Kauffman Fellows during his time in the program. | Forsan is the cofounder and Managing Partner of Tel Aviv-based Zaitoun Ventures—a values-driven, hybrid investment company and startup factory that is particularly interested in partnering with founding teams that bring together Jewish and Arab entrepreneurs.
Forsan is the chairman of Biological Signal Processing (BSP), a publicly traded company on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and a board member of IceCure Medical. He also serves on the board of directors of a number of startups and several non-profits. He previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Jerusalem International YMCA and the Three Arches Company, and worked as an investment consultant for Capital Group Companies in Los Angeles. As a social entrepreneur at the age of 10, Forsan has created several international organizations that promote Middle East peace and foster regional cooperation. | Forsan holds a BA from Brandeis University, an MA in international economics and international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Forsan is a professional public speaker, fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, and passionate about agriculture and farming. He is a drummer, plays soccer and tennis, and enjoys traveling, cooking, and wine. | 19 |
| Victor Hwang | Hwang | Kauffman Foundation | United States | Missouri, | Kansas City | Northern CA | T2 Venture Capital | 12 | Victor is a member of Fellows Class 12 and served his fellowship at T2 Venture Capital under the mentorship of Brad Jones of Redpoint Ventures. | Victor is vice president of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation. The Foundation supports entrepreneurs starting and building businesses, leaders seeking guidance in the innovation economy, and cities and communities growing competitive jobs and sustained business creation. This work includes education for entrepreneurs; investing in entrepreneurial programs that can scale and create impact; and investing in metropolitan areas to create vibrant ecosystems that help companies start and grow.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Victor was co-founder and CEO of Liquidity, a Silicon Valley venture-backed nanotech firm that makes filters for safe drinking water. He led the company through first product launch, early revenues, and winning the TechCrunch Disrupt startup competition. He was CEO and co-founder of T2 Venture Creation, a venture firm that built startup companies and designed the ecosystems that foster entrepreneurial innovation in dozens of countries and cities. Victor was also executive director of the Global Innovation Summit, a conference focused on building innovative ecosystems with delegates from over 50 nations. He is past president of Larta Institute, an organization that commercializes technology from key government agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He was Chief Strategy Officer of Veatros, a video startup where he led the company’s acquisition by DivX. He practiced corporate and technology law with the firms of Mayer, Brown & Platt and Irell & Manella. Victor co-authored the book The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley, which explains how companies, communities and countries can foster systemic innovation at large scale. The book was awarded Book of the Year, Gold Medal, by ForeWord Reviews. He also wrote the follow-up book, The Rainforest Blueprint, a practical design guide for innovation ecosystems. He has been a contributing columnist to Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and Entrepreneur. National Public Radio named his graduation address to Austin Community College one of the best commencement speeches ever. His opinions have been cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. | Victor earned his AB from Harvard University, with Honors, studying government with additional studies in computer science, computer architecture, and operating systems design. He holds a JD from the Law School of the University of Chicago. | 12 |
| Jared Hyatt | Hyatt | Norwest Venture Partners | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Norwest Venture Partners | 22 | A member of Class 22, Jared served his fellowship at Norwest Venture Partners. His mentor was Josh Stein (Class 9), Managing Partner at DFJ. | As a part of Norwest Venture Partner’s Consumer Team, Jared focuses on early- to late-stage investments in the consumer space, including mobile, FinTech, digital health, and marketplaces. He sits on various boards, including those of Button, Glint, Honeybook, Modsy, and Talkspace.
Jared is a mentor at the Disney Accelerator, whose 3-month program focuses on startups with a vision of impacting the future of media and entertainment. Jared’s career started on the operating side. His first position was in big media at Discovery Communications, where he focused on new media acquisition targets related to Discovery’s core content competencies. From there, Jared experienced big tech when he joined Google’s Content Acquisition team in Mountain View, California, where he worked to use Google’s products to syndicate major media companies’ content to Google’s users. He left Google to join VideoSurf, a video-search engine, as the first non-engineer hire. As VP of Business Development, he was responsible for the business and sales efforts until VideoSurf’s acquisition by Microsoft. | Jared holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts degree in history with a minor in international relations and public policy from Dartmouth College.
Jared has served as a director for the not-for-profit Breakthrough Silicon Valley, an organization dedicated to helping children become the first of their family to attend college. | 22 |
| Yuki Iwashita | Iwashita | Mitsubishi International Corporation | Japan | , | Tokyo | Asia | Mitsubishi International Corporation | 17 | As a member of Class 17, Yuki served his fellowship at the Mitsubishi Corporation under the mentorship of Koichiro Nakamura (Class 12). | At Mitsubishi, a leading company in the sophisticated Japanese consumer facing industry, Yuki is connecting innovative global ventures and Japan’s top brands of a growing consumer-facing industry. Yuki has various experience in the management of portfolios in the corporate venture division of Mitsubishi, including one of the largest online vertical media companies in Japan, and a marketing services company which serves major Japanese retailers and consumer-packaged goods manufacturers. Previously, Yuki was part of management at Venture Republic Inc., Mitsubishi’s online vertical media corporate venture, where he led and achieved its IPO on JASDAQ in 2008. In that period, Yuki played multiple roles, including initiating and growing mobile services to its flagship business and managing relationship with key investors in the IPO process. Prior to Venture Republic Inc., Yuki was a director of Mitsubishi’s Point of Sales Data (POS) analysis and data sales company, which opened Japan’s first large scale consumer behavior analysis project. | Yuki earned an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and BA in economics from Keio University. | 17 |
| Shin Iwata | Iwata | Atomico | Japan | , | Tokyo | Asia | Atomico | 20 | Shin served his fellowship at Atomico under the mentorship of Mattias Ljungman. He is a member of Class 20. | Shin leads Atomico’s operations in Japan and is based in Tokyo. He works closely with Atomico’s portfolio companies and partners, using his network and deep experience to help them scale both inside and outside Japan. Shin sits on the board of Gengo Inc.
Prior to joining Atomico, Shin was President of Skype Japan K.K., where he developed crucial relationships in Japan with local partners. He was an integral part of establishing key global partnerships as a local window to Panasonic VIERA and Sony BRAVIA for TV integration. Companies including SmartNews, Rovio, Gengo, and Supercell now benefit from his experience as they establish and scale their presence in Japan. Before Skype, Shin was involved in the establishment of a technology venture company, Ariel Networks. There, he managed the overall development of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, from planning to design and development, and wrote numerous articles and gave lectures on P2P technologies and applications. Shin's career began as a software engineering manager at Lotus and Microsoft. | Shin is a graduate of Keio University with a bachelor degree in physics.
Shin serves as a member of the Tech Venture & Entrepreneurship in Japan committee of the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology (AIIT) and as a member of H2’s Tokyo chapter. Shin also often serves as a judge or panel speaker at startup pitching events in Japan. Shin wrote a book about P2P technology and its application from Ohm Publishing in 2005. | 20 |
| Tim Jackson | Jackson | Walking Ventures | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Walking Ventures | 20 | Tim served his fellowship at Lean Investments; he is a member of Class 20. | Tim Jackson is general partner at Walking Ventures, an early-stage tech fund based in London focused on SaaS, marketplaces, platforms, and software tools. He sits on the boards of Network Locum, Quiver Software, Hands HQ, Articheck, and HandMe.In. He is responsible for deal sourcing, negotiation and execution, and portfolio management.
Tim was formerly a managing director at the Carlyle Group, helping to run a $700M European tech fund. He was founder and CEO of QXL (Nasdaq:QXLC), which exited by trade sale in 2007. Before his career in business, Tim was a journalist with The Economist, The Independent, and Financial Times. He has lived and worked in London, Tokyo, Brussels, Palo Alto, and Berkeley, and is the author of three business books. | Tim studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University, where he was a scholar at Merton College.
Tim served on the UK government’s Digital Advisory Board, providing support to the Government Digital Service, which aims to transform the use of web and mobile technologies in the public sector. He was formerly secretary of a charitable foundation with a particular interest in using technology to help community organizations in sub-Saharan Africa. He lives in London with his partner Emily Marbach, a painter. They have four children. | 20 |
| Ariel Jaduszliwer | Jaduszliwer | Brainstorm Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Pacific Community Ventures | 16 | A member of Class 16, Ariel served his fellowship at Pacific Community Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Partner Eduardo Rallo. He now serves as mentor to Class 20 Fellow Hana Yang, of Manos Accelerator. | Ariel is a General Partner at Brainstorm Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm whose exits include OpenTable, Zappos and KIO Networks in Mexico City. He is also the Vice President of Pacific Community Management, a growth equity impact investment firm, and serves on the boards of several of its portfolio companies. Ariel works on real estate development projects in Barcelona and is the co-owner of Palau Moxó.
Previously, Ariel worked as a management consultant at the Bridgespan Group, an affiliate of Bain & Company. He advised clients, such as the Gates Foundation and Hispanic Scholarship Fund, on their investment and growth strategies. Ariel briefly led the United Nations Development Programme’s Growing Sustainable Business Initiative in Venezuela. Prior to business school, Ariel worked in various capacities at Intel Corporation, including as a manufacturing engineer, pricing analyst and strategic planning manager. | Ariel received his MBA from the Wharton School in 2007. He also holds BS and MS degrees in industrial engineering from UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech, respectively. Ariel attended each institution on a full-tuition, merit-based scholarship or fellowship.
Ariel grew up in New York City and Los Angeles. He has visited over 50 countries and occasionally enjoys escaping to the wilderness . Ariel also plays organized baseball and likes to discover new restaurants in San Francisco. | 16 |
| Mee-Jung Jang | Jang | InsureTech Connect | United States | Connecticut, | Hartford | NY/CT | Jefferson Investors | 21 | Mee-Jung began her fellowship at Jefferson Investors and completed it at TechStars. She is a member of Class 21 and was mentored by Crystal McKellar of Mithril Capital Management and Mike DeVries (Class 6) of Wakestream Ventures. | Mee-Jung is the President of InsureTech Connect, the world's largest insuretech event, bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, and insurance industry incumbents. The organization hosts events each year in the US and in Asia.
Previously, Mee-Jung was the managing director of the Metlife Digital Accelerator powered by Techstars. In that role, Mee-Jung focused on working with top insurtech entrepreneurs around the world. Before Techstars, Mee-Jung was the co-founder and director of Jefferson Investors, a seed-stage angel fund based in Hartford, Connecticut. Mee-Jung was also the founder and CEO of the tech startup Voncierge. She has worked as a corporate intellectual property attorney at Cleary Gottlieb and as a quantitative hedge fund analyst at Geode Capital Management. Mee-Jung is the author of the book Harvard vs. Seoul National University, published in South Korea in 2005. | Mee-Jung has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics from Harvard University and a JD from Yale Law School.
In her free time she enjoys scuba diving, bikram yoga, golf, reading, and traveling. Mee-Jung is most excited about the possibility of traveling to outer space in her lifetime. | 21 |
| Daniel Janiak | Janiak | AveXis, Inc. | United States | Illinois, | Bannockburn | Southern CA & Hawaii | Mercury Fund | 17 | Dan served his fellowship at Mercury Fund under the mentorship of Managing Director Dan Watkins. He is a member of Class 17. | Dan Janiak joined AveXis in 2018 as Senior Director of Corporate Strategy & Business Development. AveXis is a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on rare and orphan genetic diseases.
Previously, Dan was an Associate with DFJ Mercury, where he focused on developing and originating life science-based investment themes and startup opportunities. Prior to DFJ Mercury, Dan was an Associate in the Physical and Biological Technologies practice at In-Q-Tel, the strategic venture investment arm of the U.S. Intelligence Community. While at In-Q-Tel, Dan was responsible for the management and oversight of technology development programs in numerous In-Q-Tel portfolio companies. In addition, he was responsible for leading technical due diligence on all potential investment candidates in the advanced materials space. | Dan received his BS and PhD from the University of Maryland Dan where he was a Future Faculty Fellow and held the Robert E. Fischell Fellowship in Biomedical Engineering. While at Maryland, Dan conducted research in the design, synthesis, and characterization of artificial antibodies with applications in medical diagnostics and biopharmaceutical purification. | 17 |
| Matthew Janopaul | Janopaul | Servco Pacific | United States | California, | Lafayette | Northern CA | Weston Presidio Capital | 05 | A member of Fellows Class 5, Matthew served his fellowship under mentor Michael Cronin at Weston Presidio in Boston, MA. | Matthew’s diverse career has ranged from an investment professional in the public and private equity markets to advisory and senior operating roles within the branded consumer products, business services, financial services, manufacturing, and retail sectors.
Matthew is the Managing Director of Servco Pacific Capital, the direct investment arm of Servco Pacific, Inc. Established in 1919, Servco is the fourth largest business in the state of Hawaii and the holding company has operations in the United States, Australia, and Hong Kong. Its businesses include automotive distribution and retail, specialty insurance brokerage, and appliance distribution. Matthew leads Servco’s private equity group as well as the corporate strategy and development activities of the holding company. Servco’s current investments include joint ownership of Fender Musical Instruments, the world's largest electric guitar and amplifier company. Since 2001, Matthew has held various roles with Fender, from investor and board member to President and COO. Previously, he was a General Partner of Weston Presidio, a leading $3.3 billion private equity firm with offices in San Francisco and Boston, where he was actively involved in management buyouts, recapitalizations, leveraged consolidations and growth financings across the consumer, industrial, service, and publishing sectors. Earlier, he was a Vice President and Portfolio Manager of Brookside Capital. | Matthew earned his BA in Economics from Duke University and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was also a member of the Arizona and Northern California (“Norcal”) Chapters of the Young Presidents’ Organization and today is an active member of the Global One Chapter.
Matthew resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he volunteers in community affairs and serves as a Trustee of The Seven Hills Schools, a leading PK-8 independent school. | 5 |
| Tammi Jantzen | Jantzen | Astarte Medical Partners | United States | Pennsylvania, | Yardley | NJ/PA | Astarte Ventures | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Tammi served her fellowship at Astarte Ventures. | Tammi is passionate about women's and children's health and co-founded Astarte Medical Partners. Astarte Medical is developing NICUtrition, a software platform for use in the neonatal intensive care unit, using data analytics to optimize feeding and nutrition for preterm infants.
Tammi is also general partner and CFO of Astarte Ventures, a fund dedicated exclusively to the health and wellbeing of women and children. Prior to Astarte Ventures, Tammi was CFO of Battelle Ventures, an early-stage venture fund, where she managed all aspects of fund operations. | Tammi is a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where she holds a bachelor's degree in accounting. Tammi is also a Certified Public Accountant. | 20 |
| Sujay Jaswa | Jaswa | WndrCo | United States | California, | Beverly Hills | Northern CA | New Enterprise Associates | 13 | Sujay is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 13 and served his fellowship under mentors Mark Perry and Patrick Chung (Class 9) at NEA in Menlo Park, CA. | Sujay co-founded WndrCo in 2017 with former DreamWorks Animation executives Jeffrey Katzenberg and Ann Daly.
Previously, Sujay was Dropbox's first business leader, responsible for creating and leading all of the firm’s business functions from 2010 until 2014, and serving as CFO from 2014 to 2015. He led the firm's international expansion, several large deals, and massive fundings. After leaving Dropbox, he was an individual investor and advisor to JP Morgan. Before Dropbox, Sujay was a Principal at New Enterprise Associates in Menlo Park, CA, focusing on consumer and IT investments. He brought in and co-managed NEA's lead series A investments in Playdom (Disney), BeachMint, Huddler, Edit Ring, and 1Bog. He also brought in and co-managed NEA's Series C investment in Causes. In 2005, Sujay served as Interim CEO of YFly.com, an entertainment website with exclusive online participation by many well-known celebrities and entertainers. He recapitalized the company, restructured its operations, and re-launched its website. At the time, YFly was the largest site developed on Ruby on Rails. Before YFly, Sujay was with Cisco Systems' Corporate Business Development group, where he focused on investments and acquisitions in video technology and consumer broadband, and then joined Cisco's portfolio company CinemaNow for a year prior to business school. Sujay began his career as a consultant in McKinsey & Co.'s Silicon Valley office. | Sujay received an AB in economics and a certificate in finance from Princeton University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Since 2014, Sujay has been a lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. | 13 |
| Arun Jayadev | Jayadev | Advanced Materials | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Wellington Partners Venture Capital | 16 | Arun is a member of Class 16 and served his fellowship under the mentorship of Bart Markus and Christian Reitberger at Wellington Partners in London. | Arun and Kauffman Fellows classmate Antonio Cianci recently co-founded Advanced Materials. The firm produces a revolutionary air-purifying paint, Airlite, which uses titanium dioxide nanotechnology to convert air pollutants into inert compounds. Through the use of light energy, the paint reduces pollutants, eliminates odors, prevents mold, and destroys harmful pathogens. Thanks to its high-reflecting power, it can also reduce cooling costs by 15% to 50%.
Previously, Arun worked for Wellington Partners Venture Capital. As a Venture Advisor, his primary task was to support the firm's resource efficiency portfolio. Arun has worked for Spanish S.I. Capital, a private equity firm investing in renewable energy assets, where he conducted extensive analysis on cleantech investments. Before that he worked for a startup electric motorcycle company and also served as an advisor to an Australian waste-to-energy company. He has helped organize five clean technology forums across the world, including the first industry-specific seminar in Spain, which brought together startup companies, VCs, and executives for the first time. Arun started his career as a consultant with Computer Associates on projects in India, the US and various other locations. While there, he managed teams of up to 16 people. After CA, Arun worked for a startup web-based enterprise solution company in India. | Arun holds a MBA from IESE Business School, Barcelona, where he also took the opportunity to study one term at UCLA Anderson School of Management, Los Angeles. He holds a BE with a focus on computer science, with Distinction, at the Rashtriya Vidhyalaya College of Engineering, Bangalore. | 16 |
| Allan Jean-Baptiste | Jean-Baptiste | KKR Growth | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | KKR Growth | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Allan is serving his fellowship at KKR under the mentorship of the Global Head of KKR Growth, Dave Welsh. He is based in New York. | Allan’s career has been focused on technology investing across software and consumer Internet verticals. Allan joined KKR in 2016 as a founding investor for KKR’s new technology growth equity fund ($1.1B AUM) focusing primarily on application layer software, cybersecurity, and consumer marketplace investments in North America.
Prior to KKR, Allan was an early member of CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), Google’s non-strategic growth equity investing arm. He started his career at Goldman, Sachs and Co. as a member of the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Investment Banking team. | Allan attended Harvard University, where he received an AB, with Honors, in economics with a secondary in global health and health policy. He was a Harvard College Scholar and Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize winner among other departmental prizes. Allan is involved with various nonprofit organizations focused on the arts and education. | 23 |
| Christina Jenkins | Jenkins | Luciana Partners | United States | New York, | NY/CT | New Enterprise Associates | 10 | Christina is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 10 and served her fellowship under mentor James Barrett at NEA, in Germantown, MD. | Dr. Christina Jenkins is a member of Kauffman Class 10 and a Lead Investor of the FemTech fund of Portfolia, Inc., focusing on early-stage healthcare startups that are game-changers for women’s health and well-being. She is a Board Observer of Madorra, Inc.
Christina also advises executives and board members of healthcare providers, private investment firms, and early-stage startups for success in value-based, opaque, or fast-moving environments. To this, she brings over 20 years of experience in strategy and change leadership, clinical medicine and quality/performance improvement, delivery system redesign, and technology-enabled outcomes improvement. Prior to this, Christina was the founding CEO of OneCity Health, a subsidiary formed within the nation’s largest public hospital system, setting the vision and strategy to build population health and care management capabilities for 1M low-income New Yorkers. Over her tenure, she recruited a team from two to 130 people, earned $350M in revenue and achieved 99% of all performance targets, and successfully designed and integrated novel tech, social services, and clinical models to sustainably improve quality and cost for patients served by over 200 provider and social services organizations citywide. Christina’s prior professional experience also includes venture-backed portfolio company and biopharma investment support (Kauffman Fellow, New Enterprise Associates), advisory services for early-stage healthcare startups (HealthyWage; financial incentives for chronic disease improvement), buildout of a home-based primary and palliative care program to one of the largest in the country (Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program), and financial analysis (FMP, GE Healthcare). Christina’s nonprofit Board directorships include the Healthcare Executive Forum of New York (current), former Director and Chairman of the Quality Committee at NYC Health + Hospitals under Mike Bloomberg ($7.4B), and former Director of Public Health Solutions ($230M). | Christina earned her B.S in Industrial Management from Purdue University, her M.D. from Northwestern University, and completed her internal medicine residency training and served as a Clinical Instructor at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. | 10 | |
| Christopher Johnson | Johnson | Knightsbridge Advisers | United States | Massachusetts, | BEDFORD | Boston/Northeast | Knightsbridge Advisers | 24 | As a member of Class 24, Chris is serving his fellowship at Knightsbridge Advisers under the mentorship of Managing Principal George Arnold. | Christopher is Investment Principal at Knightsbridge Advisers; his career in alternative assets includes providing investing, operations, and strategic insight for leading private fund general partners (GPs) and institutional limited partners (LPs). He is actively involved in all aspects of portfolio management, including all investment due diligence. Prior to joining Knightsbridge, Chris was an Associate Director at Constellation Advisers, where he provided valuation, due diligence, and strategic advice for leading private equity and venture capital GPs ranging in size from $5M to $1.5B. He was also responsible for implementing and performing extensive manager due diligence programs for LP clients ranging in size from $50M to $5B AUM. Previously, Christopher was an economic and technical consultant, working with faculty at Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, and UCLA on investment and technology-related litigation matters. He also served in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during the Obama administration. | Chris holds MBA and MS degrees from Carnegie Mellon University as well as two BA degrees from the University of Maine, both magna cum laude. Originally from Maine, Chris enjoys travel and outdoor activities including boating, fly fishing, skiing, running, hiking, and golf. He lives in Bedford, Massachusetts with his wife Sarah and their daughters, Lydia and Anna. | 24 |
| Peter Johnson | Johnson | Jump Capital | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Jump Capital | 20 | A member of Class 20, Peter served his fellowship at Jump Capital under the mentorship of Garrett Vygantas (Class 13). | Peter Johnson is a Senior Associate with Jump Capital, an expansion-stage focused venture capital firm based in Chicago, Illinois. As an investor with Jump, Peter has invested in over 25 innovative companies.
Peter has a particular interest in financial technology, and has led Jump investments in Personal Capital and Pangea Payments. He is also a board observer at a broad range of portfolio companies, including 4C Insights, NowSecure, ParkWhiz, and Champion Medical Technologies. Prior to joining Jump Capital, Peter advised financial services and technology organizations as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley and a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting. Peter is also an advisor to MoneyThink, a financial literacy nonprofit, and a board member of VentureUp, an accelerator network for rising VCs investing in the Midwest. | Peter graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with a MBA in entrepreneurship, analytic finance, and accounting. He has a BS in finance and marketing from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, and is a CFA Charterholder. | 20 |
| Zach Jonasson | Jonasson | Phoenix Venture Partners | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northwest | Seaflower Ventures | 10 | Zach served his fellowship under mentor Jim Sherblom at Seaflower Ventures in Waltham, MA as a member of Class 10. | Dr. Zach Jonasson has over 20 years of experience in start-up investments as well as in start-up executive, R&D, and business development operating roles. Zach is a co-founder and General Partner of Phoenix Venture Partners (PVP), a venture capital firm focusing on advanced materials innovation. The firm has offices in Silicon Valley, Cambridge, MA, and Singapore. Zach is a co-founder of PVP with Kauffman Fellows classmate Dr. John Chen, as well as with Dr. David Soane, Dr. Nobi Kambe, and Dr. Frank Levinson.
In addition to his investment and board roles at PVP, Dr. Jonasson serves on the Commercialization Council for Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI), on the Advisory Board for the Oregon Innovation Cluster (OIC), and is actively involved with the Kauffman Fellows Program. Previously, Zach was a General Partner and Kauffman Fellow at Seaflower Ventures, where he built a successful track record sourcing and leading investments in advanced materials startups focused on life science applications. Prior investments include Serenex (acquired); BioVlave; MetaWorks (acquired), where he played a successful turnaround role leading to the company's acquisition; and Valeritas, where he reorganizing the company. Zach was the co-founder and VP Business Development of Crop Enhancement, a startup developing a chemistry platform for agrochemical formulation. Earlier in his career, while still a doctoral student, Zach was part of the initial five-person team at RCM (acquired), where he designed process optimization instrumentation for major chemicals and energy companies, including Eastman Chemical, Shell, and Sempra. | Dr. Jonasson completed a PhD (neuroscience) in the CBB program at Harvard University. At Harvard, he was as a Sackler Scholar, was awarded several research grants, led a mutli-institution research collaboration. In addition to his doctoral studies, Zach co-taught Market Research at Harvard Business School (HBS) and co-authored two studies of applied real options and risk analysis with Professor David Shimko. Zach also holds an AM in Statistics from Harvard and a BS from the SFS Honors Program at Georgetown University, where he was a Rhodes Scholarship Finalist. | 10 |
| Neena Kadaba | Kadaba | Quark Venture | United States | California, | Berkeley | Northern CA | Itochu Corporation | 13 | Neena Kadaba is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 13, and served her fellowship at Itochu Technology, Inc. under the mentorship of Shinzo Nakano. | In 2017, Neena joined Quark Venture and established the firm’s California office. Quark Venture has jointly established a new $500M global health sciences venture fund to invest globally in biotechnology and health sciences companies that are addressing unmet medical needs through innovations in drug development, medical devices, health IT, and emerging convergent technologies.
Previously, Neena was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at QB3, the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, an institute at the University of California made up of UCSF, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz. She worked to initiate new collaborations between external partners and QB3 scientists and QB3 startups. She also created the QB3 Collaborative Startups program to initiate collaborations between QB3 startups and industry partners, which grew to 7 partners in 3 years. She managed the firm's alliances with Calico and Pfizer, ran the pre-commercial $1M-per-year grant program, and worked with the firm’s venture fund, Mission Bay Capital. Neena was also the creator and Director of the primeUC program, a UC-wide startup competition and networking program in the life sciences, which garnered over 250 applications in the first year, and provided over $300K in prizes to the winners. Prior to QB3, Neena served her Fellowship as an Associate in venture investment at Itochu Technology, the California office the Japanese trading company Itochu. | Neena earned her PhD in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), in Pasadena, California. Her research focused on elucidating the structure of an ABC Transporter, and her work was published in Science. While at CalTech, Neena was a recipient of the national P.E.O. Scholar Award, a Moore-Hufstedler Project Award, a DOW Career award, and was also a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award recipient.
Neena earned her undergraduate and master's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she serves on MIT’s Educational Council. She is also a member of the Board of the American Friends of the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine. Neena spends most of her time chasing around two small children. In her non-existent free time, she enjoys travel, reading, and photography. | 13 |
| Darien Kadens | Kadens | Lupin Pharmaceuticals | United States | Florida, | Naples | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Domain Associates | 03 | Darien Kadens is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 3 and served his fellowship under mentor Richard Schneider at Domain Associates in Costa Mesa, CA. | Darien is a published healthcare data scientist who leverages his deep understanding of the changing healthcare landscape to identify opportunities and risks for clients by analyzing payer, physician, provider, patient, and product data sources. At Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Darien provides market intelligence support for business development in the Latin America region.
Previously, Darien directed the development and execution of market research and thought leadership strategies for Sodexo's hospital and senior living markets, including advising senior management, conducting market research, and monitoring market and industry trends. Before that he was the Associate Director of Global Commercial Assessments at Forest Labs, where he designed and managed primary research projects to support product licensing assessments and designed and delivered a global competitive intelligence monitoring service. Before Forest Labs, he was a Senior Director of Market Intelligence at OptumInsight, responsible for providing pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device clients with solutions to critical business development challenges by leveraging the OptumInsight portfolio of data, analytics, and expertise. Darien was a Managing Director for InsightServe, where he provided research and advisory services to companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device sectors. Before launching Insightserve, Darien managed global competitive intelligence research for the Novartis Consumer Health OTC Global Business Development and Licensing team, and before that had an earlier tenure at Forest Labs, as Senior Manager of New Products Marketing. Darien was the Senior Healthcare Analyst at Majestic Research, an independent equity research firm, and founded the venture consulting firm INNOFUTURES. Darien directed healthcare investments for the private equity group of Mitsui & Co. His product development experience includes R&D leading to the launches of the AccuCHEK Easy and AccuCHEK Advantage blood glucose meters for Roche Diagnostics. | Darien holds a PhD in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA, with Honors, in marketing & finance from the University of Chicago. He has a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University. | 3 |
| Shintaro Kaido | Kaido | Drexel University | United States | Pennsylvania, | Philadelphia | NJ/PA | Drexel Ventures | 21 | Shintaro is a member of Class 21. He served his fellowship while at Drexel University. | Shintaro Kaido is Vice Provost of Research & Innovation and Chief Innovation Officer, Office of Applied Innovation, at Drexel University in Philadelphia. In this capacity, Shintaro leads Drexel's Technology Licensing and Entrepreneurial Development units to provide technology commercialization and entrepreneurial support services for Drexel faculty, postdocs, professionals staff, and graduate student innovators.
Shintaro launched Oklahoma's first startup accelerators while at i2E, a nationally recognized venture development organization (VDO) with $58M in AUM, contributing to Oklahoma's rise in Kauffman Foundation's entrepreneurship ranking among small states from #12 to #2. Shintaro led 14 seed and Series A investments for i2E while serving on the board for the investments. Shintaro's prior experience includes valuation of patents, trademarks and trade secrets as transaction advisor at Duff & Phelps, principal M&A analyst and innovation scout at Toshiba Westinghouse, and co-founder of a venture-funded university spinout Synercon Technologies from the University of Tulsa which was acquired in March 2019. Shintaro transitioned to university innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) in 2014. Shintaro's Kauffman Fellows Thought Leadership Project is titled "Exploring the Gap Between US University Tech Transfer and the Venture Community", to help university senior leadership implement data-driven change; he is regularly consulted for his expertise in university I&E. He also appeared in the U.S. Department of State 2016 webcast for disruptive innovation and startups with viewership in over 40 countries. | Shintaro is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) and holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Shintaro and his wife Janet reside in West Philadelphia with their 2 cats and 8 bicycles. | 21 |
| Samir Kaji | Kaji | First Republic Bank | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | First Republic Bank | 20 | Samir served his fellowship at First Republic under the mentorship of Cota Capital founder Ullas Naik. He is a member of Class 20. | Samir Kaji is a Senior Managing Director at First Republic Bank, where he leads a team managing venture capital and start-up company relationships, with a particular emphasis in micro-VC and seed-stage financing. He has spent nearly 17 years working within the venture capital industry. During this period, he has assisted or advised over 700 companies and 300 venture capital firms.
Prior to joining First Republic, Samir spent 13 years at Silicon Valley Bank in various roles, where he completed over 400 financing transactions, totaling over $4.0B in committed capital. Since 2008, Samir has led teams focused on providing services to venture capital firms and directly led engagements with several of the leading venture capital firms in the industry. Samir also has been an active angel investor, having made over 40 investments in companies and venture funds. He also serves as an an advisor to over 25 venture capital funds and early stage companies. Samir also maintains a venture capital blog focused on providing unique insight and data to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. | Samir is a graduate of San Jose State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in finance, as well as Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, where he earned his MBA with a concentration in finance. | 20 |
| Stacey Kalovidouris | Kalovidouris | Rice University | United States | Texas, | Houston | TX/South Central | Rice Univ. | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Stacey served her fellowship at Rice University under the mentorship of David Schubert of Rice’s Houston Area Translational Research Consortium. | Stacey Kalovidouris is the Executive Director of Rice University’s Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB). In this role, she facilitates cross-disciplinary research and education, fosters ties with the Texas Medical Center, creates partnerships with industry, and promotes the translation of research.
Stacey brings 17 years of experience working at the forefront of early-stage scientific advances and discoveries. She would like to leverage her deep domain expertise and explore the world of innovation investing. Stacey is an inventor on a patent for a carbohydrate-protein method of inducing neuronal growth and has published research papers in the diverse areas of nanotechnology, glycobiology, immunology, neuroscience, and drug delivery of cancer therapeutics. Prior to becoming IBB’s Executive Director, Stacey was a Senior Scientist for Calando Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company providing targeted therapeutics for the development of nanoparticle drug formulations. | Stacey completed her post-doctoral training at the California Institute of Technology and holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of California at Los Angeles. She received her BA degree in biochemistry from Swarthmore College. | 19 |
| Kim Kamdar | Kamdar | Domain Associates | United States | California, | San Diego | Southern CA & Hawaii | MPM Capital | 08 | Kim served her fellowship as a member of Class 8 under mentor Nick Galakatos at MPM Capital in Boston, MA. | Kim joined Domain Associates in 2005 and became a partner in 2011. With a background in small molecule drug discovery, Kim has been involved in cutting-edge therapeutic startups and has been a major part of identifying companies with promising molecular and companion diagnostics to support personalized medicine.
Kim's present board memberships include Epic Sciences, Neothetics, Obalon Therapeutics, ROX Medical, Sera Prognostics, Syndax Pharmaceuticals and Tragara Pharmaceuticals. She was also involved with Ariosa Diagnostics (sold to Roche), Corthera (sold to Novartis), and BiPar Sciences (sold to sanofi-aventis). Prior to Domain, Kim was a Kauffman Fellow with MPM Capital. Prior to joining MPM, she was a research director at Novartis, where she built and led a research team that focused on the biology, genetics, and genomics of model organisms to uncover small molecules that modulated signaling pathway networks. Kim is a founder of Aryzun Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company utilizing protein-protein interaction mapping for small molecule discovery with an initial focus on anti-infectives and oncology. Kim is the author of ten papers as well as the inventor on seven patents. | Kim earned her BA from Northwestern University and her PhD from Emory University. | 8 |
| Steven Kan | Kan | Apture | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Clearstone Venture Partners | 11 | Steven is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 11 and served his fellowship under mentor Jim Armstrong at Clearstone Ventures in Menlo Park, CA. | Steven has recently joined Apture as Vice President of Business Development & Operations. Apture is the leading provider of context for readers and publishers. Previously, Steven was at Clearstone, focusing on online media & monetization, mobile communications, and internet infrastructure. Steven served as a board observer and advisor to Vast, The Rubicon Project, ThisNext, Nokeena Networks, SupplyFrame, LeisureLink, and SoonR. Prior to Clearstone Steven interned at Redpoint Ventures, where he identified early-stage investment opportunities in Southern California. Steven also gained valuable operating experience at Yahoo/Overture, where he managed product and business development initiatives for Overture’s breakthrough contextual advertising and local search businesses. | Steven earned his BS in applied physics from Yale University, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Steven also holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he was a Venture Fellow and Dean's Scholar. | 11 |
| Ik Kanu | Kanu | Convergence Partners | Nigeria | , | Lagos | Africa | Convergence Partners | 23 | Ik is a member of Class 23, serving his fellowship under the mentorship of Tope Lawani, Founder of Helios Investment Partners. | Ik has over a decade of experience in various roles including engineering, consulting, corporate development, private equity, and angel investing.
Ik is a Principal at Convergence Partners (CP), an investment firm focused on the technology sector in Africa. CP brings its skills, experience, and capital to accelerate development of infrastructure, enabling the digital economies in Africa. He sits on the board of Venture Garden Nigeria, a leading Nigerian FinTech solutions provider. Ik is also an advisor to various companies, startups, and incubators across Africa. Prior to Convergence, Ik was a Vice-President at Helios Investment Partners, managing the investments in Interswitch (the largest e-payment company in Nigeria) and Helios Towers Nigeria (the first independent tower operator in Nigeria). Ik started his career as product engineer and then a business analyst at Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs. He managed production in Bydgoszcz (Poland) and Qingdao (China) and built next-generations solutions for US operators. After Lucent, he joined PA Consulting, focused on the technology sector, advising clients such as the Associated Press and Cox Communications. Ik later joined Arthur D. Little as a consultant, advising companies and PE funds in the US. | Ik graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and a master’s in management science. He also has an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Born in Nigeria, Ik has a global perspective gained from living and working across multiple continents. While not working, Ik enjoys movies, mentoring, Muay Thai, CrossFit, and BBQs. | 23 |
| Maria Karaivanova | Karaivanova | Madrona Venture Group | United States | Washington, | Seattle | Northwest | Madrona Venture Group | 24 | Maria is a member of Class 24 and is serving her fellowship at Madrona Venture Group. | Maria is an operator turned venture investor backing exceptional entrepreneurs looking to disrupt industries and build products that customers love. As a Principal at Madrona Venture Group, she focuses on cloud infrastructure, SaaS & intelligent applications, security, ML/AI and voice. Prior to Madrona, Maria was the CxO and Head of Strategic Partnerships at Cloudflare where she joined as one of the company's first 20 employees. During her tenure at Cloudflare, the company scaled from 20 to 500+ employees and grew annual revenue from $0 to over $100M securing $182M of funding and becoming a unicorn. Before that, Maria worked at Intel Capital investing in consumer internet and enterprise software. She also served in various roles at Boeing supporting helicopter (Chinook, Apache) and fighter jet programs (F-18, F- 15), and also worked at Expedia and Citigroup. | Maria holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSBA in Finance with high honors from Saint Louis University. She co-founded and serves on the board of sea.citi, a non-profit organization providing a platform for tech workers to engage with their local communities. She is a passionate supporter and mentor of female founders and investors through the Female Founders Alliance and other organizations. Maria is a frequent speaker at technology conferences and an occasional angel investor. Maria lives in Seattle with her husband and son. | 24 |
| Armen Karamanian | Karamanian | Admire Capital | United States | Pennsylvania, | Philadelphia | NJ/PA | Karlin Asset Management | 15 | Armen is a member of Class 15. He served his fellowship at Karlin Asset Management under the mentorship of the firm's CEO, David Cohen. | Armen is the managing director of Admire Capital, a systematic value and activist hedge fund.
He completed his Kauffman Fellowship at Karlin Asset Management, a private investment firm with $1.3+ billion under management. At Karlin, he focused on researching, executing and monitoring quantitative investment strategies for private and publicly traded companies. | He holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and received entrepreneurial training at The Wharton School. | 15 |
| Yoshihiko Karita | Karita | Sozo Ventures | Japan | , | Tokyo | Northern CA;Asia | Sozo Ventures | 20 | As a member of Class 20, Yoshihiko served his fellowship at Sozo Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Director, Koichiro Nakamura (Class 12). | Yoshihiko Karita is a Director at Sozo Ventures, a cross-border venture fund focusing on assisting U.S.-based technology startups in their global expansion, especially in the Japanese market. The firm has offices in Palo Alto, California, and Tokyo. Yoshihiko is the head of the Tokyo office and is responsible for the firm’s business development and investor relations in Japan.
Yoshihiko previously held several managerial roles over a 13-year career at IT Frontier, a joint venture between Mitsubishi Corporation and IBM Japan. During this time, Yoshihiko worked very broadly within enterprise IT, promoting and providing IT solutions to leading Japanese enterprises. In the course of his work, he developed a deep understanding on how Japanese companies implement and adopt new technologies and business models from outside of Japan. As such, he is well positioned to understand the ways in which novel technologies or solutions can be best implemented across companies that can provide quick global expansion. | Yoshihiko is a graduate of Meiji University, where he received a BS in economics specializing in international economics. | 20 |
| Mikael Karlsson | Karlsson | ALMI Invest | Sweden | , | Linköping | Europe | Innovationsbron | 13 | A member of Fellows Class 13, Mikael served his fellowship under mentor Tomas Hagenfeldt at Innovationsbron and ALMI Invest in Sweden. | Mikael Karlsson is CEO of ALMI Invest in Sweden. ALMI Invest is an early-stage investor funded by the European Union and a number of public Swedish organizations. Before this role he served as Fund Manager for 6 years.
Mikael has over 10 years of experience in the Nordic VC market. Before joining ALMI Invest, he was a Senior Investment Manager at Innovationsbron in Sweden. Innovationsbron (The Innovation Bridge) is a government-owned corporation that funds startups and a number of business incubators across Sweden. Prior to that the was CEO of Rendera, a regional seed investor owned by Innovationsbron, which he established in 2004. Rendera to date has carried out 27 investments and 5 exits. Before starting Rendera, Mikael was acting Managing Director at a business incubator. His earlier experiences in the VC market include 5 years at Slottsbacken Venture Capital/ACR Capital, a Nordic VC fund with $200M under management, targeting early-stage high tech companies. Mikael has been actively involved in the Boards of over 15 start-up companies during the last 10 years. Mikael started his career in the software industry working in marketing and sales roles at DocEye and WM-data (acquired by Logica). | Mikael has an MSc in Business Administration and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, both from Linköping University, Sweden. | 13 |
| Gareth Keane | Keane | Promus Ventures | United States | California, | Santa Clara | Northern CA | National Semiconductor | 15 | Gareth is a member of Class 15. He served his fellowship under the mentorship of Bart Schachter at National Semiconductor. | Gareth Keane is an Investment Manager with Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Qualcomm Technologies, and is based in the Bay Area. His career to date has stretched from engineering roles to venture capital investment. Gareth currently serves as a board member or observer for 360fly, LifX, Pelican Imaging, Skycatch, and Swift Navigation.
Previously, Gareth worked for National Semiconductor in a corporate development/mergers and acquisitions role. Before National Semiconductor, Gareth was an MBA student; during that time he interned with Emerald Stage2 Ventures, an early-stage IT-focused fund based in Philadelphia and working with Firecrest Clinical, an early-stage SaaS company based in Ireland. Before starting his MBA at Wharton, Gareth spent eight years working for PMC-Sierra, a leading fabless semiconductor firm. His role there included defining and driving the company’s semiconductor technology roadmap across multiple generations of silicon process. | Gareth graduated from the MBA program at The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. While at Wharton, Gareth was selected as a Leadership Venture Fellow and a Non-Profit Board Leadership Fellow. He was awarded a PhD by Queen’s University Belfast in electronic engineering, and a BE by the National University of Ireland, Galway, also in electronic engineering.
Gareth is an avid outdoor enthusiast and enjoys skiing, climbing, mountaineering, kayaking and biking. He helped lead a group of peers from Wharton to Antarctica in early 2010 as part of Wharton’s Leadership Ventures program. He is also passionate about social responsibility and is currently engaged in a number of not-for-profit activities. | 15 |
| Chris Keller | Keller | Moelis Asset Management | United States | Missouri, | St. Louis | MW Plains/Rockies | Moelis Asset Management | 24 | Chris is serving his fellowship at Moelis Asset Management under the mentorship of Scott Bernstein (Class 22), Principal at Lewis & Clark Ventures. He is a member of Class 24. | Chris is portfolio manager of Archean Capital Partners and a Managing Director at Moelis Asset Management (MAM). Archean Capital is a private equity fund that seeds new private equity firms and helps accelerate their business plans. In his broader role at MAM, Chris develops the private market strategy and identifies new partnership opportunities. Outside his role at Archean and MAM, Chris serves on the board of Twain Financial, an investment management firm specializing in tax credit, structured debt, and real estate transactions. Prior to joining Archean and MAM, Chris spent 11 years at Summit Strategies Group, an institutional investment consulting firm, where he led the private markets team, was Director of Research, and served as Managing Director of the firm. In that role, Chris was responsible for a $10B portfolio of private market commitments, which gave him the opportunity to foster relationships across the GP and LP community. He began his career in the healthcare industry and held several operating roles before transitioning to investment management. | Chris is a CFA charterholder and received an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, as well as an undergraduate degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He lives in St. Louis with his wife, Mindy, and their 3 children. He is a passionate cyclist and skier, but willing to try almost any outdoor activity that allows him to move, enjoy nature, and spend time with his family. | 24 |
| Baily Kempner | Kempner | Investec Asset Management | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT;Latin America | Endeavor Global | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Baily began her fellowship at Endeavor Global under the mentorship of President Fernando Fabre (Class 14), and completed her fellowship at The Abraaj Group. | Baily is head of US strategic partnerships at Investec Asset Management, responsible for strengthening and developing these relationships across existing and prospective institutional clients. Baily is based in the firm’s New York office.
Baily was previously a principal at The Abraaj Group responsible for capital raising and engagement with institutional investors in the Americas. Prior to this, she was a director at Endeavor Global, managing the investments of a co-investment venture fund which invested across emerging markets and fundraising for the operational budget of the organization. Baily has also worked at Lehman Brothers (later Neuberger Berman), where she helped to launch multiple hedge funds and funds of hedge funds. She had responsibilities in project management and in performing financial/competitive analysis. | Baily received her MBA from Harvard Business School, with Second-Year Honors, where she served as co-President of the Social Enterprise Club. While there, she co-authored the Harvard Business School case study, "Banex and the 'No Pago' Movement, about Grassroot's decision whether to continue investing in a financially distressed microfinance bank.
Baily earned her BA from Yale University, cum laude, and with Distinction in history. A native New Yorker, Baily enjoys ice and rock climbing and spending time with her husband and two young sons. | 18 |
| Maggie Kenefake | Kenefake | Royal Street Ventures | , | Leawood | MW Plains/Rockies | Royal Street Ventures | 25 | Maggie is venture partner at Royal Street Ventures and the Managing Director of the Fountain Innovation Fund,an evergreen fund focused on the Kansas City region. Maggie brings years of experience in building entrepreneurial ecosystems and an affinity for underrepresented markets and founders. Maggie prior to joining Royal Street, directed fund operations for Portfolia, an investment community focused on engaging female investors. At Portfolia, Maggie closed funds I, IV and V, oversaw the investor experience, managed the investment pipeline, closed deals and managed relationships with Portfolia invested companies.
She brings years of experience in operations, strategic partnerships, and program management. Maggie was at the Kauffman Foundation for a decade where she worked on the Kauffman Fellows Program and later led the Foundation’s strategy for Women’s Entrepreneurship. After exiting the Foundation, Maggie worked in healthcare technology, including venture-backed RelayHealth. Maggie thrives activating networks and partnering with companies to support their growth. | Maggie holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas and an MBA from the University of Missouri. She lives in Leawood, Kansas with her husband and her three children. | 25 | ||
| Christine Kenna | Kenna | IGNIA | Mexico | Federal District, | Mexico City | Latin America | IGNIA | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Christine is serving her fellowship at IGNIA with the mentorship of Alison Davis, Co-Founder of Fifth Era. | Christine Kenna has extensive experience accelerating enterprises and entrepreneurs that have a profound impact in Latin America. As a Partner at IGNIA, Mexico’s largest venture capital firm, Christine has been investing in companies that are reinventing the way to do business with the emerging middle class in Latin America in high-impact sectors such as FinTech, SaaS, e-commerce and marketplaces.
Christine participates on the Boards of multiple IGNIA portfolio companies, including Trendier, Apli, Mexvi, and LentesPlus. Prior to entering venture capital, Christine developed deep financial, sales and management experience across the globe, leading operations in companies such as EF Education First in Mexico, where she was a key figure in managing the company’s turnaround, Google in California and France, The Guggenheim Foundation in Mexico, and The Parthenon Group in Boston. | Christine studied at Duke University, where she earned a BA in economics and international relations, and completed her MBA at Harvard Business School.
Christine serves on the Board of Directors of the Mexican Association of Private Equity and Venture Capital (AMEXCAP) and is President of the Committee for Female Investors; she also co-founded MBA Mujeres de México. | 23 |
| Karen Kerr | Kerr | GE Ventures | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | Southern CA & Hawaii | ARCH Venture Partners | Charter | Karen is a member of the Charter Class of Kauffman Fellows, and served her fellowship with mentor Keith Crandell at ARCH Venture Partners in Chicago. She is now mentor to Lisa Coca (Class 21), and also sits on the Kauffman Fellows board of directors. | Karen leads a team at GE Ventures focused on making investments and developing partnerships in the advanced manufacturing ecosystem. Karen has two decades of experience in developing technology-based businesses and venture investing.
Previously Karen served as Senior Director of New Ventures and Alliances at the University of Southern California (USC) Stevens Center for Innovation where she was responsible for accelerating the formation of startup companies out of university research. Before joining USC, Karen led business development at Intellectual Ventures, served as a Managing Director at ARCH Venture Partners, and founded Agile Equities LLC, a venture development company specializing in emerging technology companies. Focused on venture education and technology advancements, Karen has held a variety of board roles for organizations including the Center for Venture Education, National Science Foundation SBIR/STTR Advisory Committee, and National Institute of Standards and Technology Visiting Committee on Advance Technology. Highly acclaimed, Karen was named one of LA’s Top Innovators in 2012 by C Suite Quarterly, selected to C200 leading business women in 2004, and selected by Crain’s Chicago Business for its "40 under 40" list of leading business professionals in Chicago. | Karen holds a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Chicago and an AB in chemistry from Bryn Mawr College, where she currently serves as Trustee. | 0 |
| David Kerr | Kerr | Allos Ventures | United States | Indiana, | Indianapolis | MW Plains/Rockies | Allos Ventures | 24 | David is a member of Class 24, serving his fellowship at Allos Ventures in Indianapolis. His mentor is Mark Terbeek, Partner at Greycroft. | David Kerr is Managing Director at Allos Ventures and sits on the board of Sharpen. Prior to joining Allos, David was CEO of Octiv, where he led the company to a successful exit with an acquisition by Conga. Prior to Octiv, David served as Vice President and GM of the home and auto channel at Groupon and served on the Angie’s List executive team as GM of e-commerce. David joined Angie’s List from his post as president of GHX Europe, a healthcare supply chain provider. His career at GHX began when the company acquired NoInk, a mobile sales automation solution, where he served as president and CEO. David also served as executive chairman of beauty e-commerce site Jada Beauty, which was acquired by Sally Beauty Holdings. | David graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in politics. He enjoys the occasional triathlon, masters swimming, hiking, and international travel with his wife Julie and three kids. | 24 |
| Zuhair Khan | Khan | General Atlantic | , | New York | NY/CT | General Atlantic | 25 | Zuhair is a Vice President in the Technology group at General Atlantic where he focuses on software and consumer internet investments, and is invovled with GA's investments in A Place for Mom, AppsFlyer, Riskified, and StockX.
Previously, Zuhair was a Policy Advisor at the United States Department of the Treasury, where he focused on domestic economic policy. Before that, he was a Private Equity Associate at Madison Dearborn Partners and worked for Evercore Partners as an Investment Banking Analyst, respectively. | Zuhair earned a BA in History and BBA in Business Honors and Finance from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MBA egree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. | 25 | ||
| Ash Khanna | Khanna | SutroVax | United States | California, | South San Francisco | Northern CA | SV Life Sciences | 10 | Ash is a member of Fellows Class 10 and served his fellowship with mentors Lutz Giebel and Michael Ross at SV Life Sciences in Foster City, CA. | Ash recently founded vaccine developer SutroVax, where he serves as CBO and Director. SutroVax was recently spun out of Sutro BioPharma to harness the Xpress CFTM proprietary cell-free protein synthesis platform to develop novel vaccines against major infectious diseases.
Previously, Ash was an Associate at SV Life Sciences, focused on therapeutics, diagnostics, and other life sciences investments. Ash was a board observer or actively involved with the firm's investment in Allocure, Good Start Genetics, Logical Therapeutics, Mpex Pharma, NKT Therapeutics, PanOptica, and Sutro BioPharma. Before venture, Ash was a Team Leader at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where his primary responsibility was the clinical advancement of anti-diabetic agents. Ash led the Preclinical Development Team that discovered Onglyza (Saxagliptin), a DPP-4 inhibitor that is currently marketed for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Ash also co-founded and served as the Chief Business Officer of IntuiTouch, a medical device company that harnesses near-infrared technology for the detection of breast cancer. Ash started his career at BMS in 1999 as a bench scientist where he conceptualized and implemented an integrated preclinical study design that led to the discovery of a novel diabetes drug on which he holds a patent. | Ash has a PhD in Pharmaceutics from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he received the prestigious Buffalo Pharmaceutics Graduate Scholar Award. Ashish's graduate research focus was on gastrointestinal and cardiovascular disease, and his research findings have been published in several peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences. Ash holds an MBA in finance from the Wharton School and a BS in pharmacy from the University of Bombay. | 10 |
| Marek Kiisa | Kiisa | Astrec Invest | Estonia | , | Tallinn | Europe | Astrec Invest | 19 | Marek performed his fellowship at Astrec Invest under the mentorship of Talal Shamoon, CEO of Intertrust. He is a member of Class 19. | Marek has a particular interest in companies focused on IT infrastructure and efficient system management. He is a Managing Partner at Astrec Invest, a technology-oriented seed investment and venture capital firm based in Tallinn, Estonia and Stockholm, Sweden. He tracks deal flow from Scandinavia and Baltic countries, and performs industry and financial due diligence on both incoming business plans and targeted companies.
Marek also acts as a mentor and coach to selected portfolio companies that need extra kick for raising the next round or reevaluating their prototype model. During past five years he has been successful with a crowdsourcing engineering platform, a big data company, and companies creating artificial intelligence. He is a board member of Astrec Baltic, the IT infrastructure system integrator. | Marek is a graduate of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He holds a Master of Science degree in combustion engineering and machine design and also holds a degree in management from the Estonian Business School.
Marek serves as a board member of the Future School Foundation, as well as board member of the Estonian Business Angles Association. | 19 |
| John Kim | Kim | Amasia | Singapore | , | Singapore | Asia | Amasia | 20 | As a member of Class 20, John served his fellowship at Amasia under the mentorship of Amasia Chairman, Ramanan Raghavendran. He is also mentor to Class 21 member Geoffrey See. | John’s career has taken him across a diverse range of operating and investing environments, from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies. For the last decade, before founding cross-border venture capital firm Amasia, John focused in finance, serving as Senior Vice President at Mercuria Energy Group, Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, and Portfolio Manager at Korean National Investments. While in these roles, he managed trading and investment strategies across a diverse set of asset classes including commodities, public and private equity, fixed income, and derivatives.
John started his career as an entrepreneur, founding music, Internet, and e-consulting businesses before joining Merck & Co. as a system specialist. He left Merck to start his third company, a Delaware-incorporated rock band called The Ally. John toured across America and recorded with top artists, most notably receiving a platinum record for his album contribution with Grammy Award-winner Brandy. | John attended the Jerome Fisher Dual Degree Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Applied Science from the School of Engineering.
John is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on various corporate and nonprofit boards, including those of Switch Communications, Kairos Society ASEAN, and the Choson Exchange, a nonprofit focused on teaching female entrepreneurs in North Korea. | 20 |
| Ann Kim | Kim | Silicon Valley Bank | United States | California, | Pleasanton | Northern CA | Silicon Valley Bank | 24 | Ann is serving her fellowship at Silicon Valley Bank as a member of Class 24 under the mentorship of Rob Coneybeer (Class 2), Managing Director at Shasta Ventures and John China, President of SVB Capital. | Ann Kim is a Managing Director in Silicon Valley Bank's Frontier Technology group. She has spent much of her career working with venture-backed companies in aerospace, robotics, automation, transportation, mobility, AR/VR, and digital health segments. She was previously on the Corporate Finance team, advising later-stage and public tech companies. Prior to joining SVB, Ann was a healthcare consultant focused on commercialization strategies for pharmaceutical and medical device companies, and a Research Assistant at The Clorox Company. | Ann holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley. She was President of the Korean-American Student Organization, an active member of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA), and served on the executive operating committee for the Asia America MultiTechnology Association (AAMA). | 24 |
| Suzanne King | King | New Enterprise Associates | United States | Maryland, | Chevy Chase | Mid-Atlantic/SE | New Enterprise Associates | Charter | Suzanne is a member of the Charter Class and served her fellowship under mentor Peter Barris at NEA in Reston, VA. | Suzanne joined NEA in 1995 and is the Partner in charge of the firm's LP relations and marketing activities. In this role, she has coordinated raising $8.6 billion for NEA funds 12, 13, and 14. Suzanne started her career at NEA on the information technology investing team and worked with many portfolio companies including Guardent (acquired by Verisign), and Quantum Bridge Communications (acquired by Motorola).
Before joining NEA, Suzanne led the financial team at XcelleNet, a developer of system management software for remote access. She was part of XcelleNet's startup management team that grew the company to a successful IPO in 1994. Suzanne also worked as a senior auditor for Arthur Andersen where she specialized in emerging information technology companies. | Suzanne received a Masters of Management (MBA) from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Science in business administration, with Honors, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Suzanne is a Certified Public Accountant. | 0 |
| Cary Kinross-Wright | Kinross-Wright | Coach Cary | United States | Colorado, | Golden | Southwest | Intersouth Partners | 06 | Cary Kinross-Wright is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 6 and served her fellowship under mentor Dennis Dougherty at Intersouth Partners in Durham, North Carolina. | Cary left the corporate world in 2007 to dedicate herself to training and helping others train. She is a USAT Level I certified coach and has coached over 30 triathletes, runners, adventure racers, and cyclists. Cary herself has competed in triathlons, adventure races, and endurance running events across the globe.
Cary's venture career included being a partner at Mesa Capital Partners, serving her fellowship at Intersouth Partners, and working at The Altira Group. Cary invested in numerous early stage IT, biotech and energy technology companies, and also served as CFO for several companies. Cary spent her early career at Caltex Petroleum Corporation. She began as a process engineer and then spent a year in Thailand where she was part of the project team during the construction and start-up of the SPRC refinery. Looking for more exposure to the business side of Caltex, Cary joined the three-person fuels group, where she was responsible for the development and introduction of fuels products for markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. During her time there, Cary led major product introductions in Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore. | Cary received a BS in chemical engineering & petroleum refining from the Colorado School of Mines, her Master's degree in international studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, and her MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. | 6 |
| Daniel Kirchleitner | Kirchleitner | next47 | Germany | , | Munich | Europe | next47 | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Daniel is serving his fellowship at Next47 under the mentorship of Matthew Cowan (Mentor Class 12), a US-based Next47 Partner. | Over the past decade, Daniel has had first-hand experience as a startup founder and has played critical roles in corporate strategy and investing for Siemens. Currently, Daniel leads the European investment team for Next47, the global venture firm created by Siemens in 2016. Daniel was one of the founding members of Next47 and served as the firm’s Director of Operations where he helped define Next47’s strategy and investment focus.
Prior to Next47, he founded, scaled, and successfully exited two startups in the energy and adTech area. Daniel started his career as a strategy management consultant with Siemens' in-house consultancy. Prior to university, Daniel served as an apprentice in precision mechanics at a mid-sized German company. | Daniel has a Diploma and PhD in engineering from the Technical University of Ingolstadt and the University of Luebeck.
Daniel is a fellow of the Foundation of German Business. | 23 |
| Jonathan Kissane | Kissane | NetApp Inc. | United States | California, | Sunnyvale | MW Plains/Rockies | Centennial Ventures | 09 | Jonathan completed his fellowship as a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 9 at Centennial Ventures in Denver, CO. | At NetApp, Jon oversees Corporate Strategy and Corporate Development and is focused on driving the company-wide strategic planning process and identifying opportunities for technology collaboration and targeted strategic relationships.
Previously, Jon was at CA Technologies, where he was responsible for identifying opportunities to improve the company's competitive position and portfolio of IT management solutions. He led the mergers and acquisitions process across CA businesses, and achieved over $1B in successful transactions. Earlier, he served as SVP and General Manager, eCommerce and IT at Corel Corporation. Jon served his fellowship at Centennial Ventures, investing in network companies and related enabling software and technology enterprises. Prior to his venture capital experience, he served as the VP of Business Development for ViaFone, a mobile applications startup backed by DFJ and Redpoint and now owned by SAP. Before ViaFone, Jonathan was a Manager at The Boston Consulting Group focusing primarily on Internet, telecom and high-tech companies as well as working with pharma, financial services, and consumer goods clients. Jonathan has also worked at the leading New York law firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges helping to close M&A and joint venture investment deals for various Fortune 500 clients. | Jonathan earned his MBA from INSEAD (France and Singapore), and a JD from Harvard Law School. He received his BA degree in history and a BS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University, where he graduated with Distinction and Honors, Phi Beta Kappa. He was President of the Stanford Chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, as well as a member of the Varsity Crew Team. | 9 |
| Brian Kissel | Kissel | Matterport | United States | California, | Sunyvale | Northern CA | Blue Chip Venture Company | 07 | Brian is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 7 and served his fellowship under John McIlwraith at Blue Chip Venture Company in Cincinnati, OH. | Brian is passionate about leveraging technology to improve satisfaction and productivity of individuals, groups, and enterprises. He's a fan of Guy Kawasaki's "surprise and delight" customer experience mantra, and is a practitioner and advocate of agile product development as well as the user experience (UX) approach. Brian is SVP of Product at Matterport, an immersive media technology company that builds 3D media solutions used in a variety of sectors. The firm has built the first end-to-end media platform that allows users to easily create, modify, navigate, and build on digital representations of real places.
Before Matterport, Brian was at Sysomos as Executive VP of Product. Using contextual text analytics and data-mining technology, the Sysomos social intelligence engine collects data from blogs, Twitter, social networks, message boards, wikis, and major news sources and integrates all of that data into one user interface. Earlier, Brian was at [24]7, where he led the global product management organization in defining and delivering exceptional cross-channel (web, voice, chat, mobile), big data predictive, analytics-based consumer sales and support experiences. [24]7 provides cloud-based software and services for consumers to connect with companies to get things done, and helps companies anticipate what consumers want, simplify interactions, and learn from those interactions. Brian's two decades of experience spans a broad range of technology organizations. He was Business Group CIO and VP IT at Juniper Networks, helping drive the IT transformation for this market-leading company. Before that he was the CEO of Janrain, a user management platform for the social web, powering social media solutions across 350,000 websites. Janrain was also the driving force behind OpenID, operating myOpenID.com. Brian also served as Chairman of the Board of the OpenID Foundation. Earlier Brian was the SVP Electronic Banking Solutions at CheckFree (acquired by Fiserv). He served his fellowship at Blue Chip Venture Company, was CEO of Paraform, an engineering software company that was acquired by the Belgian firm Metris, and served as VP Marketing at Oblix (acquired by Oracle). | Brian holds a BS in mechanical engineering (top 10%) from the US Naval Academy and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Brian spent 6 years as a Division Officer in the US Navy Submarine Force in Charleston, SC and San Diego, CA. While a navy lieutenant, he was selected as one of four members of a team that accompanied Dr. Robert Ballard from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute during the first exploration of the RMS Titanic on the ocean floor. | 7 |
| Lindsay Knight | Knight | Chicago Ventures | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Chicago Ventures | 23 | Lindsay is a member of Class 23, serving her fellowship under the mentorship of Annette Finsterbusch (Class 11), Chairman and CEO of EnPower. | Lindsay has spent her career in the finance industry, split between venture capital and intellectual property. At Chicago Ventures, she built the firm’s platform function, which works closely with the firm’s 50+ portfolio companies as a direct extension of their teams. She spends time identifying and recruiting talent; partnering on press and communication strategy as well as business and corporate development; and building communities within the portfolio focused on education, professional development, and network creation across product, tech, people ops, sales, and marketing. She also manages Chicago Ventures’ brand; communication strategy; industry and community relationships; and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Prior to joining Chicago Ventures, Lindsay spent time in the Marketing department at Ocean Tomo, an intellectual property merchant bank, where she was part of the team that launched the industry’s first live patent auctions. She later joined CHOUmedia as Vice President, where she worked with clients in the IP industry on marketing strategy and execution. | Lindsay graduated from the Miami University Honors Program with degrees in strategic communication and journalism. She continues to work closely with the Entrepreneurship Department, including the Altman Program, which introduces undergraduates to entrepreneurship.
Lindsay is part of the Ms.Tech Associate Council, a social impact organization that helps business women do tech and tech women do business. She also serves on the Governing Board of the Tony-award-winning Lookingglass Theatre. She’s a triathlete and is training for her first 200-mile Pelotonia bike race. | 23 |
| Roman Knyazev | Knyazev | Rusnano | Russian Federation | , | Moscow | Europe | Rusnano | 17 | A member of Class 17, Roman served his fellowship at RUSNANO under the mentorship of Oleg Kiselev. Oleg is deputy CEO of RUSNANO and previously headed Russia's largest investment bank. | Roman Knyazev is a senior investment manager for RUSNANO, a Russian venture capital fund based in Moscow, Russia with $10B USD in capital. RUSNANO's mission is to develop the Russian nanotechnology industry through co-investment in nanotechnology projects with substantial economic potential or social benefit. Roman specializes in the healthcare investment division. In this role, he actively participates in the origination process, performs due diligence, negotiates deal terms, and leads the project to liquidity in the future. Roman serves as a board member in the projects he leads. Roman has a strong specialization in the healthcare industry. A distinguishing feature of RUSNANO is the «nano» investment mandate of all its investments. It could be pharm, medical devices, stem cells, etc., which contain any «nano» companies focused on infrastructure and energy savings through efficient system management. Roman has strong relations with key Russian pharm-players. He also is in the position of developing networks in both the USA and Europe. All Roman’s projects are structured in multi-nationally. Before RUSNANO, Roman worked for a Big4 company and for a Russian pharm wholesale and pharmacy chain-holding company. | Roman is a graduate of Moscow State University. He holds a Bachelor's degree in economics. | 17 |
| Bong Koh | Koh | Venrock | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | TVM Capital | 10 | Bong served his fellowship under mentor Stephen Hoffman at TVM Capital in Boston, MA as a member of Fellows Class 10. | Bong joined the healthcare investing team at Venrock in New York 2011 and has been doing public and private investing since 2004. Bong is a manager of Venrock’s public and cross-over biotech fund, Venrock Healthcare Partners, where he provides leadership in biotech investments. On the private side, Bong led Avalanche Biotechnologies’ (NASDAQ: AAVL) Series B financing and REGENXBIO’s series A round; furthermore he led Venrock’s Series A investment in Juno Therapeutics (NASDAQ: JUNO) and its Series B investment in Audentes Therapeutics.
In 2006 Bong co-founded and served as Managing Director of Pytho Partners, a fundamental, research-oriented investment firm focused on investing and helping to nurture biotechnology companies in the development phase. Earlier, Bong was a Principal at TVM Capital focusing on private and public clinical-stage companies, where his responsibilities included developing theses and strategies for investing in small-cap biotech companies. Prior to his career in venture, Bong completed his ophthalmology residency at Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary) and his internal medicine training at Stanford Medical School. He also completed two years of clinical research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center under a National Cancer Institute scholarship; at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia under an American Pediatric Society grant; and at UCSF in the department of Pathology. | Bong obtained his MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he did extensive work studying life science entrepreneurship and venture capital. He obtained his MD, with Honors, from the University of California San Francisco and his BA, cum laude, and with Distinction, in biology from Yale University. | 10 |
| Blake Koriath | Koriath | High Alpha | United States | Indiana, | Indianapolis | MW Plains/Rockies | High Alpha | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Blake is serving his fellowship at High Alpha under the mentorship of Managing Partner Scott Dorsey and Santi Subotovsky (Class 15) of Emergence Capital Partners. | Blake is a finance and operations professional with extensive experience in corporate finance, M&A integration, and operations management. He joined High Alpha as the first employee in 2015 and leads all finance functions for the firm’s Venture Studio, early-stage portfolio companies, and venture capital funds.
Blake's career in startups and technology began in 2008 when he joined ExactTarget, which completed its IPO in 2012 and was acquired by Salesforce in 2013. During his time there, he worked in finance supporting all parts of the business, corporate development leading M&A integration for two of ExactTarget's acquisitions, and operations leading ops for one of Salesforce's most rapidly-growing divisions. Prior to ExactTarget, Blake gained experience in more traditional industries including insurance, banking, and healthcare. | Blake attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at the Kenan-Flagler Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Blake is a board member of the Orr Fellowship, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit whose mission is to develop the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs. He is also on the Board of Trustees at the Indianapolis Zoo and an active member of The Penrod Society. | 23 |
| Robert Kornblum | Kornblum | GE Ventures | United States | Massachusetts, | Concord | Boston/Northeast | Austin Ventures | 04 | Rob was a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 4 and served his fellowship at Austin Ventures under mentor Joe Aragona. | Rob is a proven strategic and operating executive spanning the software and Internet industries. In 2017 he joined GE Ventures as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence, supporting the firm's portfolio companies and sourcing new deals in enterprise software and supply chain.
Before GE Ventures, Rob was Senior Vice President – Corporate Development at Avention, responsible for strategic partnerships, M&A, and strategy. Before that he was SVP of Strategy, Product, Network and Corporate Development at LifeCare, the global leader in personal productivity solutions. Earlier, Rob was VP and General Manager for Bullhorn, a leading SaaS company, where he was responsible for leading the development and launch of new businesses, as well as corporate strategy, creating competitive advantage for Bullhorn’s worldwide network of customers. An expert in driving growth and creating new strategic opportunities, Rob consulted to a number of firms in the Internet industry prior to joining Bullhorn, and was VP of Business Development for Monster Worldwide, where he led all acquisition and alliance activity in North America. Rob was previously Managing Director of Angle Technology Ventures, where he focused on corporate and university spin-outs. He served as Director Global Alliances for Manugistics, a leading provider of supply chain chain solutions, where directed relationships with integrators and software partners, and also led the firm's wireless and RFID strategy. Rob was a Principal at Austin Ventures where he served his fellowship, investing in high-growth software and Internet companies, and prior to that was an Associate at Robertson, Stephens & Company. | Rob received his MBA degree from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, with majors in marketing and entrepreneurship, and was named Top Student in the Entrepreneurship Department. He received his Bachelor's degree in history from Dartmouth College. | 4 |
| Clint Korver | Korver | Ulu Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Crescendo Ventures/Ulu Ventures | 14 | Clint served his fellowship at Crescendo Ventures under the mentorship of David Spreng. He is a member of Class 14. | Clint co-founded Ulu Ventures, an early stage IT venture firm, after 15 years as a serial entrepreneur. He focuses on technology-enabled services, education technology, and companies that turn data into actionable information.
Clint is also a venture partner at Crescendo Ventures; teaches a graduate level entrepreneurship course in the School of Engineering at Stanford University; mentors at StartX, the Stanford student run accelerator; and co-leads Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, an official Alumni Association group connecting investors and entrepreneurs in Stanford's entrepreneurial ecosystem. An expert in decision analysis, Clint founded and led two internet companies, a training company, and a consulting company, all of which provided tools or processes to help individuals and organizations make better decisions. He holds multiple patents in web-based decision analytics, taught ethical decision-making at both Stanford University and Grinnell College, and co-authored Ethics for the Real World (Harvard Business Press 2008) with Stanford professor Ron Howard. | Clint holds a PhD and an MS in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University, specializing in decision analysis, and a BA, with Honors, in mathematics from Grinnell College where he serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. | 14 |
| Marcin Kowalik | Kowalik | Black Pearls VC | Poland | , | Gdańsk | Europe | Black Pearls VC | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Marcin served his fellowship at Black Pearls VC under the mentorship of Marcin Hejka, Vice President at Intel Capital. | Marcin is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Black Pearls VC, a Polish firm operating within the Baltic Sea region. He specializes in life-quality technologies, in particular the intelligent transportation systems (ITS), education, and downstream space sectors.
Marcin has established three investment funds in his career. Two have been focused on fostering life-quality technology projects—the first social impact initiatives of their kind in Poland. Marcin actively supports the development of the Polish economy through participation in the Committee of Stakeholders of the National Centre for Research and Development, the board of Interizon, the Polis ICT Cluster, and the Coalition for Polish Innovations. | Marcin earned his Master of Economics degree at Łazarski University in Warsaw; he also took engineering courses (computer science) at the Warsaw School of Information Technology under the auspices of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Later, Marcin received a postgraduate diploma (Controlling and Management of Enterprises) from the University of Gdańsk, where he is currently working on his PhD; his thesis focuses on business models, startups, and innovation. Marcin is also a devoted family man: a proud husband and father of three. | 22 |
| Kirill Kozhevnikov | Kozhevnikov | RTP Global | , | Moscow | Asia | RTP Global | 24 | Kirill is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 24, serving his fellowship at RTP Global under the mentorship of Kirill Sheynkman, the firm’s co-founder and General Partner. | Kirill is a Partner at RTP Global, a $200M, early-stage global fund, and is responsible for the fund's Indian portfolio, investments, and pipeline. Before RTP Global, Kirill was a Managing Director and Partner at Sistema Asia Fund (SAF), in New Delhi, India, which he co-developed and launched in late 2015, and where he led and completed 5 out of 10 of the firm’s investments in 2016-2018 (with one exit in early 2019). While there, he served as board member for Seclore, Qwikcilver, Netmeds, HealthifyMe, and Faasos. Prior to Sistema he managed multiple VC deals in Russia as a Venture Partner at a European fund, and as a Chief Investment Officer at sovereign nanotechnology fund for 5 years. Kirill started his career at PwC in 1999- 2001, and moved to investment banking, where he did M&A deals and corporate finance advisory projects for 7 years. | Kirill has a master’s degree in engineering and economics from Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. | 24 | |
| Daniel Kraft | Kraft | Singularity University | United States | California, | Portola Valley | Northern CA | Proteus Venture Partners | 13 | Daniel Kraft is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 13 and served his fellowship under mentor Gregory Bonfiglio at Proteus Venture Partners. | Daniel is a Stanford- and Harvard-trained physician/scientist and innovator, with over 25 years of clinical, research, biotechnology, and entrepreneurial experience. He is the Chair of Medicine at Singularity University and founder of Exponential Medicine, a unique cross-disciplinary program that explores how rapidly advancing, convergent technologies can shape the future of healthcare. He is also an to several leading biomedical & digital health startups.
He is also the inventor of the FDA-approved "MarrowMiner" medical device. He is the founder of RegenMed Systems, a clinical stage medical device company developing tools to enable regenerative medicine. Daniel has multiple peer-reviewed publications, including Science and Cell and has five filed patents. He has lectured extensively on stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, and has spoken at both TED and TEDMED. He is Chief Correspondent on the weekly NPR radio program, Tech Nation Health. | Daniel has an AB in biochemistry, cum laude, from Brown University, and an MD from Stanford, with Honors, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellow. He completed the Harvard Combined Residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, and then returned to Stanford for a postdoctoral fellowship. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and BE in Hematology/Oncology.
Daniel has a passion for aviation, and has research and clinical expertise in aerospace medicine (served as an Air National Guard flight surgeon) and has published research with NASA, with whom he was a finalist for astronaut selection. Daniel is part of the inaugural class of Health Innovator Fellows at the Aspen Institute, and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. | 13 |
| Peter Krawiec | Krawiec | Amazon.com | United States | Washington, | Seattle | Northwest | Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds | 06 | Peter served his fellowship under mentor Marc Benson at Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds in Reston, VA, as a member of Class 6. | Peter is Vice President and Director, Worldwide Corporate Development at Amazon.com, where he focuses on software, internet, and commerce acquisitions and direct investments.
Before joining Amazon.com, Peter worked at Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, where he led investments in Trinity Convergence, TapRoot Systems, and Artifact Software. He also worked closely with MAVF portfolio companies Inphonic, Provox Technologies, and Geovue. Prior to joining MAVF, Peter was an investment banker at JP Morgan in the mergers and acquisitions group, working closely with a number of early-stage companies and leading several private equity transactions. In addition, Peter worked as a product manager in Hewlett-Packard's Future Products Marketing group, where he developed their strategy for entering the interactive television and Internet appliance marketplace. | Peter graduated from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where he was selected as an Austin Scholar. His undergraduate experience included graduating Phi Beta Kappa, receiving the Keith G. Funston Memorial Award in economics, studying at Cambridge University in England, and earning four varsity letters in ice hockey and a BA degree from Trinity College. | 6 |
| Prasanna Krishnan | Krishnan | SmartyPal | United States | Pennsylvania, | Philadelphia | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Draper Fisher Jurvetson | 13 | Prasanna is a member of Fellows Class 13 and served her fellowship under the mentorship of Tim Draper at DFJ and at Comcast. | Prasanna is General Manager, Travel Planning at travel startup Jetsetter.com, a member of the Gilt Groupe.
Before that she was Director of Strategy & Business Development at Comcast Converged Products, a startup group at Comcast, looking at convergence of internet & traditional media. Previously she was an Associate at DFJ where she invested in software and consumer internet companies. Prior to joining DFJ, Prasanna worked as a Program Manager at Microsoft on WinFS, a new storage system for next generation Windows PCs. Prasanna was selected into the Microsoft Select Fast-track Program as one of 15 employees who demonstrated potential to be future leaders at the company. She also worked at McKinsey & Co. in their Philadelphia office, at Internet Capital Group and at Novell Software Development Ltd. in India. | Prasanna holds an MBA from the Wharton School where she graduated as a Palmer Scholar. She has an MS in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was a Siebel Scholar, and received the C.W. Gear Outstanding Graduate Student award for research and service. As part of her Master’s thesis, she designed and led a DARPA-sponsored team to build an innovative communication software upgrade scheme for sensor networks.
Prasanna holds a BE in computer science from BITS, Pilani, India where she received the University Fellowship awarded to the top 10 undergraduates each semester. She was also awarded the BITS Alumni Association’s "30 under 30" award. Prasanna is a trained Indian classical dancer. She enjoys hiking and travelling, and camped for eight days in Antarctica. She is an environmental enthusiast and an active volunteer in non-profit organizations focused on child welfare. | 13 |
| Andrew Krowne | Krowne | Levensohn Venture Partners | United States | , | Boston/Northeast | Levensohn Venture Partners / Dolby Family Ventures | 22 | Andrew served his fellowship at both Dolby Family Ventures and Levensohn Venture Partners as a member of Class 22. His mentor was Pascal Levensohn (Mentor Class 14), founder of Levensohn Venture Partners and Managing Director of Dolby Family Ventures. | Andrew is a Principal at Dolby Family Ventures, an early-stage venture firm focused on hard-tech companies with a commitment to catalyze solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems. In his role, Andrew supports and helps execute on all aspects of the venture process, including sourcing, executing, and managing new and existing investment opportunities across seven distinct industry portfolios. Dolby Family Ventures honors the legacy of Ray Dolby and formalizes the Dolby family’s multi-generational commitment to supporting talented entrepreneurs.
Andrew is also a Principal at Levensohn Venture Partners, where he works closely with Pascal Levensohn, advising a select group of family offices (including the Dolby organization) with an emphasis on direct technology investments. Levensohn Venture Partners directly oversees three venture capital funds, one of which is Dolby Family Ventures. | Andrew attended the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where he was an Investment Management Fellow, CFA Merit Award recipient, and a Consortium Fellow. He earned a BS degree from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce with a double-concentration in finance and accounting. | 22 | |
| John Kuelper | Kuelper | Ascension Ventures | United States | Missouri, | Clayton | MW Plains/Rockies | Ascension Ventures | 19 | John is a member of Class 19 and served his fellowship at Ascension Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Director Ryan Schuler. | John Kuelper is a Director at Ascension Ventures, a strategic venture capital and growth equity firm with over $800 million under management. Ascension invests in health IT, health services, medical devices, and diagnostics on behalf of 13 of the nation's largest nonprofit health systems. John focuses on investments in data-intensive software solutions that serve healthcare providers and consumers.
John is Founder and President of Qualia Holdings LLC, a platform for systems biology and software ventures. He has advised or worked for several investment firms (Adams Street Partners, Sterling Partners, Abundant Venture Partners), medical technology companies (Stereotaxis, Orpheden Therapeutics), and non-profits (Kresge Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association). John began his career as a medical researcher studying computational neuroscience and medical robotics and has over 15 years of experience as a commercial software developer. | John earned a JD and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law and the Kellogg School of Management, respectively. He earned his MBA with Honors and was elected Beta Gamma Sigma (top 10% of class). He earned a BA in cognitive neuroscience from Washington University, graduating magna cum laude. | 19 |
| Raj Kundra | Kundra | Pacific Global Advisors | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Acumen Fund | 14 | Raj is a member of Class 14 and served his fellowship at Acumen Fund under mentor Stuart Davidson. | Raj joined the Macquarie Group in 2013 to lead a new impact investing initiative, including Macquarie's first impact fund, Macquarie Social Impact LLC (MPSI). MPSI aims to invest in companies in the developing world in infrastructure adjacent sectors -- with an aim of increasing access to basic services to the underserved. Prior to Macquarie, Raj served as Deputy CIO of the Acumen Fund, a social venture firm focused on supporting enterprises that bring basic goods and services to the poor. Prior to joining Acumen, Raj worked at Lehman Brothers and J.P. Morgan for a total of 14 years in various roles across Capital Markets, Emerging Markets, and Derivatives. | Raj has a BS in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated cum laude. Raj spends his spare time with his family and three children in Montclair, NJ. | 14 |
| Aslihan Turkmen | Turkmen | Endeavor - Turkey | Turkey | , | Instanbul | Europe;Middle East | Endeavor - Turkey | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Asli served her fellowship at Endeavor Turkey under the mentorship of Allen Taylor, Kauffman Fellow Class 16. | Aslı is the Director of Entrepreneur Search and Services at Endeavor Turkey, a non-profit that supports high-impact entrepreneurs. In this role, she is responsible for identifying high potential entrepreneurs, coordinating the search process, and mobilizing appropriate support services for companies that join the Endeavor portfolio. Endeavor is sector-agnostic in its selection process, so Asli has experience with entrepreneurs in many different fields, ranging from retail to high-tech. As an individual, Asli is also a shareholder of and advisor to idemama.com, a venture-backed internet company that brings together designers and indivduals/SMEs that need design services. | Asli holds an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University with a double major in economics and learning and organizational change. She received her Master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, in social-organizational psychology. | 18 |
| Cédric Köhler | Köhler | Creathor AG | Switzerland | , | Zurich | Europe | Creathor AG | 24 | Cédric is a member of Class 24, performing his fellowship at Creathor Ventures under the mentorship of Nikolai Ahrens, CEO of Turos Capital. | Cédric is a Managing Partner at Creathor Ventures with more than 12 years of experience in venture capital. He specializes in innovative business concepts in the technology sector and successfully manages several portfolios. Prior to joining Creathor Ventures, Cédric was a business consultant at Synpulse in Zurich, where he was involved in several projects in the areas of CRM, web applications, customer retention systems, and business development. Cédric gained venture capital experience at the Technologieholding VC GmbH along with international work experience in France and the US. Cédric is an active council member of The Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association (SECA) and the Swiss ICT Investor Club (SICTIC). | Cédric earned a master’s degree in business administration with a major in business informatics from the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany. Living in Switzerland with his family for more than a decade, he enjoys hiking, climbing, and snowboarding in the Swiss mountains. | 24 |
| Amir Lahat | Lahat | Olive Tree Ventures | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | Nokia Siemens Networks | 15 | As a member of Class 15, Amir served his fellowship at Nokia Siemens Networks under the mentorship of John Gardner. | Amir has an interest in building new large-potential businesses by applying interdisciplinary solutions to challenge current business' status-quo. Amir has particular interest in the areas of mobile, cloud computing, user experience, and geo-specific user behavior. He has a broad business and entrepreneur network in Asia, Europe, and the US.
Amir recently co-founded Olive Tree Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm looking to invest in entrepreneurs who make significant impact on people's life, in particular in the enterprise and digital health arenas. Previously, Amir co-founded Round A Capital and before that he headed the global business ventures group for Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), a global leader of telecommunication hardware, software and services. In this role, he led the internal incubation (startups@nsn) program, external startup and VC business partnerships, and building new growth domains for the company. Prior to Nokia Siemens Networks, Amir was co-founder of Atrica, a networking company that was acquired by NSN, as well as a co-founder of Dyyno, a real-time peer-to-peer video company. Earlier Amir had business and marketing roles with 3Com and engineering roles with Telrad/Nortel. As an individual, Amir is an advisor to several startup companies in the areas of mobile services, network technology and cloud solutions. He holds 11 patents in the areas of networking architecture, applications, and protocols. | Amir holds MBA and engineering degrees from Tel-Aviv University and has completed additional studies at Stanford University. Amir is passionate about new technology, challenging the norm, outdoor activities and spending time with the family when not traveling.
Amir grew up in Israel, is fluent in English and Hebrew, and lived for 11 years in Silicon Valley before moving back to Israel. | 15 |
| Kenza Lahlou | Lahlou | Outlierz Ventures | , | Casablanca | Outlierz Ventures | 25 | Kenza Lahlou is the co-founder and General Partner of Outlierz Ventures, an early-stage Africa-focused VC fund, based out of Morocco. The fund invests in Seed and Pre-Series A tech-enabled companies solving fundamental problems across key industries in 4 main markets in Africa: Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya. Kenza started Outlierz Ventures in 2019 after spending four years on the ground kick-starting Morocco’s startup ecosystem via StartupYourLife (SYL), a pioneer ecosystem builder she co-founded and run from 2014 to 2018 to support and connect tech entrepreneurs to the resources they needed.
Prior to that, Kenza had a life-changing work-experience in San Francisco where she joined a boutique advisory firm to support startups from emerging markets scaling into the US. This is where she realized the untapped potential of Africa and decided to come back to Morocco in 2013 and be a vector of change. Before that, Kenza spent 8 years studying and working abroad first in France, then in Singapore, and in the US. She gained experience in R&D with Xerox Research Center (AI project), in management consulting for large industries, in Private Equity as a Financial Analyst at Attijari Invest, and in the tech industry as Partnership Manager at Viadeo. | Kenza holds a BSc and MSc in Computer Science and Data Mining from INSA Rouen in France. She also completed a Master's in Business from ESSEC Business School on the Singapore campus.
In 2016, she was selected by Goldman Sachs and the U.S. Departement of States to complete an Executive Program on Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School part of the 10k Women entrepreneurs initiative. She also enrolled in a Venture Capital executive program at Stanford University in partnership with 500 Startups (VC Unlocked Summer 2016). Her personal mission is to back the next generation of African success stories that will change the continent narrative. | 25 | |||
| Terence Lam | Lam | NF Trinity Capital | China | , | Hong Kong | Asia | NF Trinity Capital | 23 | Terence is a member of Class 23, serving his fellowship at NFT Capital under the mentorship of Andrew Farquharson, MD (Class 9, Mentor Class 19) of InCube Ventures. | Terence is a Director at NF Trinity Capital, leading its direct and fund investments in healthcare. He is an existing board director of a number of biotech companies in US and China and an LP advisory committee member of a number of biotech funds.
Previously Terence was a Director at Looks Asset Management, a hedge fund startup with a fundamental long–short value-oriented strategy. Prior to that, he was an investment associate at Intermediate Capital Group, an FTSE-listed fund with US$20B+ AUM, and has invested across the capital structure (subdebt, warranted mezzanine, equity) in a diverse range of services sectors in Asia. Terence began his career at Citigroup as a credit derivative structurer. | Terence received a dual degree of MBA at Tsinghua University and Master of Science in Management Studies at MIT Sloan. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering. | 23 |
| Stuart Lander | Lander | Upfront Ventures | United States | California, | Santa Monica | Southern CA & Hawaii | Upfront Ventures | 21 | Stuart served his fellowship at Upfront Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Partner Mark Suster. He is a member of Class 21, and serves as a mentor for Chang Xu (Class 23). | Stuart joined Los Angeles-based Upfront Ventures in 2014 to run all of the firm’s non-investment activities including operations, marketing, and platform services.
Before joining Upfront, Stuart was Chief Marketing Officer at CareerArc, a SaaS-based social recruiting platform, where he was responsible for the marketing, business development, and product management functions. While at CareerArc, Stuart was responsible for building Internships.com into the world’s largest internships marketplace and spearheading its sale to Chegg, Inc. Prior to CareerArc, Stuart was Founder and Chief Operating Officer at BuildOnline, a document management and collaboration-based SaaS company that was acquired by SWORD Group. Earlier in his career, Stuart was an attorney with the international law firm Herbert Smith, where he worked on multiple corporate finance transactions including mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings in their London and Singapore offices. | Stuart received a first class honors degree in international history and politics from the University of Leeds and a law degree, with Distinction, from the College of Law in London, England. | 21 |
| Thad Langford | Langford | Flyover Capital | United States | Kansas, | Overland Park | MW Plains/Rockies | Flyover Capital | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Thad served his fellowship at Flyover Capital under the mentorship of Elliot Katzman, General Partner at Commonwealth Capital Ventures in Boston, who has more than 30 years of technology experience building some of New England’s most successful companies as investor, founder, and senior executive. | After establishing his business chops in both Fortune 500 and early-stage environments, Thad is one of the founding partners at Flyover Capital, where he is focused on fulfilling the firm’s mission of creating the next generation of technology success stories in areas outside of the traditional tech hubs. Before Flyover, Thad was President and CEO of Zave Networks (acquired by Google), a venture-backed digital advertising tech company. Prior to that, he spent several years at Sprint leading multiple businesses during the formative years of mobile data and wireless wholesale services. One of his executive positions included managing Sprint’s Innovation program and co-founding Sprint Nextel Ventures.
Since moving to the Midwest after stints on both coasts, Thad is committed to bolstering the early-stage technology scene in the region. As such, he co-founded BlackOps Development, a high-quality software development company, and serves on the boards of several rapidly developing companies. | Thad graduated from the University of Arizona, where he played on the Wildcats’ nationally ranked NCAA tennis team. He earned his MBA from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Thad serves as a mentor and advisor for Techstars Kansas City and the Sprint Accelerator. He lives in Leawood, Kansas with his family, with whom he enjoys spending time playing tennis, hiking, and exploring new destinations. | 22 |
| Avid Duggan | Duggan | Kobalt | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Accel Partners | 11 | Avid completed her fellowship at Accel Partners in London under the mentorship of Judy Gibbons as a member of Fellows Class 11. | Avid is Executive Vice President at Kobalt, leading global strategy and business development efforts. Kobalt is a New York-based music tech company that acts as a publisher and provides royalty tracking services across various digital platforms.
Avid became a founding partner of Google Ventures (GV) Europe in September 2014, focusing on investments in European startups, primarily in the Internet and software sectors. Kobalt was one of her portfolio investments at GV In early 2010, Avid became the co-founder of Boticca, an online marketplace for independent designers of jewelry and accessories around the world. She is also the UK lead for Code.org, an organization promoting children's learning computer programming through fun, game-based activities. From 2006 to 2009 Avid was an Associate at Accel Partners in London where she focused primarily on software and internet investments. She has been a board observer for MindCandy, MyThings, and Spreadshirt and was involved in the firm’s investments in MyHeritage and Gameforge. Before joining Accel Partners in 2006, Avid worked in a number of product management roles at Skype Technologies, eBay, and Tellme Networks. At Skype, she created and implemented usability processes across departments and facilitated the strategic migration from early adopters to mainstream customers. At eBay, Avid spent 3 years in product management and handled the deployment of over $10 million of development resources per year. She launched eBay's first global online selling tools, Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro for which she has a patent pending. She also led the design and launch of eBay's Picture Services, a $40 million per year revenue generating business in 13 countries. Before that, Avid worked at Tellme Networks, Inc. where she designed and built a voice application to enable people to trade on eBay using the phone. | Avid earned her BS in telecommunications engineering and her MS in management science and engineering at Stanford University where she was a Mayfield Fellow and a member of the Cap and Gown Honor Society. She also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Avid grew up in France until she moved to the United States in 1996. She is fluent in English, French and Farsi, and conversant in German. | 11 |
| Miles Lasater | Lasater | Purpose Built Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Purpose Built Ventures | 23 | Miles is a member of the Class of 23, serving his fellowship at Purpose Built Ventures and F-Prime Capital. | Miles is a company founder turned investor. He is Founding Partner of Purpose Built Ventures where he invests at the earliest stages in companies working to increase human wellbeing and opportunity and improve the public sphere. He also serves as a Venture Partner at F-Prime Capital, which is a technology venture fund affiliated with Fidelity Investments that has a focus on enterprise IT and FinTech.
Miles co-founded Higher One (NYSE: ONE) while in college and grew the higher education FinTech business to over $200M in revenue and $1B in market cap on $16M of venture financing. He served variously as Chairman, President, and COO including leading product, technology, operations, and marketing. Miles went on to start two other venture-backed startups: SeeClickFix (SaaS for local government) and OneUni (higher education via smartphone). Miles is an active investor and advisor, backing companies such as Altschool, Honor, Remix, Notable Health, and Thunder. At the Yale School of Management, Miles co-created and taught a course on managing software development which was the first of its kind. He is co-founder of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society, and former Board member of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute. | Miles graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s in computer science.
Miles is chair of the board of tech nonprofit Curious Learning, which focuses on childhood literacy via open source software. He has served on the board of other nonprofits including Yale New Haven Hospital and Venture for America. He co-founded the Yale Humanist Community and was founding board member for MakeHaven, New Haven’s makerspace. He is a husband, father of four children, and a book addict. | 23 |
| Dimitri Laskoski | Laskoski | Catapult Capital | United States | New York, | New York | NJ/PA | ProQuest | 12 | Dimitri is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and served his fellowship under mentor Jay Moorin at ProQuest Investments. | Dimitri recently joined Catapult Capital Management, and New York-based investment manager, investing primarily in the North American capital markets. Before this role, he was a Senior Analyst with Iguana Healthcare Partners, which invests long/short globally in public companies in the healthcare industry. Before Iguana, Dimitri held roles focusing on the biotechnology industry at Guggenheim Partners and Oppenheimer & Co.
Dimitri was an Associate and Kauffman Fellow at ProQuest Investments for nearly 6 years, where he provided technical consultation to ProQuest while pursuing academic research in molecular biology at Princeton University. While at Princeton, he led numerous research projects in the area of human virology, immunology and genomics. In addition, Dimitri has co-authored several clinical papers in dermatology. Dimiri spent almost five years on the VC side, another two years on the sell-side, and is currently focusing on investments in public healthcare companies. | Dimitri received his PhD in molecular biology from Princeton University. He earned a BS degree in biochemistry, genetics, zoology and German literature from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he graduated with Honors and Departmental Citations. While at Wisconsin, Dimitri received the United Nations Merit Scholarship from the International Institute of Education. Dimitri has extensive international experience and speaks five foreign languages. | 12 |
| Brigette Lau | Lau | Social Capital | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Social Capital | 21 | Brigette served her fellowship at Social Capital under the mentorship of General Partner Mamoon Hamid (Class 11). She is a member of Class 21. | Brigette is Board Partner at Social Capital, a venture capital firm in Palo Alto with the mission of transforming society by using technology to solve the world’s hardest problems. Brigette focuses on investing in entrepreneurs attempting to improve the state of education all around the world. Education investing includes companies focused on K-12 (primary and secondary school) and higher ed (university), as well as dilgencing companies that focus on servicing the skills economy or otherwise impact the flow of human capital.
Brigette led the Series A round and is a board director of Descomplica, one of the fastest growing education companies in Brazil. She is also on the boards of Treehouse, Brilliant, and the nonprofit CodeNow. As an individual, Brigette is an angel investor and belongs to the Broadway Angels group in San Francisco. She has made investments in HintWater, BetterUp, BlueCrew, and several other early-stage startups. | Brigette graduated First Class Honors in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo and has an MBA from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.
Apart from investing, Brigette is a strong advocate for her community. She has co-founded several local food concepts including Tin Pot Creamery and Bird Dog. She is an active fundraiser for local schools and a strong supporter of women in art. | 21 |
| Vinnie Lauria | Lauria | Golden Gate Ventures | Singapore | , | Singapore | South Asia | Golden Gate Ventures | 17 | As a member of Class 17, Vinnie served his fellowship at Golden Gate Ventures under the mentorship of Paul Bragiel. He also served as a mentor to Justin Hall (Class 20). | Vinnie Lauria is entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. He is a founding partner of Golden Gate Ventures, an early-stage VC firm in Southeast Asia with over 20 investments to date. He is a Kauffman Fellow, and a guest lecturer at the National University of Singapore. He was rated by the Founder Institute as highest startup mentor in Asia from a pool of 2,500 mentors.
Prior to setting up Golden Gate Ventures, Vinnie built two startups in Silicon Valley: Meetro, a location-based chat service which was dissolved with many lessons learned in 2007; and Lefora, a forum hosting platform which grew to over 100,000 communities and was acquired by CrowdGather in 2010. He founded the Silicon Valley NewTech meetup, featuring hundreds of startups to a monthly audience with more than 10,000 members. Earlier in his career, Vinnie spent four years within IBM, helping to shape how IBM was approaching social software for the enterprise. Vinnie is passionate about building startup ecosystems. He joined his first startup while still in high school. His latest activities can be followed on Twitter: @vlauria. | Vinnie is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Engineering. He holds a Bachelor of Science in computer engineering and a minor in business development.
Vinnie spent 2010-11 traveling around Asia, immersing himself in different cultures. Some adventures included: spending two weeks living at a Buddhist monastery studying Kung Fu under Shaolin monks, ten days driving an auto-rickshaw (tuk tuk) over 1,000km across India for charity, venturing 4,014km high to tallest city in the world - Litang, China, scooting around the entire island of Taiwan, exploring the jungles of Borneo and Laos, and taking a 10 day vow of silence for Vipassana meditation. | 17 |
| Pinn Lawjindakul | Lawjindakul | Lightspeed Ventures | , | Singapore | South Asia | Lightspeed Ventures | 25 | As founding member of Lightspeed Southeast Asia, Pinn is involved in setting up the global venture fund's new office in Singapore.
Prior to Lightspeed, she was at Tiger Global Management, a tech-focused private equity fund, where she focused on consumer and financial technology companies across India and China. She worked closely with Flipkart (sold to Walmart), Ola, Policybazaar, Hike, Games 24x7, Razorpay, Uxin (IPO exit). Pinn started her career as a management consultant at Bain & Company and also founded Grab’s motorcycle-on-demand in Bangkok, Thailand. | Pinn is from Bangkok, Thailand. She graduated from Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania with a double degree in Psychology and Finance. | 25 | ||
| Alexandre Lazarow | Lazarow | Cathay Innovation | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Omidyar Network | 19 | Alex served his fellowship at the Omidyar Network under the mentorship of Arjuna Costa as a member of Class 19. | Alex is an Investment Director with Cathay Innovation’s San Francisco office, a global venture capital firm. Cathay Innovation is part of Cathay Capital, an investment firm with over $2.5B AUM and offices across San Francisco, New York, Paris, Munich, Tel Aviv, Shanghai and Beijing. In his personal capacity, Alex is also a Board Advisor to MPOWER, a P2P lender focused on financially underserved students at U.S. colleges and universities.
Previously, Alex was a member of Omidyar Network’s investment team where he helped structure and manage Omidyar’s for-profit investments and nonprofit grants. Alex invested across the entrepreneurship and financial inclusion initiatives with a focus on Africa, Southeast Asia, and other emerging markets. He was a deal team member for innovative companies including Cignifi, Lenddo, MicroEnsure, Offgrid:Electric, Pagatech, RUMA, and Zoona. Prior to joining Omidyar Network, Alex was a management consultant with McKinsey & Co.’s Brussels and Washington, DC offices, focusing on the intersection of finance, economic development, and strategy. He served clients across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America in the private, public, and social sectors. Earlier, Alex worked with the Bank of Canada’s Financial Stability Department, Bridges Ventures, and the Royal Bank of Canada M&A Investment Banking team. | Alex earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder. He has a Bachelor of Commerce in international business and finance from the University of Manitoba, Canada. | 19 |
| Jeffrey Leavitt | Leavitt | DLA Piper | United States | Georgia, | Atlanta | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Alliance Technology Ventures | 08 | A member of Fellows Class 8, Jeffrey served his fellowship under mentor Michael Slawson at Alliance Technology Ventures in Atlanta, GA. He was the first JD in the program and is its only practicing attorney. | Jeffrey Leavitt is a Partner with the law firm of DLA Piper, and works with emerging growth companies, private investment entities, and the various groups that advise them.
Jeffrey served his fellowship at Alliance Technology Ventures, focusing on semiconductor and IT investing. He worked with several ATV portfolio companies and led the effort for ATV III's first exit event, and was later the VP of Finance and General Counsel of Xytrans, a portfolio company based in Orlando, Florida, that develops high-frequency communications devices for commercial and homeland security applications. Jeffrey was co-founder of iPath, an enterprise software company in New York City. Joining the company before it was funded, Jeffrey was instrumental in writing the business plan and leading the company's negotiations through its initial rounds of venture financing. Previously, Jeffrey was an associate in the Mergers & Acquisitions group of Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City, where he advised on the execution of high-profile transactions including the merger of the Qwest and US West and the merger of the Exxon and Mobil, each the largest in history when announced. | Jeffrey received a BA from Duke University and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was selected to be a member of the Law Review. Jeffrey was also an Arthur R. Littleton Fellowship recipient at Penn.
He has run the New York City Marathon twice. | 8 |
| Jennifer Lee | Lee | Learn Capital | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northern CA | Learn Capital | 22 | A member of Class 22, Jennifer served her fellowship at Learn Capital. Her mentor was Dimple Sahni (Class 11) of Anthos Asset Management. | Jennifer has spent her career investing across a variety of asset classes. She is currently the Principal at Learn Capital, a global education venture capital fund. Jennifer participates in all aspects of fund management, from bringing in new LPs to helping drive investments into companies like Photomath and GeniusPlaza.
She began her career in fixed income, as the US Treasury, futures, and swaps analyst at Lehman Brothers. From there, Jennifer moved into private debt and equity investing in emerging market financial institutions at Developing World Markets (DWM). At DWM, she served as Vice President and Relationship Manager for Asia and the Middle East, leading investments in 17 countries, managing the Asia/Middle East team, and creating the investment strategy for the region. Jennifer was also an independent consultant for ImpactAssets, where she helped build their seed-stage investing platform for donor-advised funds. | Jennifer attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in chemistry and one in management science. She also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Jennifer is a mother of two young boys. She supports and volunteers at a local community development organization in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where she spent much of her youth, and also at a nonprofit focused on teen mothers. She loves traveling and has visited over 60 countries. | 22 |
| Peter Lee | Lee | Embark Ventures | United States | California, | Santa Monica | Southern CA & Hawaii | Prism VentureWorks | 13 | Peter served the first year of his fellowship at Prism VentureWorks under mentor Woody Benson, and completed the second year at Baroda Ventures with mentor David Bohnett. He is a member of Class 13. Peter also served as a mentor to Yipeng Zhao (Class 22). | Peter brings over a dozen years of experience in venture capital and technology startups to his investing role. In 2017 he co-founded Los Angeles-based Embark Ventures. He is also a Managing Partner at Baroda Ventures, focused on early-stage investments in the consumer internet, SaaS, and digital media industries, with a focus on Southern California-based companies. Peter manages all of Baroda Ventures' new investments and current portfolio.
Before joining Baroda, Peter was an investor at Clearstone Venture Partners and at Prism VentureWorks. Before his start in venture, Peter was the Vice President of Operations and Product Management at Goldpocket (acquired by TandbergTV), a startup developing a platform for creating, distributing and managing interactive TV digital media systems. Earlier, Peter was a manager with McKinsey & Co., where he focused on the digital media, consumer electronics, Internet, and software industries. He also worked as a product manager at Microsoft in their wireless device group as well as at Virtual Ink (acquired by Newell Rubbermaid), a venture-backed startup in the consumer electronics and Internet space. | Peter earned his BS and MS in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was elected into the Tau Beta Pi Honor Society and was awarded a full-tuition graduate fellowship. He also holds an MBA, with Honors, from Harvard Business School. | 13 |
| Michael Lee | Lee | Syngenta Ventures | Switzerland | , | Basel | Europe | Unilever Technology Ventures | 10 | Michael is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 10 and served his fellowship under mentors Dion Madsen and Phil Giesler at Unilever Technology Ventures. | Michael joined Syngenta Ventures in 2013 and is based in Switzerland. He serves as a director on the boards of Brandtone and PGT.
Prior to this, Michael worked in VC and PE recruitment in London (with PER), and with Unilever’s Corporate Venturing Group in both California and London. Earlier in his career he was a bench scientist in both academia (postdoctoral insect research at the University of London) and industry (with Unilever in Holland, developing novel edible oils). | Michael holds life science degrees (Bachelor’s and Doctorate) from the University of Durham, and an MBA from RSM Erasmus in Holland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, and has published over thirty papers, predominantly in the fields of insect enzymes and peptide hormones. | 10 |
| Jonathan Lehr | Lehr | Work-Bench | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Work-Bench | 19 | Jon is a member of Class 19 and served his fellowship at Work-Bench under the mentorship of Tom Carroll and Hugo Van Vuuren. | Jonathan Lehr is a Co-Founder and General Partner of Work-Bench, where he focuses on early stage enterprise technology investments in areas including machine learning and AI, cloud-native infrastructure, cybersecurity, and the future of work.
Jon founded the NY Enterprise Technology Meetup in January 2012 and organizes monthly meetups of the 5,000+ person group as a way to promote collaboration for the enterprise tech ecosystem in New York, with a focus on connecting entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 technologists, investors, and graduate students to network and learn from one another. Prior to Work-Bench, Jon worked at Morgan Stanley on the Office of the CIO team in IT. In that capacity, he partnered with internal technology clients to facilitate the selection and on-boarding of emerging technology vendors. He has written about enterprise technology trends for publications such as The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal and TechCrunch. | Jon is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where he received a BSE in bioengineering, with minors in Mathematics and Economics.
He lives in New Jersey with his wife Michaela and two sons. | 19 |
| Lara Lemann | Lemann | MAYA Capital | , | Sao Paulo | Latin America | MAYA Capital | 25 | Lara is a co-founder and investor at MAYA Capital. She started her career at the Brazilian Ministry of Education before transitioning to the CSR department at Ambev where she led the development of new products. Through these projects she connected with a variety of entrepreneurs and started investing as an angel. In 2018, Lara co-founded MAYA to continue investing in Latin America's most promising ventures. | Lara is Brazilian and Swiss and grew up in between São Paulo and Zurich. She pursued her undergraduate degree from Columbia University. | 25 | ||
| Keith Lenden | Lenden | ARCH Venture Partners | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Maxygen | 16 | As a member of Class 16, Keith served his fellowship at both Maxygen and Abide Therapeutics under the mentorship of James Sulat (Maxygen) and Robert Nelsen (ARCH Venture Partners; Mentor Class 4).
Upon graduation, Keith was presented with the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award, recognizing his outstanding contributions to the Kauffman Fellows Program. | Keith Lenden joined ARCH Venture Partners as a Venture Partner in 2017. He is a seasoned entrepreneur and leader in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical space with a proven track record in company formation, executive and project leadership, business and corporate development/venture, alliance management, and corporate and market strategy.
Keith has co-founded two successful biotech companies: Receptos, Inc., a S1P1 biology and GPCR drug discovery company acquired by Celgene for $7.2 billion in 2015; and Abide Therapeutics, Inc., a cannabinoid biology and serine hydrolase drug discovery company that entered into a build-to-buy partnership with Celgene in 2014. Keith has served in a wide range of executive and product leadership roles for both public and private biopharmaceutical companies over the years including Esperion Therapeutics, Inc., Maxygen, Inc., Acologix, Inc. and Genteric, Inc. Keith started his career in biotechnology as a consultant at LEK Consulting. | Keith earned an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and was a Price Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies Venture Capital Fellow. He also studied engineering at Dartmouth College’s Thayer School. Keith is married with two daughters and enjoys live music, hiking, skiing and woodworking. | 16 |
| Kresimir Letinic | Letinic | Circuit Health | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Easton Capital | 15 | As a member of Class 15, Kresimir served his fellowship at Easton Capital Investment Group under the mentorship of Managing Partner John Friedman. | Prior to founding Circuit Health, a globally minded digital health venture fund, Kresimir was Managing Director at Easton Capital Investment Group, where he primarily helped build and lead Easton's digital health practice. He led and co-led multiple investments in enterprise cloud- and technology-enabled-services companies serving providers, insurance companies, pharmacies and manufacturers. Before focusing on digital health, he invested in medical device and therapeutics companies.
Prior to joining Easton in 2009, Kresimir worked at Fletcher Spaght Ventures, a life sciences venture fund, where he concentrated on molecular diagnostics, DNA sequencing, and high throughout DNA/protein analytical tools. He also worked with Lesanne Life Sciences, a molecular diagnostic startup focusing on stroke. Kresimir currently advises SeLux, a startup developing cutting-edge point-of-care diagnostics. | Kresimir completed both his PhD in neuroscience and MBA at Yale University. As a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellow, he first-authored articles in Nature, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, Bioinformatics and other leading journals. Kresimir earned his MD at University of Zagreb, Croatia. | 15 |
| PuiYan Leung | Leung | Vertex Ventures | Singapore | , | Singapore | Asia | Vertex Ventures | 24 | Pui Yan is a member of Class 24. Her mentor is Managing Director Punit Chiniwalla (Class 13). | Pui Yan joined serves as Executive Director, Investment in Vertex Ventures and focuses on opportunities in Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Vertex, Pui Yan was a Director of Investments and Operations at Singtel Innov8, the corporate venture arm of telco group Singtel. In her role, she built a pipeline of tech startups that fit with the firm’s investment themes and established strategic alliance and managed partnerships with key ecosystem stakeholders. Prior to that, Pui Yan assumed a range of operating roles and once served as Singtel’s Indonesia-based lead in representing the local market development and expansion interests for Singtel’s digital portfolio. | Pui Yan graduated from National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering Degree. She enjoys music and home yoga. | 24 |
| Rick Lewis | Lewis | US Venture Partners | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | US Venture Partners | 10 | Rick is a member of Class 10 and served his fellowship at USVP under the mentorship of Irwin Federman. | Rick joined USVP in 2004 and is a General Partner in the firm. At USVP, Rick focuses on software (enterprise SaaS and security) and consumer services (social, mobile, and e-commerce). In software, Rick currently serves on the Board of Directors at Act-On Software, ThreatMetrix, and Victrio. In consumer services, Rick currently serves on the Board of Directors at Hooked Media Group, HotelTonight, ScoreBig, Trunk Club, and Wayin. Previously, Rick helped lead USVP's investing activities in energy-efficiency technology, including Redwood Systems and Xicato. Rick led or co-led USVP's successful investments in Intermolecular (NASDAQ:IMI), myYearbook (NYSE:MEET), and Yammer (acquired by Microsoft). Prior to joining USVP, Rick spent six years in software engineering leadership roles at CAD market leader Autodesk, as a consultant to Walt Disney Imagineering, and as a co-founder of software companies Design Variations and Common Point Technologies. Rick also held positions at Sun Microsystems, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and McKinsey & Company. Rick has been published for his research in computer graphics at UC Berkeley, and is a member of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. | Rick holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of California at Davis (summa cum laude), an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he graduated with Distinction. | 10 |
| Caroline Lewis | Lewis | Rogue Venture Partners | United States | Oregon, | Portland | Northwest | Rogue Venture Partners | 24 | A member of Class of 24, Caroline is serving her fellowship at Rogue Venture Partners under the mentorship of Managing Partner Tom Sperry. | Caroline Lewis works with Rogue Venture Partners, an Oregon-based VC firm that invests in seed and Series A tech companies across the US. Caroline is the Managing Partner for Rogue Women, Rogue Venture Partner's fund dedicated to investing in the best women-led startups from across the US. In addition, Caroline works with Rogue to identify new opportunities, leverages her prior industry experience to support portfolio companies, and mentors entrepreneurs across Iraq, India, and Oregon. She serves on the boards of Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, Young Entrepreneurs Business Week, and Oregon State University's Advantage Accelerator. Prior to Rogue, Caroline was Senior Director of Strategy and Operations for Global Design, Product, and Merchandising at Nike where she managed a $500M portfolio of strategic programs focused on consumer experience, digitization, and Big Data. Prior to being recruited to work for Nike, Caroline was a management consultant for Propeller and Hitachi Consulting, working with Fortune 100 companies on enterprise technology implementations and organizational restructuring. Her love for startups comes from her early career experience as a founder of an e-commerce business and as a leader at a consumer health product company. | Caroline graduated as a Division 1 field hockey player with an MS in psychology from Davidson College, in Davidson, North Carolina. She then earned an MBA with a focus on entrepreneurship from Portland State University. She lives in Portland with her husband and enjoys rafting, beekeeping, and skiing. | 24 |
| Linda Li | Li | Vickers Venture Partners | China | , | Shanghai | Asia | Vickers Venture Partners | 16 | A member of Class 16, Linda served her fellowship in Shanghai at Vickers Venture Partners under the mentorship of Managing Director Dr. Jeffrey Chi. | Linda joined Vickers in 2005 and is a member of the Investment Committee. She is based in Shanghai and is responsible for the investments in mainland China. Her areas of focus include consumer internet, mobile applications, digital media and financial services and she serves on the Board of Directors of Tenfen/Kuyun Technology, Mobinex, UUCUN Technology, Chinaway Supply Chain Management, Cardvalue.cn, and Simo Wireless. In addition, she plays a large role in the management of Vickers’ other portfolio companies, including Hillstone, Saybot and Sunfun Info.
Linda is active in many venture capital groups in Beijing and Shanghai. She co-founded the PE/VC group of Peking University Alumni. She is also a member of PKU Wall Street Alumni and PKU PE Alliance. She was invited by the Tianjin Private Equity Exchange to lecture on topics relating to term sheets, due diligence and portfolio management. Prior to joining Vickers, Linda worked as a statistical modelling research associate at the National Institute of Education, Singapore where she did statistical analysis and research reports for the Ministry of Education (Singapore). As a researcher in statistical data modeling, she also participated in several survey projects in the U.S., Singapore, and China for organizations such as the Gallup Organization and the University of Michigan. She also writes reports and journals for the Chinese newspapers and maintains close relationships with the Chinese media and government. | Linda graduated from the School of Government of Beijing University and was one of the most distinguished graduates of Beijing City in 2002. She subsequently earned her Master’s degree from the National University of Singapore on the University Scholarship scheme. She also holds a dual BA in German language. Linda is a CFA Charterholder and a member of CFA China Society. | 16 |
| Adrian Li | Li | AC Ventures | Indonesia | , | Jakarta | Asia | Convergence Ventures | 21 | Adrian served his fellowship at Convergence Ventures as a member of Class 21. He was mentored by Garena Group president Nick Nash (Class 19) and Manik Aurora (Class 12), Founder of IDG Ventures India. | Adrian is Founder and Managing Partner for Convergence Ventures (CV), an early-stage fund focused on emerging internet and technology businesses in Indonesia. He leads the team at CV, is in charge of LP relations and business development, and chairs the Investment Committee. He plays an active role with his portfolio and is a board director at a number of Internet companies, including Qraved, Female Daily, Paktor, MBDC Media, and Imaginato.
Adrian is also a business mentor at several startup incubators and accelerator programs including Endeavor and the Founder Institute. He is a board member of Hong Kong-ASEAN Economic Cooperation Association for trade promotion and a long-standing member of Entrepreneurs Organization. A frequent speaker at Industry events, Adrian has been interviewed on national TV Metro TV News, Economic Challenges program and Bloomberg Indonesia. He has also been featured in magazines including Forbes Indonesia and listed twice in Prestige magazine’s “40 under 40.” Earlier in his career, Adrian co-founded and ran ventures in both China and Indonesia, and worked at JPMorgan on the corporate finance team in London. | Adrian graduated from Cambridge University in economics and was elected a Hawk in recognition of his contributions to university- and national-level judo. He obtained his MBA from Stanford studying in the dual degree MBA and Education MA program. He is a sponsored endurance athlete and is the Polar Brand Ambassador for Indonesia; he has completed several marathons and triathlons, including a full Ironman.
Adrian chairs the UK charity CNYTrust, which has raised funds to support children’s education in China since 2001. | 21 |
| Elana Lian | Lian | Intel Capital | United States | California, | Santa Clara | Northern CA | Intel Capital | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Elana served her fellowship at Intel Capital under the mentorship of Managing Director, Mark Lydon. | Elana is an Investment Director at Intel Capital working in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector. She has made and/or supported investments in K4 Connect, Airware, Tier3 (acquired by CenturyLink), and Aldebaran (acquired by Softbank), among others. Previously, Elana partnered with a number of executive teams, boards, and founders as a member of Intel’s corporate development organization, focused on private and public company M&A and partnerships.
Elana has had 10 years of operational experience in the US and China across different high tech industries, including IoT, software, cloud computing, semiconductors, and cleantech. Immersed in different functional areas, she has developed expertise in product development, project management, strategy, business development, and customer facing; these experiences allow her to understand and solve a wide variety of organizational challenges. | Elana holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, finance, and marketing. She earned a BS in engineering science from the University of Toronto, and an MS in electrical engineering from Tufts University. | 22 |
| Sarah Liebel | Liebel | 1stdibs.com | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Groupon | 16 | Sarah is a member of Class 16 and served her fellowship in Corporate Development at Groupon under the mentorship of Jason Harinstein. | Sarah Liebel joined 1stDibs.com in late 2015. The firm is an online marketplace, founded in Paris in 2001, that connects high-end antiques dealers to the global marketplace.
Perviously, Sarah was the Head of Operations and Business Development at ideeli, a $100M+ fashion ecommerce site that Groupon acquired in January 2014. In this role she led the fulfillment, event production, customer service, business operations, and business development groups. Prior to this role, Sarah was a Senior Manager in the Corporate Development Group at Groupon, where she worked on the ideeli transaction. She was responsible for developing strategy, investments, strategic partnerships, and acquisitions for the company globally. She resides in NYC, after spending 4 years at the Groupon's HQ in Chicago. Before Groupon, Sarah was in a variety of finance and operating roles at early stage companies including Narrative Science, and Pipeline Financial. She also has experience in early stage investing through her work at City Light Capital and New World Ventures. She spent over two years at the accessories retailer Claire's Stores working on global Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. | Sarah holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management with a dual major in finance and entrepreneurship. She also holds a BS from Tulane University, magna cum laude, in finance and business law. | 16 |
| Marcelo Lima | Lima | monashees+ | Brazil | São Paulo, | São Paulo | Latin America | monashees+ | 23 | Marcelo is serving his fellowship at monashees under the mentorship of Kevin Efrusy, Partner at Accel Partners. | Marcelo Lima is a Partner at monashees, a leading Brazilian venture capital firm, where he manages their efforts in FinTech and consumer Internet, in the latter focused on e-commerce and real estate. He works directly with Vivareal, MadeiraMadeira, enjoei, Weel, Méliuz, Magnetis, BizCapital, MadeiraMadeira, among other portfolio companies.
Prior to joining monashees in 2010, Marcelo did management consulting at Roland Berger, with engagements in financial services and utilities. | Marcelo grew up in the northeast of Brazil, mainly Fortaleza and Recife, and moved to São Paulo to study, where lives today. He holds a BS in computer engineering from ITA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica) and holds a corporate finance degree from UC Berkeley.
He is passionate about wine, innovation, sports, travel, and learning new things. | 23 |
| Wilson Lin | Lin | New York City Economic Development Corporation | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | New York City Economic Development Corporation | 24 | A member of Class 24, Wilson is serving his fellowship at NYCEDC. His mentor is Lucas Nelson (Class 16), Partner at Lytical Ventures. | Wilson works at the intersection of urban economic flourishing, innovation ecosystems, and social good. He is Vice President at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Managing Director for Cyber NYC, a $100M initiative that is (a) establishing a leading global cyber accelerator, (b) creating and growing dozens of new companies, (c) founding a global cyber center, and (d) improving cybersecurity education for thousands of New York City students and placing them in good jobs. Wilson also serves on the Investment Committee for WE Venture, a $30M VC consortium designed to support New York City-based tech startup companies founded by women and minority entrepreneurs. The consortium includes Archer Gray, Future Perfect Ventures, Gold Seeds Venture Fund, WOCstar Fund, and Morgan Stanley's Multicultural Innovation Lab. Wilson also currently serves as a Venture Fellow for Chestnut Street Ventures, a VC firm supporting University of Pennsylvania alums. He previously held roles at Tideline, an impact investing advisory firm; Deloitte Consulting; UBS (Corporate and Business Strategy); and IBM Global Business Services. | Wilson earned his MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and his BA in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. | 24 |
| Michael Lints | Lints | Golden Gate Ventures | Singapore | , | Singapore | South Asia | Golden Gate Ventures | 23 | Michael is serving his fellowship at Singapore-based Golden Gate Ventures as a member of Class 23. | Michael moved his family to Singapore to join Golden Gate Ventures as Venture Partner in 2013, where he assisted with fundraising, strategic partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions. He has helped raise over US$60M for Golden Gate Ventures and its portfolio companies and became a Partner in 2017.
Michael became acquainted with Golden Gate Ventures through his earlier work in the Netherlands. He was the former vice chairman of the Economic Development Board Rotterdam, which helped him build an extensive international network. In 2007, Michael founded his own venture fund focused on Dutch small- and medium-sized enterprise companies to help them with capital financing, development, and relevant support and strategy. Michael worked briefly as a project manager at ING Group/Nationale Nederlanden, Netherlands’ largest insurance and asset management company. His entrepreneurial spirit kicked in right after that and he went on to start his own IT business specializing in Microsoft environments and IT project management. | Michael graduated from The Hague University of Applied Science in Management and Information Science. He also attended Harvard Business School, where he completed executive education certificates in Private Equity and Venture Capital and Strategic Financial Analysis for Business Evaluation.
Michael is a true believer in a work–life balance and has completed marathons, cycling, and Ironman races all over the world in his spare time and was recently appointed the Singapore ambassador for top cycling brand distributor Treknology3. | 23 |
| John Lisko | Lisko | Independent | United States | Pennsylvania, | Harrisburg | NJ/PA | Pennyslvania Treasury Department | 17 | A member of Class 17, John served his fellowship at the Pennsylvania Treasury under the mentorship of State Treasurer Rob McCord, a former venture capitalist. | John Lisko was most recently the chief of staff and chief investment officer for the Pennsylvania State Treasurer, an independent elected official that serves as the custodian for nearly $100 billion in public assets. In this role, John oversaw a $48.6 million annual budget and day-to-day operations for the four hundred-employee organization. In his role as chief investment officer, John was the senior investment professional responsible for the management of $12 billion in Treasury investment pools. Additionally, he served as the designee for the state treasurer, a voting ex-officio trustee, on the investment boards of three state retirement systems and three Insurance Department-related funds, which have a net asset value of more than $80 billion. | John earned his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in finance and he graduated from Temple University, magna cum laude, with a dual major in history and education. He was born in Philadelphia, where he lives with his wife. | 17 |
| Peter Liu | Liu | Pritzker Group Venture Capital | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Pritzker Group Venture Capital | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Peter served his fellowship at Pritzker Group Venture Capital under the mentorship of Adam Koopersmith, Partner. | Peter is a Vice President at Pritzker Group Venture Capital (PGVC), an Internet technology-oriented venture capital firm with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Since joining Pritzker as an Associate in 2012, Peter has been involved in over 25 early- and growth-stage technology investments, representing over $130M in deployed capital.
Peter is responsible for sourcing Series A/B investments ($3M - $10M initial equity) and providing diligence and oversight for the firm’s investments in digital marketplaces, enterprise software, and emerging technologies (VR, eSports, artificial intelligence, connected television). Peter is on the board of Opternative, a provider of digital eye exams that can be taken from home; and works very closely with several other PGVC portfolio companies such as SMS Assist, a digital marketplace for facilities maintence services; Eved, an enterprise procurement platform and marketplace for event commerce; and SimpleTV, a cloud-based DVR solution for connected television. Prior to joining PGVC, Peter was an investment banking analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he advised retailers and consumer product manufactures on capital raises, IPOs, and mergers and acquisitions. | Peter is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, where he holds bachelor’s degrees in finance and management.
He is the founder and Chairman of the Board of VentureUP, an online and offline professional network designed to help accelerate the careers of young VC investors, and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers program, where he is dedicated to improving the state of local communities. | 21 |
| Kevin Lockett | Lockett | Fulcrum Global Capital | United States | Missouri, | Kansas City | MW Plains/Rockies | Kansas Bioscience Authority | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Kevin served his fellowship under the mentorship of Duane Cantrell (Mentor Class 20), Managing Director at Fulcrum Global Capital. He spent the first part of his fellowship at the Kansas Bioscience Authority, and completed it at Fulcrum Global Capital. | Kevin is a partner of Fulcrum Global Capital, a VC firm based in Kansas City focused on partnering with entrepreneurs who are attacking the global food and healthcare markets, bringing nearly 20 years of experience in financing, managing, growing and investing in early-stage companies to his role.
Previously, Kevin was President/CEO of the Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA), the organization established by the state legislature in 2004 to develop bioscience as an economic engine for the state of Kansas. Most recently, the KBA operated as a venture capital investor with a focus on industry sectors where Kansas has conspicuous advantages: agribusiness, animal health, human health, and life sciences tech. Before KBA, Kevin worked for a decade at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a $2 billion private foundation consulting nationwide to advance education and entrepreneurship. The majority of his activities centered on leading a Kauffman Foundation spinout focused on providing management consulting services to entrepreneurs across the country. Professionally and personally, Kevin is interested in how we, as a country and globally, will manage to feed and care for ourselves as the global population swells and socioeconomic demographics change. | Kevin is a graduate of Kansas State University, where he also participated as a three-time All-American Division I athlete. He was drafted in the second round of the 1997 NFL draft and retired after a seven-year career. Kevin was elected to a nine-year term on the Kansas State University Foundation Board of Directors and recently completed his eighth year of service. He holds a bachelor's degree in accounting.
Kevin also serves as a board member of the United Way of Greater Kansas City, Kansas State University Center of Advancement and Entrepreneurship, and the Kansas State Golf Course Management and Research Foundation. | 21 |
| Evan Loomis | Loomis | Saturn Five | United States | Texas, | Austin | TX/South Central | Tradecraft | 21 | As a member of Class 21, Evan served his fellowship at Tradecraft under the mentorship of Thomas Lehrman, Managing Partner of Haystack Partners. | In 2017 Even co-founded Saturn Five, an Austin, Texas-based startup studio. The firm plans to launch 2-3 startups per year. He is also a startup mentor through Techstars and Praxis. He loves people and ideas.
Previously, Evan headed Corporate Strategy at Corinthian Health Services, and managed a family seed-stage fund called Tradecraft. Evan is coauthor of Get Backed: Craft Your Story, Build the Perfect Pitch Deck, and Launch the Venture of Your Dreams (Harvard Business Press 2015) and has written for Fast Company, Inc, and Entrepreneur. He recently co-wrote a children's book, Elon Musk: This Book Is About Rockets. In 2010, Evan co-founded TreeHouse, a first-of-its-kind home improvement store with a mission to make it easy for anyone to build sustainable, healthy, and high-performing homes. Evan began his career as an investment banker on Wall Street. From there, Evan co-founded Wedgwood Circle, an angel investment group with a focus on the media and entertainment sectors. | Evan is a graduate of Mays Business School at Texas A&M University where he earned his BBA in finance. He lives in Austin, TX, with his wife, pediatrician Brandi Loomis, and children Ward and Kathryn. | 21 |
| Chahra Louafi | Louafi | Bpifrance | France | , | Paris | Europe | Bpifrance | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Chahra served her fellowship at Bpifrance under the mentorship of Benjamin Paternot, Executive Director of fund of funds. | Chahra is a Senior Investment Director and head of the Biotherapies and Rare Diseases Fund of Bpifrance (formerly CDC Entreprises). Within Bpifrance, between 2001 and 2009 Chahra was in charge, inter alia, of fund-of-funds investments focused on seed funds and biotech funds, as well as tech transfer transactions. Since 2009, she’s been in charge of investments in biotech companies.
She has invested in and sits on the boards of DBV Technologies (public on Euronext Paris and on NASDAQ in 2014), Eyevensys, Sensorion (public on Alternext in 2015), MedDay Pharmaceuticals, Pixium Vision (public on Euronext Paris in 2014), Lysogene (public on Euronext Paris in 2017), Annapurna Therapeutics (successfully sold to Avalanche Biotechnologies in 2016), BrainEver, Enyo Pharma, Gecko Biomedical, GMP-Orphan, Sparingvision and Therachon. She is also Chairman of the supervisory board of the Inserm Transfert Initiative and member of the supervisory board of Cap Décisif Management. Before joining CDC Entreprises in 2001, Chahra was in charge of project development and company creation for a private incubator that specialized in biotechnologies. | Chahra graduated from Paris Dauphine University (master’s degree in technology and innovation management), Paris X Nanterre University (master’s in corporate finance), and Institut National Agronomique de Paris – Grignon (master’s in microbiology and enzymatic engineering).
Chahra is a Member of WITH Association (Women Innovating Together in Healthcare). She recently was awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (Knight in the National Order of Merit) for her public service and contributions to the French biotech sector. | 22 |
| David Lowe | Lowe | Independent | , | TX/South Central | Skyline Ventures | 07 | David was a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 7, and served his fellowship under mentor John Freund at Skyline Ventures in Palo Alto, CA. | David has been involved with life sciences companies since 1985, including in the roles of research scientist, manager of drug discovery programs, advisor, and investor.
David most recently co-founded and serves as CEO of Aeglea BioTherapeutics, founded in December of 2013 to develop engineered human enzymes invented in the laboratory of George Georgiou, Ph.D. of The University of Texas at Austin. The convergence of discovery and technology has created a significant opportunity for Aeglea to impact both the treatment of inborn errors of metabolism and cancer. Earlier, David was an investor with with Skyline Ventures for 10 years, leading financings in start-ups to mid-stage healthcare companies. Before his fellowship, David was a consultant in biotechnology R&D, and before that spent 16 years as a scientist and research director at Genentech. As a senior scientist in the Molecular Biology and Cardiovascular Research Departments, he was responsible for initiating programs in drug discovery and new technology development, and was an early pioneer in the application of genomics to drug discovery. As Director of Cardiovascular Research, David was responsible for discovery efforts that resulted in eight drugs moving into clinical trials, including the successful cancer therapy Avastin. He also worked with the Business Development group on licensing activities, and was a member of the cross-functional therapeutic area team responsible for corporate strategic planning in the cardiovascular arena. | David holds BS and PhD degrees in biochemistry from the University of Toronto, Canada, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
He is an ardent SCUBA diver, underwater photographer, and (perhaps because he believes that past results do not necessarily predict future performance) roots for either the Red Sox or Yankees depending on who's winning. David has authored over 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is an inventor on 7 issued or pending US patents. | 7 | ||
| Bion Ludwig | Ludwig | Brown Savano Direct Capital Partners | United States | Maryland, | Chevy Chase | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Brown Savano Direct Capital Partners | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Bion served his fellowship at BrownSavano Direct Capital Partners under the mentorship of Thomas Smith, Managing Director. | Bion is a Partner and co-founder of BrownSavano Direct Capital Partners. The firm was founded to provide partial liquidity and asset diversification to individual shareholders in market-leading, later-stage private companies.
Prior to co-founding BrownSavano, Bion worked at SmithDefieux Capital Partners. Prior to SmithDefieux, he was with GE Capital's finance assurance arm, Genworth Financial, as a member of their Financial Management Program. Bion has been active with startup companies and an entrepreneur since founding his first venture in 2002. While in college he founded numerous companies as well as an undergraduate entrepreneurial club. Through these ventures, he gained experience working with growth companies and entrepreneurial finance. The last of his companies grew to be one of the top 800 sites on the Internet and was acquired in late 2006. Bion is a published author and his book about his last startup company sold over 25,000 copies worldwide. | Bion is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he was a founder of the Entrepreneurial Club and Captain of the UVA Triathlon club. He holds a Bachelor's degree in economics.
Bion is a Board member of the Young Leaders Committee of the Perry School Community Services Center and a founding board member of the Nature Conservancy’s Washington, D.C. Generation Conservation chapter. He is also a private pilot. | 18 |
| Brian Luerssen | Luerssen | Draftbit | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | OKCupid Labs | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Brian served his fellowship under the mentorship of OkCupid founder, Sam Yagan. | Brian Luerssen is a Managing Director at Techstars Chicago. Techstars is an IT-focused global accelerator program.
Before joining Techstars, Brian co-founded and served as and GM of OkCupid Labs based in San Francisco. OkCupid Labs is the R&D arm of Match.com and IAC Personals (NASDAQ: IACI). Formed after the acquisition of OkCupid, the Labs was created to invest in and build new businesses in and around the online dating space. As GM, Brian oversaw new product teams, products, and investments in SF, LA, and NYC, and was responsible for conception and diligence for new investments as well as the fundraising and M&A components of spinning businesses out of the Labs. In addition to his work at the Labs, Brian is also co-founder and board member of Quantitative Insights, a medical imaging and healthcare IT company created to commercialize advancements in computer-aided diagnosis software (CAD) for early detection, diagnosis, and prognosis of cancers. | Brian holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BS from Indiana University. He is a mentor at Techstars Chicago and helped to create the organization as it was known previously, Excelerate Labs. He is an avid hiker and beagle owner. | 18 |
| William Lyman | Lyman | LMG Corp | United States | Georgia, | Atlanta | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Alliance Technology Ventures | 05 | Bill is a member of Class 5 and served his fellowship at Alliance Technology Ventures (ATV) in Alpharetta, GA with mentor Mike Henos. | Bill Lyman is Partner and Founder of Lyman Management Group, consulting in venture capital, business acquisition, special investment situations and shareholder disputes.
Prior to his consulting work, Bill was a General Partner at Alliance Technology Ventures, investing in early-stage ventures across the US, primarily in the software, semiconductor and communications segments. He served on the board of Synchrologic (sold to Pumatech), and the board and audit committees for both Cygnal (Sold to Silicon Labs), and SyChip (sold to Murata). Bill also served as a board observer for several portfolio companies. Bill previously worked as an associate equity analyst for NationsBanc Montgomery Securities and Salomon Smith Barney, and as a Product Manager at Subscriber Computing, Inc., a venture-backed company providing software and services to the wireless communications industry (acquired by Corsair Communications). Prior to SCI, Bill co-founded International Software Machines, spent five years with Motorola in its semiconductor and cellular infrastructure groups, held various positions with Square D's Automation Products Division and worked at the National Security Agency, where he held a top secret security clearance. Bill also served in the US Marine Corps Reserves. | Bill received his MBA with concentrations in analytic finance and economics from the University of Chicago and his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Marquette University.
Bill serves as a mentor for the Robert A. Toigo Foundation's Fellows program for students at Columbia, Northwestern (Kellogg), University of Chicago, and Yale. Fellowship Bill is a member of KFP Class 5 and served his fellowship at Alliance Technology Ventures (ATV) in Alpharetta, GA with mentor Mike Henos. | 5 |
| Chris Lyons | Lyons | Andreessen Horowitz | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Andreessen Horowitz | 19 | Chris performed his fellowship at Andreessen Horowitz under the mentorship of Ben Horowitz and Managing Partner Scott Kupor as a member of Class 19. | Christopher Lyons is the Chief of Staff at Andreessen Horowitz and is dedicated to empowering Silicon Valley’s next generation of entrepreneurs and investors. In this role, Chris is responsible for working cross-functionally with Andreessen Horowitz’s general partners and operating teams to manage internal communication and external deal flow for growth/late stage investments. Key industries in which Chris specializes include communication, Hadoop/big data, productivity, and quantified self.
Prior to Chris’s work in venture capital, he spent 12 years as an entrepreneur focusing on opportunities within music, food, and technology. Chris’s most recent entrepreneurial venture was founding PictureMenu, which developed a mobile application to allow restaurants to easily have their menus viewable on smartphones and tablets. Outside of investing and advising startups, Chris also enjoys working behind the scenes in the recording industry and has previously apprenticed under Jermaine Dupri (executive producer for Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Usher, and more). | Chris is a graduate from Full Sail University, holding a Bachelor of Science degree with dual majors in entertainment business and recording arts, and receiving additional honors in marketing, marketing & strategic planning, principles of managerial accounting, entertainment business venture & financing, leadership & organization, and event management. | 19 |
| Jiong Ma | Ma | Braemar Energy Ventures | United States | New York, | New York | Boston/Northeast | 3i | 09 | A member of Fellows Class 9, Jiong served her fellowship at 3i under the mentorship of Marko Maschek in Boston. | Jiong Ma brings 15 years of research, operating, and venture capital experience in the technology industry. She is currently a Principal at Braemar Energy Ventures, making early- and growth-stage investments in the energy sector. Prior to Braemar, Jiong was with 3i, a global private equity firm where she was responsible for investment in the information technology and cleantech sectors.
Prior to her fellowship at 3i, Jiong had a long tenure working in both the business and technical sides of the high-speed networking industry. She held several senior positions at Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs, including lead roles in product portfolio strategy and new product launches for Optical and Data Networking. In the research and product development arenas, she led projects in system architecture, defining product features, network design and operations. Jiong was also a founding team member of Onetta, a fiber networks start-up company backed by VC firms Sequoia and Matrix. Earlier, Jiong worked as a member of Nortel Networks' technical staff. Jiong has published or co-authored 15 technical papers, and is the inventor on one US patent. | Jiong has a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an MS in electrical engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, and a BS in physics/electrical engineering from Lanzhou University, China. Jiong is a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese, and is fluent in English. | 9 |
| Raghu Madabushi | Madabushi | SRI Ventures | United States | California, | Santa Clara | Northern CA | SRI Ventures | 24 | A member of Class 24, Raghu is serving his fellowship at SRI Ventures under the mentorship of Patrick Ennis (Class 4), Managing Partner at Madrona Venture Group. | Raghu has 20+ years of experience with technology, capital markets, and IP/innovation. Raghu is a Senior Director at SRI Ventures, investing in early-stage opportunities in AI, robotics, speech, vision, and security. SRI Ventures is the investment arm of SRI, an independent, nonprofit research center based in Menlo Park, California. Raghu comes to SRI Ventures from GE Ventures, where he invested in the broader software, hardware, and telecom space. Prior to this, he managed a large portfolio of collaborative open-source technology projects while at the Linux Foundation and headed the startup investing business (IDFStart) at Intellectual Ventures’ Invention Development Fund (IDF), helping build products and incubate startups. Prior to IV, Raghu held buy- side and sell-side roles at Wall Street firms, including Collins Stewart, Oppenheimer & Co., and Friedman Billings Ramsey. Raghu also brings extensive experience in the hardware and software design space, having worked in various roles, including semiconductor device fabrication, chip design, systems architecture, strategy, and marketing for Texas Instruments, Intel Corp, Cadence Design Systems, and others. | Raghu received an MBA in finance and investments from Southern Methodist University, an MS in computer engineering from Iowa State University, and a Bachelor of Engineering in electronics and communication engineering from University of Madras, India. He enjoys playing badminton and tennis. | 24 |
| Karthee Madasamy | Madasamy | Mobile Foundation Ventures | United States | California, | Los Altos | Northern CA | Mobile Foundation Ventures | 24 | Karthee is serving his fellowship at Mobile Foundation Ventures as a member of Class 24. His mentor is Rob Rueckert (Class 12), Managing Director at Sorenson Ventures. | Karthee is a Founder and Managing Partner at Mobile Foundation Ventures, an US-based, early-stage venture fund targeting technology startups that are disrupting traditional industries. Karthee invests in startups in robotics, artificial intelligence, computer vision, autonomous vehicles, and Internet of Things. Before Mobile Foundation Ventures, Karthee spent 11 years as a Managing Director at Qualcomm Ventures where he invested across the US, Israel, and India. He started Qualcomm Ventures' investment activities in both Israel and India. Some of his notable investments include Waze (acquired by Google), Validity Sensors (acquired by Synaptics), and BORQS (NASDAQ IPO), among others. Before Qualcomm Ventures, Karthee led technical and product marketing roles in three semiconductor and wireless startups in Silicon Valley. | Karthee has a bachelor’s in electronics and communication engineering from College of Engineering, Guindy in Chennai, India, and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. Karthee also holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Outside of work, Karthee can be found rooting for the Oakland A's, Detroit Red Wings, and the Indian cricket team. He enjoys long-distance running and has completed marathons in New York and Chicago, and hopes to run all the 6 World Marathon Majors. | 24 |
| Michael Madison | Madison | Cocoon Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Angels Forum/Halo Fund | 12 | Michael is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12, and served his fellowship under mentor Phil Schlein at the Angels' Forum/Halo Fund and Jeff Daley at Mitsubishi/Cocoon Ventures. | Michael is the founder of Cocoon Ventures, a venture firm with support from Mitsubishi’s Innovation Kitchen in Tokyo. Cocoon Ventures focuses on early stage cross-border investments between Japan and the US as well as university-oriented venture models.
Before Cocoon, Michael managed deal flow and was a portfolio company problem-solver at The Angel’s Forum/Halo Funds. Earlier, Michael was a Statistical Analyst and QA Tools lead at Tellme Networks (acquired by Microsoft), while simultaneously completing his MBA at UC Berkeley. In 2001 he founded Noble Science, a virtual surgery company that trained surgeons with an immersive 3D environment with tactile feedback. Michael also brings technical and strategic experience spanning: particle physics, medical simulation, videogames, flight simulation, supercomputer management, semiconductor design, telecom/VoIP, radiography, consumer electronics and consumer Internet. Michael started writing software in the 2nd grade, and by the time he started junior high, he was a code contributor to NASA Langley’s supercomputer management systems. He was recently named to the Silicon Valley Business Journal's 2009 Top 40 Under 40 list. | Michael has an MBA from UC Berkeley, an MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a BS in computer engineering from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he was a Meyerhoff Scholar graduated first in his department.
He returns to UC Berkeley to mentor students and help teach students in entrepreneurship in the EWMBA program. He is also an advisory board member for UMBC's College of Engineering and Information Technology and was named in the Silicon Valley Business Journal's 2009 Top 40 Under 40 list. Michael serves on the Board of Directors for the Level Playing Field Institute and the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs (SVASE). | 12 |
| Diana Maichin | Maichin | GE Ventures | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | GE Ventures | 19 | Diana served her fellowship at GE Ventures as a member of Class 21, under the mentorship of Risa Stack (Class 2), General Manager of GE Ventures, Incubations. | Diana Maichin is a Senior Associate for GE Ventures, General Electric Company’s corporate venture arm, based in Menlo Park, California. In this role, she tracks the Incubation group's deal flow, performs industry and financial due diligence on targeted companies, and drives growth strategy for Incubation’s portfolio companies.
Diana focuses on healthcare investing, particularly employer health, and seeks targets with the opportunities to bend or break the cost curve for mid- to jumbo-sized employers. Prior to GE Ventures, Diana interned at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, focusing on digital health opportunities. Earlier, Diana worked at Codexis, where she proposed an enzyme pricing strategy for a large pharma client and instituted financial planning tools for the pharmaceutical business unit. At Financial Technology Partners, a boutique investment bank in San Francisco, Diana covered healthcare IT companies, including the Accretive Health IPO. Diana started her healthcare career at Genentech, where she held roles in supply chain, manufacturing, external quality, and finance. She worked on a risk assessment for the largest biotechnology manufacturing site in the world and identified opportunities to increase royalty income for a $2B global business. | Diana earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2013. She holds a BS in chemical engineering, summa cum laude, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and a graduate certificate in product creation and innovation from Stanford University. She is a black-diamond snowboarder and loves travelling to taste the coffee, wine, and cheese of the world with her life explorer, Julian. | 19 |
| Ted Maidenberg | Maidenberg | Tribe Capital | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | US Venture Partners | 12 | Ted is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12. He served his fellowship under mentor Arati Prabhakar at USVP in Menlo Park, CA. | Along with Kauffman Fellow Mamoon Hamid, Ted recently co-founded The Social+Capital Partnership, a stage agnostic fund focused on entrepreneurs in healthcare, education, financial services, and internet technologies.
Ted was previously a Partner at USVP, focused on investments in digital media, business and consumer software and mobile content and applications. Ted served on the boards of LivingSocial, Media6Degrees, and Savings.com, and was actively involved with 4INFO, National Banana, ON24 and Yoomba. Additionally, Ted was involved with Adify and Revolution Money from USVP's investment until their sales. Before USVP, Ted was a Director at Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, heading up the Asia Pacific region where he built out WB's mobile content publishing business in Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. His work included working with brands such as Harry Potter, DC Comics, Tom & Jerry, and Looney Tunes. Ted joined WB from Time Warner where he was a founding member of the Time Warner Investments group (previously AOL Investments). During his time there, the group invested in over sixty early-stage companies, and Ted led or co-led the sourcing, executing and managing of 12 companies, including Blackboard, Exent, PlanetOut, Shopping.com, and Vindigo. Before Time Warner, Ted was at Credit Suisse in their media/telecom investment banking group, where he focused on the radio and communication tower sectors. | Ted holds a BS, with Honors, in business administration from Washington University in St. Louis. Ted enjoys tennis, mountain biking and the eternal suffering that is known only to Chicago Cubs fans. | 12 |
| M. Maiz | Maiz | Inception Sciences | United States | California, | San Diego | Southern CA & Hawaii | 20 | Jaione served her fellowship at Inception Sciences under the mentorship of Business Development Lead Alicia Levey and Chief Operating Officer Clare Ozawa. She is a member of Class 20. | Jaione Maiz is a business development manager at Inception Sciences, a drug discovery engine co-founded with Versant Ventures. In this role, she supports Inception’s portfolio companies with operations, as well as new science evaluation with the Inception and Versant teams.
Jaione was most recently an associate at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a technology- and life science company-focused bank based in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the bank, she worked primarily with the Life Sciences group, performing valuations for private life science companies, in addition to industry trend analyses. Jaione also supported the bank’s strategic advisory and venture debt practices. Prior to joining SVB Analytics, Jaione was an intern at venBio, a life science venture capital firm based in San Francisco. At venBio, Jaione supported the identification of and due diligence processes for new investment opportunities. Jaione is also a contributing author to NeuroInsights Newsletter, a monthly subscription-based newsletter that provides a comprehensive overview of the advances in the field of neurological therapies. | Jaione earned her PhD in neurobiology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a bachelor's degree in biology from Northwestern University. She also completed a certificate of business at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Jaione is currently involved as a mentor with several programs that support life science entrepreneurs, including Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable (OBR), Springboard Enterprises, and the National Institutes of Health Neuro Startup Challenge. | 20 | |
| Varun Malhotra | Malhotra | Quona Capital | , | Bengaluru | Asia | Quona Capital | 25 | Varun Malhotra has a decade of investing experience across technology, financial services and impact, and is currently a Principal at Quona Capital.
Quona Capital invests in fintech innovators that are advancing inclusion in emerging markets. Based in Bangalore, Varun focuses on Quona’s investment activities and portfolio in Asia. Varun has led investments in alternative lending, digital payments, wealth-tech and SMB commerce, and has been a part of 3 successful exits.
Prior to Quona, Varun has worked with an India-focused impact investment firm, the India Venture Partner at Oak Investment Partners and with the D.E. Shaw Group. Varun was recognized as a part of Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Venture Capital in Asia in 2018. | Varun has an MBA from the Indian School of Business and an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Delhi. | 25 | ||
| Rodrigo Leiva | Leiva | SOSV | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | SOSV | 24 | Rodrigo is serving his fellowship as a member of Class 24 at SOSV with mentor Jonno Elliott, Investment Director at Virgin Management. | Rodrigo is Program Director at SOSV, where he leads the European early-stage life sciences investment team, focused on the intersection of biology and engineering. He's passionate about how founders can engineer science to solve most of the world's biggest challenges. Rodrigo has been involved in sourcing and executing 24 deals in the last 2 years; he currently provides support to over 60 companies in his portfolio. He sits on the boards of Algiknit, Visusnano, and Chronomics, and serves as a mentor for The Founder Institute, Techstars, and Startup Chile. Before his venture career, Rodrigo founded four LatAm companies in the food, gaming, and digital advertising industries. He is a regular speaker at Slush, Vivatech, Dublin Tech Summit, and Biofabricate, among others, and is an Ambassador for the MIT Technology Review in Europe. | Rodrigo dropped out of law school 2 weeks prior to graduation to start a company, and spent the next decade as an entrepreneur. He became an angel investor after selling TheFanLeague, an Argentina-based gaming company. Rodrigo holds executive education qualifications in venture capital from UC Berkeley. After spending time in New York, San Francisco, Paris, and Ireland, Rodrigo now lives in London with his wife; he is an avid sneaker collector. | 24 |
| Thiago Maluf | Maluf | e.Bricks Ventures | , | Sao Paulo | Latin America | e.Bricks Ventures | 25 | Thiago is a General Partner at e.Bricks, a São Paulo-based VC manager among the leading early stage investors in Brazil. Since inception, e.Bricks has raised 3 funds, invested in over 30 high growth companies and completed multiple exits.
As a general partner, Thiago is responsible for the end-to-end investment execution and portfolio company monitoring, as well as actively involved in fundraising, positioning and recruiting initiatives. Since joining e.BRICKS in 2017, Thiago has been responsible for closing 7 deals and served as a board member or observer to 8 companies, including Conexa (largest independent telemedicine provider in Brazil) and Ambar (leading ConstruTech player in Latin America). Thiago also works directly with portfolio companies’ mgmt. teams to tackle a wide array of challenges, from setting up international operations to closing landmark acquisitions to recruiting co-founders and C-level team members. Prior to joining e.Bricks, Thiago spent 9 years as a Private Equity investor, having worked at TPG Capital and TPG Growth, Kinea Investimentos and AIG Investments in Brazil, in addition to completed internships at Equity International in Chicago and at GIC in New York. | Thiago holds a B.B.A. from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV-EAESP) and an MBA with Honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, with concentrations in finance, economics and entrepreneurship. In addition to his native Portuguese, Thiago is fluent in English and conversational in French and Spanish.
As an individual, Thiago is passionate about running, reading and traveling, having visited over 50 countries so far. | 25 | ||
| Daniel Malven | Malven | 4490 Ventures | United States | Wisconsin, | Madison | MW Plains/Rockies | Flatiron Partners | 04 | Dan served his fellowship at Flatiron Partners with mentor Fred Wilson as a member of Fellows Class 4. | Dan has a blend of venture capital investing, startup operational and corporate executive experience. He was the founding CEO of Analyte Health, a digital health company, an executive in the consumer health services group of Walgreens, and a co-founder of two other software technology companies.
Dan is a Managing Director at 4490 Ventures, a firm dedicated to funding early-stage startups in the United States Midwest region. The firm focuses on the software technology sector, including hardware-enabled software businesses. | Dan received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Purdue University and a Master of Management from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. | 4 |
| Sacha Mann | Mann | Biosys UK Ltd. | , | Canada | Archangel Informal Investment, Ltd. | 12 | Sacha Mann is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and served her fellowship under mentor John Waddell at Archangel Informal Investment In Edinburgh, Scotland. | Prior to her transition into venture capital, Sacha worked in technology transfer and was directly involved in establishing two spin-off companies in the areas of healthcare and cleantech; she gained startup experience in biotech business development at Allon Therapeutics. Sacha has managed global enterprise software projects both within the corporate finance group of a NYSE-listed company and as a management consultant at a software firm with blue chip clients. She has also worked as a scientist in the strategic research group at ICI.
Sacha has broad operational experience with startup ventures and established companies, and has worked in several international locations. Upon completion of her fellowship in 2009, Sacha joined Inventages as a healthcare investor in their London, UK office. Inventages is a leading health, wellness, and nutrition fund with $1.5 billion under management and a global portfolio of companies in North America, Europe, Australia, China and Russia.
Sacha is involved with portfolio companies focused on depression, anti-infectives, inflammatory diseases, vaccines, GI disorders and point of care diagnostics. In addition, she was the CEO of Inventages' portfolio company Biosys UK Ltd., focused on developing clinical stage candidates for microbiome targets. Prior to Inventages, Sacha was an early-stage investor with Archangel Informal Investment (UK) where she sat on the board of a medical device company and was board observer for anti-infective and software companies. She also worked with BDC Venture Capital's $100M seed fund for early-stage Canadian technology companies across all sectors. Prior to her transition into venture capital, Sacha worked in technology transfer and was directly involved in establishing two spin-off companies in the areas of healthcare and cleantech. She also gained startup experience in biotech business development at Allon Therapeutics. Sacha has managed global enterprise software projects both within the corporate finance group of a NYSE-listed company and as a management consultant at a software firm with blue chip clients. She has also worked as a scientist in the strategic research group at ICI. | Sacha is a graduate of Simon Fraser University, Canada, holding a First Class MBA for which she received Graduate Fellowships and won the Tong Prize in Entrepreneurship for a business plan competition. Sacha also holds a MS in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in chemistry, with Honours, from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has participated on the board of non-profits, presented at investor conferences, judged pitch events at Edinburgh University, and was a guest lecturer for a Biotech & Business course at Simon Fraser University. | 12 | ||
| Vica Manos | Manos | Anthemis Group | , | London | Europe | Anthemis Group | 25 | Vica is a Partner at Anthemis. Passionate about catalyzing change in financial services and beyond, Vica runs the Group’s Financial Wellness fund (Anthemis Exponential Ventures, in partnership with Momentum Metropolitan Holdings). In addition to her focus on early stage fintech and insurtech, she also leads the Group’s healthcare-focused investment activity. Vica currently serves on the boards of Abaka, Apollo Agriculture, Chronomics, Currencycloud, Hover, Novoic, NOW Money, Numan, Sentio Solutions (Feel), Patch’d, yulife and Wayhome. She previously served on the board of Monese.
Prior to joining Anthemis, Vica was an investment banker at Credit Suisse, where she focused on leveraged finance. In the Portfolio Management Group, she ran a $1.5B debt portfolio with a focus on the media and infrastructure sectors. | Born in Saint Petersburg, raised in Athens, educated in Milan and now living in London, Vica has a diverse, international background. She graduated summa cum laude from Bocconi University and is fluent in four languages. | 25 | ||
| Lisa Marrone | Marrone | August Capital | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | August Capital | 22 | As a member of Class 22, Lisa served her fellowship at August Capital under the mentorship of General Partners David Hornik and Tripp Jones. | Lisa is soon to join August Capital, a firm focused on early-stage startups in the IT sector, as a Principal.
Over the past four years, Lisa has earned a JD from Harvard Law School and an MBA from Harvard Business School. While in graduate school, she worked for Lyndra, a biotechnology company started by Dr. Robert Langer whose mission is to increase adherence to prescription medications. She also served on the Obama administration’s National Economic Council, where she focused on manufacturing and innovation policy. Prior to graduate school, Lisa worked for Bain & Company in New York City as a Senior Associate Consultant. | Lisa attended Yale University, where she majored in biology and economics graduating magna cum laude. She holds a JD/MBA, cum laude, from Harvard. Lisa is also a proud graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology, the nerdiest high school in America.
Lisa is recently married to her husband Justin Stilwell, who works at Google. She lives in San Francisco. | 22 |
| Miguel Marshall | Marshall | Centro Ventures | , | Southern CA & Hawaii;Latin America | Angel Ventures Mexico | 19 | Miguel is a member of Class 19. He served the first part of his fellowship at Angel Ventures Mexico under the mentorship of Managing Partner Hernan Fernandez, and completed the program at SV LATAM Fund. | Miguel is a General Partner with SV Latam, a VC fund focused on linking early- and seed-stage companies from Latin America to Silicon Valley and vice versa.
Previously, Miguel was the Regional Director and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Angel Ventures Mexico, an angel group and co-investment fund. Before that, he launched the Tijuana office of Endeavor, one of the world's leading emerging market accelerators. He continues to be a mentor for Endeavor as well as for Startup Mexico. In Tijuana, Miguel co-founded AhorroLibre.com, a startup in the LatAm fin-tech industry that supports entrepreneurs and individuals by reaching their financing goals through Rotating Savings and Credit Associations online. He also co-founded HUB STN, the first binational coworking space that integrates Southern California and Tijuana through the technology and creative industries. He began his entrepreneurial career selling wholesale clothing for the tourism industry in Baja California. After his first venture he worked for service firms such as Deloitte and KPMG in audit, risk, and consulting. Miguel is a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum, where he launched Bordofarms, a social incubator that creates temporary jobs through urban farming to Mexican deportees that arrive in Tijuana. | Miguel graduated from CETYS Universidad and City University of Seattle, holding a dual Bachelor's degree in accounting and business administration. He also participated in a summer program from Harvard Business School, and in the Riordan MBA Fellowship from UCLA Anderson. | 19 | ||
| Dia Martin | Martin | OPIC - Overseas Private Investment Corporation | United States | District of Columbia, | Washington | Boston/Northeast | OPIC - Overseas Private Investment Corporation | 24 | Dia is a member Class 24. She is serving her fellowship at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation under mentor James Polan, Vice President. | Dia has over a decade of experience in impact investing. She has a strong track record across multiple sectors, including financial services, healthcare, and agriculture. Dia is a Managing Director at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, where she originates debt financings in emerging markets. She also leads the Portfolio for Impact program, which is focused on scalable, earlier-stage companies that are highly developmental. Through the Portfolio for Impact program, OPIC has provided over $100M in debt financing to innovative businesses that are committed to having a positive social impact. Previously, Dia worked in Germany for 3 years as a Risk Manager with Finance in Motion GmbH, and was a recipient of the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship in 2007-2008. Dia has also held positions with Citigroup’s Public Finance department, Moody’s Investors Service covering the healthcare sector, and J.P. Morgan. | Dia holds an MA in international relations from Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and an MBA in finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her BS in finance from Hampton University. Dia enjoys being actively involved in her community, traveling, great desserts, and distance running. | 24 |
| Bianca Martinelli | Martinelli | Endeavor Global | , | NY/CT;Latin America | Endeavor Global | 21 | Bianca served her fellowship at Endeavor as a member of Class 21. She was mentored by Avikk Ghose, an Endeavor Mentor, and Endeavor Board Member Veronica Serra. | Bianca was most recently a VP for Endeavor, an organization that catalyzes long-term economic growth by selecting, mentoring, and accelerating high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. In this role, she drove Endeavor’s expansion into new markets in Latin America and Europe, as well as managed a team responsible for entrepreneur selection, growth, and community-building.
After four years at Endeavor Brazil working directly with a portfolio of companies from a wide-variety of industries such as energy, media, construction, and healthcare, Bianca is now based in New York City and recently led the launch of Endeavor offices in Peru, Spain, and Italy. Throughout her time at Endeavor, she has strategically connected over 200 entrepreneurs in Latin America and Europe to Endeavor’s network of mentors in search of talent, capital, and access to new markets. Bianca is particularly interested in the development of entrepreneurship ecosystems around the globe and the important role that the venture capital industry has in fostering this evolution. Prior to Endeavor, Bianca worked at Procter & Gamble at the Marketing and Sales division. | Bianca holds a BA in business administration from FGV-EAESP in São Paulo, Brazil, with a specialization in international management from Unniversità Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy. She also completed Endeavor’s Leadership Program at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Harvard Business School’s Scaling Entrepreneurial Ventures Program. | 21 | ||
| Gonzalo Azagra | Azagra | Cardumen Capital | Spain | , | Madrid | Europe | Cardumen Capital | 23 | A member of Class 23, Gonzalo is serving his fellowship at Cardumen Capital under the mentorship of Cardumen's Chairman, Gil Gidron. | Gonzalo has over 13 years of technology, venture capital, and advisory experience. He is co-founder and Managing General Partner at Cardumen Capital, a European venture capital firm investing in deep tech in Israel.
Prior to Cardumen, Gonzalo spent four years in Korea at Samsung’s headquarters. He then founded and lead Samsung Ventures Israel’s office. At Samsung Ventures he deployed over $120 million in capital in the USA, Europe, and Israel. Notable deals include: Replay (acquired by Intel), PrimeSense (acquired by Apple), Cortica, Earlysense, Corephotonics, Celeno, Aveni, StoreDot, Humavox, Elastifile, Yume (NYSE), and Rounds (acquired by Kik). In the past Gonzalo was a strategy consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and a systems engineer at the former Atomic Energy authority (AEA Technology) in the UK. | Gonzalo holds an MEng in electrical and electronic engineering from Imperial College and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Paris. He earned a BSc from University of London, London School of Economics, and an MBA from University of California, Berkeley.
Gonzalo was recently ranked the top 10th Spanish Economic Leader for Tomorrow by Choiseul Institute and is a Young President’s Organization member. | 23 |
| Maurice Maschmeyer | Maschmeyer | Seed + Speed | , | Pacific Palisades | Seed + Speed | 25 | Maurice is an investor at Seed+Speed Ventures in Berlin, Germany and a Venture Partner at Maschmeyer Group Ventures in Los Angeles, where he focuses on guiding world-class entrepreneurs. Seed+Speed invests in founder-first software-based businesses in b2b and b2c. His focus is sourcing deals and providing strategic solutions to support entrepreneurs through different stages of their business. Maurice firmly believes in the global entrepreneur community and is continually an active mentor to accelerators both in Europe and the US.
Earlier in his career, Maurice excelled as a designer in the yacht and automotive industry for Ferrari and Porsche, before pivoting his role towards his passion in supporting entrepreneurs, startups and their ecosystems. | Maurice grew up between Germany, France and Italy, graduated with a Transportation Design degree from ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena and a master’s of science in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from USC. He constantly travels between Los Angeles and Berlin. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, surfing, skiing, weightlifting, and meeting new people. | 25 | |||
| Susan Mason | Mason | Aligned Partners | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | ONSET Ventures | 02 | Susan is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 2 and served her fellowship under mentor Rob Kuhling at ONSET Ventures in Menlo Park, CA. She has served as a mentor to Class 15 member Miriam Rivera and Class 18 member Beto Pallares. Susan is a founding board member and Chairman Emeritus of the Center for Venture Education. | Susan has 28 years of operating, management, and venture capital experience.
Susan is a General Partner with Aligned Partners, a venture firm she co-founded with another Kauffman Fellow (Jodi Sherman Jahic, Class 5). Aligned Partners specializes in investments in highly capital efficient IT startups. Susan is focused on early stage startups in the cloud and mobile computing areas. Prior to co-founding Aligned Partners, Susan was with Onset Ventures for 15 years and helped raise 5 ONSET funds. She came to Onset Ventures in 1996 after holding positions in high technology engineering, marketing and business development. Susan previously led a successful consulting practice, helping Fortune 100 corporations capitalize on emerging markets and technologies. Earlier in her career, she held positions in marketing and engineering design for high-performance systems and microprocessors at Fujitsu Microelectronics, Fairchild Semiconductor and NCR Microelectronics. | Susan received a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado and her MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. | 2 |
| Lylan Masterman | Masterman | White Star Capital | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | White Star Capital | 19 | A member of Class 19, Lylan served his fellowship at White Star Capital under the mentorship of Managing Partner Eric Martineau-Fortin. | Lylan Masterman is a General Partner at White Star Capital, a Series A internet technology-oriented firm with offices in New York, London, Montreal, and Paris.
Prior to joining White Star, Lylan worked in operating roles as a software engineer and in product management for 15 years. Most notably, he joined the Atlas division of aQuantive in 2004. Over his 5 years at the company, he helped launch and grow Atlas’s rich media advertising technology platform, and also led the company’s targeting product, User Experience, and Internationalization. In 2007, aQuantive was acquired by Microsoft for $6.2 billion. Lylan has worked in product for 4 early-stage companies: DoubleVerify, StrikeAd, Maxifier, and AskMe. Earlier, Lylan worked at Microsoft where he started as an engineer on WebTV, became a technology evangelist of Microsoft Developer Tools for Microsoft Research, and then released the academic version of the first ever Visual Studio .NET. | Lylan holds a degree in computer science from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
While at Kellogg, Lylan interned at Sierra Ventures, a 30-year-old firm on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, CA. He was also a volunteer for Adobe’s Corporate Development & Innovation team and for TechCrunch’s Crunchbase.
On the personal side, Lylan enjoys improvisation, meditation, and amateur mixology. | 19 |
| Raffaele Mauro | Mauro | Endeavor - Italy | Italy | , | Milan | Europe | Endeavor - Italy | 22 | A member of Class 22, Raffaele served his fellowship at Endeavor Italy. His mentor was Paola Bonomo, Stanford MBA, angel investor, and former Facebook Global Marketing Director – Southern Europe. | Raffaele is passionate about technology, policy, and global finance. Now Managing Director at Endeavor Italy, he is focused on high-impact entrepreneurship and venture capital, providing companies access to smart capital, talent, and markets. He launched the local office from scratch by hiring and training the team, originating funding, structuring operations, and attracting high-quality dealflow.
Previously, Raffaele was Head of Finance for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Intesa Sanpaolo and worked at venture capital funds such as P101 Ventures and Annapurna Ventures / United Ventures. He also structured and advised several companies, including Multiply Labs (YC 2016). | Raffaele holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, a PhD from Bocconi University in Milan, and attended the Singularity University Graduate Studies Program at NASA Ames in Mountain View, California.
He is a former Junior Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a member of the Young European Leaders “40 under 40” network, and a member of the Young Leaders group of the US–Italy Council. He is also part of the scientific committee at Blockchainlab.it and a member of the executive committee at the Global Shapers Hub Milano, a World Economic Forum community. Raffaele co-authored the book Hacking Finance, a work on Bitcoin, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies, and was an invited speaker at EY EMEIA Accelerate, Wired Money, and the Bundesbank. | 22 |
| Eyal Mayer | Mayer | Daimler AG | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | NY/CT;Middle East | Marker LLC | 21 | A member of Class 21, Eyal began his fellowhip at Marker LLC, and completed it at Daimler AG. His mentors were Yuval Shachar and Liat Aaronson (Class 22). | Eyal Mayer is Daimler AG's Head of Innovation at the newly-established Research and Development center in Tel Aviv. Eyal is responsible for the firm’s partnerships with the local ecosystem, including startups, universities, accelerators, and local VCs in which Daimler acts as an LP. In addition, Eyal provides mentoring and counseling for various startups.
Prior to joining Daimler AG, Eyal managed the investment team at the Israeli office of Innovation Endeavors (previously Marker LLC). In this capacity, he was involved in all of the fund’s activities in the country, including deal flow, attending board meetings, and mentoring CEOs of a number of portfolio companies. In addition to his local responsibilities, Eyal was also a member of Innovation Endeavors' global investment team and participated in all fund-wide processes. Born and raised in Israel, Eyal moved to the US after completing three years of mandatory military service, spent 12 years in New York, and returned to Israel in 2010. In New York, he held several managerial positions, including an associate position in a management consulting firm, and a vice president position in the technology division of Morgan Stanley. Following his tenure at Morgan Stanley, Eyal founded a startup in Israel in the bitcoin space. | Eyal holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, magna cum laude, with dual majors in computer science and economics, as well as an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business, with concentrations in finance and IT/operations management. | 21 |
| Helen McBreen | McBreen | Atlantic Bridge | Ireland | , | Dublin | Europe | Atlantic Bridge | 22 | Helen is a member of Class 22 and served her fellowship at Atlantic Bridge Capital under the mentorship of General Partner Gerry Maguire. | Helen is Investment Director at Atlantic Bridge Capital, a global technology fund with $500M across five funds, investing in tech companies in Europe, the US, and China. Helen is based in Dublin, Ireland and manages Atlantic Bridge’s new €60M University Bridge Fund, which invests in early-stage companies with global potential, built from world-class research at Irish universities. In particular, the fund aims to scale companies into international markets. Under Helen’s leadership, the fund has led seed investments into several high-potential companies in tech, MedTech, materials, and FinTech.
She is a board member of and advisor to several organizations, including eHealth Ireland, Knowledge Transfer Ireland, HealthXL Platform, Enterprise Ireland, and UCD VentureLaunch; she also serves as a personal mentor for a number of tech startups. Prior to joining Atlantic Bridge, Helen was an Investor at Ireland’s leading accelerator, where she played a key role in the allocation of €45M into over 100 tech startups with a particular focus on ventures in energy, health, and information and communication technology (ICT). Earlier in her career Helen was Sales Director in a leading Irish tech company. She understands sales intimately, and is a business advisor to several growth-stage companies, helping them overcome expansion challenges in international markets. | Helen is a First Class Honours electronic engineering graduate and alumna of University College Dublin and earned her PhD from the University of Edinburgh. | 22 |
| Laura McCoolidge | McCoolidge | Sofia Fund | United States | Missouri, | Kansas City | MW Plains/Rockies | Sofia Fund | 24 | Laura is serving her fellowship at Mid-America Angels as a member of Class 24. Her mentor is Ariel Jaduszliwer (Class 16), Managing Partner of Brainstorm Ventures. | Laura is a Kansas City-based Managing Partner of the Sofia Fund. The Sofia Fund is an angel investment fund focused exclusively on investing in women-led early stage companies. Laura participates as a mentor in Pipeline Entrepreneurs and serves as a board director for Stone Medical Corporation, a medical device company, and NE Enterprises LLC, an affiliate of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Prior to Mid-America Angels, Laura served as the Executive Director of the Nebraska Angels for 5 years. Under Laura’s leadership, the organization grew to become a leading angel network in the Midwest: The number of investing members expanded by 100% while deploying just over $16M in capital across 31 portfolio companies. During her tenure with Nebraska Angels, Laura established a Midwest Angel coalition, a syndicate of angel networks working together to streamline deal opportunities, communications, and resource support. | Laura graduated from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance. Laura was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska and now resides in Kansas City. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, playing poker, reading, and writing. She hopes to learn a second language over the next couple years. | 24 |
| Rosa McCormick | McCormick | Wild Basin Investments | United States | Texas, | Austin | TX/South Central | Wild Basin Investments | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Rosa completed her fellowship at Wild Basin Investments and its related investment vehicles. Laura Kilcrease of Austin-based Triton Ventures served as her mentor. Rosa now serves as mentor to Class 21 member Claire England. | Rosa is Managing Director of Wild Basin Investments, LLC, a closely-held entity focused specifically on early-stage equity investments, and President of Key Light Capital LLC, an Austin-based investment firm with an emphasis in venture investing. In these capacities, she works on all aspects of due diligence and has ultimate responibility for investment selection and portfolio management. Rosa serves on the Board of VolunteerSpot, Inc., a company that provides online volunteer coordination, sign-up, and reminders. She is also a Board Observer for Boomerangs Pies, Inc., an Austin-based maker of healthy gourmet veggie and meat pies, sold nationally in the frozen-food section of grocery stores. Rosa has been an active investor with the Central Texas Angel Network since 2007, and has served on the organization’s Board since 2011. | Rosa is a native Austinite and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where she received a Bachelor's degree with dual majors in economics and history. | 18 |
| Melissa McCracken | McCracken | Nextech Invest | , | Zurich | Europe | Nextech Invest | 25 | Melissa is a Principal at Nextech Invest Ltd., a global, cancer therapeutics-focused venture capital firm headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Melissa is a scientist by training with a passion for emerging technologies in cancer therapies. At Nextech, Melissa performs sourcing and due diligence on new investment opportunities and helps to support our current portfolio companies. Currently, Melissa is a board member of ImaginAb and a board observer of Silverback Therapeutics.
Prior to Nextech, Melissa was a senior associate at Third Rock Ventures focusing on scientific due diligence, partnership development and new company formation in oncology and immunology. Melissa helped build and launch Celsius Therapeutics, a company focused on discovering precision therapeutics for oncology and autoimmune. Melissa has also worked within larger biotech organizations completing multiple internships in research and development at Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN). | Melissa holds a BS in biochemistry and molecular biology from University of California, Davis, and a Ph.D. in molecular and medical pharmacology from University of California, Los Angeles where her research focused on engineered immunity for cancer. Melissa also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University where her research focused on immuno-oncology. | 25 | ||
| Michael McCullough | McCullough | Capricorn Healthcare & Special Opportunities | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Headwaters Capital Partners | 14 | Michael is a member of Class 14 and served his fellowship at Headwaters Capital with mentor John Stevens. He now serves as mentor to Prashant Mehta (Class 20). | Michael invests in life sciences, education, and sustainable social ventures. Michael is a physician with specialized training in emergency medicine and diagnostic imaging, affiliated with both Stanford and UCSF.
A serial entrepreneur in both the non-profit and private sectors, Michael co-founded QuestBridge, the nation’s largest recruiter for extremely talented, low-income youth for Ivy League colleges, universities, and employers. At Capricorn Healthcare & Special Opportunities (CHSO), Michael focuses on middle-market companies serving large target markets that possess strong potential for revenue and margin growth. CHSO targets investment opportunities in healthcare services and outsourcing, information technology, delivery, diagnostics, specialty pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and wellness companies. Following medical school, Michael trained in emergency medicine at Stanford University and now serves as Assistant Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at his alma mater, UC San Francisco, and has been an occasional ER physician for the Dalai Lama and his entourage. Michael has served on the Oregon State Board of Education, and founded beagooddoctor.org. He was named an Ashoka fellow in 2004, and subsequently co-founded KaiMe, facilitating international adoption. | Michael earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa, in political science and human biology. He holds an MD from the University of California, San Francisco. Michael was a Rhodes scholar and attended Balliol College, Oxford, studying philosophy, politics and economics and obtaining a Master's degree in diagnostic imaging.
He is a private pilot with an enthusiasm for yoga, neurosciences, hiking, teaching, conversation, and good wine. | 14 |
| John McIntyre | McIntyre | American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact | United States | Wisconsin, | Madison | Northern CA | Citrix Startup Accelerator | 18 | A member of Class 18, John served his fellowship at Citrix Startup Accelerator under the mentorship of Andy Cohen, Vice President of Corporate Development. | The American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact’s mission is to invest in emerging organizations that make a measurable difference in people’s lives. Our vision is to achieve equitable, healthy and sustainable communities for everyone. John McIntyre is a Social Impact Investment Director with a focus on supporting entrepreneurs who are creating tomorrow’s jobs, economic vitality, and justice.
Prior to joining the American Family Institute, John worked on the Kauffman Fellows team as the head of the KF Network. John also was Managing Director of the Citrix Startup Accelerator, an open innovation program performing early-stage investments. Earlier in his career, John ran the Enterprise Ireland software team in North America, co-founded InnerWorkings, and spent 13 years at Intel Corporation, where he helped launch new products and fund early-stage startups with Intel Capital. | John is a graduate of Marquette University's School of Engineering. John’s personal interests include education; he was a board member at Valley Montessori School, a K-8 program. John also supports non-profit efforts in software development education for kids. | 18 |
| Witney McKiernan | McKiernan | KCK Group | , | MENLO PARK | Northern CA | KCK Group | 25 | Witney McKiernan is a Principal in the medtech division of the KCK Group, a growth-stage investment firm with offices in Silicon Valley, Bermuda, Dubai, New York and London. Witney splits her time between evaluating new opportunities for investment and providing operational support for companies within KCK's medtech portfolio.
Prior to joining KCK, Witney spent 14 years in operational and consulting roles within the medtech industry (Bayer HealthCare, Xlumena, Ventus Medical, Channel Medsystems) and has developed market access strategies for over 40 medical technologies. Witney has expertise in commercial strategy, upstream marketing, reimbursement policy, and healthcare economics. Earlier in her career, Witney worked as a med-surg nurse at the University of California, San Francisco's Comprehensive Cancer Center. Witney is a recipient of the Johnson & Johnson Promise of Nursing Award and is a University of California BioFellow. | Witney holds a BA in human biology from Stanford University and a RN and MS in health policy from the University of California, San Francisco. She lives in Menlo Park, California with her husband and three sons. | 25 | ||
| Andy McLoughlin | McLoughlin | Uncork Capital | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | SoftTech VC | 22 | Andy served his fellowship at SoftTech VC under the mentorship of Managing Partner, Jeff Clavier. He is a member of Class 22. | Andy is a Partner with Uncork Capital, one of the most active seed-stage investors in Silicon Valley. Andy primarily invests in B2B, vertical industry SaaS, developer tools, and mobile enterprise, but also supports the wider SoftTech portfolio on product strategy, go-to-market, and growth.
Prior to joining Uncork Capital in 2015, Andy was co-founder of London-based Huddle, a leading enterprise content collaboration company. Under Andy’s leadership, Huddle became one of Europe’s most awarded and well-known technology startups, raising over $80M of venture funding. Over the years, he led technology, product, marketing, and strategy, eventually moving to San Francisco in 2010 to establish the company’s US presence. Andy has been an active angel investor since 2010 and built a portfolio covering 35+ pre-seed / seed-stage investments. His companies include innovative SaaS businesses like Intercom, Pipedrive, Apiary, Tray.io, Bugsnag, Rolepoint, Buffer, and Import.io, as well as marketplaces such as Postmates, Secret Escapes, and Zesty. | Born and raised in the UK, Andy holds a BA, with Honors, in economics from the University of Sheffield.
Andy is the co-founder and US Trustee of the Founders Pledge, a nonprofit that promotes effective altruism in early-stage entrepreneurs. He was awarded an OBE in the 2015 Queen’s birthday honors list for services to UK business and technology leadership. | 22 |
| William McQuillan | McQuillan | Frontline Ventures | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Frontline Ventures | 21 | William served his fellowship at Frontline Ventures under the mentorship of Shay Garvey. He is a member of Class 21. | William is a Founding Partner at Frontline Ventures, a €50m community-focused venture firm investing in early-stage technology companies across Europe.
He was the Co-founder and CEO of Osmoda.com, and one of the founding employees of Ondra Partners, a startup investment banking boutique. Ondra grew from a 4-person team to over 70 people in London, New York, and Paris, and was named a top investment banking boutique globally by Euromoney in just 18 months. William is passionate about entrepreneurship. He sits on the trustee board of the Thousand Network and was London Ambassador for over 3 years. He also sits on the board of several early-stage companies and is a mentor to some of the top startup accelerators, including TechStars, Seedcamp, and Wayra. | William graduated with a Bachelor of Business Studies from Trinty College Dublin. His dissertation, which was published in several journals, was on the topic of investing in art, an area he is very passionate about.
He is also a keen adventure traveler and extreme sport enthusiast. | 21 |
| Prashant Mehta | Mehta | KEF Company | United Arab Emirates | , | Dubai | Middle East | The KEF Company | 20 | Prashant is a member of Class 20. He served his fellowship at The KEF Company under the mentorship of Michael McCullough (Class 14) of Capricorn Healthcare & Special Opportnities (CHSO). | Prashant Mehta heads investments for KEF Holdings, headquartered in DIFC, Dubai. KEF Holdings includes businesses encompassing infrastructure, healthcare, education, and metals. In this role, he acts as a strategic advisor to the group for financial decisions. He is responsible for identifying, analyzing, and monitoring new investment opportunities across the globe.
With over $500M under management, Prashant seeks to manage risk and return to generate a steady cash flow from the investments for the group.
Prashant also heads the strategic planning and monitoring department for KEF. In this role, he helps formulate the business plans for the operating businesses and monitors progress against the plans, and serves on the boards of KEF Infrastructure and KEF Healthcare. | Prashant holds a bachelor's degree in commerce from the University of Mumbai.
Prashant also serves as a board member of KEF Foundation, an organization that focuses on the basic needs of healthcare and education for the lesser privileged. | 20 |
| Thomas Meier | Meier | Redalpine Venture Partners AG | Switzerland | , | Zurich | Europe | Redalpine Venture Partners AG | 24 | Thomas is serving his fellowship at Redalpine as a member of Class 24 under the mentorship of Partner Harald Nieder and former VP Product of Uber, Daniel Graf. | Thomas joined Redalpine, a Swiss-based, early-stage venture fund in the healthTech and ICT (information and communication technology) space, in 2016. As an Investment Manager, he is responsible for ICT investments across Europe. In addition to making investments in and working with his portfolio companies, Thomas is involved in Redalpine’s fundraising efforts. Prior to joining Redalpine, Thomas worked as a consultant, was a member of the Credit Suisse ILS Hedge Fund team, and spent some time as a researcher in the corporate finance and private equity field. | Thomas holds a BSc in business administration and an MSc in finance from Zurich University of Applied Sciences. He is a sport enthusiast and loves the outdoors. | 24 |
| Neb Mela | Mela | Intel Capital | United States | California, | San Leandro | Northern CA | Intel Capital | 24 | As a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 24, Neb is serving his fellowship at Intel Capital with mentor Trina Van Pelt, Vice President and Senior Managing Director. | Neb is an Intel Capital Investment Director based in Silicon Valley, where he is focused on investments in autonomous systems and mobility platforms. His primary areas of interest are autonomous vehicles, robotics, smart logistics, AI/data & analytics and unique business model innovation. Prior to Intel Capital in 2016, Neb was an investment banker at Wells Fargo Securities and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, helping technology companies go through the capital raising and M&A processes. Neb began his career at Accenture, where he worked for over 5 years in the consulting industry. | Neb holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering. | 24 |
| Mark Mendel | Mendel | Mendel Consulting | United States | Washington, | Seattle | Northwest | ARCH Venture Partners | Charter | Mark Mendel is a member of the Charter Class of Fellows and served his fellowship under mentor Steve Lazarus at ARCH Venture Partners in New York. He served as mentor to Class 8 member Scott Naisbitt at RiverVest Venture Partners. | Mark Mendel is managing director at Mendel Consulting LLC, consulting on venture fund management, company formation, and emerging company development in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. He also supports company-building and fundraising for Flow Forward Medical and Metactive Medical, medical device spin-outs of Novita Therapeutics.
Previously, Mark was venture partner at NoVita Therapeutics, and before that, Director, Invention Development at Intellectual Ventures. Prior to joining Intellectual Ventures, Mark served as a consultant and helped to nurture multiple biotech and medical device companies through their seed stage, including Proteon Therapeutics and ValveXchange, where he served at startup CEO. Mark served as managing director of RiverVest Venture Partners, which he co-founded. While at RiverVest, he served as founding CEO and later Chairman of the Board of Auxeris Therapeutics. He also led investments in and served as a member of the board of CyDex (acquired by Ligand Pharma) and as a board observer at Conforma Therapeutics (acquired by Biogen-Idec), CGI Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead) and Xcyte Therapeutics (acquired by Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals). Before RiverVest, Mark was a vice president with ARCH Venture Partners. During his four-year tenure there, he established the firm's New York City operations, co-led the seed financing at Optobionics and served as board observer at Optobionics and GenVec. Mark worked in medical research at the Scheie Eye Institute and at Massachusetts General Hospital, in product development at ALYX Medical, and in manufacturing at Polaroid. | Mark earned his BS in mechanical engineering at Cornell University and received his MSE and PhD in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was awarded full funding through NIH pre-doctoral fellowships. He also took graduate courses in organic chemistry at Harvard University. Mark serves on the advisory board of Cornell Outdoor Education. | 0 |
| Ben Metcalfe | Metcalfe | Ridge Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Ridge Ventures | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Ben is serving his fellowship at Ridge Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Director Alexander Rosen. | Ben is a Principal at Ridge Ventures in San Francisco. Ben primarily invests in B2B and enterprise-facing SaaS, marketplaces, frontier technologies, and startups with a strong machine-learning, open source, or infrastructure component.
Prior to joining Ridge, Ben was a founder of WP Engine, the world’s leading WordPress Digital Experience Platform. With over $100M in annual recurring revenue and 575+ employees across five global offices, WP Engine powers over 500K websites belonging to the world’s premier brands and Fortune 500 companies. Ben led marketing and open source ecosystem strategy. Ben also served as Head of Revolution, Uber’s public policy innovation team, which he created and led while he was a Senior Product Manager. Uber Revolution developed several successful activism campaigns and also launched Beethoven, Uber’s acclaimed program and product features for deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers. He began his career as a software engineer at the prestigious BBC News Website at the age of 18, later moving on to design and running the BBC’s developer platform. He took a similar role at MySpace upon relocating from his native London to San Francisco in 2006. | Ben has a unique, demonstrable cross-discipline set of skills and is just as comfortable debugging serverless code for his Amazon Alexa as he is designing a 12-month marketing plan for a portfolio company, developing a set of user stories for a new product or brainstorming lobbying efforts to help a startup in a regulated environment.
Ben has no formal education or qualifications beyond secondary school (high school). | 23 |
| Wouter Meuleman | Meuleman | Illumina Ventures | , | Foster City | Northern CA | Illumina Ventures | 25 | Wouter is a Principal at Illumina Ventures, an early stage life science-focused venture capital firm with offices in Foster City, CA and Dublin, Ireland. He was part of its founding team when in 2016 the firm was spun out of Illumina, Inc (NASDAQ:ILMN), where at the time he was Director of Corporate Development. He currently serves as a board director or observer at Fluent Biosciences, Ribometrix, Delfi Diagnostics, and Biota Bioscience.
A physical chemist by training, Wouter began his career in life sciences in 2003 as a founding employee at Oxford University spin-out Oxamer, co-founded by Lasker-award winner Prof. Sir Edwin Southern, which later became part of Oxford Gene Technologies and was ultimately acquired by Sysmex. In 2009, he joined Illumina, Inc. where, prior to moving into corporate development, he was Principal Scientist based in the Cambridge, UK office. There he helped incubate the MiSeq, which became one of the world’s best selling next-generation DNA sequencing instruments. | Wouter obtained his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Chemistry from the University of Ghent, Belgium; a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Newcastle, UK; and an MBA from the University of Cambridge, UK.
Since departing his home country of Belgium for his doctoral studies, he has lived in Newcastle, Oxford, Cambridge, San Diego, and since 2016, in the San Francisco Bay Area together with his wife and two boys. In his spare time he enjoys running, playing the flute, reading, learning new languages (six and counting), and above all spending time with his family. | 25 | ||
| Muhammad Mian | Mian | Prysm Capital | United States | New Jersey, | Princeton | NJ/PA | BlackRock Private Equity Partners | 22 | A member of Class 22, Muhammad served his fellowship at BlackRock Private Equity Partners under the mentorship of Managing Director, Jay Park. Muhammad serves as a mentor to Matt Roberts (Class 23) and Saad Siddiqui (Class 24). | Muhammad Mian is a Co-Founder and Partner at Prysm Capital where he provides growth capital to disruptive management teams across the technology, consumer, and healthcare markets. Investing across stages, Muhammad enjoys working with teams reinventing their industries.
Prior to Prysm, Muhammad spent nine years at BlackRock Private Equity Partners where he had the opportunity to partner with some remarkable management teams. During that time he served on the Board of Directors of Cofense, Qumulo, WoundTech, PLNTF Holdings (Planet Fitness franchisee), and AIM Aerospace, the Executive Board of the One Team Collective, and was an observer to the Board of Directors of Convene and Stonefire Grill. Muhammad joined Salesforce in 2006 and spent time in Marketing Strategy and Corporate FP&A. Prior to that, Muhammad worked at TiVo in the Finance organization. He began his career with Merrill Lynch Private Equity Partners. | Muhammad earned a BBA degree from The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and an MBA degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. At Wharton, Muhammad was voted the most improved player on the 2009 Wharton Wildmen (ice hockey club) championship team. Muhammad was born in Lahore, Pakistan, grew up in New Jersey and now lives in the Princeton area with his wife and kids. He enjoys Michigan football, Texas-style barbecue, and pizza. | 22 |
| Jules Miller | Miller | IBM Blockchain Founder Accelerator | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | LunaCap Ventures | 22 | Jules is a member of Class 22. She served the first year of her fellowship at at LunaCap Ventures and the second at the IBM Blockchain Founder Accelerator. Her mentors were LunaCap Managing Director Paul Capton and HBCUvc Managing Director Jorge Torres (Class 16). | Jules is an impact investor, 3-time entrepreneur, “intrapreneur,” and hands-on operator. She started at IBM Blockchain Founder Accelerator in 2018 as a Partner. The accelerator's goal is to bring new blockchain networks into production, covering not just technology but also legal and business considerations.
Jules was previously a Partner at LunaCap Ventures, an early-stage venture debt fund investing in military veteran, women, and minority (MWM) founders. Before that she was interim COO of BRAVA Investments, which invests in companies that economically benefit women. As an entrepreneur, Jules most recently co-founded and was Managing Director of Evolve Law, a community of legal innovators dedicated to accelerating the adoption of technology in the legal industry. Earlier she co-founded and was COO of Hire an Esquire, a venture-backed startup providing an on-demand workforce of attorneys to law firms and legal departments. Jules founded and led Carbonado Group, an on-demand workforce of sustainability experts. Jules spent 7 years as an “intrapreneur,” helping companies such as Ernst & Young, Salesforce.com, and Tiffany & Co. launch and grow new business units, primarily focused on cleantech, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility. | Jules earned her BA from UCLA and her MSc from the London School of Economics.
She was a 2015 NYC Venture Fellow and is currently a #BUILTBYGIRLS mentor to high school girls interested in careers in tech. She also runs WoFo, a community of women founders in NYC. Jules is a fan of the opera and served on the Board of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, but won’t give up her California driver’s license and cell phone number. | 22 |
| Conor Mills | Mills | ACT Venture Capital | Ireland | Dublin, | Co Dublin | Europe | ACT Venture Capital | 24 | Conor is a member of Class 24, serving his fellowship at ACT Venture Capital under the mentorship of Managing Partner John Flynn. | Conor is an Associate with ACT Venture Capital and a member of the investment team. ACT has raised in excess of $500M across multiple funds and invests in early-stage technology companies from seed to growth stages. Conor is responsible for deal origination and execution and works closely with several teams across the portfolio. Prior to ACT, Conor was a member of the corporate development team at Paddy Power Betfair PLC, one of the world’s largest publicly listed online gaming companies. Conor was responsible for developing and executing the group’s global expansion strategy and assessing all strategic M&A opportunities. He worked closely on key components of the £6B merger of Paddy Power and Betfair, and co-led the $48M acquisition of US daily fantasy sports operator Draft. Before joining Paddy Power Betfair, Conor worked in commercial banking and specialist corporate finance across the technology, life sciences, and oil and gas sectors. | Conor is a First Class Honours business and economics graduate from Trinity College Dublin and is a CFA charterholder. | 24 |
| Gonzalo Miranda | Miranda | Austral Capital | Chile | , | Santiago | Latin America | Austral Capital | 15 | Gonzalo is a graduated member of Class 15 and served his fellowship at Austral Capital in Santiago, Chile. | Gonzalo Miranda is the Founding Partner of Austral Capital, an investment firm with offices in Chile, Colombia and the US that focuses on identifying and investing in technology, energy and natural resources opportunities in the region. Currently, Gonzalo holds board positions at ACAFI (Chilean Fund Managers' Association), Scopix Solutions, Paperless, Nimbic, Multicaja, Indef and Chile Patrimonial (non-profit). He is also member of the Society of Kauffman Fellows (www.kauffmanfellows.org) and Adjunt Professor of Entrepreneurship at Universidad Católica de Chile. Prior to founding Austral, Gonzalo was the Managing Director of Endeavor Chile, a global non-profit organization that promotes high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging markets (www.endeavor.org). Other past activities include co-founder of Aflora, an ecommerce retail business; VP of New Business Development at Canal 13, a media conglomerate in broadcast TV, cable and web where he led the spin-off division, Medios Australes. | Gonzalo holds a BSc. and MSc. in Mechanical Engineering from Universidad Católica de Chile and an MBA & MOT (Management of Technology) from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. | 15 |
| Naheed Misfeldt | Misfeldt | Omega Funds | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Aberdare Ventures | 09 | Naheed is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 9 and served her fellowship under mentor Paul Klingenstein at Aberdare Ventures in San Francisco. | Naheed is focused on the formation of specialty pharma, anti-infective, and molecular diagnostics companies.
She is currently a Venture Partner at Omega Funds, a dedicated global life sciences investment firm, and she is based in San Francisco. Previously Naheed spent 10 years with Aberdare Ventures, where she played an instrumental role in HermaQuest Pharmaceuticals, where she was a board member, as well as Pharmion, Mpex Pharmaceuticals, Kai Pharmaceuticals, and Clovis Oncology. Naheed joined Aberdare Ventures from Bay City Capital, a leading life sciences merchant bank, where she evaluated numerous investment opportunities in biopharmaceuticals and assisted portfolio companies in their fundraising activities. Prior to Bay City Capital, Naheed served as an Associate in the Healthcare Group at Chase H&Q, where she was involved in numerous advisory and capital-raising activities for the bank's publicly traded and privately held clients. | Naheed received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and her Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University. She has trained EMT students and others in skills associated with emergency medicine. | 9 |
| Sanjay Mistry | Mistry | Janssen | United States | Pennsylvania, | Sprig House | NJ/PA | Quaker Partners | 14 | Sanjay is a member of Class 14 and served his fellowship at Quaker BioVentures under mentor Adele Oliva, a member of Fellows Class 2. | Sanjay brings a decade of experience from venture capital, academia, biotech, medical device, and pharmaceutical R&D to his work. In his role at Janssen (a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary), Sanjay is responsible for business operations, including the new internal venture selection process, portfolio planning, and external investor development in partnership with Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation and Business Development. He also leads internal ventures, focused on the discovery and development of novel small molecule drugs based on natural product starting points.
Previously, Sanjay was at Quaker Partners, involved in all aspects of the investment process and focused on biopharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical devices, and healthcare services. He was a board observer at BioLeap, Corridor Pharma, Tarsa Therapeutics, and RainDance Technologies. Prior to joining Quaker in 2008, Sanjay had an earlier tenure at Johnson & Johnson. He was Assistant Director of Business Development for the Stem Cell Internal Ventures Program at Centocor, a subsidiary. He held responsibilities for therapeutic area strategy planning and implementation and managed life science alliances around the world. As a Principal Scientist he successfully led pre-clinical development for an ophthalmology indication from discovery through IND into clinical trials. Prior to joining the internal ventures program, Sanjay created a neural tissue engineering program for the Center for Biomaterials and Advanced Technologies at Ethicon, another subsidiary. Prior to J&J, Sanjay was a development scientist for biotech startup MorphoGen Pharmaceuticals, leading pre-clinical development. Earlier, he held postdoctoral fellowships at the Scripps Research Institute and at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. He has therapeutic area expertise in cardiovascular, diabetes and neurological diseases. | Sanjay earned his PhD in Biochemical Pharmacology and MSc in Clinical Pharmacology from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and his BSc in Applied Biology from Nottingham Trent University, UK. He has 3 issued patents, 23 pending applications and 19 peer reviewed publications. Sanjay enjoys sports, cooking, and travelling. | 14 |
| Salvo Mizzi | Mizzi | Fondazione Amaldi | Italy | Rome, | Rome | Europe | Telecom Italia | 16 | A member of Class 16, Salvo served his fellowship at Telecom Italia under the mentorship of Francesco Profumo, currently Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation in the new Italian government led by Mr. Mario Monti. He currently serves as mentor to Mario Scuderi (Class 21). | Salvo joined Principia SGR in late 2017 as a General Partner, supervising the activities of all the firm's funds and contributing to new fundraising. Principia focuses on early-stage startups and growth companies focused on tech and life sciences.
Previously, Salvo was CEO of Invitalia Ventures, a fund created by Invitalia, a government agency promoting foreign investment and boosting competitiveness across the Italian economy. The fund acts as a matching and co-investiment fund, focused on early-stage/Series A startups, crossing Innovation sectors like digital, biotech, and greentech. Before Invitalia Ventures, Salvo was CEO of TIM Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Telecom Italia, fostering telecom startups. Prior to this role, he served for 6 years as Head of Internet Media & Digital Communication for Telecom Italia, Italy’s leading telecommunication company. In this role he had end-to-end coordination of “Working Capital”, a leading corporate VC project, as well as managing the company’s Social Media Workgroup. Salvo has concentrated on innovation since 2000 when, after a 10-year career in advertising, he founded Italy’s first Internet TV: My-Tv SpA. In the intervening years he has contributed to cultivating innovation first by successfully developing and subsequently selling MyTv and then by defining and managing, as an advisor to top management, value-added services in both the wireline and mobile networks of Telecom Italia. Salvo has been a columnist and collaborator with Italy’s premier financial magazine, Il Sole 24 Ore, and with monthly magazine Wired Italia. He has also taught Digital TV and New Media at Milano’s IULM University and Rome’s “La Sapienza” University. | Salvo is a graduate of the University of Naples “Federico II” with a summa cum laude degree in philosophy. His final thesis was on the Philosophy of Language. | 16 |
| SC Moatti | Moatti | Mighty Capital | , | San Francisco | Northern CA | Mighty Capital | 25 | SC Moatti is the managing partner of Mighty Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
Mighty Capital invests in great products that are also great businesses, like Airbnb, DigitalOcean and Amplitude. Amplitude CEO said it's the “best value for the dollar invested." The firm's unique moat is exclusive access to a global business acceleration platform which helps our portfolio companies drive sales, hire talent, validate ideas, and exit via corporate M&A: Products That Count, one of the largest global networks of product managers. Learn more at Mighty.Capital. An award-winning, bestselling author, SC frequently gives keynotes on investing and innovation at prestigious conferences globally, including the Mobile World Congress, the Collision Conference, and the Commonwealth Club; and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and on NPR. She also serves on boards of both public and private companies, including mobile technology giant Opera Software (OPERA:Oslo). Prior to that, SC built products that billions of people use at Facebook, Nokia and Electronic Arts. A16Z general partner Andrew Chen called SC “a genius at making mobile products people love.” | SC lectures at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she earned her MBA and has a master of science in electrical engineering. | 25 | ||
| Matthew Mochary | Mochary | Mochary Group | United States | California, | Burlingame | Northern CA | Spectrum Equity Investors | 02 | Matt is a member of Fellows Class 2 and served his fellowship under mentor Brion Applegate at Spectrum Equity Investors in Palo Alto, CA. | Matt started and runs the Mochary Foundation which currently runs two programs. The first teaches hard-core convicted criminals the basic skills needed to get and keep a legitimate job. The program aims to eliminate the need for these individuals to resort to "dealing or stealing" in order to eat. The second identifies the smartest young teens in New York's poorest neighborhoods and mentors them to ensure that they make it “out” to excellent boarding schools and universities. The foundation also provideS grants so that these exceptional students can attend advanced academic summer boot-camp.
Matt has also produced and directed several feature-length films, including The Gloves and Favela Rising, winner of 36 international film festival awards. He continues to invest actively through his family office, the Mochary Group. Prior to these efforts, Matt was a founder and Chairman of Totality, an outsourced provider of internet application maintenance services. Totality was sold to MCI/Verizon and is now known as Verizon Business. Matt was a Partner at Spectrum Equity Investors, a $1 billion venture fund focused on communications and internet services. He has been a director at OnSite Access, InternetConnect, Apex Site Management, and Nassau Broadcast Holdings. Matt earlier worked as a consultant with Bain & Co. | Matt earned his MBA at the Kellogg Graduate School where he was named an F.C. Austin Scholar, and received his BA degree from Yale. Matt has been an instructor and board member of the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School. | 2 |
| Sid Mofya | Mofya | Draper Venture Network | United States | California, | San Mateo | Northern CA;Africa | Draper Venture Network | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Sid served his fellowship at Draper Venture Network under the mentorship of Gabe Turner, Executive Director. | Sid is the Director of Partnerships for the Draper Venture Network, an alliance of 12 venture firms on four continents, with investments in over 400 companies globally ($1.8B in current assets).
Previously, Sid worked in Tanzania where he started a new country operation for the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, a Maryland-based healthcare organization. His previous experience includes running energy programs in the UK for Royal Dutch Shell and the Ministry of Justice. Prior to that, while at University, Sid ran a small computer assembly business in Zambia. Sid maintains an active involvement in African technology with Board/Advisor roles at CRE Venture Capital, LIONS@FRICA, and Kalene Education Fund. | Sid graduated with an MBA in entrepreneurship from the Acton School of Business. He also holds a Bachelor's degree in chemical process engineering from the University of Sheffield, UK, where he was a Zambian Industry Scholar. | 19 |
| Ravi Mohan | Mohan | Shasta Ventures | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Battery Ventures | 02 | Ravi is a member of Class 2 and served his fellowship under mentor Ollie Curme at Battery Ventures in Wellesley, MA. Ravi serves as the Dean of Fellows for the Kauffman Fellows Program. | Ravi Mohan has focused his entire career on the software business. He is a co-founder of Shasta Ventures, a firm focusing on early-stage technology companies that serve consumers and businesses. Ravi focuses on technology-enabled services, virally adopted software, business intelligence, and data center automation, and is currently involved in investments Apptio, Zenprise, Clickability, and Lithium Technologies, among others.
Prior to Shasta Ventures, Ravi was a general partner at Battery Ventures where he led eight investments and served on the boards of 12 software and technology-enabled service companies. Before Battery Ventures, Ravi built transaction-processing systems at Accenture, sold and implemented packaged software applications for Hyperion Software Corporation, and ran MIC, a software development firm based in India focused on business intelligence solutions to multinational corporations. Ravi also spent time at McKinsey & Company working with consumer packaged goods companies. | Ravi earned a BS in operations research and industrial engineering from Cornell University and an MBA, with Highest Distinction, from the University of Michigan Business School.
Ravi is active in entrepreneurial circles and helped found the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA). In addition, he is an active Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and serves on the Corporate Advisory Board for the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. | 2 |
| Jeffrey Moore | Moore | MP Healthcare Venture Management (MPH) | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Boston/Northeast | Research Corporation Technologies | 10 | A member of Class 10, Jeff served his fellowship under mentor Shaun Kirkpatrick at Research Corporation Technologies in Tucson, AZ. He is mentor to Laura Tadvalkar (Class 23). | Dr. Moore brings 15 years of healthcare experience in leading biotechnology companies and academic institutions. Upon completing his fellowship, Jeff began work at MP Healthcare Venture Management (MPH) as a Vice President in their Boston office. MPH is the venture group of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma and Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation, focusing on seed- to late-stage investments in companies developing novel therapeutics, platform technologies, and diagnostics.
Prior to MPH, Jeff represented Research Corporation Technologies to start-up companies and research institutions in the New England and mid-Atlantic areas. Previously, Jeff worked in business development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, evaluating diverse licensing and partnership opportunities. He also held leadership roles at Millennium and coordinated the company’s strategic initiative to appropriately deploy technologies across the drug discovery and development process. Prior to Millennium, Jeff developed novel techniques for drug target validation at Scriptgen Pharmaceuticals (now Anadys), was an NSERC research fellow at Harvard Medical School, and was a founding partner of the BioVenture Investment Group. He is the inventor on 5 patents, and has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications. | Jeff received his BSc from the University of New Brunswick. He earned his PhD at Oxford, where he elucidated the ability of viruses to overcome host defenses by producing immunosuppressive steroid hormones. He also served on the Oxford Graduate Union and LMH Executive Committee. Jeff recently received his MBA as a Sloan Fellow at MIT, focusing on finance, strategy and entrepreneurship. | 10 |
| Julia Moore | Moore | Breakout Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Ec | 17 | Julia is a member of Class 17 and served her fellowship at the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. | Julia Moore is a Partner at Breakout Ventures and focuses on early-stage investments powered by science. She is also the Portfolio Director of Breakout Labs, a San Francisco-based seed-stage fund and accelerator from the Peter Thiel Foundation. At Breakout Labs, Julia manages the portfolio and leads efforts with strategic partners and investors to drive company growth, and move startups along toward commercialization.
Before Breakout Labs, Julia served her Kauffman Fellowship at the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, which seeks to stimulate and disseminate research and innovations that enable entrepreneurs and leaders to alleviate poverty in developing economies. Trained as an analyst, Julia has public markets experience as a healthcare research analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners and private market investment experience as a life sciences investor with Kearny Venture Partners. She also has operating experience as the head of Business Development and Strategy at TriVascular. As an operator, Julia raised significant capital for her company and used that funding to lead the commercial launch of a novel PMA device across Europe and Japan. | Julia is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where she studied finance and bioethics. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two kids. | 17 |
| Wayne Moore | Moore | Alumni Ventures Group | , | HINSDALE | MW Plains/Rockies | Alumni Ventures Group | 25 | Wayne has held positions in both successful startups and thriving tech firms and brings a wealth of operational experience building teams, executing deals, and developing clients. He is committed to the growth of the venture and tech community in Chicago, serves as an advisor to several startups, and is a founding board member of Great Lakes Academy Charter School. Previously, he was on the global content acquisition team at Netflix.
Before that, he was VP of Business Development at Silver Chalice Ventures, a digital media startup owned by the Chicago White Sox. Wayne began his career in the US Navy, serving as a Surface Warfare Officer. | Wayne holds a BS in industrial engineering from Stanford and an MBA from Kellogg. | 25 | ||
| Bailey Moore | Moore | Wintrust Ventures | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | Wintrust Ventures | 24 | Bailey is serving her fellowship at Wintrust Ventures as a member of Class 24. Her mentor is Bret Maxwell, General Partner of MK Capital. | Bailey Moore is Managing Director at Wintrust Ventures, a division of Wintrust Financial Corporation. Wintrust Ventures is an early-stage investment fund focused on emerging growth businesses in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Northwest Indiana. While the fund is industry agnostic, Bailey’s focus is primarily digital marketplaces, digitally native brands, and enterprise software. Since founding Wintrust Ventures, Bailey has been responsible for 55 investments in 34 companies. Wintrust Ventures portfolio companies represent a combined $500M raised to date and $350M in total revenue last year. Previously, Bailey was able to acquire insights into the formation and rapid growth of Chicago’s middle market as part of the original team of Wintrust Commercial, which grew from $0 to over $3B in assets under management during her tenure. Bailey started her career at Alaris as a liquidation and bankruptcy consultant, working on restructurings for Comerica and GE Finance during the 2008 recession. | Bailey holds a BS in business management and finance from Purdue University. In 2015, she was voted as one of Crain’s Chicago Business 20 top professionals in their 20s and has been featured in various print and online publications. | 24 |
| Rosalía Morales | Morales | Network Information Center | Costa Rica | , | San Jose | Latin America | NIC Costa Rica | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Rosalía served her fellowship at the NIC Costa Rica. | Rosalía Morales is the Executive Director at Network Information Center (NIC) Costa Rica, a not-for-profit organization based in San José, Costa Rica, and is in charge of managing the country code top-level domain for Costa Rica. She supervises all operations, sales, IT, and leads intergovernmental relationships and public policy. The organization executes national scale projects to promote the best internet infrastructure, competitiveness, and economic development in Costa Rica.
Rosalía has a particular interest in internet policy and entrepreneurship. She actively participates in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in leading the organization´s operations and strategy related to country code top-level domains. She also represents the Costa Rican government in international conferences worldwide, promoting internet freedom and accessibility. As an individual, she works hand-in-hand with the local entrepreneurship community, creating new funding opportunities and promoting the growth of the ecosystem. She helped create the first Angel Investment fund in Central America and is a current investor in two growing technology companies. | Rosalía majored in economics and international studies and has an MBA focused on management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She also has a Master's in international studies, focused on Latin America, from the Lauder Institute, also part of the Wharton School. | 18 |
| Robert More | More | Alta Partners | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Domain Associates | 02 | Bob is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 2 and served his fellowship under mentor Brian Dovey at Domain Associates in Princeton, NJ. He is a Kauffman Fellows founding board member, and has served as a mentor to Don O’Neil, Fellows Class 7. | Bob More brings over 20 years of life sciences investing experience to his work at San Francisco-based Alta Partners.
Most recently, Bob was a Senior Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation leading the organization's Global Health Venture Initiative. Earlier, Bob was a General Partner at Frazier Healthcare Ventures and a member of the firm’s biopharma investment team. Prior to Frazier Healthcare, Bob was with Domain Associates where he started as a Kauffman Fellow in 1996 and became a Partner in 2000. From 1997-1998, Bob served as the Chief Operating Officer of Small Molecule Therapeutics, a Domain portfolio company subsequently purchased by Morphochem AG. Before his fellowship, Bob was with Pharmacia Biotech in sales, and also held a research position at Somatogen, a company developing a recombinant blood substitute that was subsequently bought by Baxter. While attending business school, Bob worked with MedVest, an early-stage venture group in Washington, DC. During his venture career, Bob has managed successful investments in and served on the boards of ESP Pharma (acquired by Protein Design Labs), Proxima Therapeutics (acquired by Cytyc), NovaCardia (acquired by Merck), Esprit Pharma (acquired by Allergan), IntraLase (acquired by Advanced Medical Optics), Oceana Therapeutics (acquired by Salix Pharmaceuticals), Achaogen (NASDAQ: AKAO), Neothetics, (NASDAQ: NEOT) and Glaukos Corporation (NYSE: GLKS). Bob was also an investor in Clovis Pharmaceuticals, Affinivax, and Sienna Labs. | Bob earned his MBA at the University of Virginia's Darden School and his Bachelor's degree from Middlebury College.
Bob is currently Chairman of One Revolution and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND). | 2 |
| Matthew Morgan | Morgan | Millers Point Company | , | Australia | QBF/QIC | 12 | Matt was a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12, and served his fellowship at QBF with mentor Nelson Stacks (Kauffman Fellow Class 4). | Matt is the Principal of Millers Point Company an advisory business that provides consulting and advisory services to emerging companies with high growth or turnaround objectives. Matthew has over 10 years of executive management experience in private equity funded portfolio Companies and 7 years as a healthcare venture capitalist at QIC, Australia's second largest wholesale fund manager. He is Australia's first Kauffman Fellow and is a co-founder of the Diversa Group a financial services Company that provides superannuation product manufacturing capability to third parties including Trustee, fund administration and investment management services. | Matt earned his MBA from the Brisbane Graduate School of Business and holds a BApp Sc from Queensland University of Technology and a BComm from Griffith University. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. | 12 | ||
| Sarah Morgenstern | Morgenstern | Flourish Ventures | , | Washington DC Northwest | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Flourish Ventures | 25 | Sarah is a principal on the US investment team at Flourish Ventures, an early-stage venture fund focused on advancing financial health and economic prosperity.
Prior to Flourish Ventures, Sarah was a principal for investments at Omidyar Network. Before that, she was a manager at McKinsey & Company. Sarah was previously a consultant at APCO Worldwide in Beijing, China, where she advised multinationals on investment and regulatory affairs. She began her career as a Princeton in Asia Fellow at Dalian University of Technology. | Sarah holds an MBA in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a BA in history from Yale University, where she graduated magna cum laude.
Sarah speaks English, Spanish, and Mandarin. | 25 | ||
| Ali Morrow | Morrow | Astanor Ventures | , | London | Europe | Astanor Ventures | 25 | Alexandra (Ali) Morrow is a founding Principal of Astanor Ventures, an impact investment firm seeding positivechange across the food and agriculture sector by investing where tech meet nature. She has develop the firm’s investmentthesis, successfully fundraised for their first fund, sourced and due diligenced the early portfolio and now works across the firm to build out and manage the portfolio in Europe and the U.S, along with the firm’s co-Founders and team. She has led or been involved in Astanor’s investments in TeakOrigin, Cervest, Noquo, Notpla, Ynsect, InFarm, Hyris DNA and others.
Ali has a strongstrategic and creative background, with her past work spanningfood system economics, politics, innovation and social impact. She was previously head of strategy at the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and strategic planning director at global advisory and advertising firms' the Brunswick Group and JWT, leading JWT’s social impact and innovation practice: JWTethos. The lion's share of her work has focused on the food, agriculture, health andtech sectors, where she’s worked with FTSE 100 and 250 companies to position their brands for growth aligned to positive social impact and financial returns in the future. | In 2013, she was awarded the Munk School of Global Affairs Fellowship in Global Journalism at the University of Toronto and worked as journalist with Thompson Reuters' investigative units in Washington, DC, Istanbul and London. She specializedin food security, climate change, food, agriculture and energy/fuel policy, and has published and broadcast internationally with a broad range of international media outlets, including The New York Times, Reuter’s and the two climate-focused news services of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, AlertNet and Trust.org, the Globe and Mail and more.
Ali’s work as a strategicplanner earned her and her clients a People's Voice Webby Award (2010), Gold Digital Market Award from Marketing Magazine (2010) and Interactive Award from Applied Arts (2009). She is actively involved in the agriculture and food startupecosystem in Europe, and serves as a mentor with Copenhagen and Amsterdam-based agrifoodtech accelerator and fund, RockStart. Ali holds an MA (with honours) fromthe University of Western Sydney, and BA (with distinction) in Philosophy from the Wilfrid Laurier University. She lives in London. | 25 | ||
| Zeshan Muhammedi | Muhammedi | FundRx | , | New York | NY/CT | FundRx | 25 | Zeshan Muhammedi is a founder of FundRx, and has championed the firm’s efforts to build and engage its 1,500+ member strong expert community. He extensively coaches and supports the firm’s portfolio companies, and his notable investments include SafeRide Health, Buoy, Soundbite Medical, and NeuroOne. Zeshan is a serial entrepreneur and previously was Managing Partner at Tensile Co, a global venture development firm. At Tensile, he was an early investor and advisor to the CEO at plant genetics firm Ebbu, Inc., which was acquired by Canopy Growth in 2018 in a deal valued at over $300mm. At Tensile, Zeshan also partnered with Torreya Partners, a leading boutique healthcare investment bank, to launch AVARX, a healthcare M&A database and technology platform. He is an advisor to BrainMind, a consortium working to support advances in brain science in collaboration with leading scientists at Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. | He was born in Pittsburgh but grew up in Atlanta, GA. Zeshan received a bachelor’s degree in Political Economy and International Relations from Emory University. | 25 | ||
| Jan-Maarten Mulder | Mulder | Summer Capital | Netherlands | , | Amsterdam | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Summer Capital | 21 | Jan-Maarten served his fellowship at Summer Capital under the mentorship of Michiel Kotting of Northzone Ventures; he is a member of Class 21. | Jan-Maarten is the founder of Summer Capital and invests in early stage Fintech, RegTech and Quantum Computing companies in North America and Europe. Investments include Sybenetix (sold to Nasdaq Group) and QxBranch (sold to Rigetti).
In addition, he has extensive board experience at various organizations including chair of a governance committee, has led a detailed board strategy review, oversaw executive succession planning and has been member of risk and audit committees. Previously, Jan-Maarten was a banking and finance executive for 15 years and ran a global commercial banking unit for ABN AMRO bank. Currently based in the US, he has also lived and worked in The Netherlands, UK and Switzerland. | Jan-Maarten holds an MSc in chemical engineering from Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. | 21 |
| Jacob Mullins | Mullins | Shasta Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Shasta Ventures | 22 | Jacob served his fellowship at Shasta Ventures as a member of Class 22. His mentor was Shasta Co-Founder and Managing Director Rob Coneybeer (Class 2). | Jacob considers himself a quintessential “startup” guy. Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late ’90s and interning at a number of “tech bubble” companies while in high school, he caught the bug to be in and around entrepreneurship.
At Shasta Ventures, Jacob focuses on making investments in emerging platforms broadly, including virtual reality and augmented reality, computer vision and robotics, voice as a platform, and the Internet of Things. He is the founder and organizer of VR Tuesday, a regular monthly meet-up in San Francisco focused on the business side of the VR/AR industries. Out of the Shasta San Francisco office he runs a VR lab to gather user data from both consumers and enterprises as they think about the future of visual computing; he has spent over 250 hours in VR himself. Jacob’s startup career has taken him from the deserts of South Africa as the founder/CEO of a Pink Sheets-traded direct-to-consumer nutraceutical company called Hoodia Products, to Wall Street as the founder/CEO of Exitround.com, an online FinTech platform for M&A. In between, he was the first business guy at VentureBeat.com, where he focused on all things revenue generation, and later spent three years at Microsoft leading US marketing for a new startup-focused program called Microsoft BizSpark. | Jacob earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Yale University; if he were to do it again, he would have studied music, French, and some computer science. He spent the better part of his junior year living and studying in Nantes, France, and enjoys speaking French when he has the opportunity. Jacob is the co-founder and chairman of the Beverly Mullins Memorial Scholarship, a needs-based scholarship for re-entry single parents doing full-time undergraduate study at UC Berkeley. | 22 |
| Campbell Murray | Murray | Novartis Venture Fund | United States | Massachusetts, | Cambridge | Boston/Northeast | Novartis Venture Fund | 11 | Campbell is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 11 and served his fellowship under mentor Reinhard Ambros at the Novartis Venture Fund in Boston, MA and in Basel, Switzerland. | Dr. Campbell Murray is a Managing Director of the Novartis Venture Funds in Cambridge, MA. He serves serves on the boards of Aerpio Therapeutics, Akebia Therapeutics, Alios BioPharm, Euthymics Biosciences, Galera, ImaginAB, Neurovance and Tokai Pharmaceuticals and as an observer on the board of Aileron Therapeutics.
Prior to joining the venture fund in 2005, he worked at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research as the Director of Special Projects, reporting to the president & CEO. He held earlier positions at Novartis AG and at McKinsey & Co. Campbell started his career as a physician in New Zealand, with additional time in the UK and South Africa. | Campbell received his Bachelor's in human biology as well as his MD from the University of Auckland. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. | 11 |
| Paul Murray | Murray | Atlantic Bridge | Ireland | , | Dublin | Europe | Atlantic Bridge | 17 | Paul is served his fellowship at Atlantic Bridge under the mentorship of Gerry Maguire. He is a member of Class 17. | Paul Murray is an Investment Director with Atlantic Bridge, a mid-market technology fund based in Dublin, Ireland. In this role, he focuses on the Group's deal flow and performs commercial and financial due diligence on both incoming business plans and targeted companies as well as scouting for new investment opportunities through attendance at early-stage investor events. Prior to joining Atlantic Bridge, Paul worked for eleven years in the semiconductor industry in various engineering and management roles. Most recently he was a key member of Chipsensors, an Irish Fabless startup that was acquired by Silicon Laboratories in 2010. In this role he helped shape the technical and strategic direction of the company leading up to acquisition. | Paul holds a First Class Honours degree in electronic engineering from University College Dublin and a First Class Honours Masters in Management from the Smurfit Business School, University College Dublin. An avid outdoor enthusiast, Paul participates in many outdoor activities such as hiking and orienteering and volunteers as a Mountain Ranger in the Dublin Mountains. | 17 |
| Ariel Muslera | Muslera | Tuk Tuk Lab | Argentina | , | Buenos Aires | Latin America | Eastpoint Ventures | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Ariel served his fellowship at Eastpoint Ventures under the mentorship of fellow co-founder, Gabriela Ruggeri and Alex Mendez of Storm Ventures. | In 2014, Ariel founded Tuk Tuk Lab—a space and a method. A space (to be launched soon) where tech experts, entrepreneurs, and industry-leading corporations partner to build new products for emerging markets. A method to tackle the innovation problems with a startup approach. Tuk Tuk's goal is to help companies of any size (from startups to corporations) focus on what's absolutely important, right now, and work with them to execute a plan.
Ariel also serves as an advisor to Santander Innoventures Global Fintech VC Fund and is also a Regional Advisor to the Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (LAVCA). Before Founding Tuk Tuk Lab, Ariel was a founding partner of Eastpoint Ventures, managing the firm's operations acting as CEO. He was responsible for identifying business models that may be attractive for the Latin American markets. At the same time, Ariel was a partner at CAP Ventures, an Argentina-based VC fund founded in 2007, focusing on technology-related investments. Earlier, Ariel was Director of Strategy and Product Development at LAVCA, where he devised and executed multiple products and services for the PE and VC community in Latin America. Before that was a lead Partner at NetStrategies, a US-based boutique advisory firm where he co-led capital raising and strategy engagements for multiple technology startup companies in the new media industry. | Ariel holds an MBA, with Honors, from Columbia Business School and a BA in economics from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. He teaches a course on Design and Innovation at a business technology executive program at Universidad de San Andres.
Ariel has lived and worked extensively in New York, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires. | 18 |
| Reinier Musters | Musters | Orange Growth Capital (OGC) | , | Europe | Orange Growth Capital (OGC) | 22 | A member of Class 22, Reinier served his fellowship at Orange Growth Capital under the mentorship of Mary Harris. | Reinier’s career has taken him across a diverse range of international environments, from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies. For the decade prior to founding Orange Growth Capital, an early-stage FinTech-focused venture capital firm, Reinier worked for leading high tech and financial services firms as a Partner with McKinsey & Company. At McKinsey he spent the bulk of his time helping companies with their strategy, which ranged from M&A and restructuring business unit strategy to portfolio management.
Reinier once dropped out of college to start an online college community (“Stutopia”); however, it did not turn out to be the Facebook he had hoped for and he returned to get his degree. Upon graduating he joined Voyager Capital in Menlo Park, California. | Reinier attended Stanford University, where he received an AB in economics, and later attended INSEAD in France and Singapore, where he earned an MBA.
Reinier is co-founder of a nonprofit organization in the Netherlands named Stichting Laluz, which matches young professionals with nonprofit organizations. Reinier lives with his wife and three children in a small town just outside of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. | 22 | ||
| Damineh Mycroft | Mycroft | Boeing HorizonX | United States | California, | Burlingame | Northern CA | Boeing HorizonX | 24 | Damineh Mycroft is serving her fellowship at Boeing HorizonX Ventures based in San Francisco as a member of Class 24. | Damineh Mycroft is an investing principal for Boeing HorizonX Ventures. Based in San Francisco, she works across Silicon Valley to manage Boeing’s existing venture programs and discover new partnerships in the Bay Area. Damineh joined Boeing in 2003 and spent 7 years with the Space and Intelligence Systems program in El Segundo, California. She held positions in a variety of functions, from financial planning to business operations on government and commercial satellites. In 2010, she transitioned to Boeing Defense and Intelligence Systems headquarters in St. Louis, where she managed and led the relationships with Defense Contract Audit and Management agencies. In 2012, Damineh was selected for the Boeing Leadership Rotation Program, transitioning to Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Seattle. Upon completion of her leadership program, she moved to San Francisco to start her investing career. | Damineh earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Southern California and went on to receive a Master of Business Administration and a doctorate in organizational leadership, both from Pepperdine University. | 24 |
| Scott Naisbitt | Naisbitt | Lutonix | United States | Minnesota, | New Hope | MW Plains/Rockies | RiverVest Venture Partners | 08 | Scott is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 8 and served his fellowship under mentor Mark Mendel (KFP Charter Class member) at RiverVest Venture Partners in St. Louis, MO. | Scott Naisbitt is the Vice President of Scientific and Medical Affairs at Lutonix, a subsidiary of CR Bard. He was a founding board member of Lutonix, Inc. and was Chief Scientific Officer prior to the acquisition. Scott has over 13 years medical device, biopharmaceutical, and drug-device combination product development and venture capital experience. Scott led key scientific (clinical, preclinical, mechanism-of-action) strategy and discussions with physicians and regulatory bodies regarding a drug-device combination product resulting in the first FDA approved IDE for a drug coated balloon.
Prior to joining Lutonix, he was a principal and entrepreneur-in-residence at the healthcare fund RiverVest Venture Partners and an associate at the medical device incubator Seedling Enterprises. He worked in research labs at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital and has multiple peer-reviewed publications. | Scott holds a MD and PhD from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and a BS in Physics and a BS in Mathematics (Gibson Award) from the University of Utah. He was awarded the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program Scholarship by Harvard Medical School. | 8 |
| Tetsujiro Nakagaki | Nakagaki | DraperNexus Ventures | Japan | , | Tokyo | Asia | DFJ JAIC Venture Partners | 17 | Tetsu served his fellowship at the DFJ JAIC Venture Partners under the mentorship of Managing Partner Mitch Kitamura and Managing Partner Quaeed Motiwala. He is a member of Class 17. | Tetsujiro Nakagaki is a co-founder and Managing Director for DFJ JAIC Venture Partners, Japan-US crossborder venture capital firm. Tetsu is a skilled and successful venture capitalist/leader with experience and networks within startup and public companies in Japan. He joined Japan Asia Investment Co., Ltd. (JAIC) in 1996 to help strengthen the investment activities in Japan. Through 16 years of experience as a venture capitalist, he has led the creation and investment activities of several funds at JAIC, including the best performance fund in Japan and JAIC's flagship venture capital funds. Tetsu has invested in 36 companies and had 10 IPO and 2 M&As. His investment sector consists mainly of consumeriInternet, retail and e-commerce sectors in Japan. Currently, Tetsu manages DFJ JAIC Venture Partners, a DFJ Network fund to invest Japan/US startups from Japan. Tetsu has a particular interest in companies focused on consumer internet and enterprise service areas. He is a board observer at Shift, a company that enables cost-effective and automated software testing solutions and services through pre-selected, crowd-sourced pool of testers. He is a board observer at Kauli, a supply side platform (SSP) that enables publishers to reduce complexity of online advertising operations and display yield management, and maximizes their revenue with a real-time bidding (RTB) platform. With a deep interest in US entrepreneurship, Tetsu co-founded DFJ JAIC Venture Partners to promote entrepreneurship in Japan with a global perspective. | Tetsu graduated with Bachelors degree in law from Waseda University in Japan. | 17 |
| Koichiro Nakamura | Nakamura | Sozo Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA;Asia | Mitsubishi Corporation | 12 | Koichiro is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12. He is the recipient of the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award, which recognizes his outstanding contributions to the program. He has been a mentor to Yuki Iwashita (Class 17), Martin Garcia (Class 19), and Yoshihiko Karita (Class 20). | Koichiro Nakamura is a founding partner at Sozo Ventures, a cross-border venture fund focused on helping startups achieve global expansion. Sozo Ventures focuses on helping US technology companies go to the Japanese market.
Koichiro started his career as a serial entrepreneur; starting his first successful company during college and spending a decade working on a multitude of start-ups. At Mitsubishi Corporation he created relationships with large Japanese conglomerates, providing the credibility needed for portfolio start-ups to find alpha and beta customers. Prior to that, Koichiro launched the Innovation Kitchen, a Mitsubishi Corporation subsidiary, which incubated seed-stage ventures in Japan and leveraged cross-border collaboration to yield sustainable advantage for portfolio companies. At Mitsubishi, Koichiro worked in the telecommunications division and led multiple startup companies. He created Japan’s first Application Service Provider (ASP), Datastations (acquired by ValueCommerce). Before Mitsubishi, he worked on many startups including being a founding member of Yahoo! Japan. He has also been a commercial reviewer for the National Science Foundation’s SBIR grant program from 2007. | Mr. Nakamura received an MBA from the University of Chicago, GraduateSchool of Business and also graduated from Waseda University, holding a Bachelor of Law. | 12 |
| Carina Namih | Namih | Episode1 Ventures | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Episode1 Ventures | 24 | Carina is a member of Class 24, serving her fellowship at Episode1 Ventures. | Carina is a General Partner at Episode1 Ventures, where she invests in seed-stage businesses based in the UK. Prior to becoming an investor in London, Carina spent 5 years in San Francisco where she was the cofounder and CEO of HelixNano—one of the first companies to successfully apply machine learning techniques to genetic data for better cancer therapy—with a team from Harvard, backed by Y Combinator and Eric Schmidt. Carina has also been an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, a Venture Advisor at the Global Innovation Fund, and an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. | Carina holds a first class degree from Oxford University in philosophy, politics, and economics. She sits on the curatorial committee of the Science Gallery London and the Venture Capital Committee of the British Venture Capital Association. When not working with founders, Carina loves to hike (mostly in Suffolk), paint (usually oil portraits), and experiment in the kitchen (often inedible). | 24 |
| Nicholas Nash | Nash | Sea Group | Singapore | , | Asia | General Atlantic | 19 | Nick began his fellowship as a member of Class 19 at General Atlantic and completed the program at one of the firm's portfolio companies, Garena. His mentor is General Atlantic's Managing Director and Investment Committee Chairman, Mark Dzialga. He serves as mentor to Class 21 member Adrian Li. | Nick recently moved from General Atlantic to one of its portfolio companies, Garena. Nick is the Group President of Garena, leading platform provider for online and mobile entertainment and communication across Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong, serving millions of users.
Previously, Nick led General Atlantic’s Singapore office, focused on the high-growth economies of Southeast Asia. He co-founded the office in 2011 after 7 years with General Atlantic in New York and Greenwich; he recently led the firm’s first investment in the ASEAN region. Since joining General Atlantic in 2002, Nick has worked on investments in the firm’s business services, healthcare, and internet & technology sectors and has served as an observer on the boards of Daksh, MultiPlan, Lifecare, Genpact, exp Global, and QTS. Prior to joining General Atlantic, Nick was a management consultant with the New York offices of McKinsey & Company, where he served clients across the financial services, enterprise software, and telecommunications industries. | Nick earned his MBA at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and co-led the school's exchange program with Tsinghua University in Beijing. He received an AB in chemistry and physics, magna cum laude, from Harvard.
Nick serves as a board member and the Honorary Secretary of the Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SVCA). He also serves as a board member of the New York Private Equity Network (NYPEN) and the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council. He is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is also involved with the social enterprise foundation Echoing Green. | 19 | |
| Saed Nashef | Nashef | Sadara Ventures | Palestine | , | Al-Bireh/Ramallah | Middle East | Sadara Ventures | 14 | As a member of Class 14, Saed served his fellowship at Sadara Ventures under the mentorship of Yadin Kauffman of Veritas Venture Partners.
Saed was the recipient the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award for his outstanding contribution to his class and the program. | Saed Nashef is a partner in Sadara Ventures, which makes investments in export-oriented, high-growth software companies and start ups originating in the Palestinian Territories. He is the founder and CTO of Equiom, Inc., a 70-person software consultancy and project outsourcing firm with operations in Washington and Colorado, and founder and Managing Director of Equiom-MENA, which provides offshore software outsourcing services from the West Bank to companies in the US and Europe. He also serves as member of the Board of Directors at G.ho.st (Global Hosted Operating SysTem).
Saed brings to the Fund extensive expertise in building effective technology teams in software development organizations in both startup as well as established business environments. He has worked in a consulting role with incubation teams at companies, including Microsoft, to help validate technology and analyze the competitive landscape for new products. Prior to founding Equiom, Saed worked closely with the founders of Fidesic, a venture-backed Internet startup, where he led delivery of key service infrastructure. Before that, Saed spent 6 years with Microsoft in various software engineering and leadership roles in the development organization. | Saed studied computer science at California State University, Long Beach. While not working, he enjoys spending time with his family, flying single-engine Cessnas, snowboarding, and riding Harleys. | 14 |
| Lucas Nelson | Nelson | Lytical Ventures | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Gotham Ventures (DFJ Gotham) | 16 | Lucas served his fellowship at DFJ Gotham under the mentorship of Managing Director Daniel Schultz as a member of Class 16. | Lucas Nelson is a proud geek, a hacker turned VC who brings a unique mix of technical depth and business knowledge to bear. He is most excited by companies that are trying to use technology to make a dent in the universe. He is currently a Partner at Lytical Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm—launched by Lyrical Partners—focused exclusively on opportunities in corporate intelligence, including cybersecurity, Big Data, and artificial intelligence.
Previously, Lucas was a Principal at Evolution Equity Partners, a firm focused on growth-stage technology companies in the US, Europe, and Israel, specifically in the cyber-security and enterprise software sectors. Before that, Lucas was a Principal at Gotham Ventures, working most closely with portfolio companies STELLAService and ADstruc, as well as his angel investments in Branch, DarkNet, and WayWire. He co-authored The Art of Software Security Testing, chaired DefCon – the largest hacking convention in the US – for 10 years, and has been a member of the NY tech community since 1999. Since 2014 Lucas has also been an adjunct faculty member at NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering teaching "entrepreneurship for hackers." Before his East Coast venture career, Lucas was a Senior Manager for Product Security at Adobe, where he worked to develop the strategy and led the execution for Adobe’s proactive security solutions as part of their secure development lifecycle. While in Silicon Valley he also worked as an Investment Associate at US Venture Partners where he focused on deal sourcing and due diligence in cloud computing and security companies. Lucas first got involved in the startup community in 1999 as a programmer and worked for three startups: i33, FlashBase and @Stake, which were all successfully acquired. | Lucas also holds a BS from Purdue in computer science and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. After two years in San Francisco learning the complex etiquette of Napa Valley wine tastings, Lucas has returned to New York. He is an instructor in Capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, and also enjoys Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes. In his free time he likes travel, discovering great food, and programming small side projects. | 16 |
| Domenico Nesci | Nesci | LVenture Group | Italy | , | Rome | Europe | LVenture Group | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Domenico served his fellowship at LVenture Group under the mentorship of CEO Luigi Capello. | Domenico Nesci is Advisor and Venture Partner for LVenture Group, a VC firm based in Rome, Italy, focusing on seed- and early-stage investments in digital startups. Domenico’s mission in LVenture is to support more mature startups in their growth phase, from strategy to funding and operations.
Domenico is currently Board Observer in ProxToMe, a startup that turns foot traffic into sales for the retail industry through a proximity platform, and Advisor to Soundreef, a music rights collecting society.
Since 2011 Domenico has been a member of IAG (Italian Angels for Growth), the largest business angel group in Italy, with diversified investments performed to date.
Domenico has over 20 years of experience in management capacities and as an entrepreneur. He is a shareholder of CALL & CALL, a BPO Group, with direct responsibility as CFO and chief of innovation. | After attending high school studies specializing in classics, Domenico graduated in electronic engineering at La Sapienza University in Rome, Italy, and earned an MBA at LUISS Business School, Rome, Italy.
Domenico is founder and President of CambiaMenti, a nonprofit that helps youngsters to value free enterprise through educational programs. | 19 |
| Adair Newhall | Newhall | Greenspring Associates | United States | Maryland, | Owings Mills | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Greenspring Associates | 20 | Adair is a member of Class 20 and served his fellowship at Greenspring Associates under the mentorship of Managing Partners Ashton Newhall and Jim Lim. | Adair is a Principal at Greenspring Associates (GA) and is responsible for sourcing and due diligence efforts on fund, direct, and secondary opportunities.
Adair previously served as a Principal at Domain Associates, a leading healthcare-focused venture capital firm and GA fund manager. At Domain, he held board observer positions with several portfolio companies, including Applied Proteomics, Astute Medical, BioNano Genomics, CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, and Xagenic. He was previously involved as a board observer with Otonomy (NASDAQ: OTIC), which completed a successful initial public offering in August 2014.
Prior to joining Domain in 2009, Adair worked in the Business Development group at Esprit Pharma where he assisted with multiple product acquisitions and the subsequent sale of the company to Allergan for $370M. Before that, he worked at ESP Pharma, which was acquired by PDL BioPharma (NASDAQ: PDLI) for $489M. | Adair earned his MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Adair was a member of the Young Leaders Council of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and a co-founder of the UVa Venture Summit. | 20 |
| Anh Nguyen | Nguyen | Xeris Pharmaceuticals | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | U.S. Food and Drug Administration | 17 | Anh served his fellowship under the Mentorship of Markham Luke, MD, PhD, the current Division Director of Therapeutic Products at the FDA Office of Generic Drugs. He is a member of Class 17, and was the first Kauffman Fellow from the operational arms of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. | Anh Nguyen, MD, MBA, is a pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist whose work involves both corporate strategy and global medical affairs at Xeris Pharmaceuticals, a platform specialty pharmaceutical company.
Previously, Anh served as a medical officer for both the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). He began his career in the life sciences as a global medical director at Baxter Healthcare. He is a Kauffman Fellow, FDA Commissioner's Fellow, and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow. During his RWJF fellowship on the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions he helped draft legislative policies as part of the "21st Century Cures Act," which was enacted into law in 2016. Anh regularly volunteers as active senior medical staff at the NIH, and is a recipient of the NIH Director's Award. | Anh received a combined BS-MD degree from the New Jersey Medical School, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He completed both his residency in anesthesiology and a fellowship in cardiovascular anesthesiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital - Harvard Medical School.
Anh is a 3-time Boston Marathon finisher, and is a 4-time IRONMAN finisher. | 17 |
| Marlon Nichols | Nichols | Cross Culture Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA | Intel Capital | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Marlon served his fellowship at Intel Capital under the mentorship of Vice President and Managing Director, Lisa Lambert and Managing Director, Ken Elefant (Class 5). He was a mentor to Suzy Ryoo (Class 22). | Marlon Nichols is a co-founder and general partner at Cross Culture Ventures (CCV), an early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on cultural investments (global trends and shifts in consumer behavior). Some of Marlon’s investments include Afrostream, Gimlet Media, Hingeto, LendStreet, LISNR, Mark One (Vessyl), Mayvenn, Mirantis, MongoDB, mSurvey, Sidestep, Skurt, and Thrive Market.
Prior to founding CCV, Nichols was an investment director at Intel Capital where he led investments in women- and minority-led technology startups through the company’s Diversity Fund. Prior to joining the Diversity Fund, Marlon championed the seed-stage investment program for the Ultrabook and Perceptual Computing investment sector, working closely with the startup ecosystem to source, invest in, and advise early-stage, high-growth technology companies working on new mobile technologies enhanced by novel user experiences and perceptual computing. Prior to joining Intel Capital, Marlon served as the Lead Fund Manager of Cornell University’s BR Venture Fund, the college’s evergreen venture capital fund. Marlon started his career in enterprise software, where he successfully led the deployment of many global software and business process improvement initiatives for Fortune 100 enterprises. During his software career he was a member of a three-person team based in London, England that was responsible for the European expansion of Frictionless Commerce. Next, Marlon joined Edgewater Strategy, a boutique consulting firm where he led post-mergers and acquisitions technology integration initiatives for the Blackstone Group’s real estate division. Later, in the role of principal strategist, he led digital strategy initiatives for media companies such as Warner Music Group and McGraw Hill. | Marlon holds a BS degree from Northeastern University. He earned an MBA from Cornell where he was a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow and was recognized in the top 30 of 2011 graduates across all Cornell University’s colleges and programs.
Silicon Republic recognized Marlon as one of 26 venture capital professionals spearheading change in technology investing. Marlon was also recognized as a member of the "40 Under 40 Top Diverse Talent" in Silicon Valley by theRegistry, and has been featured in Fortune, Black Enterprise, and a number of other magazines, blogs, and podcasts. A former athlete, Marlon enjoys exercising, watching, and playing sports. Marlon is most passionate about his family. | 18 |
| Robert Nicholson | Nicholson | The Boston Company Asset Management | United States | Massachusetts, | Boston | Boston/Northeast | Spectrum Equity Investors | Charter | Bob is a member of the Charter Class of fellows and served his fellowship under mentor Bill Collatos at Spectrum Equity Investors in Boston. | Bob is a senior portfolio manager on The Boston Company's Energy Infrastructure MLP strategy and Absolute Return Event Driven strategy. He primarily focuses on event-driven opportunities across a range of industries, particularly among small- and mid-cap U.S. companies, and he has specialized expertise investing in Master Limited Partnerships, specifically in the midstream energy infrastructure segment.
Previously, Bob was a managing partner at Pine Cobble Capital, which he co-founded in 2007. Pine Cobble Capital is a value-oriented hedge fund that employs a fundamental, research-intensive approach to investing. Earlier, Bob was at Spectrum Equity Investors serving as a Managing Director and General Partner. At Spectrum, he focused on middle-market leveraged buyouts and growth equity investments, including Patriot Media and Communications (sold to Comcast), Classic Media (sold to Entertainment Rights, plc), ITXC (Nasdaq: ITXC), Jazztel (Nasdaq: JAZZ), Black Crow Media Group and USBid. Bob was also a consultant at Bain & Company, a leading strategy consulting firm in Boston. | Bob holds an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar; and a BA, cum laude, with Honors in economics, from Williams College. He is active as an associate class agent for the Williams Alumni Society and with the United Way of Massachusetts Bay where he co-chaired the annual Private Equity and Hedge Fund industry event. | 0 |
| Jana Karam | Karam | 3M | Mexico | DF, | Mexico | Latin America | Ministry of Economy, Mexico | 15 | Jana is a graduated member of Class 15 and served her fellowship at the Ministry of the Economy, Deputy Ministry for SMEs, Innovation Fund (Fondo de Innovación Tecnologica SE-CONACYT). | Jana has worked for 3M since 2012. She started her tenure working in the Government Affairs area, and has since expanded to Government Affairs and Social Responsibility. She is based in Mexico City.
Previously, Jana worked for the Ministry of the Economy (Federal Government of Mexico) as the Technology and Quality Coordinator. In this role Jana supported Mexican small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in becoming more competitive. Mexico has over 4 million SMEs, accounting for 55% of the country's GDP and 70% of its total employment. From 2007 to 2012 Jana served as Administrator of a government trust fund (Ministry of the Economy and CONACYT), called the Innovation Fund, which supports Small and Medium Enterprises in their innovative products and services. She also headed the National Entrepreneurship Program of the Deputy Ministry of SMEs that includes over 500 Business Incubators, which foster the creation of SMEs. | Jana holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in economics from the University of Ottawa, Canada. Jana's thesis on “Macroeconomic Market Disequilibrium, Asymmetric and Non-lineal Adjustments Inflation Rates of Canada and Mexico” was presented at the Canadian Economic Association (CEA).
Jana has lived in Mexico, Canada, Belgium, The Netherlands and Poland. She has actively participated in negotiations to establish 5 Mexican international business accelerators: TechBAs (3 in USA, 1 in Canada, 1 in Spain). She is fluent in Spanish, English and French. | 15 |
| Nnena Nkongho | Nkongho | DiGAME Investment Company | United Arab Emirates | , | Abu Dhabi | Middle East | DiGAME Investment Company | 23 | Nnena is a member of the Class of 23, serving her fellowship at Digital Growth Africa, DiGAME in Lagos, Nigeria. | Nnena is a firm Principal at Digital Growth Africa (DiGAME), an investment company founded to invest in the digital transformation of the African continent.
Prior to joining the DiGAME, Nnena was an early employee and Global Head of Business Development at SOLO Phone Nigeria, a Nigerian mobile device and content ecosystem. Prior to that, she worked with African business on corporate strategy, new market entry, and growth investments—including serving as the Head of Strategy and Business Development for Etisalat Nigeria (now 9mobile). Nnena has been actively evaluating public and private market investment opportunities in Africa for over 10 years. She was a member of the founding team at Nubuke Investments and was responsible for sourcing, structuring, and executing investments in the telecom, media, and technology sectors. Nnena spent 7 years of her early career at Merrill Lynch (London) and Morgan Stanley (New York, Hong Kong), working in equity arbitrage and M&A, respectively. | Nnena has an MBA from Columbia Business School and is a graduate of Princeton University. | 23 |
| Preston Noon | Noon | Agent Capital | United States | Massachusetts, | Cambridge | Boston/Northeast | Agent Capital | 23 | Preston is serving his fellowship at Agent Capital in Cambridge, Massachusetts under the mentorship of Geeta Vemuri, Founding Managing Partner; he is a member of Class 23 | Preston has had the opportunity to work across multiple stages of the life science sector focused on developing and investing in new therapeutics. He co-founded Agent Capital, a biotech VC firm focused on investing in novel, differentiated therapeutics that address unmet patient need, investing across all stages of clinical development.
Prior to Agent Capital, Preston was a Senior Associate in Baxalta's corporate venture arm, where he was responsible for supporting new investment opportunities and performing scientific and financial analyses. Before venture capital, Preston worked at Bayer Pharmaceuticals as an associate focused on business development, and also at Bristol-Myers Squibb as an analyst for the medical affairs organization supporting clinical trial operations. | Preston attended the University of Connecticut where he earned BS, PharmD, and MBA degrees.
He is closely tied into the venture and entrepreneur communities on the East coast, primarily in Cambridge/Boston area and the greater NYC region. | 23 |
| Eli Novershtern | Novershtern | Square Peg Capital | Israel | , | Tel Aviv | Middle East | Square Peg Capital | 22 | Eli served his fellowship at Square Peg Capital in Tel Aviv as a member of Class 22. | Eli joined Square Peg’s Israel office as a Partner in 2016. He is a veteran of the Israeli venture capital industry, having previously served as a Principal at Pitango and an Associate at Canaan Partners, focusing on that fund’s Israeli investments.
Prior to joining Canaan, Eli was a strategy consultant and team leader at Shaldor, where he created and helped implement business strategies for leading companies in IT, healthcare, and the consumer goods industries. His understanding of technology is rooted in the prestigious “Haman Talpiot” project, within which he served for six years as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces. | Eli holds an MPA degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Fischman Scholar, as well as an MSc in management from the London School of Economics, where he was a Chevening Scholar. Eli holds a BA in political science, philosophy, and economics (PPE) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he also graduated from the “Amirim” honors program. He is a member of several business and nonprofit boards. | 22 |
| Lexi Novitske | Novitske | Singularity Investments | Nigeria | , | Victoria Island, Lagos | Africa | Singularity Investments | 22 | Lexi served her fellowship at Singularity Investments as a member of Class 22. Her mentors were Mohamad Darwish, CEO of IHS Nigeria, the largest telecommunications tower company in Nigeria; and Thomas Teichman, Chairman of SPARK Ventures in London. | In 2012 Lexi moved to Nigeria from the United States, believing that the country holds immense untapped potential with an under-penetrated consumer population, an expanding infrastructure and online access, and an active entrepreneur network.
In 2014, Lexi launched Singularity Investments as the Principal Investment Officer; she oversees the firm’s operations and directs investments in Africa. Singularity invests in visionary entrepreneurs in technology-enabled, early-stage companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lexi is a board member and advisor to several early-stage companies and a faculty member and mentor to several accelerators and startup academies. Before Singularity, Lexi managed investments at Nigerian middle-market private equity firm Verod Capital Management. Prior to joining Verod, she was focused on Africa impact investments at Small Enterprise Assistance funds, and financial services at New York-based hedge fund Sandler O’Neill Asset Management. Lexi developed an interest in investing when she was 10, managed her first multi-million-dollar portfolio while at university, and later covered healthcare-focused equities at boutique investment banking firm Leerink Swann. | Lexi attended the University of Hawaii, where she received her Bachelor of Business Administration in finance. Lexi is a CFA Charterholder.
Lexi is kite surfer, scuba diver, equestrian, and award-winning photographer. She loves to travel and has been to over 90 countries around the world, with 25+ of those in Africa. | 22 |
| Jim O'Connell | O'Connell | MNI | United States | Pennsylvania, | Philadelphia | NJ/PA | Safeguard Scientifics | 12 | Jim is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and served his fellowship under mentor Gary Kurtzman at Safeguard Scientifics. | Jim has over 10 years of operational, financial and entrepreneurial experience in the life sciences. Jim is CEO and Co-Founder of MNI, a newco startup in the life sciences field in the Philadelphia, PA area.
Previously, Jim was an EIR and earlier a Principal in Safeguard Scientific's life sciences group, He was responsible for screening deals, conducting due diligence, and supporting Safeguard's partner companies. Focus areas included diagnostics, bioactive devices, medical technology, and healthcare IT. During business school, Jim completed internships at Quaker BioVentures, Commons Capital, and Liquidia Technologies in business development. Prior to that, he was in the Corporate Ventures/Business Development group of Becton Dickinson, a Fortune 500 medical technology firm. Earlier, Jim held progressive positions in sales, marketing and business development at Chemdex, a pioneering startup that raised $450M in financing. Jim started his career in R&D at Biosite and helped develop the firm's blockbuster BNP panel, diagnosing congestive heart failure. | Jim received a BS in biochemistry from Virginia Tech and served as class president for four years. Jim also holds an MBA from the Wharton School, where he led the University of Pennsylvania's $70K Business Plan Competition and received a fellowship in healthcare entrepreneurship. | 12 |
| Niall O'Donnell | O'Donnell | RiverVest Venture Partners | United States | California, | San Diego | Southern CA & Hawaii | RiverVest Venture Partners | 11 | A member of Fellows Class 11, Niall served his fellowship under the mentorship of Jay W. Schmelter at RiverVest Venture Partners in St. Louis. | Niall O’Donnell joined RiverVest in 2006 as a Kauffman Fellow and became a principal in 2010. He focuses on biopharmaceutical, diagnostic and medical device opportunities and contributes to the formation, development and business strategies of RiverVest portfolio companies.
Niall currently is a board observer at Otonomy, Inc. and Lumena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and was an observer at Mpex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Aptalis Pharma. He also served on the board of Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Pfizer Inc. Niall helped co-found and seed Excaliard, as well as develop its clinical strategy. He is a co-inventor on several key Excaliard patents. Prior to joining RiverVest, Niall spent five years as an immunologist at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development in San Diego. He was part of a successful cross-disciplinary team of chemists and biologists that drove small molecule anti-inflammatory drugs into clinical trials. Niall co-authored the first paper validating the newly discovered histamine H4 receptor as a key regulator of immune pathologies. | Niall earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Dundee, Scotland, and M.A. in Biochemistry from Pembroke College, Oxford. He also received an M.B.A. from the Rady School of Management of the University of California, San Diego. His professional affiliations include the American Thoracic Society, American Association of Immunologists and the Society of Glycobiology. Niall is a guest lecturer to the Kauffman Global Scholars entrepreneurship program at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. | 11 |
| Brendan O'Leary | O'Leary | University of Massachusetts Medical School | United States | Massachusetts, | Worcester | Boston/Northeast | Prism VentureWorks | 08 | Brendan is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 8 and served his fellowship under mentor Bob Fleming at Prism Venture Partners in Boston, MA. | Brendan recently joined the executive team at UMass Medical School. Brendan's task is to engage with key campus stakeholders to diversify and expand business ventures, enlarge commercialization efforts, enhance entrepreneurial activities, and drive new strategic partnerships. This new role also includes oversight of the Office of Technology Management, where Brendan will be responsible for structuring, negotiating and implementing business transactions, as well as for protecting and fully leveraging the institution’s intellectual property portfolio.
Previously, Brendan was with the life sciences team at the venture capital firm Prism VentureWorks for over 10 years. At Prism, Brendan focused on companies in the medical device, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic sectors. While there, he evaluated and mentored hundreds of life science companies as well as taking investment positions and board seats at many of those companies, including Alacer Biomedical (acquired by Allergan), Atritech (acquired by Boston Scientific), BioRexis Pharmaceutical (acquired by Pfizer), Proteon Therapeutics, Serica Technologies (acquired by Allergan), and Trius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TSRX; acquired by Cubist). Brendan continues to be an active angel investor in early-stage life science companies. Brendan brings deep background in the biotechnology and medical technology, from his numerous senior operating positions at companies such as Meso Scale Discovery, a high throughput drug discovery start-up, and IGEN International, a leading medical diagnostics company (acquired by Roche). | Brendan received his doctorate in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BA in chemistry and economics from Middlebury College.
Brendan is also an accomplished scientist with numerous publications, inventions and commercialized products to his credit. | 8 |
| Don O'Neil | O'Neil | Orflo Technologies | United States | California, | Carlsbad | Southern CA & Hawaii | Domain Associates | 07 | A member of Class 7, Don served his fellowship under mentors Olav Bergheim and Bob More (KFP Class 2) at Domain Associates in Laguna Niguel, CA. | Don is Senior VP for Sales and Strategic Partnerships at Orflo Technologies, a life sciences company developing and marketing powerful yet simple instrumentation to the cell and protein analysis industries.
Before Orflo, Don was Director of the Stem Cell Business Segment at Millipore, a life science leader providing cutting-edge technologies, tools, and services for bioscience research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. During that time, he was also Group Head, Detection Services at Merck KGaA, responsible for managing Merck-Millipore's global instrumentation offering. Previously, Don was Director of Corporate Development at Invitrogen, responsible for leading M&A efforts in the Bioproduction and Stem Cell industries. Prior to Invitrogen, Don was a Kauffman Fellow at Domain Associates where he was responsible for a neuro-oncology focused biopharm investment and an early-stage cardiovascular cell-therapy/device investment. He actively supported Domain's portfolio companies in the areas of fund raising, business development, M&A, strategy and finance and was an observer of several boards. Prior to Domain, Don logged eight years of operational experience with venture-backed life-science start-ups and has lived through all phases of the start-up process, from seed to IPO. He has taken on various project management roles in drug discovery tools development and was instrumental in developing manufacturing lines for several marketed products for Ilumina and Discovery Partners International. He has been named a co-inventor on a patent for combinatorial chemistry, a MEMS-based biochemical sensor and a patent application for high-throughput SNP detection. Don was also a Cayuga Hedge Fund manager, covering the biotech sector, while completing his MBA. | Don completed his MBA at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, and holds a BS and an MS in mechanical engineering from the University of California, San Diego. | 7 |
| Tadhg O'Toole | O'Toole | Tribal.vc | Ireland | , | Dublin | Europe | Bloom Equity | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Tadhg performed his fellowship while being an active investor at Bloom Equity and an executive founder at Likecharity. | Tadhg O’Toole is a Founder and angel investor and has been starting and building technology businesses since he was 17 years old. Based in Dublin, Ireland, Tadhg has considerable operational experience in the telecoms, media, and non-profit sectors. As co-founder, he has held a number of CxO roles and continues to maintain a significant equity interest in a number of companies he co-founded. Tadhg is a founding Partner and Investor at Bloom Equity, Ireland’s leading Angel Syndicate. At Bloom he sources deals, leads negotiations, and conducts business and technical diligence. As an angel investor he works closely with founders to help them optimize their strategy and build world class teams. Tadhg is very active within the startup community where he speaks at events, mentors within accelerator programs, and is generally available to early-stage founders seeking advice or introductions. As a Founder of Likecharity,com, Tadhg is currently working with cellphone operators and charities to use the latest in mobile and social technology to transform charities, recruit, and engage with donors. Likecharity has already been adopted by all the cellphone operators in Ireland and most of the top 50 charities and is expanding internationally. | Tadhg studied computer science at the University College Dublin for 2 years, until raising investment for his first startup. He is a certified PRINCE2 Project Manager. Tadhg has been actively involved in Junior Achievement Ireland, a Charity that encourages enterprise within schools. His involvement has ranged from teaching classes within schools to judging regional and national enterprise competitions. | 18 |
| Karel Obluk | Obluk | Evolution Equity Partners | Switzerland | , | Zurich | Europe | Evolution Equity Partners | 19 | Karel is a member of Class 19. He performed his fellowship at the Evolution Equity Partners under the mentorship of Richard Seewald (Class 16). | Karel is a general partner at Evolution Equity Partners, a growth-stage international investor leveraging deep sector expertise to help exceptional entrepreneurs develop market-leading companies with global reach. Evolution invests primarily in the US and Europe in the information security, enterprise software and solutions, and consumer internet sectors. Primarily based in the Czech Republic, Karel works out of Evolution offices in Zurich, Switzerland and New York City. He has been involved with several companies' boards of directors, primarily from the IT security space, including Cognitive Security (acquired by Cisco).
Before Evolution Equity Partners, Karel was a venture partner at Credo Ventures, investing in Cymmetria. Karel is a seasoned executive and investor with strong IT background, with experience in top management positions. Over the past decade, he helped to grow one of the most successful anti-virus companies, AVG Technologies, which is now publicly listed (NYSE:AVGT). As an acting CEO and CTO, he proved not only his technical but also managerial and business skills. | Karel holds a doctorate and a Master’s degree in computer science from the Brno University of Technology, Czech republic. Karel’s native language is Czech; he is fluent in English and Slovak and can also speak German, Russian, and limited French. | 19 |
| Adele Oliva | Oliva | 1315 Capital | United States | Pennsylvania, | Philadelphia | NJ/PA | Apax Partners, Inc. (Patricof & Co.) | 03 | Adele is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 3 and served her fellowship under mentor Janet Effland at Apax Partners (formerly Patricof & Co.) in Menlo Park, CA. She was also a mentor for Class 14 member Sanjay Mistry. | Adele brings decades of finance and healthcare experience to 1315 Capital, including 20 years in private equity. Throughout her investing career, she has focused on commercial-stage specialty pharmaceutical, medical technology, and healthcare service investments.
Adele co-founded 1315 Capital in 2015 to establish a firm focused on healthcare growth investing. Adele was recruited to Quaker Partners in 2007 to expand its growth- and expansion-stage investing practice. Prior to Quaker, Adele was Co-Head of US Healthcare at Apax Partners, a global private equity firm, where she started in 1997. Forbes has recognized Adele on its "Midas List" of top 100 technology investors worldwide, top 10 life science investors, and top women in venture capital. Adele has served on the boards of many high-growth companies including Ascent Healthcare Solutions (acquired by Stryker), EKR Therapeutics (acquired by Cornerstone Therapeutics), ESP Pharma (acquired by Protein Design Labs), Esprit Pharma (acquired by Allergan), Precision Dermatology (acquired by Valeant), Prometheus Labs (acquired by Nestle), and SkinMedica (acquired by Allergan). She currently serves on the boards of Innovative Health, NovaSom, Onkos Surgical, and TELA Bio. Prior to entering private equity as a Kauffman Fellow, Adele built a strong foundation in finance and healthcare at CoreStates in commercial banking and at Baxter Healthcare in marketing and business development. | Adele is a graduate of Saint Joseph's University and has an MBA from Cornell University, where she was awarded a Fried Fellowship. Adele is a Founder and President of the Private Equity Women’s Investor Network, and is on the Board of Visitors of the Haub School of Business at St. Joseph’s University. | 3 |
| Antonio Osio | Osio | Capital Invent | Mexico | DF, | Mexico City | Latin America | Capital Invent | 20 | A member of Class 20, Antonio served his fellowship at Capital Invent under the mentorship of his partner Heberto Taracena, a renowned and experienced Mexican tech entrepreneur. | Antonio Osio is a managing partner at Capital Invent, a Mexico-based early-stage venture capital firm focused on the consumer Internet space. In this role, he handles all financial and legal aspects of the fund and its portfolio companies, as well as analyzing deal flow, performing due diligence, and fundraising.
Antonio has experience in venture capital, investment finance, economic development, and corporate law. He worked as a summer associate at the venture division of the Legatum Group based in Dubai, and spent 18 months as an angel with Fabrice Grinda and Jose Marin, two of the most active angels in the US and emerging markets. He still advises them on their LatAm strategy and investments. Prior to that, Antonio spent 4 years as senior analyst at Sabino Capital, a Mexico-based hedge fund, focused on stock market investments in Mexico, the US, and LATAm. Earlier, he worked as a consultant in the Public Policy Department of the Office of the President and as a legal intern in Barrera, Siquieros y Torres Landa, a renowned Mexican law firm. | Antonio has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he focused on entrepreneurship and venture capital. He was selected as an MIT Legatum Fellow and was the President of the Mexican MIT Student Association. He holds a bachelor's degree with dual majors in economics and law from ITAM University. He is passionate about sports, travel, grassroots politics, and the arts in general, and is the proud husband of Alba Medina. | 20 |
| Yannick Oswald | Oswald | Mangrove Capital Partners | Luxembourg | , | Luxembourg | Europe | Mangrove Capital Partners | 23 | As a member of Class 23, Yannick is serving his fellowship in Luxembourg at Mangrove under the mentorship of Mark Tluszcz, Mangrove CEO and Wix Chairman. | Yannick is a Principal at Mangrove Capital Partners, an early-stage European VC firm that notably backed billion-dollar companies Wix, Skype, and WalkMe. At Mangrove, Yannick focuses on consumer apps and SaaS, B2B SaaS, and DTC brands. He currently sits on the boards of Mangrove portfolio companies Safe365 (elderly care app), GetAlbert (freelancer app), Red Points (brand and IP protection SaaS solution), Attentive (sales intelligence SaaS solution), and Echobox (social media AI platform for publishers).
In 2017, Yannick launched the Europe’s Female Founders initiative, a series of meet-ups and office hours across Europe designed to identify and support the next generation of female tech stars. Yannick began his career with FJ Labs in New York, where he learned how to assess the potential of very early-stage ventures. Back in Europe, he founded a B2B SaaS startup that digitizes the communication flow between the various stakeholders of the global investment fund industry. He then joined the strategy team of BIL, the oldest and second-largest bank in Luxembourg, where he worked on the development and execution of the group’s global strategy across all business lines. | Yannick holds an MSc in business engineering from Solvay Business School in Brussels, Belgium, and spent a year studying at Universidad de San Andrés in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is fluent in English, French, German, Spanish, and Luxembourgish. Yannick is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Shapers. | 23 |
| Matthew Otterstatter | Otterstatter | Vilicus Ventures | United States | Minnesota, | Minneapolis | MW Plains/Rockies | Vilicus Ventures | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Matt served his fellowship at Vilicus Ventures under the mentorship of his father and managing partner, Jon Otterstatter. Additional mentorship was provided by Jack Crawford (Class 16) of Velocity Venture Capital and Promod Haque, Senior Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners.
Upon graduation from the program, Matt was presented with the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award, in recognition of his outstanding service to his class and the Kauffman Fellows organization. | Matt Otterstatter is a general partner at Vilicus Ventures, a Sacramento-based firm founded in early 2012 on the principles of stewardship and trust, as the Latin name suggests. The firm is focused on making investments in mobile health technology. It is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while also maintaining a presence in Northern California. Matt is working to establish their deal flow pipeline, while performing due diligence on startup companies. At a portfolio level, Matt also conducts quantitative analysis, including probabilistic modeling to predict and optimize fund performance. He determines fair market value of portfolio holdings and financially assesses all funding and exit opportunities. Matt interfaces with accountants, auditors, and brokerage account managers to ensure communication of financial information Prior to the general partner position at Vilicus, Matt gained extensive leadership and technical experience as both a project manager and senior engineer of rocket propulsion systems at Aerojet Rocketdyne in Sacramento, California. | Matt holds a Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and mechanics from the University of Minnesota and a Master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Purdue University. He has professional certifications in project management, strategic decision making, and risk management from Stanford University. In his spare time, Matt teaches math to middle school students as part of the national Mathcounts competition program. He also enjoys skiing, piano, & softball. | 18 |
| Jessica Owens | Owens | GRAIL, Inc. | United States | California, | Menlo Park | Northern CA | Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers | 12 | Jessica is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12. She served her fellowship at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers under mentor Risa Stack (Class 2). | Jessica joined GRAIL, Inc. in 2016 as Head of Product Marketing. GRAIL's mission is to reliably detect cancer early, when it can be treated.
Previously, Jessica was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Versant Ventures and CEO of Acumen, digital health startup enabling patients and physicians to better manage chronic neurological disorders through the capture and analysis of patient video. Prior to joining Versant, Jessica worked in Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Genomic Health, a molecular diagnostics company that provides genomic analysis to aid in the selection cancer treatments. Earlier, Jessica was a partner in the life sciences practice at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. She also worked in Finance for Genentech, was an equity research analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners, and was an investment banking analyst in biotechnology at Robertson Stephens. She began her career in biomedical research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Special Pathogens Branch. | Jessica received an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS from the Department of Cancer Biology at Stanford University, and a BA in Biology from Agnes Scott College where she was Phi Beta Kappa. She now serves as a Trustee to Agnes Scott.
| 12 |
| John Pacifico | Pacifico | Abyrx | United States | New York, | Irvington | NY/CT | Canaan Partners | 12 | John is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and was mentored by Brent Ahrens (Class 5) and Dr. Stephen Bloch (Class 7) at Canaan Partners. | Mr. Pacifico led the formation of Abyrx and serves as the Company’s founding President and Chief Executive Officer. Previously, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of ORTHOCON®, Inc., a biosurgical products company he helped launch in 2006 as member of its founding investment team. Mr. Pacifico joined ORTHOCON in 2007 to lead the Company’s corporate development and finance functions. As Vice President of Corporate Development, he led ORTHOCON's $25 million Series B financing and expanded both its technology rights and its intellectual property portfolio. In addition, Mr. Pacifico was responsible for the early strategic decisions regarding the company's transition to a commercial organization and, in 2009, was appointed Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations. In this capacity, Mr. Pacifico was responsible for the commercial launch of HEMASORB®, the company's first FDA-cleared product, and the identification and prioritization of ORTHOCON's pipeline products. Mr. Pacifico brings to Abyrx a strong company building background. He gained this experience as a company operator and former member of the healthcare venture capital investment team at Canaan Partners where he participated in over 25 biopharmaceutical and medical device company financings, initial public offerings, and acquisitions. Mr. Pacifico joined Canaan at age twenty and had the unique opportunity to be mentored by some of the world's leading venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. As a company leader and investor, he worked with private and public company management teams that developed and brought to market several leading therapeutic drugs and medical devices, and created over $2 billion of company value. He is also the creator and Founder of Kairuku, Inc., a healthcare technology company that is changing the way medical products are delivered to the point-of-care, where he serves as Chairman of the Board. | Mr. Pacifico earned an MBA from Columbia University and a BS in Finance from the Charles F. Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University where he was also a member of the varsity baseball team.
In 2007, John co-authored, with Seth Rudnick, MD, a chapter titled "Driving Successful Venture Capital Investments" in a book on biotechnology VC best practices, published by Aspatore Books. In addition, John was selected to the Directorship of NYPEN, the New York Private Equity Network, where he helps organize education events and networking opportunities for tri-state area venture capital professionals. | 12 |
| Ebetuel Pallares | Pallares | Joseph Advisory SVCS | United States | Texas, | El Paso | TX/South Central | Joseph Advisory SVCS | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Beto served his fellowship at Aligned Venture Partners under the mentorship of Susan Mason (Class 2), Managing Partner. He now serves as mentor to Estela Hernandez Hartley, Class 20. | Ebetuel “Beto” Pallares founded Joseph Advisory Services (JAS), based in El Paso, TX, in 2006. He brings extensive domestic and international startup experience as an entrepreneur and in conducting due diligence for both startups and late-stage companies. His professional experience spans working for top-tier strategy consulting firms, co-founding startups, international business development, and nonprofit management. In the summer of 2009, he co-founded Cottonwood Capital Partners, the general partner of Cottonwood Technology Fund, a seed and early-stage venture fund. Beto has a particular interest in seed and early-stage companies with emphasis in the material sciences and nanotechnology areas. He serves on the board of six companies, four of which are material sciences related and two are biotech/med device related. In addition, he is a board observer on four other companies developing products and services in the material sciences and IT sectors. He is also an advisor to the UT Horizon Fund, the venture capital investment fund of the University of Texas System, and serves on the limited partnership advisory committees of several venture funds. In addition, he serves as the Investor-in-Residence (IIR) for both the Texas Tech University System and New Mexico State University, identifying sources of capital, best practices, and structuring investment opportunities for university-related technologies. | Beto graduated from Brandeis University, in Waltham, MA, with a degree in economics, and received his MBA from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He also went on to attain a PhD in International Business from UTEP. Dr. Pallares’ research has focused on confluence of high tech emerging market firms, incubators, and technology commercialization. Beto is married, and enjoys fatherhood. When not spending time with his kids and wife, he is a professional photographer on assignment, and engages in reading, writing,and community service. | 18 |
| Thomas Palmer | Palmer | AH Ventures | , | Boston/Northeast | Kansas City Equity Partners | Charter | A member of the Charter Class of Kauffman Fellows, Tom served his fellowship under mentor Bill Reisler at Kansas City Equity Partners. | Tom joined Adams Harkness Ventures as a General Partner in 2002. He currently manages the fund's investment in Rubicon Technology and Practical Engineering. Prior to AH Ventures, Tom was managing director and general partner for Kansas City Equity Partners, where he led investments in the areas of information technology and communications. He has been the founding institutional investor in several technology startups that have raised in excess of $300 million in equity capital. His prior board positions include BeyondNow Technologies, Birch Telecom, NetSales, freightPro, iTravel, and Vroom Technologies.
Tom is co-founder and Executive Chairman of iModules Software, an Internet technology company serving the education market. He also serves on the investment and executive committees for Gazelle TechVentures, a regional fund. He also taught Venture Capital Finance for six years at the University of Missouri. | Tom holds a degree in economics and computer science from Dartmouth College. He received his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. | 0 | ||
| Myrto Papathanou | Papathanou | Metavallon VC | Greece | , | Athens | Europe | Metavallon VC | 24 | A member of Class 24, Myrto serves her fellowship at Metavallon VC under the mentorship of Chrys Chrysanthou (Class 21), Partner at Kindred Capital and Lena Papalexopoulou, Vice President of Desmos. | Myrto co-founded Metavallon VC, an early-stage fund investing in technology companies in Greece and Europe. Metavallon focuses on pre-seed and seed investments, with a B2B preference across sectors. Myrto started her career in London, working as a credit risk analyst for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and later as a Fixed Income Strategist for EMEA at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Returning to Greece in 2007, she held several positions in technology and high-tech companies as a founder, mentor, investor, and advisory board member. Before transitioning to Metavallon VC, she served as Group CFO and Head of Corporate Development in EFA Ventures, a group active in high-tech verticals around aerospace and defense, including electro optics, night vision, and MEMS. Myrto has also been active in the nonprofit sector, consulting on microfinance and women’s development projects in Kenya and Nicaragua. In 2012, she co-founded Volunteer4Greece (now Ethelon), the first platform connecting volunteers to nonprofits. In 2013, she successfully fundraised for the launch of Action Finance Initiative, the first microfinance organization in Greece. | Myrto holds an MBA from INSEAD, France. She earned her BsC in economics at City, University of London and continued with an MsC in finance from Imperial College, London. She is fluent in Greek, English, and French, and has business Spanish and basic skills in Greek Sign Language. In 2016, Myrto was recognized as Leader of the Year by Linkage Greece in appreciation of her extraordinary leadership quality and contribution to the progress of business and society. | 24 |
| Jason Pariso | Pariso | University of Chicago | United States | Illinois, | Chicago | MW Plains/Rockies | University of Chicago Innovation Fund | 21 | Jason served his fellowship at the University of Chicago Innovation Fund as a member of Class 21. His mentors were Executive Director John Flavin and Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, Scott Meadow. | Jason Pariso is the Director of the University of Chicago Innovation Fund, an early-stage fund dedicated to the commercialization of research and technology generated at the University, Argonne National Lab, Fermilab, and the Marine Biological Laboratory. He also develops strategy and programming for the University’s new cross-campus initiative, the Chicago Innovation Exchange.
Jason previously served as the Vice President of Product Management for Pinpoint MD, a healthcare startup building a diagnostics-driven patient engagement platform. During his career, Jason has built a diverse set of skills while working as a media and telecommunications investment banker, founding and growing an educational nonprofit, restructuring a textile manufacturer, developing corporate strategy for Dell Financial Services, and launching a SaaS call center telephony startup. | Jason graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he earned a Master of Business Administration with a focus on entrepreneurship and managerial and organizational behavior. While at ChicagoBooth, Jason was a top-3 finisher in the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge, the top-ranked university accelerator in the nation. He was also President of the Class Agents, helped to create a new course with the co-founders of Groupon, and was the Recipient of the 2010 Booth Ambassador Award. Jason continues to be involved with the university, serving as a judge for the New Venture Challenge and the John Edwardson '72 Social New Venture Challenge, and as a teaching assistant for both the Global New Venture Challenge and New Venture Strategy.
Jason holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Princeton University and earned a certificate in business from the Amos Tuck Global Business Bridge Program at Oxford University. | 21 |
| Anne Park | Park | SEAF (Small Enterprise Assistance Fund) | United States | California, | Oakland | Mid-Atlantic/SE | SEAF | 17 | Anne is a member of Class 17 and served her fellowship at SEAF under the mentorship of Peter Righi, Global Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development (CEED). | Anne Park is the Director of Strategy & Development at the Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF), an investment management firm that provides growth capital and business assistance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets. SEAF provides companies with various types of growth capital, including equity, mezzanine debt and term credit, to meet the unique economic and cultural needs of each markets. In this role, Anne manages the operations of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development (CEED) and develops internal strategies to maximize and measure social impact. Prior to joining SEAF, Anne was an Investment Officer with USAID’s newly formed, Private Capital Group for Africa which aims to leverage private sector capital to the Subcontinent. In this capacity, she structured an agribusiness fund targeting small and medium sized agribusinesses in Tanzania. Anne was a Presidential Management Fellow at the Department of State where she helped develop the Global Entrepreneurship Program. She was awarded several meritorious awards for her efforts coordinating entrepreneurship programs globally. | Anne is a graduate of the Cornell Institute of Public Affairs at Cornell University where she concentrated in international development and finance, and fiscal policy. She graduated with honors and received the Adams Award for leadership and academic excellence. At Cornell she was the President of the Women in Public Policy affinity group and was on the board of the Social Enterprise and Microfinance affinity group at the Johnson Business School. In her free time Anne is a mentor with BUILD.org which uses entrepreneurship as a medium to engage with disadvantaged low-income youth. | 17 |
| Kush Parmar | Parmar | 5AM Ventures | United States | Massachusetts, | WALTHAM | Boston/Northeast | 5AM Ventures | 16 | Kush is a member of Class 16 and served his fellowship at 5AM Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Partner, Scott Rocklage, PhD. He now mentors Mira Chaurushiya (Class 21). | Kush is a Partner at 5AM Ventures, an early stage, life science-focused venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, CA and Waltham, MA. He has a particular interest in companies developing breakthrough therapeutics and diagnostics for major unmet medical needs. Kush serves as a board director or observer at Achaogen, Arvinas, Audentes, Cleave, Novira, and Pulmatrix, and was previously a board observer for Envoy (acquired by Takeda). | Kush holds an AB in molecular biology and medieval studies from Princeton University, a PhD in experimental pathology from Harvard University, and an MD from Harvard Medical School.
During medical school Kush was an NIH-sponsored MD/PhD Physician Scientist Trainee in the joint Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program. He completed clinical clerkships at Mass General & Brigham and Women’s Hospitals. His PhD work unveiled a novel paradigm of how blood flow leads to “healthy” changes in arteries, published in several leading journals. He also attended courses at Harvard Business School in private equity and finance and consulted for a Boston-area oncology startup. At Princeton, Kush worked with Nobel Prize winner Eric F. Wieschaus on his undergraduate thesis in developmental genetics. At Princeton Kush founded a non-profit international development organization, the Cruz Blanca Initiative, which has funded and executed the construction of numerous schools and clinics in the most underserved communities of Mexico. | 16 |
| Michael Partsch | Partsch | Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) | United States | Wisconsin, | Madison | Northern CA | EDF Ventures | 04 | Mike served his fellowship under mentor Tom Porter at EDF Ventures in Ann Arbor, MI as a member of Fellows Class 4. | Mike Partsch has 21 years of experience in venture investing and start-up company development, and has concentrated on the life sciences industry since 1989 when he was a founding member of a biotechnology company called Neose Technologies. During his career he has honed his skills for interacting with entrepreneurial management teams.
Most recently, Mike founded AcceleMed Management, which sources, founds and manages innovative medical device companies. Through AcceleMed, Mike serves as management for a portfolio of medical device start-ups. Additionally, Mike currently serves as a board member for MyoScience (Menlo Park). Before founding AcceleMed, Mike was one of the founders of Accuitive Medical Ventures (AMV), a venture capital firm focused on investing in early stage medical device technologies. Prior to helping form AMV, Mike worked for three years with Versant Ventures, and during his fellowship worked for EDF Ventures in Ann Arbor, MI, where he served as interim CFO of IntraLase, Corp. and founded HandyLab Inc. He previously worked at the CEO Venture Fund where he was responsible for reviewing much of the life science deal flow for the firm while attending business school. | Mike received a dual major Bachelor's degree in Biology and Philosophy of Science with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, and holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University with dual concentrations in Finance and Entrepreneurship. | 4 |
| Snehal Patel | Patel | Saena Partners | Singapore | , | Singapore | Asia | Richard Chandler Corporation | 14 | A member of Class 14, Snehal performed his fellowship at the Richard Chandler Corporation in Singapore. | Snehal is Managing Director at Saena Partners, an early-stage investment firm focusing on healthcare and retail opportunities, based in Singapore. He is also a Director at the investment firm Arete Holdings.
Most recently Snehal was a Senior Vice President and the head of social and healthcare investing at the Richard Chandler Corporation, a Singapore-based private investment group focused on entrepreneurial investment in social and financial businesses. Among his responsibilities, Snehal oversaw the firm's commitment to enhancing the quality and availability of healthcare and education in the developing world. During his time at the Richard Chandler Corporation, Snehal played a leading role in the development and execution of the firm's social investment strategy. Prior to his move to Singapore, Snehal worked as a corporate associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, the New York law firm. At Cravath, Snehal's practice focused on mergers & acquisitions and debt finance for a wide array of companies and industries. | Snehal holds an MD from the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons and a JD from Columbia Law School. In addition, Snehal completed his internship in surgery at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. Snehal is an avid traveler who enjoys tennis, golf and running, when he finds the time. | 14 |
| Jessica Patton | Patton | Andreessen Horowitz | , | San Francisco | Northern CA | Andreessen Horowitz | 25 | Jessica is a Partner of the Cultural Leadership Fund (CLF) at Andreessen Horowitz and is passionate about empowering the next generation of underrepresented entrepreneurs and investors. Jessica is responsible for managing deal flow for the CLF and also works closely with the portfolio on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Before her venture career, Jessica worked at a food company where she led pricing and business operations for a $300M business. She also worked in strategy, sales and business operations at several consumer startups. She founded her own business, Apothery, a plant-based food company. Jessica started her career as an Associate at Solera Capital, a $500M consumer growth equity fund in New York. While at Solera, she helped to lead the IPO and secondary transactions for Annie’s, a consumer-packaged goods company. | Jessica is a graduate of Howard University, where she received a Bachelor of Business Administration, with Honors, in finance. She earned her MBA and Certificate in Public Management and Social Innovation from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she served as a Management Leadership for Tomorrow fellow. Jessica is involved with various nonprofit organizations focused on enabling more underrepresented minorities to achieve careers in technology. Jessica is from Detroit (and proudly reps the motor city) and lives in San Francisco with her husband, Andrew. | 25 | ||
| Rokas Peciulaitis | Peciulaitis | Contrarian Ventures | , | Vilnius | Europe | Contrarian Ventures | 25 | Rokas Peciulaitis is a Founding and Managing Partner at Contrarian Ventures an early-stage venture capital firm focusing on energy tech and e-mobility convergence theme investing across Europe and Israel. Rokas founded Contrarian Ventures at the age of 26 and is one of the youngest GP‘s in broader Europe. Before starting Contrarian Ventures, he was inflation and derivatives trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Before his trading career at BAML, he was part of the exclusive government program “Kurk Lietuvai” (eng. Create for Lithuania), where he was advising the Lithuanian government including the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, Startup Lithuania and Ministry of Energy on entrepreneurship, FDI attraction and key strategic projects. | Rokas is a founder of Energy Tech Summit and Energy Tech Network, where his goal is to build a more connected energy tech and e-mobility community. He is also Chairman of the Lithuanian Venture Capital Association, and is a board member of a non-profit organization Vilnius Marathon. Rokas graduated from the University of Glasgow with an M.A. in economics and spent a year in University California Santa Barbara. Rokas has completed additional coursework at Harvard Business School’s Executive Program with a focus on venture capital and private equity. | 25 | ||
| Bernard Peperstraete | Peperstraete | Acuamark Diagnostics | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | MASA Life Science Ventures | 11 | Bernard is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 11 and served his fellowship under mentor Sinclair Dunlop of MASA Life Science Ventures (MLSV) while working as a Principal at NGN Capital. | Dr. Bernard Peperstraete is President and CEO of Acuamark Diagnostics, a company he co-founded out of the Barany Labs at Cornell University, which focuses on developing a highly accurate, scalable, and cost-effective test for early detection of cancer out of blood. Members of the academic team are the original inventors of the Ligase Detection Reaction, Ligase Chain Reaction, Universal array, zipcoding and rt-PCR assays.
Until early 2015, Bernard was a Partner at NGN Capital, a firm investing in mid- to late-stage healthcare ventures. At NGN, Bernard was closely involved with the Exosome Diagnostics (Board Observer), Noxxon AG and Artisan Pharmaceuticals (acquired by AKP) transactions, and as Acting CEO/President with ACT Biotech (acquired by Eddingpharm). Bernard previously served as a Director at Potentia Pharmaceuticals (Alcon/Apellis Pharma). Prior to NGN, Bernard served at Masa Life Science Ventures, where he focused on early stage life science investments. His previous life science operating roles include hospital manager, medical entrepreneur, sales and marketing executive and physician. In 2004, Bernard worked at Novartis where he evaluated the commercial market potential for emerging indications. Before completing his MBA at Harvard, Bernard was a Deputy Director at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH-CDC) in Singapore and was responsible for medical manpower coordination during the SARS crisis. Prior to TTSH, he successfully co-founded and ran a contract research business, also in Singapore. In 1999, after serving as a physician, Dr. Peperstraete managed the HIV business unit at Bristol Myers & Squibb, Singapore. | Bernard was a Belgian American Education Foundation (BAEF) fellow at Harvard where he earned his MBA. He earned his MD at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and his specialist diploma in Tropical Medicine at the Institut de Médecine Tropicale, also in Belgium. He was also nominated a Fulbright scholar. | 11 |
| Mar Perez | Perez | InCube Ventures | United States | California, | San Jose | Northern CA | VentureHealth | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Mar served her fellowship at VentureHealth under the mentorship of Andrew Farquharson (Class 9), cofounder of VentureHealth and Incube Ventures. | Mar Perez is a principal for InCube Ventures and VentureHealth, investment funds focused in disruptive healthcare innovation and based in San Jose, California. In her role, Mar wears many hats, from screening deals and managing due diligence to speaking in public forums and building relationships with Limited Partners. Mar also manages the Fund’s online presence and contributes to organizational strategy.
Mar is passionate about breakthroughs that can change medicine. She has spent her career in life science, most recently in governmental relations and sales with Johnson & Johnson. When Mar heard about VentureHealth, she fell in love with the opportunity to help investors and entrepreneurs dramatically improve the lives of patients. Intellectually curious, she loves building a business from the ground up with a proven and successful team. | Mar earned her International MBA from ADM Business School, UC Riverside, and holds an additional degree in business management from Universidad San Pablo CEU and Leeds Metropolitan University.
Mar relocated to California in 2012 after living in Spain, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and Silicon Valley already feels like home. | 19 |
| Eric Perez-Grovas | Perez-Grovas | Jaguar Ventures | Mexico | , | Latin America | Jaguar Ventures | 22 | Eric served his fellowship at Jaguar Ventures as a member of Class 22. His mentor was Luis Garza Sada, Jaguar Ventures board member and founder and CEO of Kinedu. | Eric is Co-Founder of Jaguar Ventures, a VC fund focused on LATAM Internet companies. He is in charge of Jaguar’s Mexican investments, which right now are all FinTech enterprises: Conekta, Konfio, and Nexu.
Eric is also Co-Founder and President of the Board of the Mexican Association of Online Sales (AMVO), which organizes the most relevant e-commerce event in Mexico—HotSale—among other initiatives. He also enjoys mentoring Internet startups, serving as a board member for Ben&Frank, ElDeforma, Kinedu, Tipitop, Yogome, and Viajamex. Eric’s Internet experience began in 1999 when he opened and managed Mercadolibre’s Mexican operations. He also worked in consulting at McKinsey & Co. and Bain & Co, and held management positions at Cemex and Satmex. | Eric holds a BS in industrial engineering, summa cum laude, from Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico. He earned MBA and MPP degrees from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was elected co-president of the GSB Latin American Student Association and vice-president of the Mexican Student Association at Stanford.
Eric was distinguished by Endeavor as one of the “top five influencers” in the Mexican technology ecosystem. He also was named by BBVA as one of the top innovators in Mexico. He actively participates in nonprofits, serving as board member for CMR Foundation and as a Young Leader for Sustainable Cities. | 22 | |
| Tatiana Collis | Collis | A.T.Kearney | United States | Illinois, | Boston/Northeast | Magazine Luiza | 18 | As a member of Class 18, Tatiana served her fellowship at Magazine Luiza under the mentorship of Frederico Trajano, Chief Operating Officer of the company. | Over the last 5 years, Tatiana has held increasingly responsible roles at Magazine Luiza, one of the largest retail companies in Brazil, with over US $5 billion in gross sales. She began her tenure in M&A and New Business Development, and moved on to structuring the Corporate Venture Capital Division of the firm. This new division leverages the company’s resources and expertise in retail innovation to attract and rapidly expand early/growth-stage high-tech companies. The VC division started operating in 2013, with Tatiana as its head of investments. She now serves as Head of Marketplace Operations.
Along with this new challenge, Tatiana will continue to hold the position of M&A, Business Development, and Investor Relations Director at Magazine Luiza. For the past two years, she has been responsible for developing the company’s strategic planning, evaluating potential acquisition and partnership targets, as well as leading investor relations activities. | Tatiana is a graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, with an MBA in strategic management and finance. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from University of São Paulo, and a specialization in logistics and industrial engineering from Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France. Tatiana is a sports enthusiast. She developed a keen interest in running and trekking, in which she has had the opportunity to travel to exotic places, and at the same time, constantly push her limits. She also has a passion for traveling, history, and learning new languages. | 18 | |
| Jonathan Perl | Perl | Boulder Ventures | United States | Maryland, | Chevy Chase | Mid-Atlantic/SE | Intersouth Partners | 03 | Jonathan Perl is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 3 and served his fellowship under mentor Mitch Mumma at Intersouth Partners in Durham, NC. | Jonathan has 13 years of venture capital and investing experience, focused primarily on early-stage information technology companies. He led Boulder Ventures investments in iLumin Software (sold to Computer Associates), Era, Millennium Pharmacy Systems and Zenoss. He is a past board member of Norak BioScience and WindWire.
Earlier, Jonathan joined Intersouth Partners in 1997 as a Kauffman Fellow where he was responsible for the sourcing, due diligence, structuring and negotiation of more than a dozen early stage investments, including several highly successful companies. Earlier in his career, Jonathan was the Director of Washington Operations for IICC, a placement agent, where he was responsible for a range of consulting arrangements with both investment management firms and venture-backed companies. Before IICC, Jonathan was in the management development program at American Security Bank (now BofA). Jonathan is a past board member of the North Carolina Council for Entrepreneurial Development and currently serves on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, having co-chaired the organization's flagship event, Capital Connection, in 2009 and 2010. | Jonathan holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA, magna cum laude, in classical history from Tufts University.
Jonathan sits on the board of trustees and is Treasurer of the National Child Research Center Preschool. | 3 |
| Dusan Perovic | Perovic | Two Sigma Ventures | United States | New York, | New York | NY/CT | Two Sigma Ventures | 23 | Dusan is a member of Class 23, serving his fellowship at New York-based Two Sigma Ventures under the mentorship of Nick Naclerio , Partner at Illumina Ventuers and Krishna Yeshwant, Partner at GV. | Dusan directs Two Sigma Ventures’ investing efforts at the intersection of life science/healthcare and data science. He joined the parent company Two Sigma, an AI/machine learning asset manager, in 2007 to work on company growth strategy. Since joining, he has helped the firm launch several new business units and grow the firm from about a hundred employees to now well over a thousand. Dusan also worked with research groups across the firm in discovering and evaluating new data sources, which are used in the firm’s investment algorithms.
Before Two Sigma, Dusan worked as a management consultant in healthcare/biotech, which he remains passionate about. Dusan’s first foray into startups was both personal and professional: as a youth, he helped his parents launch their private-label soda business in then-Yugoslavia. | Dusan graduated from Princeton University with a BSE in electrical engineering, magna cum laude, and with minors in German literature and dance. He spent a year at Oxford University as an exchange student studying engineering, economics, and management. He was awarded the CFA charter while at Two Sigma. Prior to college, he attended United World College, an international boarding school in Norway. | 23 |
| Ted Persson | Persson | EQT Ventures | , | Stockholm | Europe | EQT Ventures | 25 | Ted is a Partner at EQT Ventures, based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Ted has worked since the late 90s in the intersection between technology and creativity, founding and running both startups and creative agencies, and is passionate about both frontier technology as well all things product design, UX, storytelling and branding-related. Since Ted was part of setting up EQT Ventures in 2015, he has led the firm's investments in about a dozen companies. | 25 | |||
| Charlie Petty | Petty | Adjuvant Capital | , | New York | NY/CT | Adjuvant Capital | 25 | Charlie is a co-founder of Adjuvant Capital, a new healthcare and life sciences investment firm focused on public health. Charlie led the firm's investment in Codagenix, where serves on the board.
Charlie helped form Adjuvant Capital in 2018 with colleagues from the Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF), a private investment fund created by JP Morgan and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to invest in the research and development of life sciences technologies aimed at addressing the highest-burden public health issues. At GHIF, he helped oversee the fund’s investments in Eubiologics (KOSDAQ: 206650), IanTech (acquired by Zeiss), and Alydia Health. Before joining GHIF, Charlie was with Artemis Capital Partners, where he made private equity investments in healthcare and industrial technology companies. Previously, he lived in Haiti and worked at the country’s largest microfinance bank, Sevis Finansye Fonkoze, where he led financial and operational analysis efforts. Charlie remains active in Haiti and serves on the boards of Sevis Finansye Fonkoze and Fonkoze USA. Charlie is also an advisor to New Incentives, a Nigerian non-profit organization that uses conditional cash transfers to encourage infant vaccinations. | Charlie is a graduate of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Charlie and his wife are erstwhile Bostonians who now reside in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. | 25 | ||
| Niki Pezeshki | Pezeshki | Felicis Ventures | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Felicis Ventures | 24 | Niki is serving his fellowship at Felicis Ventures under the mentorship of Managing Director Sundeep Peechu. He is a member of Class 24. | Niki is a Principal on the investment team at Felicis Ventures, an early stage venture firm in the Bay Area. At Felicis, Niki has sourced and continues to work closely with Guild Education, Guideline 401K, Cleo, Trusted Health, and many other portfolio companies. Prior to joining Felicis, Niki was on the investment team at Summit Partners, a tech-focused growth equity firm. Before Summit, he was on the investment team at Vista Equity Partners, a late-stage private equity firm in Austin, Texas that invests in software and technology-enabled businesses. He also had a brief stint at the Climate Corporation (a former Felicis portfolio company), where he focused on sales strategy and operations. | Niki received a BS in business administration, with Honors, from the University of Southern California. He continues to be actively involved with the USC Value Investing Group. | 24 |
| Rachel Pike | Pike | Grand Rounds | United States | California, | San Francisco | Northern CA | Draper Fisher Jurvetson | 17 | A member of Class 17, Rachel served her fellowship at DFJ under the mentorship of Managing Director Josh Stein (Class 9; Kauffman Fellows board member). | Rachel is the Director of Physician Engagement at Ground Rounds, a San Francisco-based startup that makes world-class medical care broadly accessible by connecting patients in need to the expert physicians best able to help them.
Previously, Rachel was a principal at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where she supported the firm's portfolio, managed deal flow, and performed due diligence. She was deal lead for WaterSmart, Karma, and Zapier, and worked on deal support for EdeniQ, Synthetic Genomics, and Angellist. Rachel is active with the firm’s work in clean technology and consumer internet businesses. She is a board observer for WaterSmart Software, a software company building a consumer engagement and conservation platform as well as an enterprise suite for water utilities. She is also a board observer for EdeniQ, Tioga Energy, and Synthetic Genomics. In addition to her portfolio work, Rachel plays a key role in deal sourcing and targeted diligence. She also takes an active role working with female entrepreneurs. | Rachel is a graduate of Cambridge University, where she completed a PhD in atmospheric chemistry and computer modeling in 2010. She served as President of the Gates Cambridge Scholars and gave a TED talk on her work. Rachel earned her BA in chemistry from Northwestern University in 2006, where she co-founded Fusion Dance Company and spent a year in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Rachel is also the youngest board member of the Ploughshares Fund. | 17 |
| Federico Pirzio-Biroli | Pirzio-Biroli | Playfair Capital | United Kingdom | , | London | Europe | Playfair Capital | 19 | Fede performed his fellowship at Playfair Capital as a member of Class 19. | Fede Pirzio-Biroli founded Playfair Capital in early 2011 as an early-stage investment vehicle to hold his angel investments. Moving into White Bear Yard as an angel-in-residence under the wing of Passion Capital, he spent the next two years building his network in London and making seed investments in 21 companies.
In early 2013, Fede turned Playfair Capital into an LLP and hired two partners to help him scale the fund. Soon thereafter he acquired a 10,000-square-foot building in East London, redeveloping the premises into a coworking space. Warner Yard opened in May 2013 with 170 desks, and is home to Techstars London, about 20 startups, and a dozen early-stage investors putting incubation, an accelerator, and investment all under one roof. Having spent 3 years working with NGOs in East Africa, Fede has a particular interest in social entrepreneurship with a long-term goal of deploying capital and helping companies grow in emerging economies and the developing world. He believes entrepreneurship is the key to sustainable development, and that education is fundamental to helping to create and motivate new entrepreneurs. Fede also continues to make personal investments that do not fit into the criteria of Playfair, and is a member on 5 boards. | Fede graduated with an MA in psychology and philosophy from St. Andrews University, and was educated in a variety of international schools (Washington DC, Vienna, Brussels) before attending boarding school in the UK. At university, he organized a variety of prominent events.
He also runs a large Burning Man camp and can usually be found in Reno, NV for a significant part of August. | 19 |
| Marcos Polanco | Polanco | Expansive Ventures | United States | California, | Palo Alto | Northern CA;Latin America | Expansive Ventures | 19 | As a member of Class 19, Marcos performed his fellowship at Expansive Ventures under the mentorship of Adeo Ressi. | At Expansive Ventures, an early-stage technology fund in Mountain View, California, Marcos focuses on building scalable deal sourcing, due diligence, and investment monitoring systems in collaboration with a global network of technology leaders.
Marcos focuses on generating venture-scale impact by training the next generation of entrepreneurs enabled by startup communities around the world. His background includes founding the IT investment promotion unit of the Government of Puerto Rico and managing the establishment of the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust, the island’s innovation policymaker. He is one of the founders of the Startups of Puerto Rico organization of and Codetrotters, a nationwide startup internship program for computer science students. Through the Founder Institute Marcos has mentored startups in Silicon Valley, India, France, Perú, and Puerto Rico, leveraging a career that has included founding Imana, a San Francisco startup that pioneered corporate knowledge management applications of collaborative filtering technologies that he co-invented and patented. He managed startup operations for iCare Medical, a medical device brand with markets in the United States and the United Kingdom, and also founded Clearshore, a business network attracting investment to Puerto Rico. He began his career at Hewlett-Packard Labs, Stanford’s Research Libraries Group, and a number of Silicon Valley startups. | Marcos is a graduate of Stanford University’s computer systems engineering program. He is an active participant in the TED and UP Global communities, and was a member of the organizing team for the first TEDx and Startup Weekend events in Puerto Rico. Marcos enjoys meditation, salsa, and skiing. | 19 |
| Krating Poonpol | Poonpol | 500 Startups | United States | California, | Mountain View | Asia | 500 Startups | 20 | Krating is a member of Class 20. He served his fellowship at 500 Startups under the mentorship of Managing Partner Bedy Yang (Class 17). | Krating Poonpol is the Venture Partner of 500Startups, the most active seed-stage VC and top startup accelerator in the world, based in Silicon Valley. Krating founded and is running a $10M Thailand-specific fund for 500Startups, called 500TukTuks, as a General Partner.
Krating has a particular interest in companies focused on mobile, Internet, e-commerce, payment, marketplace, FinTech, and EdTech. As an individual, Krating founded Disrupt in 2012, a leading startup education program in Thailand. Disrupt has graduated almost 300 students, who collectively raised $7M and have over $30M combined. Disrupt alumni include Taamkru, Asia’s Most Promising Startup of 2014 (with investors 500Startups, RedDot, and IMJ); ThinkOflIving (exit to iProperty); StockRadar (with investors CyberAgent Venture and East Venture); Priceza (with investor CyberAgent Venture). | Krating is a graduate of Stanford Business School, where he was Co-President of the Marketing Club and elected to the International Committee. He holds a bachelor's degree, with Honors, in electrical engineering from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Krating serves as a Advisory Board member of the Thailand Technology Startup Association. | 20 |
| Jason Portnoy | Portnoy | Oakhouse Partners | United States | Utah, | Park City | MW Plains/Rockies;Northern CA | Oakhouse Partners | 21 | Jason served his fellowship at Oakhouse Partners as a member of Class 21 under the mentorship of Sham Sandhu, an independent investor. | Jason Portnoy is Managing Partner at Oakhouse Partners, a firm whose mission underscores his deep commitment to discovering and supporting talented entrepreneurs pursuing important challenges. He founded the boutique firm Subtraction Capital in 2012, which later evolved into Oakhouse Partners, and has spent his entire career contributing to some of Silicon Valley’s most impactful technology companies.
Oakhouse invests in early-stage companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jason is a generalist investor because it allows for cross-pollination of ideas and best practices across sectors. Before Oakhouse, Jason’s innate curiosity led him to angel investments in several ground-breaking companies including Facebook, Palantir Technologies, and Stemcentrix. He acquired senior leadership experience as the first CFO at Palantir, where he helped guide the company’s early culture, fundraising strategies and industry leadership positioning, and later did the same for Practice Fusion. Previously, Jason gained privileged insight into the formation and rapid growth of asset management firms as part of the founding team of Clarium Capital, which grew to over $3B under management during his tenure, and part of the launching of the Founders Fund, whose early investments included Facebook and Palantir. Jason started his career at PayPal as employee number 34 while still a graduate student at Stanford. As a Vice President on PayPal’s Finance team, he helped support the company through its hyper-growth, IPO, and subsequent $1.5B acquisition by eBay in 2002. | Jason holds a bachelor’s degree, with High Distinction, in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado and a master’s degree in management science and engineering from Stanford University. | 21 |
| Will Prendergast | Prendergast | Frontline Ventures | Ireland | , | Dublin | Europe | NCB Ventures | 14 | A member of Class 14, Will served his fellowship at NCB Ventures, mentored by Michael Murphy. He now mentors William McQuillan (Class 21). | Will is a founding partner of Frontline Ventures and has spent the last decade focused on software and the internet. Frontline Ventures is Europe’s first community-focused fund, creating a platform for innovative tech entrepreneurs building capital-efficient businesses in high-growth markets. Will spends a significant portion of his time in the U.S., developing investor and corporate relationships to benefit the companies in which Frontline has invested.
Before Frontline he was a partner with NCB Venture Capital, where he was involved in all aspects of the investment process and focused on early- and expansion-stage opportunities in the IT, medtech and cleantech sectors. His investments included AMCS (waste management), Britebill (consumer engagement & billing), and epubDirect (ebook distribution). Prior to NCB Ventures Will worked for the strategy consulting division of Accenture in the UK, where he managed teams in the delivery of operational and strategic reviews for a range of clients in the healthcare, software, consumer goods, and life sciences sectors. Will began his career as a chemical process engineer for Eli Lilly. | Will has a first class degree in chemical engineering from University College Dublin, Ireland. | 14 |
| Matthew Price | Price | Cyclotron Road | United States | California, | Berkeley | Northern CA | Nth Power | 13 | Matt is a member of Fellows Class 13. He served his fellowship under mentor Nancy Floyd at Nth Power in San Francisco. | Matt joined Cyclotron Road in 2015. Part of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Cyclotron Road's mission is to identify the world's best hard energy technology innovators and provide them the tools, capital, and partners needed to commercialize their technologies.
Previously, Matt was Vice President of Channel Development at Enlighted, Inc., the leading wireless sensor network and lighting controls manufacturer for commercial and industrial buildings. In this role he developed and manageed channel relationships and strategic partnerships to accelerate Enlighted’s growth into new markets. Matt spent 4 years as an investor at Nth Power, focused on materials and nanotechnology, biofuels, advanced lighting, smart grid technologies, and fuel cells. Matt was involved in deal sourcing and structuring, due diligence, and portfolio company support. He was a board observer for Propel Biofuels, Topanga Technologies, and Precursor Energetics. Prior to joining Nth Power, Matt was a materials engineer and business development manager for Franklin Fuel Cells where he established and ran the company’s fuel cell testing capabilities and helped the company raise $4.5 million in venture funding and government grants. During his graduate studies Matt co-founded the Berkeley Energy Resource Collaborative (BERC) and consulted to several alternative energy companies. While earning his graduate degree, Matt also worked for Bloom Energy as a product manager. | Matt received his MBA from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, with a focus on energy markets. Matt earned his BS, with Honors, in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University. | 13 |
| Bame Pule | Pule | Africa Lighthouse Capital | , | Johannesburg | Africa | Africa Lighthouse Capital | 25 | Bame Pule is the Founder and CEO of Africa Lighthouse Capital, a private equity firm making growth equity and other investments across Africa. In addition, Bame is a founder of, and angel investor in a number of early stage African compan |