Stuart Ellman

Stuart Ellman is Co-Founder & Managing Partner of RRE Ventures. He has been immersed in information technology since the early 1980s when he taught himself computer programming and sold computer hardware and software.

Since co-founding RRE in 1994, Stuart has been responsible for over forty technology investments, ranging from incubation-stage to post-revenue companies. He has invested in sectors across information technology, from security to green IT, from consumer-facing web companies to enterprise software. He believes that he is not a technologist but is a business person who utilizes technology to drive competitive advantage. He looks for big markets and superior management and has little interest in “me too” companies or following what is “hot” in the marketplace. He currently serves as a Board Director of Betaworks, Business Insider, Kroll Bond Ratings, Payfone, RecycleBank, SideTour and Tippr.

Stuart began his career as a management consultant with McKinsey and Company in Australia. Later, he was a Financial Analyst at Dillon, Read & Co. where he focused on leveraged buyouts and restructurings and an Associate at Morgan Stanley & Co., specializing in fixed income capital markets. After graduating from business school in 1992, Stuart changed his life forever and became an entrepreneur. Stuart was the junior co-founder and Vice President at Advisory Capital Partners, a principal investment and advisory firm. Working nights and weekends, Stuart co-founded InterVideo Response with Jim in early 1994, which attempted to build in-stadium touchscreen ordering systems. They were ten years too early. After deciding against launching a second business plan involving pets and vets, the two decided to start their own investment firm late in 1994.

In addition to his work as a venture investor, Stuart has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia Business School since 2002, where he teaches a popular Venture Capital Seminar to MBA students. In 2011, he delivered the Keynote address at the Columbia Business School Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference. In 2009, he taught a graduate seminar at the CDTM in Munich, Germany, a joint program with Technical University and Ludwig Maximilians Universityb. He is the Treasurer/Chairman of the Finance Committee of the 92nd Street Y where he has been on the board since 2001. He is also on the board of The Browning School. Also, Stuart is a member of the New York City Investment Fund's Clean Tech Sector Group, the VC Advisory Group of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Economic Club of New York, and the NYC 2020 CEO Roundtable. He is also a TechStars mentor.

Stuart holds an MBA with Distinction from Harvard University and a BA in Economics from Wesleyan University where he was a Gilbert Clee Scholar and a Horace White Fellow. Stuart resides in Manhattan with his wife of two decades, two kids and a spoiled black cat.

Irving Fain

Irving is a seasoned entrepreneur who grew up eating quality, local food and is passionate about expanding access to great produce we can trust. He was previously co-founder and CEO of CrowdTwist, a venture-backed company that provides loyalty marketing software. Prior to that, he ran product and marketing for iHeartMedia. Irving began his career helping early stage companies raise capital as an investment banker at Citigroup.

Tony Florence

Tony is a General Partner and co-leads NEA's Venture Growth Equity and Consumer Internet investment practices. Tony focuses on investments in the software and Internet sectors with emphasis on SaaS and marketplace ecommerce companies. In addition, he is actively involved in NEA’s investing activities in China. Tony has led investments in Care.com (NYSE: CRCM), Cvent (NYSE: CVT), Moda Operandi, Edmodo, EverFi, Casper, Raise.com, Jet.com, Goop.com and Wallapop. He led the firm's investment in Quidsi (Diapers.com), which was acquired by Amazon in 2011. Prior to joining NEA, he was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and was Head of Technology Banking in New York, and was a member of the North American Management Committee for investment banking. Tony spent over a decade at Morgan Stanley focused on the software and Internet sectors, and also worked with a number of NEA's companies in both IPOs and M&A transactions. Tony received an MBA and an A.B. in Economics from Dartmouth College.

Michelle Goad

Michelle Goad is the CEO & Co-Founder of PS Dept. the world's first luxury shopping service built for the social media minded and on-demand consumer. Michelle came up with the idea for PS Dept. while working with all the major global retailers and speaking to thousands of their customers. She saw the opportunity to bring the in-store service experience to the online consumer. Forbes named PS Dept. as one of the three best fashion apps for women on the go and the company, just 2.5 years old, has raised $6M+ in Venture funding from top Venture funds including 3KVC, Forerunner Ventures, SV Angel and A Capital.

Prior to launching PS DEPT., Michelle was an executive at Marc Jacobs Collection. She also worked on the world renowned women's shoe buying team for Barneys New York and as a designer for Donna Karan Home. She received dual degrees from UC, Santa Barbara in Business Economics and Art History and holds a design degree from Parsons School of Design. Michelle has been featured in prestigious publications such as Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Elle Decor.

Dayna Grayson

Dayna Grayson is a Partner at NEA and focuses broadly on the overlap between business and consumer behaviors, which drives new product adoption in the enterprise. Dayna has a number of investments in industrial IOT and manufacturing tech sectors, reaching into disruptions in everything from the shop floor to the product design process. Dayna is a Director of Desktop Metal, OnShape, Curalate, Framebridge, Glamsquad, and Upskill. Dayna founded the NEA Studio in 2013 where entrepreneurs with non-traditional backgrounds, such as design, work in residence with NEA, and she also runs NEA’s seed fund. Prior becoming a VC, she spent many years as a product designer and companies such as Blackbaud [NASDAQ: BLKB], the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations. Dayna has a BS from the University of Virginia in Systems Engineering and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Tyler Haney

Tyler Haney is the Founder and CEO of Outdoor Voices, an active lifestyle brand with the mission to free fitness from performance. A graduate of Parsons School of Design,Tyler grew up in Boulder, CO, where wellbeing revolves around spending time outdoors and casual activity is naturally integrated into everyday life. With Outdoor Voices, she set out to build the next great activewear brand—one that embodies that same approach to wellness. Headquartered in New York, OV has four shops in Manhattan, Austin, and Dallas, and the OV community continues to grow nation-wide, redefining recreation and Doing Things together. Tyler has been named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs and Outdoor Voices one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies (Style).

Oisin Hanrahan

Oisin Hanrahan is the CEO and co-founder of Handy, the leading on-demand home services platform. Oisin’s idea is changing the way people receive and provide home services. Prior to founding Handy, Oisin founded MiCandidate, a service that provided real time political content to media companies in 25 European countries. He also founded Clearwater Group, a real estate development business in Budapest, Hungary. In 2009, Oisin co-founded The Undergraduate Awards, a foundation that supports and celebrates outstanding undergraduate students globally.

From day one, Oisin aimed for Handy to revolutionize the way people receive, provide and think about home services, an $400 billion market. Since it launched, nearly 3 million bookings have been made, and the Handy platform has served over 600,000 customers and activated over 80,000 independent professionals. This exceptional growth was made possible by a laser focus on the most innovative technology and service, resulting in Handy successfully expanding to 28 cities across 15 states and three countries.

Oisin has deep knowledge of so many of the issues facing startups today, including navigating the regulatory environment. It is his personal mission to move the future of work of forward and find a solution that allows today’s work force to build their own business, work flexibility, but still have access to new types of “portable benefits” that would allow workers to move between workplaces while still maintaining access to benefits like training, health insurance, and disability insurance.

Finding a solution to these challenges is a personal priority of Oisin’s – the demographics of the Handy platform make the company uniquely close to these issues in a way other platforms are not. In fact, 90% are women, over 60% are caring for dependents, and nearly 70% serve as the primary income earner for their household.

Oisin has been unwilling to sit on the sidelines and become a leading voice in this area: He serves on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Digital Economy Board of Advisors and has written on these issues for Fox Business News and Wired.

Brad Hargreaves

Brad is the founder and CEO of Common. Common is dedicated to making housing better by providing flexible, community-minded shared homes. Previously, he co-founded General Assembly, a global education institution with campuses in more than 15 cities worldwide. As part of the General Assembly founding team, Brad led the growth of the company's education business from its launch in 2011 into a global institution with over a dozen campuses. Most recently, he was a Venture Partner at Maveron, General Assembly's lead investor. Brad has been named to Vanity Fair’s “The Next Establishment”, Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30”, and Business Insider’s “Silicon Alley 100”.

Heather Hartnett

Heather Hartnett is the CEO and founding partner of Human Ventures, an early-stage venture studio in NYC that backs and builds industry-changing business. Heather has spent her career in venture capital, technology startups, and philanthropy. She was recently featured in Business Insider as "the first female-led startup studio in New York City" bringing a fresh new perspective to the tech scene. Heather also serves on the Leadership Council for tech:nyc. Prior to Human Ventures, Heather incubated companies within a NYC-based venture fund that invests in companies seeking to generate measurable social impact alongside financial returns. 
Heather leads the Human team with a knack for identifying innate talent,
 and a track record of building strong, successful early teams.

Rachel E. Haurwitz

Dr. Haurwitz is a co-founder of Caribou Biosciences and has been President and CEO since its inception. She has extensive research experience in the field of CRISPRs and has contributed both to the discovery of components of the CRISPR immune system and to the invention of new technologies based on CRISPR-associated proteins. Dr. Haurwitz earned an A.B. at Harvard College in biological sciences, and received a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mar Hershenson

Mar Hershenson is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Pejman Mar Ventures, a seed-stage investment firm in Palo Alto. At Pejman Mar Ventures, Mar works closely with founders to take companies from an idea to defining business. Mar has been recognized in the Midas Brink List of Top Tech Investors in 2015. Marreceived her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2000 for her breakthrough work in circuit design automation, and taught the Analog Circuit Design course at Stanford for over a decade. Marmade her mark as an entrepreneur by co-founding three companies: Barcelona Design, Sabio Labs, and Revel Touch. She ran each company from day one, being deeply involved in all aspects of the business, including product definition and development, business strategy, sales, recruiting, and financing. Post the acquisition of Sabio labs, Mar served as VP of Product Development for Magma Design Automation's Mixed Signal division. Mar has received many awards throughout her career. Among them, the renown T35 Young Innovator Award by MIT (for her technical work), and the prestigious Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award in 2010 (for her work in entrepreneurship). Mar currently serves on the board of Palo Alto Community Child Care and is a technical advisor to the U.S. Soccer Federation.

Eric Hippeau

Eric Hippeau is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures, New York’s most active early-stage technology fund. Hippeau is also Chairman of RebelMouse and co-founder of NowThis News. Hippeau is the former Chief Executive Officer of The Huffington Post and a Special Partner at Softbank Capital, where he served as Managing Partner for many years. Prior to Softbank Capital, Hippeau was Chairman and CEO of Ziff-Davis, which was the largest media company serving the technology sector. Hippeau serves on the Board of various private and public companies, including Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Brian Hirsch

Brian is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Tribeca Venture Partners. Prior to starting Tribeca Venture Partners, Brian was a founder and Managing Director of the venture arm of Greenhill & Co (NYSE: GHL). Prior to Greenhill, Brian was a Principal at Sterling Partners and a Vice President at ABN AMRO Private Equity.

Brian has invested across a broad number of sectors during his career including fintech, edtech, mobile, healthcare, online marketing and media/publishing.

Brian currently has board and investment responsibilities for ACV Auctions, AiCure, AlphaSense, Cognical, CommonBond, Crowdtap, Lendio, Mighty, Opternative, ShopKeep and Truveris.

Brian serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Venture Capital Association (NYVCA) where he founded the Ingenuity Conference, one of NY’s largest annual venture events. Brian has a BA in economics and American studies from Brandeis University.

Maha Ibrahim

Maha has been involved in the venture capital and technology industries for over 15 years, developing a stellar reputation for supporting entrepreneurs through all phases of the start-up cycle. She also mentors women and girls in entrepreneurship.

With a focus on innovative cloud and digital media companies, Maha's current boards include Twenty20, the definitive community to showcase, discover, sell, and buy the best in mobile photography. Plus, she keeps current with couture as a board member for TheRealReal, the world's largest luxury marketplace, and Cuyana, an e-commerce brand that creates luxury apparel and accessory collections with materials sourced from around the world. She is also on the boards of UNIFI software which addresses data acquisition and integration, Komprise which creates a sustainable approach to data management, and Agile Stacks which offers certified stacks for containers, microservices, and DevOps.

Maha led Canaan's investments in Kabam (acquired by Netmarble), an innovator in the gaming industry; Metacloud (acquired by Cisco), provider of scalable proprietary cloud solutions; Virsto (acquired by VMware), the creator of the first virtual storage architecture; as well as XDN (acquired by Fortinet), a provider of a cloud-based management solution for disparate content delivery resources. She also orchestrated our investment in SenSage (acquired by KEYW Corporation), a provider of log management and security information management systems; Tacit Networks, a provider of WAN Optimization technology, (acquired by PKTR), and Mobilitec, a platform for mobile content services (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent).

Maha holds a B.A. in Economics, an M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.

Michael Jaconi

Michael Jaconi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Button, the leading platform powering contextual commerce among today’s leading brands. Jaconi formerly served as the CEO of Rakuten Loyalty and Executive Officer of parent company Rakuten. Michael helped build Rakuten Loyalty from a fledgling state to a multi-million dollar business in less than two years and led Rakuten’s $100M investment in Pinterest, helping secure Rakuten’s place as one of the most innovative and aggressive global internet companies. Prior to his tenure at Rakuten Loyalty, Jaconi co-founded two public affairs companies in Washington, D.C. and served in a variety of capacities within various political campaigns.

Derek Jeter

By the time he stepped away from baseball in 2014 after a historic 20-year career with the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter had established himself as one of the most respected men to ever have played the game. A five-time World Series champion and member of baseball’s exclusive 3,000-hit club, Jeter earned numerous accolades in recognition of both his on-field skill and his commitment to the community, including: World Series MVP (2000); 14-time MLB All-Star; 5-time Gold Glove Award; 5-time Silver Slugger Award; AL Rookie of the Year (1996); Roberto Clemente Award (2009); and Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Award (2009). His reputation is that of an unmatched leader both on and off the field; his name is synonymous with hard work, dedication and class.

In retirement, Jeter now focuses on a variety of successful business ventures and entrepreneurial investments. Most recently, he helped launch The Players’ Tribune, an innovative multimedia company where world-class athletes share their honest and unique perspectives, bringing fans closer to the games they love. In November 2013, Jeter and Simon & Schuster announced the Jeter Publishing imprint, which includes both adult and children’s books verticals. The first booked released, The Contract, debuted at #2 on The New York Times Children’s Middle Grade Best Seller list. In October 2014, a full-color photo book called Jeter Unfiltered was released, providing fans an in-depth look at his life through never-before-published images taken over the course of his final season. He also serves as Partner and Brand Development Officer of Luvo, a transformational lifestyle food brand where he is involved in product development, brand awareness and strategic partnerships.

Jeter continues to be the driving force behind the Turn 2 Foundation, which he established in 1996 to give back to the communities with which he has a close connection, including West Michigan, Tampa and New York City. He satisfies his passion for inspiring young people through initiatives – like the Jeter’s Leaders program – that promote academic excellence, leadership development, positive behavior, healthy choices and social change. During Derek’s baseball career, the Turn 2 Foundation has awarded more than $23 million in grants to create and support signature programs that motivate young people to turn away from drugs and alcohol and “Turn 2” healthy lifestyles.

Paul Judge

Paul Judge is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He is CEO and founder of Luma, the home WiFi company. In addition, he serves as Executive Chairman of Pindrop, a pioneer in voice fraud prevention and authentication, which he co-founded in 2011. Paul is also the Co-Founder of TechSquare Labs, an incubator, seed fund, and corporate innovation space in Atlanta, and the Co-Founding Chairman of Looklive and Monsieur. Formerly, Paul co-founded Purewire, a leading web security company, serving as CTO until its acquisition by Barracuda Networks in 2009 where he then served as Chief Research Officer through its IPO in 2013. Prior to this, Paul served as CTO on the founding team of CipherTrust, a leader in email security that was acquired by Secure Computing in 2006. He also worked briefly with IBM and NASA. Paul has received many awards including being named to Fortune's 2016 40 Under 40 list, MIT's Technology Review Magazine's “top 100 innovators under 35”, Black Enterprise’s “50 Most Powerful Players Under 40”, and InfoWorld's “Top 25 CTOs”. Paul is an inventor of approximately 30 patented and patent-pending computer security technologies and has spearheaded multiple research initiatives including founding the Internet Research Task Force’s Anti-Spam Research Group. He is a recognized authority on information security issues, having authored numerous papers that have been published in leading academic journals and presented at multiple industry and academic conferences. He is a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. Paul holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Morehouse College and received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Network Security from Georgia Tech.

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov is a business speaker, global human rights activist, author, and former world chess champion. A frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, he is the author of two books, How Life Imitates Chess and Winter Is Coming. He is a member of the executive advisory board of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics and a senior visiting fellow at the Oxford Martin School, focusing on human-machine decision-making. He lives in New York.

Karin Klein

Karin Klein leads east coast investing activities for Bloomberg Beta, an early-stage VC that invests in startups making work better, with a focus on machine intelligence. She was on the Techweek100, Silicon Alley 100, Crain’s Women to Watch in New York Tech, and New York Business Journal’s “Women of Influence.”

Karin currently serves on the board of directors for Paramount Group (NYSE: PGRE), Harvey Mudd College, TechCrunch's Crunchies, and L’Oreal’s Women in Digital. She also enjoys volunteering as a mentor with TechStars and the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Prior to launching Bloomberg Beta, she led new initiatives at Bloomberg and led Softbank’s venture fund team that reviewed all new investments. While at Softbank, Karin sourced and served on the board of Buddy Media prior to its acquisition by Salesforce. She first developed her passion for building businesses when she co-founded an educational training company for children.

Karin has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is a summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Annenberg School of Communications and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Sriram Krishnan

Sriram is a product leader who most recently headed up various revenue products at Snap.

Previously, he was a product lead at Facebook where he helped create and drive Facebook's Audience Network and grew it to a multi-billion business line. He headed up product on mobile re-engagement and app ads, a significant revenue driver for Facebook.

Before Facebook, Sriram headed up various cloud efforts at Microsoft and drove the creation of the Windows Azure platform.

He watches too much TV and collects more sneakers than is considered healthy.

Annie Lamont

Annie Lamont is a Managing Partner of Oak HC/FT where she focuses on growth equity and early-stage venture opportunities in healthcare information services and financial services technology.
Annie has been ranked as the top healthcare and fintech investor on the Forbes Midas List. Additionally, Annie has been recognized as the first ever recipient for Excellence in Healthcare Innovation by the National Venture Capital Association.

She currently serves on the Boards of Acculynk, Aspire Health, Benefitfocus (NASDAQ: BNFT), Candescent Health, Castlight Health (NYSE: CSLT), Freshbooks, Hometeam, Independent Living Systems, Poynt, Precision Medicine Group, Quartet Health, VillageMD and xG Health Solutions. Prior investments include athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), American Esoteric Laboratories (acquired by Sonic Healthcare Limited), Argus Information & Advisory Services (acquired by Verisk Analytics), CareMedic Systems (acquired by Ingenix), CLARiENT (acquired by GE Healthcare), Harbor Payments (acquired by American Express), Health Dialog (acquired by British United Provident Association), Odyssey Healthcare, Oak Tree/Oxford, NetSpend (acquired TSYS), PayFlex Systems (acquired by Aetna), PharMEDium Healthcare (acquired by CD&R), Point Carbon (acquired by Thomson Reuters), Psychiatric Solutions (acquired by Universal Health Services), TxVia (acquired by Google), United BioSource (acquired by Medco Health Solutions) and Vesta.

Annie also serves on the board of HCA Holdings and is a member of The Advisory Council for the Financial Solutions Lab (CFSI and JP Morgan Chase). She served on the Stanford University Board of Trustees, and on the Executive Board of the National Venture Capital Association.

Annie graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Political Science.

Fritz Lanman

Fritz Lanman is the CEO of ClassPass He previously served as an executive at Microsoft and is a serial entrepreneur, having started and grown three venture-backed companies, including Livestar, Verst and Doppler Labs. Fritz is also a seed investor, leading both the Seed and Series A round for ClassPass and whose portfolio includes Square, Pinterest, Wish, Teespring, Flexport, Formlabs and Flexe, among others. 

Spencer Lazar

Spencer Lazar is a partner at General Catalyst, a venture capital firm with offices in Boston, New York and Silicon Valley and approximately $3.75 billion in total capital raised. He is based in New York. His investment focus is on new service delivery models for both consumers and businesses, such as those at ClassPass, FundBox, Giphy, Lemonade and WayUp. He's particularly excited by entrepreneurs who use technology to democratize access to products and services that previously were available only to a few.

The companies that interest him most offer services that leverage network effects driven by a community, a marketplace, or data. When a product can get better with each incremental user, customers win, competition suffers, and outcomes can be massive.

Spencer started his venture career at Insight Venture Partners, where he sourced and managed growth stage investments in 3P Learning (ASX: 3PL), BeyondTrust (acquired by Veritas Capital), and GenArts. He also worked at Accel Partners in London where he gained broad international perspective, and sourced and worked with companies such as Birchbox, Bonobos, ForgeRock, Hailo, Lyst, Top10, and Qriously. After that, he built Spontaneously, an early iOS-based mobile calendar.

Spencer graduated from Harvard University with a degree in economics.

Eddie Lim

Eddie Lim is the founder and CEO of Point, a home equity platform. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital and Vikram Pandit, Point's first product enables investors to purchase equity stakes in owner-occupied homes and provides homeowners with an alternative to debt, i.e. no monthly payments. Before Point, Eddie was the co-founder of TrialPay (acquired by Visa), Yub (acquire by Coupons.com), Metails (acquired by Buy.com), and TXN (backed by Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst). Eddie holds an AB in Computer Science from Harvard University.

Josh Luber

Josh Luber is the co-founder and CEO of StockX, the world’s first “stock market of things”. StockX is an online marketplace, initially focused on sneakers, which connects buyers and sellers using the same method as the world’s stock markets – an anonymous, transparent and authentic ‘bid/ask’ market. Before StockX, Josh founded Campless while working as an IBM consultant. Campless, which evolved into StockX, was a “sneakerhead data” company that tracked the secondary market for sneaker sales, a $6 billion global industry. Josh, with StockX and Campless, has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, London Financial Times, ESPN and The Daily Show, among others. He delivered the world’s first TED Talk about the resell sneaker industry. Josh has collected sneakers for over 30 years. Prior to IBM, Josh founded and operated three startups after a brief stint as a bankruptcy attorney and earning his JD/MBA degree at Emory University in Atlanta.

Susan Lyne

Susan has had a long career in media, commerce and consumer products. She has held leadership positions at companies of all sizes and stages, from startups to public companies, often during periods of internal or external change.

She began her career in the magazine industry, where she founded and led Premiere Magazine. She spent almost a decade at Disney, rising to President of Entertainment at ABC. She was the CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; CEO and then Chair of Gilt.com; and she led AOL’s Brand Group, overseeing such brands as TechCrunch, Engadget and Moviefone, immediately before launching BBG Ventures.
She has four daughters, three sisters, and a wide circle of entrepreneur-advisees who give as much as they get. Her biggest wins have all come from listening to, building for and betting on women.

Caren Maio

Caren Maio is the CEO and Co-Founder of Nestio, one of the eleven companies in the first TechStars NYC class. Having become deeply acquainted with the nuances of apartment hunting, Caren and her co-founders created Nestio, the easiest way for landlords, brokers, and renters to manage and communicate information in real-time, all in one place. Prior to Nestio, Caren lent her business expertise to corporate sales positions at powerhouse brands Nike and The Wall Street Journal. Caren graduated from New York University with a dual-degree in Brand Building and Publishing. Caren is coming up on her 10th year living in Manhattan and currently renting her 750th apartment in this city. Okay, not really, but she’s moved a lot.

Carine Magescas

Carine Magescas is a french-born Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist.
In 2017 she was nominated "Angel Investor of the Year" at TechCrunch's 10th Annual Crunchies Awards.
To date Carine invested in over 150 Startups through AngelPad, a seed-VC and Accelerator she co-founded in 2010. AngelPad is consistently ranked Top U.S. Accelerator by MIT/Rice University Annual Accelerator Rankings Project.
Prior to AngelPad, Carine held executive roles in Engineering, Strategic Alliances and Marketing at pre-IPO startups, before founding an E-commerce Startup in 2003. Carine is also an accomplished Fine Art Photographer. Her work is represented by Art Galleries in the US and Europe and has been exhibited in New York, London & San Francisco.

John McPheters

John McPheters founded SM Ventures, Inc in 2012 with Jed Stiller. His focus is on e-commerce/tech development and growth strategies.

Jaymee Messler

Jaymee Messler serves as President of The Players’ Tribune (www.theplayerstribune.com), a first-of-its-kind digital media company dedicated to empowering athletes with the tools they need to tell their stories. In addition to firstperson essays, the platform features an array of video content, podcasts, and original photography. Messler co-founded The Players’ Tribune with Derek Jeter. She oversees the strategy and long-term vision of the business, industry relations, sales and marketing, and athlete relations. The site continues to break news with announcements and stories, and features a diverse collection of narratives with increasing impact and visibility. In two short years, TPT has cultivated an athlete community with more than 1300 contributors and has changed the sports media landscape by transforming how athletes share information. Prior to The Players’ Tribune, Messler was the CMO of Excel Sports Management, where she developed an industry-leading benchmark formula for player marketing that included client services, public relations, cause- related programs and community outreach, social media and digital programming, branded content and corporate partnerships. At Excel, she engineered partnerships and oversaw marketing for high-profile NBA and MLB clients including Paul Pierce, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Tyson Chandler, Deron Williams, Jason Kidd, and Kemba Walker. In 2011, when leading MLB agent Casey Close joined Excel, she added Jeter and Clayton Kershaw to her marketing responsibilities. Messler also branched out into golf, working with veteran golf agent Mark Steinberg when he joined the firm in 2011, on representing Tiger Woods, Matt Kuchar, Cheyenne Woods, Patrick Cantlay, and Justin Rose. She took the helm of all branding, corporate communications, and corporate relationships on behalf of the agency. She had the foresight about the emergence of digital into the marketing spend mix, and created Excel’s corporate digital strategy, website and social media presence, as well as oversaw the digital and social media strategies for the agency’s individual clients. This foresight has been the cornerstone for many initiatives that has brought millions to the athletes and great success to brand partners. In 2016, Messler was recognized on Variety’s New York Power of Women Impact List, AdWeek's 30 Most Powerful Woman in Sports, AdAdge's Women to Watch and was named a Top Woman in Digital by Cynopsis Media. She received a Media Award by NYU Tisch Institute and the NYU Sports Business Society and was also named a ‘Gamechanger’ in Sports Business Journal in 2015. Messler holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park and resides in New York City.

Raj Nair

Raj Nair is executive vice president, Product Development, and chief technical officer (CTO), effective Dec. 1, 2015. In this role, Nair has global responsibility for all aspects of the company’s design, engineering, research and product development. Since April 2012, he had been group vice president of Product Development and CTO.

Prior to 2012 as vice president of Engineering for Product Development, Nair oversaw all engineering for car, truck and SUV vehicles for the Ford and Lincoln brands, and was responsible for delivering on Ford’s commitment to offer more new products faster than ever before by leveraging greater sharing and reuse of platforms and components globally. He also helped lead the development and implementation of the Ford brand DNA.

Previously, Nair served for three years as vice president, Operations, Asia Pacific. In this position, he was responsible for Product Development, Manufacturing, Purchasing, Quality and Information Technology within the Asia Pacific region.

Nair has held a number of senior positions in Manufacturing, Product Development and Purchasing and, besides North America, Nair has also worked on assignments in Europe, South America and Asia Pacific. He previously was executive director, Commodity Business Planning, where he led a cross-functional team responsible for improving Ford’s material cost competitiveness. Prior to that, Nair was executive director, North American Product Development, responsible for the engineering and development for all truck and SUV programs including the Ford F-Series, Explorer and Expedition.

In 2000, Nair was appointed director, New Model Programs, Advanced & Manufacturing Engineering, Vehicle Operations. In this position, he was responsible for all Ford North American Vehicle Operations launches, oversaw the New Model Programs Development Center and helped reinstitute Ford’s Launch Quality Operating System.

Nair joined Ford Motor Company in 1987 as a Body and Assembly Operations launch engineer and held various positions on more than 11 vehicle programs in 13 assembly plants. On assignment to Europe, Nair was the Vehicle Operations launch manager for the 1996 European Fiesta. He then became responsible for all Ford of Europe launches including the Focus, Transit and Mondeo.
Born in 1964, Nair holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with an automotive specialty from Kettering University in Flint, Mich., and was named the recipient of the 2012 Kettering Alumni Award for Management Achievement. In 2014, he was named the Fortune Automotive Businessperson of the Year. In addition to his duties at Ford, Nair serves on the board of trustees of Kettering University.

Adam Neumann

Adam Neumann is the Co-founder and CEO of WeWork, which provides workspace, community, and services to more than 60,000 members in more than 30 cities around the world. Adam, along with co-founder Miguel McKelvey, started WeWork in 2010 in the Soho neighborhood of New York City with the intention of creating a workspace environment centred around the idea of community, and the belief that people will achieve more together than they could on their own. Adam and team want to grow WeWork everywhere to serve everyone, expanding globally and focusing on building technology that connects members around the world so they are empowered to do what they love.

Previously, Adam co-founded and ran Big Tent Inc., where he developed Egg Baby and Krawlers, well-known brands of children’s clothing.

Adam lives in New York City. He is the proud father of four children, Elle, Loulou, Isaiah, and Elijah, and loving husband to his wife, Rebekah.

Angelica Nwandu

Angelica Nwandu is the Founder/CEO of The Shade Room, an Instagram-based media company that primarily focuses on celebrity gossip. Nwandu has truly shaped and revolutionized the digital space, from being included on the Forbes “30 Under 30 List” in 2016 to being dubbed as “The TMZ of Instagram” by the New York Times. The site currently boasts over 8.5 million followers and pulls in an additional 100,000 every 10 days.

Natalia Oberti Noguera

Dubbed “The Coach” by Marie Claire, Natalia (aka Ms. Oberti Noguera) is Founder and CEO of Pipeline Angels, a network of women investors that’s changing the face of angel investing and creating capital for women social entrepreneurs. Natalia holds a BA in Comparative Literature & Economics from Yale. She has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Mashable, Newsweek, Reuters Money, TechCrunch, The New York Times, and Fast Company’s Co.Exist Change Generation series. Natalia was named to the Forbes list “Top 20 Women for Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter,” as well as Latina.com’s “25 Latinas Who Shine in Tech.” Women’s eNews recognized her as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century for 2012 and Fortune highlighted her as one of the “55 most influential women on Twitter.” You can find Natalia on Twitter (@nakisnakis).

Brittany Packnett

Brittany Packnett is an unapologetic educator, organizer, activist, writer, speaker, and national leader in social justice. Known as @MsPackyetti on social media, Brittany has become a sought after voice in the work of social change and empowerment.

A former teacher, policy expert, and non-profit executive director, has committed her life and career to justice. She currently plays many roles, all focused on freedom.

Full time, Brittany serves as Teach For America’s Vice President of National Community Alliances, where she leads partnerships with communities of color and with them, is crafting the organization’s first civil rights and equity agenda. Beyond Teach For America, Brittany was a Ferguson protestor and continues in activism as, among other things, co-founder of Campaign Zero, a policy platform to end police violence.

In 2015, at the height of national crisis, Brittany was appointed to the Ferguson Commission and President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Today, she continues to advocate for urgent systemic change at critical decision making tables and through national and international media.

From New Zealand to London, across the United States, and at the White House, Brittany has travelled extensively to impart insight on movement building, effective social impact, liberatory leadership, and empowerment for women and girls-especially those of color. Her popular TEDx talk, “It’s About Time to Value Women of Color in Leadership” exemplifies the personal and provocative storytelling she shares with audiences.

She has been named one of TIME Magazine’s 12 New Faces of Black Leadership, LinkedIn’s Next Wave, received the Peter Jennings Award for Civic Leadership and shares the number 3 spot on Politico’s 2016 50 Most Influential list.

Brittany is an alum of Washington University in St. Louis, American University in Washington, and is a current Aspen Institute Education fellow.

Ultimately, Brittany is a proud Black woman who believes that freedom is within our grasp- as long as we unleash love, and build our power, because “power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.” (MLK)

DJ Patil

DJ Patil is the Chief Data Scientist at White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previously, he worked as the VP of Product at [RelateIQ](/organization/relateiq) and [Greylock Partners](/organization/greylock) as Chief Data Scientist, [Color Labs](/organization/color-labs) as Chief Product Officer, [LinkedIn](/organization/linkedin) as Chief Scientist and Chief Security Officer, and [eBay](/organization/ebay) as their Director of Strategy, Analytics, and Product.

Prior to that he focused on National Security issues on Counter Terrorism and Bioweapons Proliferation Prevention. In the academic community he is best known for his work in numerical weather prediction.

Deven Parekh

Deven Parekh is a Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners and joined the firm in 2000. Deven manages investments in application software, data and consumer internet businesses globally. Notable previous companies in Deven’s portfolio have included Buddy Media (acquired by SalesForce, NASDAQ: CRM), Chegg (IPO), Football Fanatics (acquired by GSI Commerce, later acquired by eBay), Media Mind (IPO and subsequent sale to DG Fast Channel), Procuri (acquired by Ariba, NASDAQ: ARBA), ECI Solution (sold to Carlyle), Russian Trading System (merged with MICEX), Tumblr (acquired by Yahoo!), Hayneedle (sale to Jet.com), Syncsort (sale to Clearlake Capital), Alibaba (IPO), Twitter (IPO), JD.com (IPO), and Website Pros (IPO). Deven is a global investor, actively working with investments in China, Latin America, Europe and Russia.

Deven serves as Board Chair for eVestment, DrillingInfo, Turnitin, Campaign Monitor, Ministry Brands and Appriss. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Fanatics, Diligent, 1stdibs, Vela, Chrono24, LetGo, and Wallapop. He represents the firms interests in Despagar, Automattic (WordPress), Yext, SkyTap and Zenefits.

Deven was previously a Principal at Berenson Minella & Company, a New York based merchant banking firm where he served on the firm’s M&A Committee. Prior to Berenson Minella, Deven was with The Blackstone Group, where he was involved in both M&A advisory and principal activities.
Deven was selected in 2014 by AlwaysOn as a Venture Capital 100 winner for his investments in Twitter and Chegg. He was also selected to be on the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Forbes Midas list. In 2016 he was selected as a Top 100 Venture Capitalist by CB Insights. In 2010 Deven was part of a US delegation of several investors, government representatives, and technology companies that visited Russia to explore investment and technology collaboration opportunities between the United States and Russia. He is a Member of the Technical Advisory Council of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which assists the Commission with developing informed technology policies supporting America’s competitiveness and job creation in the global economy. During the period 2010–2012, Deven served as a Member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Export-Import Bank which is the official export credit agent of the United States. He was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2016 to be on the Overseas Private Investment Corporation Board. In 2006, Deven was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, which seeks to develop the next generation of community spirited leaders.
He is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Publicolor (which he chaired from 2007 – 2012), a New York City based non-profit organization that focuses on inner city schools. He is a Member of the Board of the Tisch New York MS Research Center. He is a member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee for the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Deven was a member of the Greater NY Partnership, which pairs business executives with non-profit executive directors. The Partnership is an initiative of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City. Deven is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Economic Club of New York. Deven received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Deven Parekh is a Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners and joined the firm in 2000. Deven manages investments in application software, data and consumer internet businesses globally. Notable previous companies in Deven’s portfolio have included Buddy Media (acquired by SalesForce, NASDAQ: CRM), Chegg (IPO), Football Fanatics (acquired by GSI Commerce, later acquired by eBay), Media Mind (IPO and subsequent sale to DG Fast Channel), Procuri (acquired by Ariba, NASDAQ: ARBA), ECI Solution (sold to Carlyle), Russian Trading System (merged with MICEX), Tumblr (acquired by Yahoo!), Hayneedle (sale to Jet.com), Syncsort (sale to Clearlake Capital), Alibaba (IPO), Twitter (IPO), JD.com (IPO), and Website Pros (IPO). Deven is a global investor, actively working with investments in China, Latin America, Europe and Russia.

Deven serves as Board Chair for eVestment, DrillingInfo, Turnitin, Campaign Monitor, Ministry Brands and Appriss. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Fanatics, Diligent, 1stdibs, Vela, Chrono24, LetGo, and Wallapop. He represents the firms interests in Despagar, Automattic (WordPress), Yext, SkyTap and Zenefits.

Deven was previously a Principal at Berenson Minella & Company, a New York based merchant banking firm where he served on the firm’s M&A Committee. Prior to Berenson Minella, Deven was with The Blackstone Group, where he was involved in both M&A advisory and principal activities.

Deven was selected in 2014 by AlwaysOn as a Venture Capital 100 winner for his investments in Twitter and Chegg. He was also selected to be on the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Forbes Midas list. In 2016 he was selected as a Top 100 Venture Capitalist by CB Insights. In 2010 Deven was part of a US delegation of several investors, government representatives, and technology companies that visited Russia to explore investment and technology collaboration opportunities between the United States and Russia. He is a Member of the Technical Advisory Council of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which assists the Commission with developing informed technology policies supporting America’s competitiveness and job creation in the global economy. During the period 2010–2012, Deven served as a Member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Export-Import Bank which is the official export credit agent of the United States. He was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2016 to be on the Overseas Private Investment Corporation Board. In 2006, Deven was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, which seeks to develop the next generation of community spirited leaders.

He is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Publicolor (which he chaired from 2007 – 2012), a New York City based non-profit organization that focuses on inner city schools. He is a Member of the Board of the Tisch New York MS Research Center. He is a member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee for the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Deven was a member of the Greater NY Partnership, which pairs business executives with non-profit executive directors. The Partnership is an initiative of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City. Deven is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Economic Club of New York. Deven received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Naval Ravikant

Naval Ravikant is the CEO and a co-founder of AngelList. He previously co-founded Epinions (which went public as part of Shopping.com) and Vast.com. He is an active Angel investor, and have invested in dozens of companies, including Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Stack Overflow and Wanelo.

Peter Rawlinson

Peter Rawlinson is the Chief Technology Officer and VP of Lucid. He leads the outstanding team developing Lucid’s premium electric vehicle. Peter has over 30 years of vehicle engineering experience and is best known for developing the Tesla Model S.

Formerly Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla and Chief Engineer of the Model S, Peter led the engineering of the Model S from clean-sheet to production readiness while simultaneously building a world class engineering team. Peter conceived of and implemented an innovative product development methodology enabling this process to occur in just three years. As a hands-on engineer, he also holds a significant proportion of the Model S vehicle patents.

Prior to Tesla, Peter was Head of Vehicle Engineering at Corus Automotive, Chief Engineer at Lotus Cars, and Principal Engineer at Jaguar Cars. In these roles, Peter developed key innovations for Alcoa, Aston Martin, BMW, Daimler, Ford, GM, Audi, Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lockheed Martin, and Prodrive.

Peter holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, University of London.

Mario Schlosser

Mario Schlosser is the CEO and co-founder of Oscar, a health-insurance start-up that is using technology, design, and data to help humanize and simplify healthcare. Previously, he co-founded the largest social gaming company in Latin America, where he led the company's analytics and game design practices.

At Bridgewater Associates, Mario developed analytical trading models as a Senior Investment Associate. Prior to Bridgewater, he worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company in Europe, the U.S. and Brazil. As a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Mario wrote and co-authored 10 computer science publications, including one of the most-cited computer science papers published in the past decade, in which he developed an algorithm to securely compute trust in randomized networks.

He holds a degree in computer science with highest distinction from the University of Hannover in Germany and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Daniel Schreiber

Daniel is a tech leader whose passion for innovation took him from startups to the Fortune 500 (and back again). As President of Powermat Daniel oversaw its transformation into an industry standard and a default feature in the world's foremost smartphones (Samsung Galaxy), venues (Starbucks) and cars (GM). Prior to Powermat, Daniel served as SVP Corporate Marketing at Sandisk, with global responsibility for the company’s social media, press relations, 50 web and ecommerce sites and major rebranding. During the iPod's heyday, Daniel served as SVP andGM of Sandisk's Audio-Video business unit, attaining #1 market share worldwide after Apple, and outselling all other brands combined. Daniel joined SanDisk via the $1.6B acquisition of msystems, where he served as VP Marketing and BD. He was co-founder and CEO of Alchemedia Inc., a content security software company, and began his career as a corporate-commercial attorney.

Today Daniel is CEO & cofounder of Lemonade, the insurance carrier built on AI and Behavioral Economics.

Fidji Simo

Fidji Simo leads Video, News and Advertising in News Feed at Facebook. Most recently, she launched Live video, 360 video, videos that autoplay in News Feed, and Instant Articles. She also helped grow Facebook's mobile ad business by building new ad formats - video ads, Canvas ads, carousel ads and lead ads. Fidji joined Facebook from eBay. There, she was part of the Strategy group and rotated through eBay’s main offices of France, Spain and the US, then joined eBay’s incubation team to develop new growth businesses. She holds a Master of Management from HEC Paris and spent the last year of her Master program at UCLA Anderson School of Business.

Ed Sim

Ed is founder of boldstart ventures, an enterprise seed fund and first check investor for infrastructure software and SaaS founders. He loves to work with engineering driven founders with a laser-sharp focus on product. Enduring themes and investment focus include Googlization of IT (enterprise move to cloud native), Smart Data (applied AI), and SaaS 3.0.

Over 20 yrs has seeded and helped scale a number of startups to exit including big data pioneer Greenplum (acq. by EMC, now Pivotal), LivePerson (Nasdaq: LPSN), GoToMeeting (acq. by Citrix), Divide (acq. by Google), GoInstant (acq. by Salesforce.com), Blaze.io (acq. by Akamai), Rapportive (acq. by LinkedIn), Gizmo5 (acq. Google Voice), 24/7 Media (Nasdaq: TFSM), and many others.

Ed is currently a board director/observer of Kustomer, Hypr, Snyk, BigID, and Manifold. Previously co-founded Dawntreader Ventures and active blogger since 2003 at beyondvc. Ed has a BA in Economics from Harvard and was a member of the varsity lacrosse team.

Shivani Siroya

Shivani Siroya is the founder and CEO of Tala, a mobile technology and data science company that is working to deliver financial access, choice and control to underserved people around the world. Tala’s smartphone app instantly evaluates customers for credit using only the data on their devices and delivers customized loans in minutes. Prior to founding Tala, Shivani held a variety of positions in global health, microfinance, and investment banking, including with the United Nations Population Fund, Health Net, Citigroup and UBS. Shivani is a 2016 Aspen Institute Finance Leader Fellow, 2016 WEF Young Global Leader, 2015 Senior TED Fellow and 2013 Ashoka Fellow. She is also on the board of Stellar.org. She holds a M.P.H from Columbia University and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Dug Song

Dug Song is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Duo Security, a cloud-based secure access provider protecting thousands of the world’s largest and fastest growing organizations.

Duo is one of the fastest growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in the world. Dug and co-founder and chief technology officer, Jon Oberheide, led the company to $73 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2016, the fourth straight year Duo has more than doubled its ARR.

Founded in 2010, Duo’s easy-to-use Trusted Access technology can be quickly deployed to protect users, data and applications from breaches, credential theft and account takeover.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company has 400 employees with offices in San Mateo, California; Austin, Texas and London. Duo is backed by Benchmark, Google Ventures, Radar Partners, Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures.

Dug is a renowned hacker and leading voice in the information security industry. He is often quoted on cybersecurity issues by international media, as well as onstage at industry events around the world.

Prior to launching Duo, Dug spent seven years as founding Chief Security Architect at Arbor Networks, protecting 80 percent of the world’s Internet service providers, and helping to grow the company to $120M+ annual revenue before its acquisition by Danaher. He also built the first commercial network anomaly detection system, acquired by Check Point Software Technologies.
Dug is an active member of a2newtech, Tech Brewery, a2skatepark and the Entrepreneurs' Foundation of Ann Arbor. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Michigan.

Dan Teran

Dan Teran is the CEO and co-founder of Managed by Q, the platform for office management. Founded in 2014 with a vision for building the operating system for the built world, Q now powers office operations for thousands of top companies nationwide, ranging from fast growing start ups to the Fortune 500. Managed by Q has been recognized as a standard bearer of good jobs in the on-demand economy. The hallmark of Q’s business is its commitment to creating good jobs, and using technology to not only increase efficiencies, but economically empower communities. Dan has spoken about this business strategy at MIT Sloan, NYU, and Parsons School of Design, and has been recognized by the White House, Department of Labor, and others as a leading voice in the national conversation around the future of work.Prior to co-founding Q, Dan was a Partner at venture development firm prehype, co-creating startups with the world’s finest corporations and entrepreneurs. Dan has a background in community organizing and progressive politics in Baltimore, and is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.

Mark Thompson

Mark Thompson became president and chief executive officer of The New York Times Company on November 12, 2012. He is responsible for leading the Company's strategy, operations and business units, and working closely with the chairman to direct the vision of the company.

Mr. Thompson has been instrumental in accelerating the pace of The Times’s digital transformation. Under his leadership, The Times became the first news organization in the world to pass the one million digital-only subscription mark. The company has also introduced a new era of international growth, launched an industry leading branded content studio and invested in virtual reality, producing some of the most celebrated work in this emerging medium.

Before joining the Times Company, Mr. Thompson served as Director-General of the BBC from 2004, where he reshaped the organization to meet the challenge of the digital age, ensuring that it remained a leading innovator with the launch of services such as the BBC iPlayer. He also oversaw a transformation of the BBC itself, driving productivity and efficiency through the introduction of new technologies and bold organizational redesign.

Mr. Thompson joined the BBC in 1979 as a production trainee. He helped launch Watchdog and Breakfast Time, was an output editor on Newsnight, and was appointed editor of the Nine O'Clock News in 1988 and of Panorama in 1990. He became controller (programming and scheduling chief) for the TV network BBC2 and Director of Television for the BBC before leaving the BBC in 2002 to become CEO of Channel 4 Television Corporation in the United Kingdom.

In the autumn of 2012, he was a visiting professor of Rhetoric and the Art of Public Persuasion at the University of Oxford. His book “Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?” which is based on the lectures he gave at Oxford, was published in the UK and US in September 2016.

Mark Thompson was educated at Stonyhurst College and Merton College, Oxford.

Matt Turck

Matt Turck is a partner at FirstMark and invests across a broad range of early stage enterprise and consumer startups.

Prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the investment and incubation arm of Bloomberg LP, which he helped start. Previously, Matt was the co-founder of TripleHop Technologies, a venture-backed enterprise search software startup that was acquired by Oracle.

Matt is passionate about building communities, and organizes two large monthly events: Data Driven NYC (which focuses on data-driven startups and Big Data) and Hardwired NYC (which focuses on the Internet of Things, 3D printing, and wearable computing).

Matt graduated from Sciences-Po Paris and holds a master of laws (LL.M.) from Yale Law School.

Yossi Vardi

One of Israel’s early entrepreneurs, Yossi Vardi co-founded, led, funded and helped build more than 80 high-tech, energy, natural resources, and clean-tech companies. Many of them went public, including Tekem, Alon Energy, Granite Hacarmel, answers.com, scopus, International Lasers Technologies, epals, tocows, brightcove, other were acquired : Gteko (by Microsoft), Tivella (by cisco,) Airlink (by sierra wireless), Foxytunes (by yahoo),starnet (by IAC),Gift project (by ebay).

As the founding investor ofMirabilis Ltd, -the creator of iCQ - Vardi co-pioneered instant messaging. ICQ was one of the internet’s earliest successes, later sold to AOL.
Vardi was chairman of the board of trustees of Jerusalem Foundation, serves on the board of trustees of the technion and served on those of Weitzman Institute. Hebrew university, open university .he was advisor to the World Bank, United Nations Development Program , CEO’s of Amazon, AOL, Siemens Albis, and Allied–signal. member of the World Economic Forum, and Co-chairman of the EU-Israel business dialogue.

Vardi had an extensive government and public career, hewas the director general of Ministry of Development and Ministry of Energy. was chairman of Israel National Oil Company, and Israel Chemicals. participated in the peace talks with Egypt, Palestinians, Jordan and Syria.

He received Honorary Doctorates from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and the Ben Gurion university , the Prime Minister Hi-Tech Award for life achievements (twice); Best Internet Personality by TechCrunch Europe; Entrepreneur of the Year by Tel Aviv University , Europe’s 25 top techs by Wall Street Journal; and one of the 200 Greatest Israelis of all times by Ynet. was elected by Israel 21c to the top 10 icons of Israeli high tech - the pioneers, by The Algemeiner for the "jewish 100 - the top 100 people positively influenced jewish life " and by wired magazine (uk) as number 9 of the wired 2014 top 100 influential people in Europe

Yossi Vardi sits on the advisory boards of 3i and Amdocs and has served on boards of numerous state and private corporations including Bezeq, Israel Electric, and the Bank of Israel.

Yossi has also been an Advisor to the CEOs of AOL, Amazon, and Allied Signal.

Yossi Vardi has received many awards, including the Prime Minister of Israel Hi-Tech Award for life achievements on two occasions, the Industry Prize, the Ramniceanu Prize and CEOs Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame.

Kevin Weil

Kevin Weil is the Head of Product at Instagram, overseeing consumer and monetization products. Prior to Instagram, Kevin was the SVP of Product at Twitter, overseeing product development and design across Twitter's consumer and ad products, as well as Vine and Periscope. Between 2010 and 2014, he led product development for Twitter's advertising platform, as well as the development of Fabric. Before joining Twitter in 2009, he was the first employee at web media startup Cooliris, working in user growth and analytics. He also worked worked at municipal wireless network provider Tropos Networks, Microsoft Research, and in a past life as a Physics Ph.D. Student, at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Kevin graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. In Mathematics and Physics, and holds an M.S. in physics from Stanford

Emily Weiss

Emily Weiss is the founder and CEO of Glossier, a digitally native beauty brand inspired by real life. Emily is heavily involved in product development, creative and brand marketing, ensuring that all products and content are created with the signature Glossier voice. After founding Glossier in 2014, the company now has over 60 employees in its New York City headquarters and over $34M in venture capital funding. The company has been recognized as a top beauty brand by Allure, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Nylon, Women’s Wear Daily and Cosmopolitan, and won Women Wear Daily Beauty Inc.'s 2015 Digital Innovator of the Year award and is one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2017. Emily has been included in Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2015 and AdWeek Top 20 Content Creators 2016. Emily lives in New York City.

Liz Wessel

Liz Wessel is the Co-Founder and CEO of WayUp, the leading marketplace for college students and recent grads to get hired. Founded in July 2014, WayUp is a venture-backed startup based in NYC, and was named by CNN as one of the 30 most innovative companies changing the world. WayUp's users represent over 5,300 campuses in the U.S., and WayUp has worked with companies of all sizes -- from startups to Fortune 500's like Google, Starbucks and Disney. Liz has been featured as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 and has been named one of the 18 Coolest Women in Silicon Valley. Prior to founding WayUp, Liz worked at Google as a Product Marketing Manager in California and then in India.

Pharrell Williams

Redefining cool for a new generation, Pharrell Williams is a creative force, using music, fashion and design to express his distinctive style. From his beginnings as a teenage prodigy and multi-instrumentalist in Virginia Beach back in the early '90s through enough hits to earn him Billboard's Producer of the Decade in 2010 to his current status as multi-media superstar, Williams has never stopped creating.

Starting his producing career as one half of The Neptunes with Chad Hugo, Williams has helped create such classics as Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," Nelly's "Hot in Herre," Jay-Z's "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)," Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U" and Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You."

With over 100 million copies of his productions sold, his music sounds like something no one else has thought of just yet. He's also created a new way of looking at established stars like Snoop Dogg, Madonna and even the Rolling Stones. Over four albums, Williams and Hugo along with Shae Haley created an unpredictable hybrid as part of the alt-rock/hip-hop group N.E.R.D.

The music industry has honored Pharrell with seven Grammy Awards (including 2004's and 2014's "Producer of the Year") and ASCAP's prestigious Golden Note Award in 2012. He also received a 2014 Academy Award nomination for his original song "Happy" featured in the animated film Despicable Me 2. "Happy" remained atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 10 consecutive weeks, peaked at No. 1 on iTunes in 103 markets worldwide and is the lead single off of his newest album G I R L. Pharrell's second solo album G I R L, was released on March 3, 2014 to rave reviews.

His prolific body of work also ranges from designing a sculpture with Tokyo-born artist Takashi Murakami to accessories and jewelry for luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton to T-shirts for Japanese mega-brand Uniqlo to adidas sportswear and to the forthcoming perfume collaboration with Comme des Garcons. Pharrell's work in the humanitarian field is an extension of his humble success. In 2008, he founded From One Hand To AnOTHER (FOHTA), a foundation focused on supporting the Pharrell Williams Resource Centers' learning programs for underserved youth in at-risk communities across the nation. This past March, Pharrell partnered with the United Nations Foundation to celebrate the International Day of Happiness inspiring individuals all over the globe to demonstrate their unique "happy."

Now, with his latest venture i am OTHER - a multi-media creative collective that serves as an umbrella for all his endeavors, including Billionaire Boys Club; ICECREAM apparel, textile company Bionic Yarn and a dedicated YouTube channel - Williams's vision continues to push pop culture forward. This fall, Pharrell continued to spread this vision and happiness, having recently completed a 23-date "Dear G I R L" tour across Europe. He can currently be seen as a coach on Season 8 of The Voice.

Ryan Williams

Ryan is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Cadre. Prior to founding Cadre, Williams worked at The Blackstone Group and Goldman Sachs, where he was involved in billions of dollars in transactions across multiple asset types. He also founded an institutional real estate fund to acquire, renovate and sell more than 300 single-family homes and 1,500 multi-family units throughout the U.S.

Ryan holds an A.B. from Harvard College, where he graduated with honors.

Joanne Wilson

Joanne Wilson has had many careers. She started out in retail, eventually moving to the wholesale arena. She then transitioned to the media side of the technology world, before once again reinventing herself as an investor. She is currently an active angel investor with a portfolio of over 90 companies such as Food52, Sweeten, Vengo, Nestio, Phin and Phebes, Makers Row, Clutter, and Union Station.
She has been involved in numerous real estate transactions from beginning to end and continues to make investments in that world. She is also an investor in a few restaurants in the New York area. In addition to these endeavors, Joanne has been involved in various education projects and served as chairperson at Hot Bread Kitchen, non-profit committed to increasing access to the culinary industry for woman and minority entrepreneurs. She also sits on the board of The Highline.

Joanne has maintained her very popular blog, www.gothamgal.com for over 11 years and has recently take her talents to the airwaves on her podcast, ""Positively Gotham Gal"". She loves to bake, cook, throw a good party, travel, read, collect art, do the crossword and stay on top of what's happening around the globe and in NYC.

Her most successful venture is being married to her best friend, Fred and raising their three kids- Jessica, Emily and Josh

Krishna Yeshwant

Dr. Krishna Yeshwant is a physician, programmer, and entrepreneur who has been working with Google Ventures since its inception. He first joined Google as part of the New Business Development Team.

Prior to Google he helped start an electronic data interchange company that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and a network security company that was acquired by Symantec (SYMC). He also co-authored the business plan for Diagnostics For All, which won both the Harvard Business School and MIT $100k business plan competitions.

Previously, Krishna published several book chapters and journal articles in the field of computer guided surgery, has completed research in tissue engineering, and has developed and licensed multiple surgical devices. He has worked with the technology transfer offices of MIT, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Krishna has a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University. He also earned an MD from Harvard Medical School, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and completed his residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA where he continues to practice.