Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based CEO’ operating in the Finance space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Craig Sproule
Founder & CEO of Crowd Machine
Craig Sproule is Director and President of Crowd Machine and the founder of Metavine. Craig has more than 30 years of experience working in the enterprise software industry. He has had senior roles—both in management and development—at leading software firms. He founded Metavine in 2013 and Crowd Machine in 2018. His extensive knowledge of Systems Integration is the basis on which he built the robust and prevalent compute platform focused on enterprise DX. Crowd Machine is his profoundly creative way of decentralizing application lifecycle and giving businesses fast, efficient, and comprehensive tools for integration.
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About Crowd Machine: Crowd Machine is a decentralized computational network that’s changing the blockchain apps market.
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Henry Ward
Founder & CEO of Carta
Henry Ward is the CEO and co-founder of Carta (formerly eShares), With a background in finance and technology. Prior to eShares, Henry was the Founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. Mr. Ward received a BGS in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Michigan and an MSC in Market Finance at EDHEC Business School.
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About Carta: Carta is a global ownership management platform that helps companies, investors, and employees manage equity and ownership.
Zachary Perret
CEO of Plaid
Zachary Perret is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Plaid.
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About Plaid: Plaid provides companies with the tools and access needed for the development of a digitally-enabled financial system.
Duke Chung
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of TravelBank
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About TravelBank: TravelBank is the modern all-in-one business travel and expense management platform.
Robert Leshner
Founder and CEO of Compound
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About Citywide Special, Compound, Robot Ventures, Safe Shepherd: Compound is an open-source interest rate protocol that unlocks new financial applications.
Sergey Nazarov
Co-Founder and CEO of SmartContract
Sergey Nazarov began his career building peer-to-peer marketplaces, going on to the investment team at FirstMark Capital. He joined the cryptocurrency revolution in 2011, and believes it has the ability to change the way societies distribute wealth, enforce contracts, and share critical information with their citizens.
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About Bring Me That, Chainlink, SmartContract: Smart Contracts verify an execute themselves by monitoring external data sources.
Ali Partovi
Founder & CEO of Neo
Ali Partovi heads Neo, a mentorship community and VC fund that brings together tech veterans to invest in the diverse leaders of tomorrow. Ali invests in people smarter than himself and has backed Airbnb, Dropbox, Facebook, & Uber. He co-founded Code.org (Hour of Code) to bring Computer Science to classrooms. Ali grew up in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, attended Harvard, and sold his first startup, LinkExchange, in 1998. He’s passionate about sustainable food and loves climbing, guitar, puzzles, and family.
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About Code.org, Neo: Neo is a mentorship community and VC fund that brings together a diverse group of tech veterans to accelerate tomorrow’s leaders.
Jack Dorsey
Co-Founder & CEO of Square
Jack Dorsey is the Co-Founder & CEO of Twitter Ventures
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About Cash App, Square, Twitter Ventures: Block is a merchant services aggregator and mobile payment company that aims to simplify commerce through technology.
John Chambers
CEO of JC2 Ventures
Chambers has served as a member of the Board of Directors since November 1993. He served as Chairman of the Board of Directors since November 2006. Chambers, who was appointed Executive Chairman in July 2015, served as Cisco’s Chief Executive Officer from January 1995 until July 2015, and he also served as President from January 1995 to November 2006. He joined Cisco as Senior Vice President in January 1991 and was promoted to Executive Vice President in June 1994, prior to assuming the roles of President and Chief Executive Officer in January 1995. Before joining Cisco, Chambers was employed by Wang Laboratories, Inc. for eight years, where, in his last role, he was the Senior Vice President of U.S. Operations. Chambers led Cisco for more than 20 years. During his tenure as Chief Executive Officer, Cisco’s annual revenue grew from $2.0 billion in fiscal 1995 to $49.2 billion in fiscal 2015. Chambers brings to the Board of Directors his thorough knowledge of Cisco’s business, strategy, people, operations, competition and financial position. Chambers provides recognized executive leadership and vision. In addition, he brings with him a global network of customer, industry and government relationships.
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About JC2 Ventures: JC2 Ventures is a venture firm that helps global startups scale, grow, and create inclusive jobs for the digital future.
Jim Breyer
Founder & CEO of Breyer Capital
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About Accel, Accel-KKR, Breyer Capital, IDG Capital: Breyer Capital is a global venture capital and private equity investor that focuses on catalyzing high-impact entrepreneurs.
Chamath Palihapitiya
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Social Capital
Chamath Palihapitiya is the Founder and Managing Partner of The Social+Capital Partnership – a venture capital fund based in Palo Alto, CA that incubates and invests in breakthrough companies in healthcare, education, financial services, mobile and enterprise software. Preceding his focus as an investor, Chamath was the longest tenured member of Facebook’s senior executive team and helped drive its ascension to one of the most important companies in the world. Prior to Facebook, Chamath had leading roles at The Mayfield Fund, and Winamp. In addition to his focus at the fund, Chamath is Owner and Director of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. Chamath was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Canada, and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.
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About Athos, better., Embarcadero Ventures, FWD.us, Golden State Warriors, LotusFlare, Remote Health, Social Capital, Social Capital Hedosophia, Vidado, Xtreme Labs: Social Capital is a venture capital investment firm that partners with entrepreneurs at all stages.
Jay Shah
Chief Executive Officer of Personal Capital
Jay Shah, as founding executive member and current CEO of Personal Capital, shaped the pioneering digital wealth management company into what it is today.With more than 20 years of experience scaling businesses with technology and data, he has grown Personal Capital from a Silicon Valley startup to a tech-enabled advisory business managing more than $7 billion in assets. Prior to joining Personal Capital, Jay served as CIO of E-LOAN, Inc., a multi-billion dollar consumer lending platform, where he facilitated the company’s acquisition by Banco Popular and led the build-out of the consumer-direct banking platform. Earlier in his career, he served as CTO and CIO at Myers Internet, a B2B SaaS enterprise platform for mortgage and real estate companies, and as Director of Technology, National Risk Management Services at PwC, where he created a strategic software practice for the firm’s emerging consulting businesses. Shah currently serves as a director on the board of Personal Capital Corporation, and was Chairman of the Technical Advisory Board at Ellie Mae from 2014 to 2018. Shah earned his B.A. in Business Economics from UC Santa Barbara with a concentration in accounting.
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About Personal Capital: Personal Capital combines online financial tools with registered financial advisor expertise to enable people and grow their net worth.
Garrett Camp
Founder and CEO of Expa
Garrett Camp is the Founder of Aero.
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About Aero, Eco, Expa, Operator, Uber, Uber Eats, Uber India: Expa supports early-stage startups through expertise, access, and funding.
Tim Chen
Founder and CEO of NerdWallet
Tim Chen is the founder and CEO of NerdWallet. A former hedge fund equity analyst specializing in payment processing companies, credit card networks, and technology companies, Tim also worked as an equity research analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in economics. In addition to writing for NerdWallet, Tim regularly contributes to several major personal finance publications.
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About NerdWallet: NerdWallet develops a financial platform to help people find the right credit cards and mortgage rates.
David Krane
CEO & Managing Partner of GV
David is the CEO & Managing Partner at GV and oversees the fund’s global activities. He invests in a wide range of technology companies including Uber, Nest, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Urban Engines. David’s Google career began more than 17 years ago, as director of Global Communications and Public Affairs. In this role, David oversaw the company’s strategic communications programs worldwide, and worked as a member of the senior leadership team to grow Google from a small startup to a multi-billion dollar global enterprise. David’s prior professional experience spanned both startup and public companies, including Apple Computer, QUALCOMM, Four11 (now Yahoo! Mail), and two computer security software developers. David is also on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM), a member of Young President’s Organization (YPO), a trustee of San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum of Art, and a Menlo/Atherton Little League baseball coach. David received his Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Indiana University Bloomington. As a proud Hoosier alumnus, he serves on the Dean’s advisory board for the IU School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. David resides in the Bay Area with his wife, three children, and their labradoodle.
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About Google, GV: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Kenneth Lin
Founder and CEO of Credit Karma
Kenneth started Credit Karma in 2007 to offer free credit scores and bring transparency and simplicity to the credit industry – an industry that was built around and had long prioritized banks above consumers. He has guided the company from a small team of three to a team of several hundred employees who are disrupting consumer finance, serving millions of people. Kenneth spent his early career working with mission-driven businesses like Upromise and Eloan, and he was inspired to build Credit Karma – a platform where consumers can manage their full financial lives with more certainty, supported by a unique business model that creates genuine, organic value by reducing marketing inefficiency for banks and empowering consumers with information. Like LinkedIn has done for professional identity and Facebook for social lives, Kenneth’s vision is that one day Credit Karma can create a simple way for Americans to manage their financial identities. Kenneth also founded Multilytics Marketing in 2006 and has a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Boston University.
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About Credit Karma: Credit Karma offers a range of tools and personalized recommendations designed to help customers make the most of their money.
Denis Barrier
Co-founder and CEO of Cathay Innovation
Denis is co-founder and CEO of Cathay Innovation. He is also a Managing Partner of Cathay Capital Private Equity. Prior to Cathay, he was at Iris Capital where he managed the international activities of the Orange/Publicis fund. He has also been the Head of Corporate Venture at Orange Telecom, and a Managing Director at Innovacom. He has also worked as an Officer at the French Treasury Department, in charge of all the Sovereign holdings in Aerospace, Defense, and Media companies. Denis has a deep technical background and started as a Researcher in the laboratories of Orange Telecom, working mainly on semiconductor quantum dots. He holds a Ph.D. in solid state Physics, is a graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure, and is an engineer of Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications. He has also been a Member of the French Council for Entrepreneurship and of Corps des Mines.
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About Cathay Innovation: Cathay Innovation is a global multi-stage venture capital firm investing in startups impacting the world.
Michael Jones
Co-Founder, CEO & Managing Director of Science
Mike Jones is an internet executive, investor, and strategic advisor. A long-time entrepreneur, Mike founded his first successful company in college and since then has founded, built, and sold numerous online and mobile businesses. As the co-founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Science, Inc., Mike brings together the best talent, resources, and financing through a centralized platform to build and invest in technology businesses. In 2016 alone, three of Science’s portfolio companies saw big exits — HelloSociety was acquired by The New York Times, Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Unilever, and FameBit was acquired by Google. His experience and expertise in both large and small companies focuses on strategy, growth, and operational efficiency, resulting in over $2.6B in successful investor outcomes. Prior to Science, Mike Jones served as the CEO of Myspace. In this role, Mike oversaw global business strategy and operations for Myspace, Myspace Music, and Myspace Mobile, which included board and strategic roles with joint venture partners in Myspace China and Myspace Japan / Softbank. During his tenure, he was responsible for the relaunch of Myspace, one of the most high-profile turn-around challenges in the industry
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About Science: Science partners with founders to develop and fund disruptive tech-based companies.
Jilliene Helman
CEO of RealtyMogul
Jilliene Helman is the CEO and Founder of RealtyMogul.com. She is a Certified Wealth Strategist and holds Series 7, 24 and 63 investment licenses. Previously, Jilliene was a Vice President at Union Bank, a subsidiary of one of the largest financial institutions in the world, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ. After exposure to corporate finance, marketing, and strategy, the majority of Jilliene’s time with Union Bank was spent working in Wealth Markets as the Sales Development Manager for The Private Bank. Jilliene led a team of Sales Development Specialists and coordinated sales efforts between the broker-dealer, registered investment advisor, lenders, trust advisors, and wealth planners and worked on investment accounts up to $300 million. Jilliene has underwritten over $5 billion of real estate ranging from retail, multifamily, office, residential, mobile home parks, and self-storage. She holds a degree in Business Administration from Georgetown University. She has been featured in countless publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur, NYT, and Bloomberg, and is a frequent speaker on the subjects of crowdfunding, real estate finance, and entrepreneurship.
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About RealtyMogul: RealtyMogul is a marketplace for real estate investing, connecting borrowers, and sponsors to individual and institutional investors.
Michael Cagney
Co-Founder & CEO of Figure
As the CEO, Chairman and co-founder of SoFi, Mike Cagney leads corporate strategy and development at SoFi—bringing decades of experience in the financial industry to his leadership of the company. He’s held a Senior Vice President role at Wells Fargo, where he was head trader for the proprietary trading and financial products group. Mike is also co-founder and a managing member of Cabezon Investment Group, a global macro hedge fund, in addition to serving as a non-executive Chairman of ReFlow. Before Cabezon, Mike founded, was CEO and then Vice Chairman and Chief Architect, of Finaplex, a leader in wealth management software that was sold to Broadridge (NYSE: BR). While overseeing SoFi’s overall direction, Mike makes a daily point to interact with SoFi’s member base, now more than 260,000 members. In addition to reading and responding to member feedback, he hosts SoFi member dinners at his San Francisco home to better know our customers and understand their financial goals. Mike holds an M.S., Management degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Sloan Fellow. He also holds a MS in applied economics from UC Santa Cruz.
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About Figure, Provenance Blockchain: Figure is a financial services company leveraging blockchain technology.
Fujimoto Shigeo
CEO of Synapse
Fujimoto Shigeo is the CEO at Synapse.
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About Synapse: Synapse is a banking platform that enables companies to provide financial products to their customers.
Nino Marakovic
CEO & Partner of Sapphire
Nino Marakovic serves as an CEO & Partner at Sapphire Ventures.
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About Sapphire: Sapphire is a venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies.
Ken Moelis
Chairman & CEO of Moelis & Company
Ken Moelis is Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Moelis & Company, a global independent investment bank that provides innovative strategic advice and solutions to a diverse client base, including corporations, governments and financial sponsors. Mr. Moelis has over 30 years of investment banking experience. Prior to founding Moelis & Company, he worked at UBS from 2001 to 2007, where he was most recently President of UBS Investment Bank and previously Joint Global Head of Investment Banking. Before joining UBS, Mr. Moelis was Head of Corporate Finance at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, where he worked from 1990 through 2000. Mr. Moelis serves on the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees, the Wharton Board of Overseers, the Board of the Tourette Syndrome Association, and the Board of Governors of Cedars Sinai Hospital. He holds an undergraduate degree and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Moelis & Company, Moelis & Company: Moelis & Company is an investment bank that provides innovative strategic advice and solutions to a diverse client base.
Peter Y. Chung
CEO and Managing Director of Summit Partners
Peter Y. Chung joined Summit Partners in 1994. Prior to Summit, he worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions department of Goldman, Sachs & Co. Based in Summit’s Menlo Park office, Peter is active in the firm’s investment activities in North America, Europe and Asia. During his 19 years with Summit Partners, Peter has invested in more than 25 companies including 13 currently or formerly publicly-traded companies. His prior board seats and investment experience include E-TEK Dynamics (NASDAQ: ETEK, later merged with JDS Uniphase in a transaction valued at over $18 billion), AltoCom (acquired by Broadcom), Card Capture Services (acquired by E*Trade), Ditech Networks (NASDAQ: DITC, later acquired by Nuance Communications), Finisar (NASDAQ: FNSR), GoldenGate Software (acquired by Oracle Corporation), iPayment (NASDAQ: IPMT), NightHawk Radiology Holdings (NASDAQ: NHWK, later acquired by Virtual Radiologic), SeaBright Insurance Holdings (NYSE: SBX, later acquired by Enstar Group Limited), Sirenza Microdevices (NASDAQ: SMDI, later acquired by RF Micro Devices), Splash Technology Holdings (NASDAQ: SPLH, later acquired by Electronics for Imaging) and Winshuttle Holdings. He is currently a director of Acacia Communications, Empower RF Systems, M/A-COM Technology Solutions Holdings (NASDAQ: MTSI), Trident University International, Ubiquiti Networks (NASDAQ: UBNT) and WebAction. Peter holds an AB in economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University. He is currently a trustee of the California Academy of Sciences and a director of the Asian Pacific Fund. In addition, he serves on the Advisory Boards of the Friends of Harvard Football and the Salvation Army’s Golden State Division.
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About Asian Pacific Fund, California Academy of Sciences, Summit Partners: Summit Partners is an investment firm that is currently investing in to growth equity, fixed income, and public equity opportunities.
Scott Beiser
CEO of Houlihan Lokey
Mr. Beiser is Houlihan Lokey’s Chief Executive Officer and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors. His responsibilities include managing Houlihan Lokey’s operations, identifying and developing new strategic opportunities, and pursuing and managing new and existing client relationships. Mr. Beiser previously led Houlihan Lokey’s Infrastructure Services and Materials practice and has specialized expertise in investment banking services for engineering and construction businesses, including ownership and management transition programs, corporate acquisitions, divestitures, leveraged recapitalizations, and ESOP transactions. Mr. Beiser serves on the Board of Directors of FNF Construction and is an advisor to several boards and executives in the engineering and construction industry. Before joining Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Beiser was a Senior Financial Analyst at Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Co., where he supervised the budget and forecasting department. Mr. Beiser earned both a B.S. and an M.S. in Finance from the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Northridge.
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About Houlihan Lokey: Houlihan Lokey is a global investment bank that focuses on capital markets, financial restructuring, valuation, and strategic consulting.
Prasad Ramani
Founder & CEO of Syntoniq
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About London Business School, Pascal WealthTech, Syntoniq: Behavioral Economics in Action
Andy Yang
CEO of Indiegogo
Andy is a experienced tech executive with a passion for community, products, and learning.
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About Indiegogo: Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform empowering people around the world to fund projects that matter to them.
Richie Serna
Chief Executive Officer of Finix Payments
Richie Serna serves as the CEO and co-founder at Finix.
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About Finix Payments: Finix Payments is a fintech company that develops a payment processing platform for businesses.
Al Burgio
Founder & CEO of Zytara
As founder and CEO of Zytara, Al Burgio leads the development and strategic direction of the company. Al also founded Console Connect in 2011, the pioneer of software-defined interconnection. He has been a serial entrepreneur for over 20 years with diverse experience across various industries including the financial industry and multiple areas of technology. During his time with Console as CEO, he raised in excess of $60 Million in capital from leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms, secured multiple Fortune 500 companies as customers, expanded the company’s platform into over 20 countries and was a recognized innovator with patents granted in the areas of Internet Architecture and Routing. In 2017, Console was acquired by PCCW and the platform continues to win awards globally. Al re-entered the financial technology industry in 2017 by initially founding DigitalBits, an open-source blockchain project and protocol with a primary focus on supporting branded currencies, inclusive of the emerging category of branded stablecoins. Al has been an active public speaker on an array of topics including Internet architecture and financial technology, having also been interviewed by Larry King discussing the mass adoption of blockchain technology. Al is also a member of the board of directors of Innovate Niagara, a non-profit innovation center helping entrepreneurs with leading-edge ideas to start, grow and succeed.
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About DigitalBits Project, Zytara: Zytara is a financial technology company focused on supporting Millennial and Gen Z gamers and esports enthusiasts.
CJ MacDonald
Founder & CEO of Step
CJ is a serial entrepreneur and has over 15 years experience launching early stage startups across multiple industries. He has demonstrated an exceptional ability throughout his career to bring innovative products to market, attract large clients and deliver rapid sales expansion in emerging technology verticals. Currently CJ is the Founder and CEO Step, a next generation banking platform. Prior to Step, CJ was the co-founder of Gyft (Acquired by First Data), led Sales and Business Development initiatives at Luminate (Acquired by Yahoo) and was an early executive at Liveops. CJ is a graduate from Wesleyan University and lives in the Bay Area.
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About Step: Step is a financial services company that builds mobile-based banking for teenagers.
Will Kim
Co-founder & Co-CEO of Karat Financial
Will Kim is a co-founder and co-CEO at Karat.
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About Karat Financial: Karat Financial offers business credit cards tailored to the needs of digital creators and influencers.
Alfred Kelly
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Visa
Alfred F. Kelly, Jr. was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the 2014 NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Company, the entity created to raise funds for and host Super Bowl XLVIII, from April 2011 to August 2014. Previously, Alfred Kelly held senior positions at the American Express Company, a global financial services company, for 23 years, including serving as President from July 2007 to April 2010, Group President, Consumer, Small Business and Merchant Services from June 2005 to July 2007, and Group President, U.S. Consumer and Small Business Services from June 2000 to June 2005. Prior to joining American Express, Alfred Kelly was the head of information systems at the White House from 1985 to 1987. Mr. Kelly also held various positions in information systems and financial planning at PepsiCo Inc. from 1981 to 1985. Alfred Kelly currently serves on the board of directors of MetLife Inc, and previously was a director of Affinion Group.
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About NY / NJ Super Bowl, Visa: Visa is a multinational financial services company that facilitates electronic payment systems throughout the world.
Alec Miloslavsky
founder and CEO of EIS Group
Alec Miloslavsky is the founder and CEO of EIS Group.
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About EIS Group: EIS Group is focused on providing IT solutions that enable companies to convert their technology into strategic assets.
Kristy Kim
Founder & CEO of TomoCredit
Kristy Kim serves as the CEO and co-founder of TomoCredit.
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About DearMissJ, TomoCredit: TomoCredit helps millennials get the credit cards they deserve by analyzing alternative data sets.
Jai An
CEO & Co-Founder of TrustToken
Jai is the CEO and co-founder of TrustToken
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About TrustToken: TrustToken is a platform to create asset-backed tokens that can be used for buying and selling around the world.
Eric White
Chief Executive Officer of Dividend Finance
Seasoned distributed energy resources / energy transition and fintech entrepreneur with a passion for conceptualizing and designing innovative financial structures, products and business strategies that breakdown capital barriers and empower underserved markets.
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About Dividend Finance: Dividend Finance is a Technology-enabled finance platform supporting the energy transition with lending and other financial solutions.
James H. Herbert
Chairman and CEO of First Republic Bank
Herbert founded First Republic Bank as CEO in 1985. Previously, he was the Founder, President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of San Francisco Bancorp from 1980-1985. Mr. Herbert currently serves as the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Twelfth District member for the Federal Advisory Council and holds board/trustee positions with Babson College; the San Francisco Ballet Association (Chair and Co-Chair, 2002-2008); Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York; and The BASIC Fund. B.S., 1966, Babson College; M.B.A., 1969, New York University; Harvard Business School CEO Presidents’ Seminar Graduate.
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About First Republic Bank: First Republic offers banking for individuals and businesses, wealth management and more with a focus on tailored services and solutions.
Anderson Sumarli
Co-Founder and CEO of Ajaib
Anderson Sumarli is the Co-Founder and CEO at Ajaib.
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About Ajaib: Ajaib is an investing platform that allows Indonesians to buy and sell stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds.
John Keatley
CEO, Co-Founder of Scratchpay
John Keatley is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Scratchpay.
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About Pasadena Angels, Scratchpay: Scratchpay is a patient financing solution for veterinary care.
Alex Mittal
Co-Founder & CEO of FundersClub
Co-Founder and CEO at FundersClub. He is also the Co-Founder of Crederity Info Services.
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About Crederity Info Services, FundersClub: FundersClub is an online venture capital firm that focuses on Seed and early stage investments.
Chris Farmer
Partner, Venture & CEO of SignalFire
Chris is the Founder & CEO of SignalFire, an early stage venture capital fund. He focuses on investments in consumer Internet, software and mobile with particular emphasis on seed stage investments and working with Entrepreneurs-In-Residence to launch new businesses. Previously, Chris was a Partner with General Catalyst Partners where he led the firm’s successful seed investment activities and served as a Venture Partner on the firm’s main fund. Previously, Chris was a Vice President with Bessemer Venture Partners where he led investments in digital media & mobile companies. Prior to BVP, he was a consultant with Bain & Co where he advised on large scale technology buyouts. Prior to Bain, Chris spearheaded the successful turnaround of Skybitz, a wireless enabled SaaS company, where he led Product Management, Finance & Business Development. Earlier in his career, Chris founded an investment advisory firm for angel investors & private equity funds and served as a Venture Advisor to an early stage venture capital fund where he led investments in SkyBitz and Applied Semantics (acquired by Google). He started his career on Wall Street in the private equity group of Cowen & Company. Chris received a BA in International Relations & Business from Tufts University & the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. He has been published in Harvard Business Review, Institutional Investor, The Journal of Private Equity and other leading publications.
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About SignalFire: SignalFire is a venture capital firm that invests in seed stage companies and breakout companies.
Isaac Silverman
CEO & Founder of Daydream
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About Daydream: Democratizing the financial model. Stealth.
Adam Zbar
CEO of HamsaPay
Adam Zbar works as a Chief Executive Officer at HamsaPay from June 2020.
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About HamsaPay, SunBasket: HamsaPay is the world’s first Smart, X-Border Trade DeFi Network
Shola Akinlade
Co-Founder and CEO of Paystack
Shola Akinlade is the Co-founder and CEO at Paystack.
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About Paystack: Paystack lets businesses accept payments via credit card, debit card, money transfer and mobile money on their websites or mobile apps.
Gen Isayama
Co-Founder & CEO of World Innovation Lab
Gen Isayama is the Co-Founder and CEO of WiL LLC. He was a Member of the Board of Directors of Stepdays and Ghelia before that.
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About Intertrust, World Innovation Lab: World Innovation Lab is a venture capital from governments and global corporations.
James T. Morris
Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Life
Mr. Morris is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Pacific Life Insurance Company, and its parent companies Pacific Mutual Holding Company and Pacific LifeCorp. He is only the 14th chief executive officer in the company’s 145-year history. Mr. Morris was a summer actuarial student from 1981 to 1982 with Transamerica Occidental prior to joining Pacific Life in 1982 as assistant actuary, Special Marketing. He progressed through a series of management positions within the Life Insurance Division and was elected senior vice president, M-Operations in 1996. He was responsible for business relations with M Financial Group, a leading life insurance producer group that designs and markets individual life insurance products to the upscale market in collaboration with Pacific Life. In 2002, he was promoted to executive vice president, heading up the Life Insurance Division of Pacific Life. In April 2005, Mr. Morris was promoted to executive vice president and chief insurance officer. His role was expanded to include the Annuities & Mutual Funds Division and Pacific Select Group, in addition to the Life Insurance Division. Mr. Morris was promoted to chief operating officer in January 2006. On April 2, 2007, Mr. Morris became Pacific Life’s president and chief executive officer.
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About Pacific Life: Pacific Life Insurance is an American insurance company that provides life insurance products, annuities, and mutual funds.
David Howell
Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Life
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About Pacific Life: Pacific Life Insurance is an American insurance company that provides life insurance products, annuities, and mutual funds.
Hans Swildens
CEO & Founder of Industry Ventures
Hans founded and manages Industry Ventures. The firm manages over $1B and is a leading secondary and fund of funds investor in the venture capital market.
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About Industry Ventures: Industry Ventures is an investment firm that makes venture capital investments and manages over $3.5 billion of institutional capital.
Anu Shultes
CEO of LendUp
Anu is a consumer-focused payments leader with a passion for bringing innovative financial products to market. She has spent over 20 years in financial services industry, building products, bringing them to the masses through omni channel marketing,and growing businesses to scale. Anu loves building high performing teams and really cool products.
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About LendUp, Swych: LendUp is a socially responsible lender for the 56% of Americans shut out of mainstream banking due to low credit or volatile income.
Aleksandar Cabrilo
CEO of HTEC Group
Aleksandar is an entrepreneur by passion. He is the founder and CEO of HTEC Group, a consulting and technology R&D services company, founded in Serbia and grown internationally, headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Serbia, Scandinavia, and the UK, servicing its clients and partners globally in various verticals. Aleksandar has a special interest in business digitalization, corporate innovation, and venture acceleration and in HTEC he makes sure that technology excellence of its engineering teams meets relevant industry domain expertise to create the disrupting digital products that support innovative business models. Aleksandar is also a partner, advisor or investor with several technology startups.
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About HTEC Group: HTEC Group is a consulting, product development and digital platform engineering company.
Brad Gerstner
Founder & CEO of Altimeter Capital
A securities lawyer, Brad Gerstner graduated from HBS in 2000 and joined General Catalyst. He left GC and became co-CEO of NLG, an early online travel start-up purchased in part by IAC.He co-founded Openlist.com, a local search start up that was self-funded and sold to Marchex (Nasdaq: MCHX);He was a partner at PAR Capital, a multi-billion hedge fund in Boston before launching his own fund – Altimeter Capital – on November 1, 2008.He is on the board of Orbitz, (Nasdaq: OWW) and is an angel investor in private deals including Farecast (sold to Microsoft), Zillow, Real Self, Nor 1, and Silver Rail Technologies. He is also incubating a new start up in the hotel search space called Room 77.
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About Altimeter Capital: Altimeter is a technology-focused investment firm managing a public equity fund and growth-stage private equity funds.
Guy Goldstein
CEO and Co-Founder of Next Insurance
Guy Goldstein is the founder and CEO of Next Insurance. He was the founder and chief executive officer of Pageonce, and member of the company’s Board of Directors, brings nearly two decades of management, strategy and product development experience to his role as CEO. Since founding Pageonce in 2007, Guy has raised $10 million in venture capital funding and grown its membership from zero to more than four million. He has a proven track record in corporate development, mergers and acquisitions and as research and development leader. At Hewlett-Packard, Guy led inorganic growth expansion acquisitions to develop HP’s Business Intelligence strategy. During his seven year tenure at Mercury Interactive (later acquired by Hewlett-Packard) Guy helped establish the company-wide inorganic growth roadmap and strategic planning process, resulting in three acquisitions and $200 million in revenue. He was a key member of the executive team that developed the business plan for Mercury Interactive’s $5 billion acquisition by Hewlett-Packard. As Senior Director of Mercury Interactive’s R&D division, Guy managed an international team of engineers and QA that built products generating $350 million in sales. Early in his life Guy was handpicked for an elite group of candidates to train for the Israeli Air Force based on his record-level test scores and technical aptitude. He excelled and rose to the top military rank of major and fighter pilot in one of world’s most respected air force programs. Ever the prolific innovator, he holds two patents. Guy graduated cum laude from Tel-Aviv University with a bachelor’s degree in Business and Computer Science.
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About Mint Bills, Next Insurance: Next Insurance is an online-based insurance company for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Tim Armour
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Capital Group
Timothy D. Armour is chairman of Capital Group Companies, chairman and principal executive officer of Capital Research and Management Company, Inc., part of Capital Group, and chairman of the Capital Group Companies Management Committee. He is also an equity portfolio manager. Tim has 32 years of investment experience, all with Capital Group. Earlier in his career, as an equity investment analyst at Capital, he covered global telecommunications and U.S. service companies. Tim began his career at Capital as a participant in The Associates Program. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Middlebury College. Tim is based in Los Angeles.
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About Capital Group: Founded in 1931, Capital Group provides investment management services for long-term investors and is a private equity firm.
Tom Villante
Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder of YapStone
Tom co-founded YapStone, Inc. in 1999 and serves as its Chairman of the Board. Villante served as the Chief Executive Officer of YapStone, Inc. He served as a Partner of The Seidler Company (“TSC”), a leveraged buyout firm in Los Angeles.
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About YapStone: YapStone is a global provider of online and mobile payment solutions for global marketplaces and large vertical markets.
Phillip Peikos
Chairman and CEO of APEX Capital
Phillip Peikos is the Chairman and CEO of Apex Capital Group, an investment management firm based out of Westlake Village, California.
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About APEX Capital: APEX Capital is an equity investment fund.
Daniel Macklin
CEO, US of Salary Finance
Mr. Daniel Macklin, also known as Dan, co-founded Social Finance, Inc. and serves as its Vice President of Community & Member Success. Mr. Macklin led medium enterprise sales and product development for Standard Chartered Bank in China and North-East Asia. He held senior roles at Standard Chartered Bank within corporate banking and the CEO’s Office in London and Singapore. Mr. Macklin holds a B.A. in Business Economics from University of Durham in England. He also holds an M.S. in Management degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Salary Finance: Salary Finance partners with employers to improve employee wellbeing by helping get people out of debt and into saving.
Alexander Leishman
Co-Founder and CEO of River Financial
Alexander Leishman is a Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of River Financial. Prior to that, he was the Engineer and Investor at Polychain Capital and the Security Software Engineer at Airbnb.
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About River Financial: River Financial is a Bitcoin financial institution allowing long-term investors to buy, sell, and manage Bitcoin.
Niccolo De Masi
CEO of Dmy Technology Group
Niccolo de Masi joined Glu as its President and Chief Executive Officer in January 2010 and brings to Glu a strong background of senior management and executive experience in the mobile gaming and content sectors. Prior to joining Glu, Niccolo was the Chief Executive Officer and President of Hands-On Mobile, a mobile technology company and developer and publisher of mobile entertainment, since October 2009, and previously served as the President of Hands-On Mobile from March 2008 to October 2009. Niccolo was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the London-listed mobile entertainment company Monstermob Group PLC from June 2006 to February 2007. Mr. de Masi joined Monstermob in 2004 and, prior to becoming its Chief Executive Officer, held positions as its Managing Director and as its Chief Operating Officer where he was responsible for formulating and implementing Monstermob’s growth and product strategy. Prior to joining Monstermob, Mr. de Masi worked in a variety of corporate finance and operational roles within the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sector, beginning his career with JP Morgan on both the TMT debt capital markets and mergers and acquisitions teams in London. He has also worked as a physicist with Siemens Solar and within the Strategic Planning and Development divisions of Technicolor. Mr. de Masi holds an M.A. degree in Physics and an MSci. degree in Electronic Engineering—both from Cambridge University.
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About Dmy Technology Group, University of California, Los Angeles: Dmy Technology Group is a special purpose acquisition company focused on the mobile app ecosystem.
Jim Tananbaum
Founder and CEO of Foresite Capital
Dr. Tananbaum is the founding CEO of Foresite Capital Management. He has led investments in 21 successful healthcare companies, including Amira Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), Amerigroup and Jazz Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Dr. Tananbaum founded and held management positions at GelTex Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Genzyme for $1.6B) and Theravance. He holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School, and a B.S. and B.S.E.E. from Yale University. Dr. Tananbaum has served on the advisory boards and/or visiting committees to the Harvard-MIT HST program and Yale School of Engineering.
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About Foresite Capital: Foresite Capital provides catalytic capital to transformative healthcare companies at all stages.
Jed Simon
Founder & CEO of FastPay
Jed Simon is the founder and CEO of FastPay, providing liquidity and financial workflow solutions to the digital media industry. Formerly, Simon was an investment banking analyst program at Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York working on IPOs, debt finance transactions, and M&A for media companies. After joining DreamWorks SKG in 1996, Simon managed aspects of its finance, distribution, marketing, and new media businesses, and was a senior executive at DreamWorks Records before assisting in the sale of the company to Universal Music Group. His last position with DreamWorks was Vice President of International Distribution and Marketing for DreamWorks Pictures, based in London.
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About DreamWorks Studios, FastPay: FastPay is the definitive financial platform for digital media.
Joseph Huang
CEO of StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund)
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About StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund): StartX is an educational non-profit that helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs.
Greg Ott
Chief Executive Officer of Nav
Greg Ott is a veteran business leader and marketing expert. He is currently President of Nav.com, a start up helping small businesses make informed financial decisions and access capital. Previously, he was the Vice President of Global Marketing for QuickBooks Online at Intuit. Prior roles include, CMO and Head of Strategy for Demandbase, an Account Based Marketing platform, General Manager of Classmates.com, VP of Global Marketing at Ask.com, and he began his career building brands such as, Bounty, Pampers, and Ivory soap at Proctor & Gamble. Greg earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University
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About Nav: Nav bridges the gap between SMB and financial institutions by bringing transparency, certainty, and efficiency to B2B credit and financing.
Marcus Behrendt
Partner & CEO of BMW i Ventures
Marcus Behrendt is the CEO and Partner at BMW i Ventures.
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About BMW i Ventures: BMW i Ventures is focusing on BMW’s current and future business in the technology and service space.
Tejs Broberg
Founder – CEO of LendAmend
Tejs (pronounced: Tyce) is the CEO and founder of LendAmend LLC a financial services technology company he founded in 2009 and which was acquired by a Fortune 500 company in November 2013. Prior to LendAmend, Tejs was Managing Director at Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, a Los Angeles based private equity firm investing in highly leveraged and distressed companies. He is the father of 3 children, resides in Los Angeles and represented Denmark in the 1998 Nagano Olympics.
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About LendAmend: LendAmend operates LendAmend.com, a web-based platform for professionals in the leveraged loan market.
Meg Nakamura
Co-Founder and CEO of Apto Payments
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About Apto Payments, Hard Yaka: Apto Payments is a card issuance platform that helps companies issue new kinds of cards in new ways.
Swapnil Shinde
CEO & Co-Founder of Zeni
Swapnil Shinde is the CEO and Co-founder at Mezi, an AI-powered personal travel assistant. He previously co-founded Dhingana, a music startup that was acquired by Rdio. At Rdio, he served as the VP of Product for international markets. Prior to working at Rdio and Dhingana, he worked at Yahoo as a Senior Product Manager, leading the overall vision for Yahoo’s web performance optimization products. He received a Bachelor’s of Engineering from the College of Engineering Pune and a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.
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About Twin Ventures, Zeni: Zeni is an AI-powered finance concierge for startups and small businesses.
Andrew Nikou
Founder, CEO & Managing Partner of OpenGate Capital
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About OpenGate Capital: OpenGate Capital is a private equity firm acquiring businesses in North Amerian and Europe with solid fundamentals for growth.
Thomas D’Halluin
Owner, CEO & Managing Partner of Airbus Ventures
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About Airbus Ventures, Airbus Ventures: Empowering our entrepreneurs to shift the future of aerospace.
Trent Bigelow
Cofounder & CEO of Abound
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About Abound: Abound is the independent benefits API for businesses that serve independent workers.
Mike Sha
CEO, Co-Founder of SigFig
Mike Sha is co-founder and CEO at Wikinvest and at SigFig. Formerly, Mike was an advisor and consultant to many internet and mobile startups and held key positions at Amazon.com where he launched and ran the Amazon Visa Card business, headed up product development in the Global Payments team, led a technology team focused on building new strategic partnerships and initiatives, and built sophisticated fraud detection models. He received a BA in Applied Math and a MS in Computer Science, both from Harvard University.
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About SigFig: SigFig is financial services firm that dedicates in making high-quality investment advice to investors of all wealth levels.
Sunil Paul
CEO and co-founder of Spring Free EV
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About Spring Free EV: Spring Free EV is a financial technology company built to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles through innovative fintech products.
Praveen Chekuri
Co-Founder/Co-CEO of Ascend
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About Ascend: Ascend is a modern, all-in-one payments solution purpose-built for insurance
David Ehrenberg
CEO of Early Growth
David Ehrenberg is the founder and CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, an outsourced financial services firm that provides small to mid-sized companies with day-to-day accounting, strategic finance, CFO, tax, and valuation services and support. As CEO, David has overseen incredible growth at EGFS, leading to its being ranked #5 in Silicon Valley Business Journals’ annual Fastest Growing Private Companies award for 2013. David’s articles and insights are frequently posted in such prestigious publications as Forbes, Inc, VentureBeat, Huff Post Small Business, Yahoo! Small Business Advisor, Startup Nation, and more. He is an active speaker and event leader who presents regularly to founders and others within the startup ecosystem. He also co-founded and moderated Pitch Flip LA 2013 in which investors from Silicon Valley presented to a broad sampling from the LA startup community. David is a financial expert and startup mentor, whose passion is helping businesses focus on what they do best.
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About Early Growth: Early Growth is a financial services company.
Matt Tucker
CEO & Founder of Koan
Matt Tucker is co-founder of Jive. Along with Bill Lynch, Matt founded Jive Software in 2001 and has helped build the company from just two people to where it is today. Matt is an active member in open standards communities including having served on the board of the XMPP Standards Foundation. Prior to Jive, Matt worked as a software engineer at an internet startup in San Francisco called 4charity. Matt holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Iowa.
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About Koan: Koan is an organizational alignment software platform that helps teams manage goals and status collaboratively.
Jesse Ghansah
Founder & CEO of Float
Jesse Ghansah is the Founder and CEO at Float.
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About Float: Float is the next-generation cash management platform for businesses and startups in Africa.
Steve Abreu
CEO & Founder of Newfi Lending
Steve Abreu is the founder and chief executive officer of [Nexera Holding](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nexera-holding#/entity), a dynamic startup that sets the standard for efficiency and transparency in the lending marketplace. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of San Francisco.
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About Newfi Lending: Newfi Lending is reshaping the mortgage experience through a combination of proprietary technology and product innovation.
Charlie Hernández
Founder & CEO of Crediverso
Charlie Hernández currently works as the Founder and CEO of Crediverso. He previously worked at Starwood Capital Group as the Summer Associate.
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About Crediverso: Crediverso is a financial marketplace where people can find credit cards, credit checks, and international money transfers.
Anthony Oduu
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Verto
Anthony Oduu is the co-founder and co-CEO at VertoFX.
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About Verto: We power cross‑border payments for the world’s fastest‑growing startups and enterprises.
Koichiro Yoshida
Founder & CEO of CrowdWorks
Founder and CEO at CrowdWorks.
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About CrowdWorks: CrowdWorks provides Internet services operations centered on Japanese crowdsourcing platform.
Vijay Vaidyanathan
Founder & CEO of Optimal Asset Management
Vijay is CEO and Lead Portfolio Manager for the firm. He has been a prominent speaker and advocate in the smart beta space. Vijay has spent much of the past 5 years applying innovative techniques to develop econometric models for a wide range of financial markets. Vijay holds several patents in the area of digital markets and financial micro-transactions in digital markets. Prior to this, he was President, EDHEC-Risk Indices and Benchmarks, North America, and Research Associate at EDHEC Risk Institute, Nice, France. Earlier, he held several executive positions in technology firms, including CEO of Yaga, Inc, Chief Strategy Officer of NBC Internet, and CTO of Xoom.com. Vijay received his Ph.D and MSc in Finance (Risk and Asset Management) from EDHEC Business School (France), his MS in Computer Science from SUNY Albany, an MSc (Tech) from BITS (Pilani, India) and is an alumnus of IMD, Switzerland.
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About EDHEC-Risk Institute, Optimal Asset Management: Optimal Asset Management specializes in the application of factor-based investing and technology to the asset management process.
Chuck Esserman
CEO and Founder of TSG Consumer Partners
Chuck has over 30 years of private equity investment experience and, together with the partners of TSG, built the first and most experienced consumer focused equity fund in the United States. Chuck oversees current and prospective portfolio investments for the firm and is Chair of the Investment Committee. Prior to TSG, Chuck was with Bain & Company, a leading management consulting company. Chuck received his BS, with top honors, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Stanford, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He has served on the Board of Advisors of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Board of Trust of Vanderbilt University.
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About TSG Consumer Partners: TSG Consumer Partners is an investment firm that focuses on the branded consumer sector.
John W. Glynn
CEO & Founder of Glynn Capital Management
As Founder and Managing Director of Glynn Capital Management, John has been actively investing since 1970. He has been a venture backer of companies such as Alza, Cypress Semiconductor, eHealthInsurance, Electronic Arts, Intel, Intergraph, Neurex, Peet’s Coffee and Tea, The Learning Company, Silicon Graphics, Sepracor, Sun Microsystems, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He has also served as a director of many small private companies. John’s current private investments include Openlane, Financial Engines, Merced Systems, Motricity, QuinStreet, Quantcast, Skybox, Tuvox, and Xactly. John also serves as an advisor to New Enterprise Associates, a Baltimore-based venture firm with more than $5 billion under management. He was a founder and director of Sterling Payot, a merchant banking firm located in San Francisco, which has launched several new companies and played a key role in restructuring several large companies. Since the late 1980s, John has devoted some of his time to teaching courses in entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Cambridge University, and the Darden Graduate Business School at the University of Virginia, where he also serves as the Thomas C. MacAvoy Professor of Business Administration. Courses including “Starting New Ventures” and “Venture Capital and the Entrepreneurial World” enable him to offer insight and experience to future venture investors and entrepreneurs, and build a network of bright young people who are eager to make their own impact on the world. John is a member of the Board of Trustees of Notre Dame, is a Trustee of the University Of Virginia School Of Law, and a former member of the Advisory Board of the Judge Business School at Cambridge University. John earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, a J.D. degree from the University of Virginia, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University.
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About Glynn Capital Management: Glynn Capital Management focuses on investing in private and public technology growth companies.
Charlie Maynard
Co-Founder & CEO of Going Merry
Charlie Maynard is the Co-Founder & CEO at Going Merry.
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About Going Merry: Going Merry makes it easy for students to find and apply for financial aid. We are used by students & counselors at 1 in 3 US high schools.
Hooman Radfar
Co-Founder & CEO of Collective
Hooman is an entrepreneur and investor. He is a partner at Expa, founder of 10e9, and founder of AddThis (acquired by Oracle). At Expa, he collaborates with the founders of Uber, Foursquare and more to create and launch category-defining businesses. At 10e9, Hooman works with companies like Convoy, Hinge, Hyperloop, Sweetgreen, Uber, and and other start-ups as an investor and adviser. Prior to founding 10e9, he co-founded, served as CEO and later chairman of AddThis. AddThis was acquired by Oracle in 2016 and is the world’s largest personalization platform for websites per Comscore. The platform is used by a network of 15 million web publishers, reaching 2B users worldwide, to increase traffic and engagement. Named one of Tech’s Best Entrepreneurs in BusinessWeek and one of iMedia’s 25 most influential online marketing professionals, Hooman has been featured by NBC, ABC, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and more. He is a contributor to Huffington Post and iMedia. Hooman is involved in philanthropic work and supports a number of organizations such as Charity: Water and Pencils of Promise.
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About 21st Century Internet Group. Inc., Collective: Collective provides financial concierge services for self-employed people and businesses.
Benjamin Madick
Co-Founder & CEO of Matic Insurance
Ben Madick is the Co-founder and CEO of Matic Insurance, a digital P&C insurance marketplace.
Prior to Matic, Ben co-founded MQMR, a firm that performs compliance risk management and audit support to mortgage lenders and banks of all sizes.
He currently serves as an advisor to MQMR providing high-level, strategic direction. Ben spent his early career with Bank of America Correspondent Lending, where he managed relationships with large independent mortgage lenders throughout the nation.
Additionally, Ben is an angel investor and advisor to other early-stage startups, primarily in the insurance and fintech space.
Ben has been recognized as a National Mortgage Professional Magazine 40 under 40 recipient and has received the HousingWire Vanguard Award for outstanding industry contributions. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Finance from the University of Arizona.
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About Matic Insurance: Matic is a technology driven insurance agency disrupting the homeowners insurance space by integrating with mortgage lenders.
Naoki Aoyagi
CEO of Merpay
Naoki Aoyagi is a Senior Vice President at GREE, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of GREE International, Inc. He joined GREE, Inc. in March 2006 from Deutsche Bank, where he had specialized in tech and media sector IPOs and M&A advisory work. At GREE, Aoyagi oversaw the Company’s partnership with KDDI and its IPO before leading the development of GREE’s global operations, a role he continues today. Aoyagi earned a bachelor’s degree in policy management from Keio University in 2002.
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About GREE, Merpay, Parallel: Merpay is a fintech start up.
Matt Pohlson
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Omaze
Matthew Pohlson is Co-Founder/Co-CEO of Omaze.
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About Omaze: Omaze is an online fundraising platform that offers once-in-a-lifetime experiences and prizes to support nonprofits around the world.
Justin Yoshimura
Founder, Chairman and CEO of CSC Generation
Justin Yoshimura is an entrepreneur and investor. He is currently the CEO of CSC Generation, backed by China Science & Merchants Investment Group (China’s 2nd largest PE fund), Khosla Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Maveron, and Quest Venture Partners. Prior to this, he was SVP at Merkle (acquired by Dentsu for ~$2B) via the acquisition of his company 500friends, a provider of SaaS loyalty marketing solutions backed by $12M+ from Crosslink Capital, Quest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, and YCombinator. He is also the founder and General Partner of RGF, whose publicly announced investments include, Dropoff (seed), First Opinion (seed, former member of the BOD), Next Force Technology (seed), Gigster (seed) Witlee (seed), Dave (seed), Macro Ventures (seed), Imperfect Produce (seed), Firebase (seed – acquired by GOOG), Zencoder (seed – acquired by BCOV), ifeelgoods (seed), Ownlocal (seed), Bounce Exchange (seed, co-lead Series A), Bright Funnel (seed), Mux (seed), BigFinite (seed). Justin began his career when he dropped out of high school to found his first company, which was acquired when he was 19, after exceeding $10M in revenues. Besides entrepreneurship, Justin is passionate about animals, especially dogs, most but not all cats, dolphins, and sea turtles.
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About CSC Generation, ice, One Kings Lane, Sur La Table, San Francisco, Z Gallerie: CSC Generation develops a proprietary technology platform designed to save brands from liquidating.
Hu Liang
Co-Founder & CEO of Omniex
Hu Liang is the founder and CEO of Ominex, the institutional investment and trading platform for crypto-assets. Most recently Hu was a Senior Managing Director and founder of the Emerging Technologies Center (ETC) at State Street Bank & Trust. ETC focused on the prototyping of emerging technologies, such as machine learning, blockchain, augmented reality and others. From 2011 to 2015, Hu was in Hong Kong, where he led State Street Global Market’s electronic platforms and State Street Global Exchange’s analytics businesses for State Street Asia Pacific. A long time Silicon Valley veteran, Hu joined State Street in 2007 through the acquisition of Currenex, the first Internet based large scale eFX (foreign exchange) platform targeting institutions and HFT (high frequency trading) market. He was one of the earliest members of Currenex, designing its automated trading platform and enabling its sale to State Street. Prior to Currenex, Hu was the founder of a failed managed security startup, Forion, and started his career programming at IBM Almaden Research Center. Hu holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University in New Jersey and received his MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
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About Omniex, State Street: Omniex develops software infrastructure that integrates front, middle, and back-office services to simplify access and remove fragmentation.
Vladimir Lounegov
Co-Founder, CEO of Mbanq
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About Mbanq: Mbanq builds digital banking technology that enables you to create a better bank for your customers
James Borow
Co-Founder & CEO of Trust
James Borow is the Co-Founder and CEO of Trust.
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About Brand Networks, Trust: Trust is a community corporate card designed to help businesses learn from each other’s spending patterns.
Alex Soltani
Founder & CEO of Skyview Capital
Alex Soltani is the chairman, CEO and founder of Skyview Capital.
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About Skyview Capital: Skyview Ventures is an internally managed pool of partners’ capital that will invest in high growth companies in Southern California.
Jianyu Tu
Co-Founder and CEO of MioTech
Jianyu (Jason) Tu, Stanford MBA, Forbes 30 Under 30 Honoree, Co-Founder and CEO of MioTech. Jason’s career spans across banking and tech startups around the globe. He kicked off his career at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong and has since then worked at a number of startups such as WeLab and Robinhood in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the U.S. He saw a technological gap that left financial services behind and since then, he’s been determined to bring world-class fintech solutions to Asia. His startup, MioTech has achieved great milestones in the past 33 months with the backing of ZhenFund, leading VC in China and Horizons Ventures, the investment arm of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka Shing.
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About MioTech: MioTech is an artificial intelligence platform that empowers financial institutions to draw actionable insights on their data.
Bharath Rao
CEO of Leverj
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About Coinpit Inc, Leverj: Leverj decentralizes the most desirable features of derivatives trading by implementing them in crypto and eliminating points of friction.
Krishna Gopinathan
Co‐CEO & Chief Data Scientist of Applied Data Finance
Krishna Gopinathan Co‐CEO & Chief Data Scientist Applied Data Finance Prior to Applied Data Finance, Krishna Gopinathan was the founder-CEO of fintech company Global Analytics. Krishna led Global Analytics to become one of the largest online installment lenders in the U.K under the brand name of Lending Stream. He was also the lead inventor of FICO’s Falcon product, one of the most successful products in the history of the payment system, and the first commercial application of real-time neural networks. With over 25 years of experience in predictive analytics and data science, Krishna has founded multiple successful data science companies that leverage machine learning and neural networks. He has multiple patents to his name, including his 1998 patent “Risk Determination using Predictive Modeling and Transaction Profiles,” which has been cited by 635 other patents. Krishna earned an M.Math. in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo in 1988.
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About Applied Data Finance, GAIN Credit, Predictive Data Science: ADF has been purpose-built to be the optimal link between the underestimated underbanked consumer and capital markets.
Aditi Shekar
Co-founder & CEO of Zeta
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About Zeta: Zeta is a fintech focused on helping families thrive. Our core products include a modern-day joint account and money manager.
Sanj Goyle
Co-Founder & CEO of Finxera
Sanj Goyle is the co-founder and CEO of BancBox, the first API driven approach to enabling banking services for non-financial institutions.In his leadership role, Sanj is focused on driving forward the product vision of BancBox as a compelling solution for fintech clients, maintaining the trust of our partner banks, and ensuring that BancBox remains a good financial steward of consumer funds and up to date on the current regulatory environment. Prior to BancBox, Sanj spent several years in Online Marketing focusing on Lead Generation and Offer Optimization. Sanj was most recently at Yahoo, where he led the performance marketing team that developed and operated Yahoo’s first Cost-per-Lead (CPL) line of business. The Yahoo CPL team launched multiple products (namely, Yahoo Tagline in Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Cross Sell in Yahoo Games, and CPL ad units in Yahoo Messenger). Prior to Yahoo, Sanj managed the consumer finance lead generation lines of business at Adteractive and Nextag. At Adteractive, Sanj managed a 20-person team that generated over $40m in annual revenue and managed ad spend of over $1m per month in online and offline channels. While at Nextag, lead gen revenue grew from inception to over $25m within 2 years. Sanj has spoken at industry conferences such as LeadsCon and Affiliate Summit. Sanj started his career as a corporate attorney specializing in Corporate Securities, M&A, and Privacy. Sanj has considerable experience with the privacy and legal issues related to the marketing of consumer finance products— in particular, FTC TSR and Disclosure Guidelines, Gramm-Leach-Bliley and PCI compliance. Sanj is admitted to practice in California and New York, is a licensed real estate broker in California, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP). Sanj graduated from Boston University School of Law (magna cum laude) and Duke University. He currently resides in Menlo Park, CA.
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About Finxera: Finxera offers an API-driven approach that enables clients to seamlessly integrate banking services into their applications.
Kevin Busque
CEO of Guideline
Kevin is founder and CEO of Guideline, an all-inclusive retirement plan used by more than 3,700 small businesses that makes it easy for employers to set up a 401(k) and even easier for employees to enroll and save. Under Kevin’s leadership, Forbes Magazine named Guideline to its annual list of the 50 most promising financial technology startups in 2018. Kevin founded Guideline after seven years at TaskRabbit, the online and mobile labor marketplace that he co-founded, which was acquired by IKEA. Kevin has been featured in the Inc., the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and is a contributor for Entrepreneur Magazine. The son of an Army intelligence Sargent, he grew up in several cities across North America and Europe, but considers himself a New Englander. He now lives in San Mateo with his two children.
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About Guideline: Guideline is a retirement plan platform that offers the all-inclusive 401(k) and full-stack solution for growing businesses.
Laurel Taylor
Founder and CEO of FutureFuel.io
As a former Google executive and graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management, Laurel is the founder and CEO of FutureFuel.io, a company that exists to crush student debt, meeting and serving users where they work and where they bank (as a workplace benefit or banking reward). FutureFuel.io is backed by the world’s largest financial services, technology, and insurance companies in the world, such as UBS, Aflac, Fiserv, and Salesforce, alongside iconic institutional investors Vulcan Capital and Rethink Impact. Laurel previously served as Google’s Healthcare Head of Industry, leading a Global Business Unit within Google’s Large Customer Sales division, where she was responsible for meeting and exceeding eight-figure revenue targets. During this time, she also served as a super connector and cross-functional bridge for Google Ventures, Partnerships, X, and Enterprise. Before that, she served as the Chief Revenue Officer and Executive Vice President of TEECOM, a technology and engineering firm in the San Francisco Bay area.
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About FutureFuel.io: FutureFuel.io empowers employers and financial institutions to deploy digital solutions designed to crush student debt.
Tom Patterson
CEO and Founder of LeapLife
Tom Patterson is the Head of Growth and Strategy at BetterUp.
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About BetterUp, BetterUp, LeapLife: LeapLife is an insurtech platform and digital life insurance agency.
David Spector
President and Chief Executive Officer of PennyMac Financial Services
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About PennyMac Financial Services: Specialty financial services firm
