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 New York based CEO’ operating in the Social 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.
Alex Chung
Co-Founder & CEO of Giphy
Alex Chung is currently the founder and CEO of GIPHY. His latest startups include Artspace, a leading ecommerce destination for contemporary art, The Fridge, a private social network acquired by Google, and General Displays a GE venture developing GE’s next generation of HDTVs. He has also directed media technology for MTV, NBC, Comcast, Charter, and managed future technologies for Paul Allen’s R&D lab. He was one of the early architects of interactive television and started his career as a hardware engineer at Intel. He was named on Business Insider’s Top 25 most influential technologists in New York and has degrees in philosophy, electrical/computer engineering, and graphic design.
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About Giphy: Giphy is an online database and search engine that allows users to search, share, and discover GIFs.
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Michał Borkowski
Co-founder & CEO of Brainly
Michał is the CEO and co-founder of Brainly and is responsible for product strategy, company strategy and culture. He and his co-founders established Brainly in 2009 in Kraków, driven by the conviction that collaborative online communities can empower students from around the world with knowledge and information. In a little more than a decade, Brainly has become the world’s largest online learning community for students, parents and teachers. After moving to New York City and living there for 4 years to open and build Brainly’s US office, Michał was only 16 when he started his first company, and he’s been shaking up the internet ever since. He grew up in a small town in Poland before heading to Warsaw to study corporate finance at the acclaimed Warsaw School of Economics. Michał now lives in Kraków with his wife, Kasia.
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About Brainly: Brainly is an online learning platform where students and parents get homework and study help from peers and experts.
Jackson Vaughan
CEO & Co-Founder of Whim
CEO and Co-Founder of Whim
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About Whim: Contacts ranked by availability and proximity
Maurice Harary
Founder and CEO of Fluz
Maurice is a Founder of the Fluz App. He is a serial entrepreneur with a 10-year background in e-commerce. He currently manages over 20 e-commerce sites in the B2B and B2C environment, ranging from interactive learning-based experiences to price-competitive marketplace trading sites. Experience in all areas of e-commerce sites, ranging from custom e-commerce software development to operational planning. He has extensive experience in fashion eCommerce and marketplace selling.
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About Fluz: Reinventing cashback to give you more. Get paid when you shop + when your friends shop. Earn Cashback Forever.
Brett Garfinkel
Co-Founder & CEO of SYLO
Brett Garfinkel is a Co-Founder & CEO at SYLO.
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About SYLO: SYLO provides marketers and creators with 3rd-party validation and standardized measurement to confidently invest in influencer marketing.
Michael Sanchez
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder & BOD of CafeMom
I co-founded CafeMom out of respect and admiration for moms. I play a lead role in driving the company’s strategy, growth, and overall operations. I get to think about many different aspects of the business – the team, what’s happening in moms’ lives, the product, marketing, sales, finance — and how they are all connected. I also get to work with an amazing group of people across the company. Prior to CafeMom, I was the Co-Founder and President of Do Something, a national organization that helps millions of young people get involved in their communities. I also co-founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer of the profitable, ’94 Cup Daily, the nation’s only daily newspaper dedicated to the 1994 World Cup Soccer Tournament held in the United States. Columbia Law School, with honors; University of Virginia undergrad, where I majored in Economics.
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About CafeMedia, CafeMom: CafeMom is social networking site targeted at mothers and mothers-to-be offering a host of contents from pregnancy, relationships and more.
Anil Dash
Chief Executive Officer of Glitch
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About Glitch, Monegraph, Stack Overflow: Glitch is the friendly community where everyone builds the web.
Ben Anderson
Co-Founder and CEO of Amino Apps
Benjamin Anderson is a co-founder and CEO at Amino Apps.
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About Amino Apps: Amino Apps enables people to discover, develop, and express their interests and passions.
Jonah Peretti
Founder & CEO of BuzzFeed
Jonah Peretti is founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, the first true social news organization that provides a pioneering mix of breaking news, entertainment and shareable content. Mr. Peretti, known for creating viral hits, tracking online social behavior and building technology to amplify buzz is also a co-founder of The Huffington Post. He has been called a “viral marketing hotdog” by the New York Times, “the poster boy of guerilla media” by AlterNet and a “computer-whiz” by The New Yorker. Fast Company named Mr. Peretti one of the “New Faces of Social Media” and named BuzzFeed as one of the “50 Most Innovative Companies” in 2012. Business Insider listed him as one of the “11 Rising Tech Stars to Watch in 2012.” Mr. Peretti is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab and has taught at NYU and the Parsons School of Design. His work has been covered by Time, the Economist, Fortune, and Business Insider and he has appeared as a guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America and CNN. In 2012, Mr. Peretti hired Ben Smith of POLITICO to lead as Editor-in-Chief. BuzzFeed reaches over 40 million monthly unique visitors and gets the majority of its traffic from social sources like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and more.
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About BuzzFeed: BuzzFeed is a cross-platform digital media company delivering news and entertainment content to a global audience.
Alex Collmer
Founder & CEO of VidMob
Alex Collmer is the founder and CEO of VidMob, the world’s largest video creation platform.As the web transitions to a video-driven medium, Collmer recognized the need for businesses to have access to the world’s best video creators who could produce quality content for a variety of platforms that was affordable. Since founding the company in 2015, Collmer has raised more than $13M and counts the leading brands and agencies as clients. Combing an elegant interface with a roster of more than 5000 video creators enables anyone to maximize their video presence and make a brand impact with video. An engineer by training, Collmer’s career has always been at the intersection of technology, design, and consumer entertainment as those sectors have evolved. Prior to founding VidMob, Collmer was the co-founder and CEO of Autumn Games, a premier publisher of video game franchises. Under his leadership, Autumn Games developed successful partnerships with such personalities as Jimmie Johnson, the 7-time NASCAR champion and companies like Def Jam, the leading urban culture brand, as well as the award-winning fighting game franchise, Skullgirls. Previously, Collmer was a founder and board member of the New York Video School, an online film school focused on empowering people all over the world to become “video literate” (www.nyvs.com). Collmer received a B.S. from Cornell University’s School of Engineering and was a certified E.I.T. in the field of structural engineering in the state of New York. Collmer sits on the board of several technology and media companies and has spoken at numerous universities and conferences on entrepreneurship and media. In his spare time, he coaches little league soccer and baseball.
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About VidMob: VidMob is a video content creation network and platform where brands can create digital video ads with expert teams.
Zachary Hamed
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Clay
Zachary Hamed is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Clay.
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About Clay: The most beautiful and private home for the people and relationships in your life.
Julie Anne Quay
Founder and CEO of VFILES
Julie Anne Quay is VFILES Founder and CEO and has over 20 years of experience in the fashion and media industries. Quay was Executive Editor for V Magazine before founding VFILES, and has worked for VH1, Vogue Japan and Australia, style.com, Steven Meisel, Richard Avedon, and more leading industry figures.
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About VFILES: VFILES—connect, discover, collaborate, and be a part of what’s next.
Ryan Leslie
Founder/CEO of SuperPhone
Ryan Leslie, Co-founder & CEO, SuperPhone // direct cell: +1-646-887-6987 Grammy nominated recording artist, multi-platinum producer, and avid technologist. Ryan is the architect and ultimate case study for SuperPhone, Disruptive Multimedia (DMM)’s simple CRM for creators. In addition to logging studio time with Madonna, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Beyoncé, he launched the first internet pop star Cassie, who sold over 650K albums fueled by an aggressive pre-Twitter social media campaign on MySpace. Bravely opting to remove his latest album from iTunes, he used an inbound SMS campaign powered by SuperPhone to earn over $560K in D2C revenue from just 15K fans, a 4x multiple of royalties received on his major label debut which sold 180K copies. He holds a BA in Government from Harvard.
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About SuperPhone: SuperPhone is an intelligent mobile messaging platform that helps enterprise retail brands acquire, and engage with mobile customers.
Michael Houston
CEO, Grey North America of Grey
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About Grey: Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency with headquarters in New York City
James Heekin
CEO of Grey
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About Grey: Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency with headquarters in New York City
Andre Swanston
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tru Optik
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About Tru Optik: Tru Optik is the Only Audience Measurement and Data Management Platform Built for OTT
Tamanna Dhamija
Founder & CEO of Convosight
Tamanna Dhamija is a Founder & CEO of Convosight.
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About Babydestination, Convosight: Convosight provides a management platform for community builders to help them grow and monetize their Facebook groups.
Tania Yuki
Founder & CEO of Shareablee
Tania Yuki is founder and CEO of Shareablee, a leading provider of social content analytics for business. She has spent most of her career in digital marketing, measurement and analytics, and was recently honored with a Great Mind Award from the Advertising Research Foundation and featured in Fast Company and Forbes as one of 12 women driving digital in New York. Tania began her career as a media and internet attorney, specializing in digital rights management, IP and film financing. After moving to the US from Australia she was seduced by digital and went on to run an online video content network as head of acquisitions and branding and has also led product management for comScore’s Video Metrix, the world’s leading online video ratings service. After leaving comScore she ran the TV Ad Solutions practice with TV advertising company Visible World, where she oversaw sales, product management and research and development and grew revenue more than 50% year over year. Tania is also the founder of wimlink, an organization that holds regular events and seminars promoting entrepreneurship, leadership and the professional development of women.
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About Shareablee, wimlink: Shareablee is an online platform offering audience intelligence, competitive benchmarking, and insights for social media.
John S. Shriber
Co- Founder & CEO of Roomster
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About Roomster: The leading multi platform roommate matching & shared housing application. IOS, Android & fully responsive design
Ragy Thomas
Founder & CEO of Sprinklr
Ragy Thomas is the CEO and founder of Sprinklr, a provider of enterprise software for customer experience management. Sprinklr was last valued at more than $1.8 billion in 2016. He founded Sprinklr in 2009, and the company now has 1900 employees around the world serving global clients such as Microsoft and McDonald’s. Prior to founding Sprinklr, Ragy was the president of Epsilon’s (NYSE:ADS) Interactive Services from 2006 to 2008, and the CTO of Bigfoot Interactive, an email marketing leader that Epsilon acquired in 2005. Ragy earned his M.B.A. in Finance and Information Systems from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and his Computer Science Engineering degree from Pondicherry University in India.
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About Sprinklr, Sprinklr Japan: Sprinklr provides enterprise software for customer experience management.
Tania Ahuja
Founder and CEO of Nobias
Tania Ahuja is Founder and CEO of Nobias and is Head of US Operations for Arkera Inc. She is a former director of Citigroup and serves on the Board of Overseers at Stern School of Business, NYU. Additionally, she sits on the board of other learning and art organizations including the Center of Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania, Salome Chamber Orchestra, The Paper Bag Players, and is Chairman of the Board for the Summit Music Festival. Tania holds a PhD in Finance from Stern School of Business, New York University. She has a BS in Statistics and an MS in Operations Research.
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About Nobias: Software tools that help protect consumers from deceptive or misleading content on the internet.
Iyah Romm
Founder and CEO of Cityblock Health
Iyah Romm is a Founder and CEO at Cityblock Health.
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About Cityblock Health: Cityblock Health is a tech-driven healthcare provider for those in underserved communities.
Arjun Rai
Founder + CEO of Woofy, Inc.
ON A MISSION TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES WITH THE POWER OF VISUALIZED DATA SCIENCE FOR DIGITAL MARKETING AT HELLOWOOFY.COM AND WOOFY.AI. Arjun is a New York City based entrepreneur originally from West Windsor, New Jersey (aka Princeton Junction). Since high school, Arjun has been networking with some of the most well known entrepreneurs and even worked on a few projects and startups of his own. Upon graduation, Arjun pursued his career opportunities and came to New York City where he enrolled at the New York Institute of Technology in 2011 with scholarships and grants. Following a few weeks into college, Arjun launched his second startup, fuelbrite.com, a social media agency focused on small businesses and startups, and a student-focused organization, TheBizDen. After interning at a PR and ad agency in the summer of 2012, Arjun quickly saw the need for yet another startup within the tech space and raised a seed investment round to build it out. That startup became Wrkbench.io which was a virtual collaboration space designed for creative and visual people (we liked to say we make visual conversations). After spending a few years and learning the ins and outs of running a venture backed startup, Rai set out to modernize another industry related to his former passion of social media. The startup would be known as Woofy which is a social media management driven by artificial intelligence to help small to medium sized businesses with digital marketing. Arjun currently lives in New York City with his girlfriend, two cats and a dog. Arjun went to the NYIT School of Management (majoring in Small Business and Entrepreneurship). He also holds several notable awards and is a member of the Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society and Golden Key International Honour Society. Professionally, Arjun is also a member of The One Club, The Art Directors Club, The Advertising Club of NY, Social Media Marketing Society and the IVY Connect Club.
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About Woofy, Inc., wrkbench.io: Woofy is an online social media marketing platform.
Matthew Kalmans
Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Applecart
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About Applecart, University of Pennsylvania: Applecart’s Social Graph technology allows customers to leverage interpersonal relationships to target and influence at scale.
Beri Meric
Founder & CEO of IVY
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About IVY: IVY is a Social University that provides a lifetime of new experiences, friendships, and inspiration.
Simon Mansell
CEO of TBG Digital
Simon founded TBG in 2001 and has grown it into a global force known for delivering results and defying clients’ expectations.
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About TBG Digital: TBG Digital, a Facebook ad optimization platform, enable social network advertisers monitor and optimize global scale campaigns.
John W. Kelly
Co-founder & CEO of Graphika
John Kelly is the founder and CEO of Graphika, a social media intelligence firm founded on technology he invented that blends social network analysis, content analysis, and statistics to solve the problem of making complex online networks understandable. A quantitative social scientist by training, he has a Ph.D. in Communications from Columbia University, and has also studied at Stanford and at Oxford’s Internet Institute. He is also an Affiliate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where he works with leading academics to design and implement empirical studies of the Internet’s role in business, culture, and politics around the world. An entrepreneur by choice, Kelly leads a team of business professionals and data scientists to bring new analytic technologies to market via the Graphika platform.
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About Graphika, Harvard University: Graphika identifies social communities and influencers within them, mapping spheres of influence on topics & content you care about most.
Barak Shragai
Co-Founder & CEO of IMGN Media
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About IMGN Media: IMGN is a tech-media company specialized in producing and programming social content for Gen Z audiences.
Ran Harnevo
Co Founder & CEO of Homeis
Ran is a veteran in the media and Internet industry and specializes in managing and deploying content and media assets. Ran is currently the CEO of 5min Media, the online largest video syndication platform, which he founded in 2007. Prior to starting 5min Media, Ran’s experience included working as a deputy editor at Tel-Aviv Magazine, where he managed the website and covered politics and sports. Ran earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, after serving as a fighter pilot in the Israeli army. Ran currently resides in New York.
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About Homeis: Homeis develops a software platform that builds a better Internet for immigrants.
Pete Cashmore
Founder & CEO of Mashable
Pete Cashmore is the founder and CEO of Mashable, the leading source of news, information & resources for the Connected Generation. Pete founded Mashable in 2005 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland when he was 19. His passion for sharing how web tools and social networks were transforming human interactions and reshaping cultures drove him to create Mashable. Always an entrepreneur, Pete has continued to push Mashable to evolve from a tech blog to a global media company built around technology. He leads Mashable’s strategy and his innate sense of the web and its community, are core to the company’s operations and future growth. He has been described as the “Sage of Media” and considered one of the most influential voices of his generation– on and offline. Pete was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2012. He was featured on Forbes 30 under 30 list, named one of Ad Age’s 2011 influencers, and was named a Young Global Leader by The World Economic Forum.
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About Mashable: Mashable is a media company for the connected generation and voice of digital culture.
Aneto Okonkwo
Co-Founder & CEO of Chatdesk
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About Chatdesk: Supercharge your support team and transform customer service into sales
Craig Pishotti
CEO of Finch Living
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About Finch Living: Finch Living offers scalable solution for community building and improved experience in residential buildings across the US.
Bill Ottman
CEO and Co-founder of Minds
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About Minds: Minds is a crypto social network and secure messaging app that rewards users with crypto for their efforts online.
Tony Haile
CEO of Scroll
Tony Haile CEO of Chartbeat since 2016.
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About Chartbeat, Scroll: Scroll is creating a sustainable experience that puts amazing content in front of engaged users without all the noise.
Hassan Miah
CEO and Co-Founder of Robin8 Inc
Hassan Miah has nearly three decades of experience in the entertainment industry, which began when he was based in Los Angeles working as a Partner in KPMG Peat Marwick where he was an entertainment and business valuation consultant. He then moved to Creative Artists Agency (CAA), where he served as the head of new media and began to expand into the digital space, which was still in its infancy. Since then Hassan Miah has been able to combine his passion for new media and entertainment to create services that help music and video fans. He was the CEO of Xing Technology Corporation, the first consumer MP3 recording company. He is the Founder and CEO of UrFilez (www.urfilez.com), a cloud-based digital music company with proprietary recommendations technology. He also spent time at the Intel Capital, where he was the Managing Director of Media & Entertainment.
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About One Llama Labs, Inc, Paybby, Radio One Llama, Robin8 Inc: influencer search engine and marketplace, Robin8, an influencer search engine and marketplace.
Miranda Tan
CEO & Founder of Robin8 Inc
Tan has over 10 years experience in PR and marketing. Prior to MyPRGenie, Tan was the president of Excite Media Group, where she specialized in PR and marketing for start-ups and fast growth companies including McKinsey & Company, National Imaging Associates (acquired by Wellpoint), MindTree Consulting, Cognizant Technology Solutions, NYU, Opinion Research Corp and Peoplesoft (acquired by Oracle). Prior to Excite Media Group, Tan founded ExcitePR, a $2 MM hi-tech PR agency. Tan merged ExcitePR with a $15M PR and marketing firm in Silicon Valley. Tan has a BS from Cornell University and a JD from St. John’s University School of Law. She is admitted under the New York Bar.
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About Robin8 Inc: influencer search engine and marketplace, Robin8, an influencer search engine and marketplace.
CJ Dunne
Co-Founder & CEO of SageSpot
CJ Dunne is the Co-Founder & CEO at SageSpot.
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About SageSpot: SageSpot is the social platform that transforms world-class Creators’ most passionate followers into paid subscribers.
Avner Ronen
CEO & co-founder of Boxee
Avner Ronen is the founder and CEO of [Boxee](/organization/boxee), a freeware media player software platform. Prior to founding Boxee, Avner co-founded Odigo, an instant messaging service. Avner worked with the Odigo team from its founding in 1998 until its purchase by [Comverse](/organization/comverse-technology) in [2002 for $20M](http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/1141181). Avner stayed on with Comverse as the VP Corporate Strategy & Business Development until early 2007. Named one of Rolling Stone’s “Agents of Change” for 2009, prior to boxee Ronen was the Head of Corporate Development and M&A for Comverse, Inc. a leading provider of software and service to Telecom service providers. Ronen was responsible for acquisitions valued at $450M, which were key to the company’s evolution from a Voicemail company to a Billing and VAS provider. Ronen joined Comverse in 2002 when they acquired Odigo, a company he co-founded in 1998. Odigo was one of the early Instant Messaging services on the web serving over8M users worldwide, and earned Ronen the 2002 honor of being a member of Crain’s 40 under 40. Prior to Odigo Ronen served for 4.5 years in the Israeli Defense Force in the special computer unit, MAMRAM.
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About Boxee: Boxee is a cross-platform freeware HTPC software application with social networking features, designed for the living room TV.
Alex Rahaman
CEO and Founder of StrikeAd
Alex Rahaman is the Partner at Idekapital Fund.
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About Adimo, FluxLoop, Idekapital, Shenorock Ventures, StrikeAd, Urban Analytix: StrikeAd Fusion, a proprietary technology platform for agencies and advertisers to plan, execute, and evaluate their mobile advertisements.
Eddie Geller
Co-Founder and CEO of Tinybeans
Eddie Geller has been an entrepreneur and investor in the online world since 1994. Eddie was the founder and CEO of Unique World. A successful management consulting business that grew to a 100 person, $15m business before successfully exiting to a large US company in 2011. Since then, Eddie has been actively involved within the startup community and was the founding investor/director of LayPay. He was responsible for driving the strategy and commercial partnerships to ensure that it launched to market. He is now a non-exec director on the board and looks forward to seeing LayPay build a wonderfully successful payments business that customers rely upon and love! As a seed investor in PushStart in early 2012, Eddie saw something special in Tinybeans. Tinybeans was one of the startups that was incubated through the Pushstart program and was a certain standout. Over 2012, Eddie mentored the Tinybeans team and fell in love with the opportunity and decided to invest and become active. Through 2013, Eddie drove the commercial aspects of the business which enabled him to take on the CEO role in early 2014. Now he drives the organisational strategy, partnerships and growth prospects and has aspirations to create the largest nurture network in the world reaching 100M users by 2019.
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About Tinybeans: Tinybeans is a journaling and photo-sharing app that inspires parents to connect with their loved ones.
Victor Kaufman
Chief Executive Officer of Savoy Pictures Entertainment
Victor A. Kaufman is Vice Chairman of IAC and serves in the Office of the Chairman. In this position, Mr. Kaufman oversees all strategic planning, financial and legal matters for IAC. Previously, Mr. Kaufman had served in the Office of the Chairman and as Chief Financial Officer from November 1997 through October 1999. He has been a director of the Company since December 1996. Prior to joining the Company, he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Savoy Pictures Entertainment, Inc. since March 1992. Mr. Kaufman was also the founding Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Tri-Star Pictures, Inc. from 1983 to December 1987, at which time he became President and Chief Executive Officer of Tri-Star’s successor company Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.
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About IAC, Savoy Pictures Entertainment: Savoy Pictures Entertainment
Alexander Jordan
CEO of Firon Marketing
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About Firon Marketing: We are a strategic digital marketing agency committed to optimizing your performance across all social and search platforms.
Jennifer Xia
Founder & Co-CEO of FreeWill
Jennifer Xia is the co-founder and co-CEO of Freewill.
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About FreeWill: FreeWill offers philanthropy and estate planning tools for donors and fundraisers to donate simpler.
CJ Follini
Founder & CEO of Welcome to COMPANY
CJ is an entrepreneur and award-winning media producer with a passion for technology that transforms our productivity and workplace culture. CJ’s latest venture – IMMINENT – has created the only holistic employee engagement operating system in existence. Known as Employee360, the big idea for workforce productivity begins with purpose. IMMINENT believes your employees are your first customers and the most authentic brand ambassadors. So it is our mission to create technology and content that harnesses employees’ passion for doing good and help them share their stories. Because happy employees = happy customers. Giving + Habitat + Wellbeing + Social = Inspired™ CJ recently launched the first VR & AR studio dedicated to employee engagement.
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About Golden Seeds, IMMINENT Digital, Noyack Medical Partners, Ten Paces Media, Welcome to COMPANY: Welcome to COMPANY is an online and offline social network connecting collectors of contemporary art.
Jeremy Frommer
Founder & CEO of Creatd
Jeremy Frommer is an American financier and entrepreneur based in New Jersey. His career includes over two decades on Wall Street, working as a hedge fund and portfolio manager, and on the sell-side of the financial industry, building and selling two financial services companies. He is CEO of Jerrick Ventures Inc., a company that acquires, develops and produces content across all forms of media. Frommer is depicted in Michael Lewis’ novel Flash Boys. In 2012, Frommer discovered the “Guccione Collection,” a large collection of unpublished works and photos owned by Bob Guccione, the founder of the Penthouse empire. Frommer graduated magna cum laude from the State University of New York at Albany, with a B.A. in philosophy, and studied at the London School of Economics.
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About Creatd, Vocal: Creatd is an IT company that provides technologies that solve problems for the creative community.
Peter Lehrman
CEO of Axial Networks
Peter is CEO of Axial, responsible for driving the company’s vision to be the trusted platform where private companies connect with capital. Prior to Axial, Peter worked in private equity at SFW Capital Partners and was part of the founding team at Gerson Lehrman Group, where he helped build the company’s dominant global technology platform for on-demand business expertise. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and received his MBA from Stanford Business School.
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About Axial Networks: Axial is a provider of technology-enabled applications used to discreetly connect the participants in the private capital markets.
David Karp
Founder & CEO of Tumblr
David Karp, a web developer and entrepreneur, is the founder and CEO of Tumblr, a micro blogging platform and social networking website. Prior to that, he worked at Davidville, UrbanBaby, Frederator Studios, and Tekserve. David Karp was born on July 6, 1986, and currently resides in New York, United States.
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About Tumblr: Tumblr, a microblogging platform and social networking website, enables users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.
Sam Ben Avraham
Founder & CEO of Liberty Fairs
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About Liberty Fairs: Liberty Fairs, the newest brainchild of Sam Ben-Avraham ushers in a new era in fashion trade events.
Michael Kassan
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of MediaLink
Michael E. Kassan helps bridge the gaps between media, marketers, and technologists. Kassan founded MediaLink in 2003 to be a transformational partner to the world’s leading media, marketing, and technology companies. Bringing these groups together while balancing strategic insight with pragmatic execution, MediaLink guides its clients through an increasingly fragmented media landscape. As Chairman and CEO, Kassan has led the firm’s expansion from strategic advisory into multiple business lines including executive search, financial due diligence, agency benchmarking/reviews, and trade marketing. With a culture focused on both confidentiality and transparency, MediaLink now sits at the epicenter of major cross-industry initiatives and legislation helping to build consensus between government, marketers, and publishers. Kassan maintains a deep commitment to advising the media industry’s leadership. He acts as Special Advisor to numerous CEO’s helping them “break through the noise” in today’s marketplace and advising on issues ranging from corporate strategy and partnerships to M&A. Drawing on a combination of experience, relationships, and insights, Kassan writes extensively as a noted blogger and serves frequently as a moderator and keynote speaker at global industry conferences. He has built instrumental partnerships with the Consumer Electronics Show and the Cannes Lions. He also produces and hosts a radio show on WOR 710 AM and Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio, “Medialinked — Inside Advertising and Media with Michael Kassan.” Prior to MediaLink, Kassan led Initiative Media Worldwide as COO and Vice-Chairman from 1994 to 2001. Kassan helped grow the company’s initial $1.5 billion in billings nearly ten-fold. Prior to Initiative, he was President and COO of International Video Entertainment (Artisan Entertainment). In his first career, Kassan spent ten years as a tax lawyer specializing in the entertainment industry. Kassan currently serves as Chair of the UJA-New York Marketing Communications Committee as well as on the Boards of the American Advertising Federation, the Ad Council, and the Hollywood Radio and Television Society. He served as Chairman of the California State Senate Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry.
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About MediaLink: MediaLink is a strategic advisory firm that provides strategic advisory and implementation services to companies at all stages.
Justin McLeod
Founder and CEO of Hinge
Founder and CEO of Hinge.
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About Hinge: Hinge is a social discovery network helping users meet new people through an application.
Kanika Bahl
Chief Executive Officer of Evidence Action
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About Evidence Action: Evidence Action reducing poverty and spurring growth in developing countries.
Greg Maffei
President & CEO of Liberty Media
Greg Maffei is the President and CEO at Liberty Media.
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About Liberty Broadband, Liberty Media, Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings Inc, Qurate Retail, Qurate Retail: Liberty Media operates in the video and online commerce, media, communications, and entertainment businesses.
Alex Blumberg
Co-Founder and CEO and Podcast Businessman of Gimlet Media
Alex Blumberg is a CO-Founder and CEO and Podcast Businessman at Gimlet Media. He received a B.A. from Oberlin College and is currently an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University. From 1999-2014 he was the producer for the public radio show This American Life and his stories were regularly featured on the show. From 2007-2014 he was the executive producer of the television version of This American Life. Prior to This American Life, he worked as a freelance radio reporter, contributing to This American Life, the Savvy Traveller and Chicago Public Radio. In 2008 he collaborated with National Public Radio economics correspondent Adam Davidson to co-host the Planet Money podcast, which posts new episodes twice weekly. In August 2014, he started Gimlet Media along with Matthew Lieber. Initially pitched as the American Podcasting Corporation (APC), Gimlet Media is a podcasting business. Blumberg documented the startup process in the first season of a podcast hosted on Gimlet Media, titled StartUp. The second season follows “Dating Ring”, another startup company. Apart from StartUp, Gimlet Media has launched several other podcasts, including Mystery Show, Surprisingly Awesome, and Reply All. The company has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. After raising most of its initial capital from investment firms Betaworks, Lowercase Capital, and Knight Enterprise Fund, Gimlet invited the listeners of its shows to help raise the last $200,000 through crowdfunding platform Alphaworks. In December 2015, Gimlet closed a Series A round of funding that raised $6 million at a $30 million valuation.
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About Gimlet Media: Gimlet Media is a developer of a digital media network platform that focuses on producing quality narrative podcasts.
Anna-Marie Wascher
Co-Founder and CEO of YvesBlue
Anna-Marie Wascher is the Co-Founder and CEO at YvesBlue.
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About Flat World Partners, YvesBlue: YvesBlue distills the sustainability narrative across your entire portfolio.
Alex Bangash
Founder. Chairman, Managing Director & CEO of Trusted Insight
Alex Bangash is the Founder, Chairman, Managing Director, and CEO at Trusted Insight, a platform for institutional investors in 2010. In 2003, he founded Rumson Consulting Group, an innovative asset management and advisory firm specializing in Venture Capital investments for institutional investors.
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About Trusted Insight: Trusted Insight is an LP network that provides institutional investors with curated news, jobs, rankings, events, and a forum.
Georgene Huang
CEO & Co-Founder of Fairygodboss
Georgene Huang is founder of Fairygodboss.com, an employer review site and community for working women.
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About Fairygodboss: Fairygodboss is the largest career community for women. Free for women, we help employers recruit and hire women.
Frankie Vittorini
CEO of uSTADIUM
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About uSTADIUM: uSTADIUM is a platform for sports fans to engage and make money on their opinions.
Yaniv Makover
Co-founder & CEO of Anyword
Yaniv Makover is the Co-founder and CEO at Keywee
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About Anyword: Anyword offers publishers and marketers an approach to content distribution and performance measurement.
Nadav Shoval
CEO & Co-Founder of OpenWeb
Nadav Shoval is the CEO & Co-Founder of Spot.IM, an on-site community that brings the power back to the publisher. Prior to Spot.IM, Nadav has developed and founded 4 technology startups. Spot.IM is his fifth venture. Nadav is a technology erudite and a sports addict.
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About OpenWeb: OpenWeb is a social engagement platform for people to elevate an open exchange of ideas across communities online.
Brendan Eapen
Co-Founder & CEO of In/spree
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About In/spree: In/Spree is a new social media shopping platform that connects influencers, brands, and retailers.
Jon Brodsky
CEO of YouNow
Jon Brodsky is the CEO at YouNow.
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About YouNow: YouNow is the world’s first live social network, empowering users to broadcast themselves from anywhere in real time.
Mae Karwowski
CEO, Founder of Obviously
Mae is the CEO and Founder of Obviously, the influencer platform for the world’s iconic brands. Mae has grown this company from a one person start up to a 15 person, global company with a brand roster that includes many Fortune 500 companies. Obviously specializes in building custom networks of influencers for brands, specifically large scale global communities of hundreds to thousands of influencers with the right target audiences. Working with the best brands out there, we build relationships with the influencers that embody their ethos while moving their businesses forward. Before Starting Obviously, Mae ran social media for Gilt City, part of Gilt Groupe. Previous to that she ran social media for Bravo, Coca Cola and UGG with the ad agency 360i. She enjoys playing tennis, snowboarding, corgi .gifs and talking tech and entrepreneurship 24/7.
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About Obviously: Obviously builds and manages influencer networks for the world’s iconic brands.
Mike Albanese
CEO of GALORE Media
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About GALORE Media: A talent driven media company celebrating beauty, femininity, and sex appeal in a fun, unconventional form for generation Y and Z.
Udayan Bose
Founder & CEO of NetElixir
Udayan Bose founded NetElixir with a vision to provide online marketers worldwide with a paid search campaign optimization solution capable of delivering magical performance. Udayan recognized the potential of paid search as an essential advertising channel in 2002. Having experienced first hand the complexity involved in running a profitable paid search campaign, he was driven to develop a system that delivers predictable and efficient campaign performance, allowing marketers to fully leverage the power of paid search as a high value sales generator. Prior to starting NetElixir, Udayan was Director of Business Development for iGlobalMedia/PartyGaming, the world’s largest online gaming company. In this role he was responsible for building a new business unit, PartyBingo, that became a major revenue generator for the company. Udayan is a regular speaker at leading industry conferences like Internet Retailer Conference (US), Internet Retailing Conference (UK), eTail and Search Engine Strategies Conferences (US and Germany). He is a guest lecturer at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management; Zicklin School of Business, Baruch, NY and Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Udayan holds a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an M.B.A. from Mumbai University, India.
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About NetElixir: We specialize in SEM. Fanatically analytical. Search advertising mavens. Technology builders. Friendly experts.
Marla Gonzalez
Founder & CEO of Humanified
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About Humanified, Raxo, SteelBridge Laboratories: Humanified is the social impact network. The app that #makeschangehappen is coming 2021.
Clarkson Logan
Founder & CEO of Maestro
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About Maestro: Maestro is a cloud music platform enabling users to access and manage their entire music library on demand from any connected device.
Mary Keane-Dawson
Group CEO of Takumi
Mary is a digital maven, entrepreneur and business mentor. In 2013, after c-suite roles at WPP, Steak, Reform and Collective, she co-founded medical technology startup MyHealthPal as well as the women’s networking franchise How She Made It. Both enterprises started in London, but have expanded to the US and Canada. Mary started in advertising sales on Fleet Street in the late 80’s and she has been part of the digital revolution ever since. She has helped guide several of the world’s largest brands’ entry to the disruptive and evolving landscape of digital, including Mazda, Ford, American Airlines, John Lewis, BUPA and British Gas. She is chair of The Guardian Changing Advertising Summit, a speaker, writer and business mentor and coach. She is Global Ambassador for the British Interactive Media Association, on the Board of London Tech Advocates and NED to The Smalls as well as advisor to investors and entrepreneurs.
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About Takumi: Takumi is a platform that gives large brands and advertising agencies access to branded influencer creative at scale.
Eric Silverberg
Founder & CEO of SCRUFF
Eric is the founder & CEO of SCRUFF – one of the largest gay social dating apps in the world. Prior to SCRUFF, he was a Software Engineer at Microsoft and a Product Manager at Google. He has a BS in Computer Science from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
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About SCRUFF: SCRUFF is the top-rated, safest and most reliable social app for more than 15 million gay, bi and trans and queer men worldwide.
Morty Schaja
CEO and Founding Partner of RiverPark Ventures
Morty Schaja is the CEO and Founding Partner of RiverPark Ventures.
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About RiverPark Ventures: RiverPark Ventures is a privately owned investment management firm focused on entrepreneurs.
Mark Fishman
CEO of Screenshop
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About : Screenshop is a revolutionary new way to shop looks right from your social media feed.
Bernard George
Co-founder, CEO, President of Tornado
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About Tornado: Tornado is an investing app that advances financial wellness through community, insights & data for investors at all stages.
Bryan Stacy
Co-founder & CEO of Biem
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About Biem: Confidential, judgement-free sexual healthcare and verified STD result through your phone.
Jordan Verroi
Founder & CEO of CapGenius
Jordan Verroi is the founder of CapGenius, LLC. He is also an active investor in Pangea.app, Drum.io and silent investor in a CPG brand in the Food & Beverage industry.
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About CapGenius: CapGenius creates creative content and publishes it through a mobile keyboard.
Ayman Hariri
CEO & Co-Founder of Vero
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About Vero: Vero is an information technology company that specializes in the fields of mobile application, social media, and Online Media.
Raz Choudhury
CEO & Co-Founder SAM.AI of SAM.AI
Founder at SAM.AI | Author | Speaker | 3-time Tech Entrepreneur | Environmental Stewart Raz started his career at age 19 as an Engineer at IBM. Raz spent six years leading IBM’s major Northeast accounts such as Goldman Sachs, Mitsubishi International Trading, and AXA Equitable. Raz’s numerous professional certifications, as well as broad expertise in internet technologies, drove him to strike out on his own. In 1999, Raz founded and ran USAWeb® – now Office Interactive® – an award-winning app development and lead generation technology company based out of New York City. Raz Choudhury’s 17-year career as a Tech CEO leads him to found SAM to solve the data silo problem that plagues the industry and offer right innovative AI driven technology to a vastly underserve growing and mid-sized market. SAM was founded with some of the best engineering talents from Raz’s former organization as well as trailblazing executives in the industry that Raz had an affiliation with. Raz attended Columbia University.
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About SAM.AI: Sam.ai is a network powered relationship intelligence and outreach platform humanized with voice activated conversational AI.
Alexei Orlov
Founder and CEO of MTM
With experience spanning 30 years, 40 countries, and 50 brands, Alexei Orlov has made life his business and business his life as a seasoned leader in Global Marketing. A proven specialist in global brand strategy, marketing deployment, and operational change management, Alexei’s passionate and dynamic leadership has been a driving force throughout his career. Alexei Orlov is Founder and Global CEO of mtm choice worldwide, a boutique network of skilled practitioners specialising in high-precision brand activation and media optimisation. mtm choice is a family of wholly owned, highly accomplished specialist agencies whose people are well-rewarded and incentivized to deliver growth and the very dest creative solutions for their clients. Bolstered by market-enabling technologies, mtm agencies seek to help brands excel at the “moments that matter” for their customers and consumers. They put high precision, tech enables creativity at the core of their service offerings. The company initially raised in excess of $30 Million and has completed three acquisitions, which are all highly regarded specialist agencies in the field of Brand / Media Activation. mtm choice is currently in negotiations to complete a further $100 Million of funding to support additional Top Tier acquisitions, and a fourth acquisition will be finalised by the end of February 2019. The upcoming year will certainly be a busy one for Alexei Orlov and mtm choice — six more brands are in various stages of negotiation to be acquired by the company. Prior to mtm, Alexei Orlov served as Senior Advisor to the CEO & Chairman of DAS, an international division of Omnicom Group. Prior to DAS, he served as Global CEO of RAPP where he oversaw a dramatic turnaround, attracting new business and leadership talent through a successful rebranding initiative. As Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Volkswagen Group China, Alexei Orlov was responsible for the overall marketing and brand positioning for the Volkswagen Brands portfolio across Greater China and ASEAN. Alexei was jointly responsible for the commercial excellence of the company’s significant regional business as a core member of Volkswagen’s executive team. Alexei served the digital specialist agency Wunderman for eight years as President (Europe), then as Global COO and finally as Executive Vice-Chairman (Worldwide). He also served as the Global Strategic Lead for WPP’s automotive business, where he co-led agencies including Ogilvy & Mather, Wunderman, Mindshare, Y&R and JWT on their work for Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mazda, and Volvo. Before joining Wunderman, Alexei Orlov owned and ran ROCQM and MCW, specialists in brand strategy and commercial recovery. After selling the company to WPP, the company became one of the key cornerstones of what later became RMG Connect, a global strategy service within the WPP portfolio. Prior, Alexei was Global Brand Communications Director for Volvo Cars and Marketing Director of Volvo UK, at the time the second-largest national sales company for the Volvo Corporation. Alexei was the youngest executive to be appointed to a director position at Avon, where he served as Marketing Director of Avon Cosmetics Retail (Europe). At the beginning of his career he was a founding member of the highly-successful Paperchase Retail Group, igniting in him a passion for brand stewardship that carries on to this day. Alexei Orlov has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and honors. In 2012 and 2013, Alexei was awarded CMO of the Year / ASEAN by the World Brand Congress. In 2013, Alexei and his team at Proximity received a Cannes Gold Lion Award for their work creating the People’s Car Project, the largest automotive social media platform with 28 million users and 108 million YouKu followers. Alexei was also invited to be one of the top keynote speakers at the highly-acclaimed Global Brand Forum in 2013. Alexei Orlov’s dynamic insight is reflected in his continued ventures, thought leadership, and everyday philosophies. Originally from the United Kingdom, he currently resides in New York City where he spends leisure time with his beloved family, enjoys nature, and writes poetry.
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About MTM: MTM is an independent global network dedicated to creating value between people and brands at the moments that matter.
Jake Poses
Founder & CEO of Jumprope
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About Jumprope: Jumprope is a platform where users can create, discover, and share how-to videos and tutorials.
Rachel Renock
CEO of Wethos
A former advertising creative, Rachel Renock quit her agency job at 25 and launched Wethos to help freelancers earn more by finding and forming the teams they love. Since its founding in 2016, Renock has raised over $5M in funding for Wethos, landed on the cover of the New York Times, and built Virtual Studios™ to empower independent creators to instantly price projects, easily team up, and automatically split payments, all in one place.
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About Wethos: Wethos makes it easy to scope projects and get paid so you can team up and transform your one-person shop into a full-service studio.
Carolyn Childers
Co-Founder & CEO of Chief
Carolyn Childers is the Co-founder and CEO of Chief, the private network built to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. She is an experienced leader and operator, having successfully scaled several early-stage businesses. Prior to founding Chief, Carolyn was SVP of Operations at Handy, led the launch of the site Soap.com (Quidsi) and acted as its GM through its acquisition by Amazon. Carolyn is now focusing her energy and experience on tackling the imbalance of professional power and creating lasting change from the top down, landing her on Inc.’s 2019 Female Founders 100 List.
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About Chief: Chief is the only private membership network focused on connecting and supporting women executive leaders.
Isa Watson
Founder and CEO of Squad
Isa Watson is the Founder and CEO of Squad, the intimate voice-only social experience for you and your people. A 30 under 30 honoree, prior to founding Squad Isa was a VP of Digital Product at JPMorgan Chase. Before that she was a diabetes chemist and data scientist at Pfizer. Isa earned an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a MS in Pharmacology from Cornell University and a BS in Chemistry from Hampton University. She is a classical pianist.
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About Squad: Squad is the intimate voice-only social experience.
Naj Austin
Founder &CEO, Somewhere Good of Ethels Club
Naj Austin is the founder and CEO of Somewhere Good and Ethel’s Club. She has spent her career building digital and physical products that make the world a more intersectional and equitable space. She was named one of Inc’s 100 Female Founders transforming America, a Huffpost Culture Shifter of 2020 and Time Out New York’s 2020 list of women making NYC better.
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About Ethels Club, Somewhere Good: An immersive wellness platform centering people of color. By us, for you.
Tom Petit
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Landis
Tom Petit is the Co-Founder of Landis.
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About Landis, Zicklin School of Business: Landis helps renters become homeowners.
Cyril Berdugo
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Landis
Cyril Berdugo is the founder of Landis and a Managing Partner at his personal tech and real estate investment company, Berd Industries. Prior to co-founding Landis and Berd, Cyril was a venture capitalist at Fifth Wall where he invested in real estate tech companies. He was also a Director at Crown Acquisitions, one of the largest real estate investment firms in the US, where he was responsible for acquisitions, refinancings, dispositions and asset management. Before joining Crown, Cyril worked at Houlihan Lokey where he advised companies on M&A, equity and debt capital markets, and restructuring transactions across all industries. At Houlihan, Cyril was a founding member of the Capital Markets Group. Prior to Houlihan Lokey, Cyril worked in the Credit Trading group at Citigroup. Throughout his career, Cyril has completed over $10 billion in transactions. Cyril is an advisor to several early-stage companies and a director at TP NYC, a real estate investment firm. He is a graduate of Emory University and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
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About Berd Industries, Landis: Landis helps renters become homeowners.
Jeremy Fischbach
CEO of MyNeighborhood
Jeremy Fischbach is the co-founder and CEO of ‘Happy’ (www.happytheapp.io), a start-up that aims to change the culture of support in the United States by significantly expanding the number of people who can provide and receive the critical component of mental health, emotional support. Jeremy has a BA in psychology from Princeton and a JD from NYU Law School.
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About MyNeighborhood: MyNeighborhood is a local social network with the purpose of bringing people together that help and support themselves in the time of
Álvaro De La Fuente
Co-Founder / CEO of Artisroom
I was born in Spain, however I have lived in New York City for 12 years. Attending Babson College, a truly global university, has given me unique assets beyond my curriculum. I have experienced and collaborated with people from all walks of life and every corner of the globe.
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About Artisroom: Platform for artists in music, art, & fashion to build a portfolio and create connections
Zohar Dayan
CEO & Founder of Wibbitz
CEO & Founder of Wibbitz, the leading automated video creation company that empowers any team to produce professional short-form video.
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About Wibbitz: Wibbitz is an automated video creation company that empowers any team to produce professional short-form video.
Richard Steggall
Founder & CEO of Urban FT Group, Inc.
Richard Steggall, the CEO of Urban FT, which is recognized as one of the most progressive and successful FinTech companies in the Financial Services industry today, is a results-driven entrepreneur with a record of success and a passion for accelerating and capitalizing on emerging opportunities. At Urban FT, Richard and team are enabling financial institutions to deliver an exceptional customer experience through the world’s first, and most capable, FinTech Core. Urban FT’s X-35 FinTech Core™ is positioned to clean up this challenging ecosystem and help financial institutions stay on the bleeding-edge of innovations when it comes to providing their end-users with superior Digital Banking Experiences, Money Movement capabilities, Identity Verification and Account Opening options, and Behavioral Insights, all of which enhance overall user engagement. A FinTech veteran, directly before founding Urban FT, he was founder & CEO of Waspit Group Inc., a banking alternative for students. Before entering the FinTech space he spent 17 years in IT&T, serving as COO of UK-based Burlington Rye Plc and head of corporate strategy for NASDAQ-listed and U.S.-based Kit Digital Inc. (formerly Roo Media Inc.). In these roles, he was responsible for the growth strategies of private and public companies in North America, the U.K. and Asia. Throughout his experience, Richard has focused on acquisitive and capital growth, and led IPOs (including via reverse mergers) across the globe.
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About Urban FT Group, Inc.: Urban FT helps FIs deliver exceptional customer-driven digital experiences by providing the industry’s first and most capable FinTech Core.
Majd Maksad
Founder & CEO of Status Money
Majd is the co-founder & CEO of Status Money. He has more than 10 years of experience in the Consumer Lending and Credit Cards industry. Prior to co-founding Status Money, Majd was the Head of Decision Management for Citi Global Digital Payments in New York. In that role, he led the financial modeling for deals with American Airlines, PayPal, Apple, Samsung, and Google. Majd previously held senior roles at Citi in Digital Marketing, Product Development, and Portfolio Analytics. Prior to Citi, Majd developed credit and fraud risk models at Discover Cards in Chicago. Majd holds Masters and Bachelors degrees in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.
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About Status Money: Status Money is a social personal finance app that enables people to compare finances and crowdsource advice from peers.
Geoff Bartakovics
Co-founder and CEO of Tasting Table
Geoff Bartakovics (born 1977) is an American businessman and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and CEO of Tasting Table,[1] a digital media brand targeted toward influential foodies. Bartakovics is also a board member or advisor to a number of other digital brands and start-ups, including Trigger Media Group, Inside Hook, Pixafy and Gathered Table. Before launching Tasting Table in 2008, Bartakovics was a business manager in asset-backed finance at UBS Investment Bank. He studied English literature at the University of Chicago, and studied comparative literature and philosophy at the University of Hamburg as a Fulbright Scholar. In 2012, he was named one of Out magazine’s OUT 100
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About Artifact Ventures, Pixafy, Tasting Table: Tasting Table is the modern media brand for a new generation of food & drink enthusiasts.
Christopher Sheehan
Founder and CEO of WorldCover
Christopher Sheehan is CEO and co-founder of WorldCover, a New-York based tech company that offers weather index insurance in Africa. He graduated from MIT with degrees in Computer Science and Finance and spent 8 years in quantitative asset management in New York City. Christopher has been a quantitative researcher, risk manager, and portfolio manager at Deutsche Bank, Roc Capital, and System Two Advisors, where he was founding partner and lead technologist.
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About WorldCover: WorldCover protects farmers around the world from droughts, by offering satellite-enabled insurance delivered with mobile money.
Ilya Lagutin
CEO of Aitarget
Entrepreneur @ adtech space. Specialties: advertising, data management, big data, programmatic buying, Facebook Ads. CEO of Facebook Marketing Partner company Aitarget.
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About aidata.me, Aitarget: A single solution for the full scope of advertising tasks on Facebook and Youtube — from making creatives to campaign optimization.
Andy Blacker
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Songclip (Audiobyte)
Andy helped start Audiobyte because the silence in texts that he sent and received felt like a giant void for the avid music fan. He loves music, lyrics, live shows and concerts, and the way they bring people together. He is laser focused on delivering music to texting because the pairing and sharing of sight and sound will transform communication for fans, artists and the industry. His favorite band is TheEnd (His 6th grade son, Braden Storm, is the band’s lead vocalist). His other favs include 21 Pilots, Logic, The Avett Brothers, The Beastie Boys, Sara Bareilles, Kendrick Lamar, The Foo Fighters and Willie Nelson. When he’s not working or being a great dad and husband, you might catch him watching the most recent Netflix documentary, going on a late night Adidas sneaker-buying spree, or catching a show at Jones Beach. “You can’t beat the tailgate and seeing your favorite band, playing on the water as the sun sets. It is truly an experience.” On a serious note Andy has a penchant for startups and dove into the tech industry in 1994 as one of the very first employees of the Internet search engine, Infoseek, where he ultimately became Director, Business Development and Partnerships. Following Infoseek, he took on digital marketing strategy roles at AOL and Discovery. After those roles he joined the founding management team of ToneMedia, where he helped lead the mobile music platform reach 120 million users and achieve an acquisition by Bandsintown Group.
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About Songclip (Audiobyte): Songclip is the first Social Music API, offering a SaaS technology platform for integrating licensed music on social and digital platforms.
Bruce Spector
CEO and Founder of BuzzVote
Bruce Edward Spector is a technology action junkie. He has been creating and investing in innovation for over twenty years. As the founder of WebCal (acquired by Yahoo) he created the web’s first scalable personal information platform now Yahoo Calendar and PIM. He worked in senior management at Yahoo where his business card read “turbo yahoo”. Since then he has started an incubator, ATTAP (All Things to All People) Technologies, Inc which developed PersonalDNA.com, LifeIO.com, and BuzzVote.com.
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About BuzzVote: BuzzVote is a user-generated social polling and viral voting platform for Android and iOS devices.
Darius Fisher
CEO & Co-Founder of Status Labs
CEO & Co-Founder @ Status Labs | Managing Partner @ Blue Land Partners.
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About Blue Land Partners, Page, Status Labs, YPO: The Premier Online Reputation Management Firm
Michael Lebowitz
Founder and CEO of Big Spaceship
Michael Lebowitz is Founder and CEO of Big Spaceship, a globally-recognized marketing agency that creates connected experiences, products and services. Since launching the agency in 2000, he has defined the strategy and vision for Big Spaceship, while working closely with the agency’s clients, including BMW, Capital One, Google Play, Google Maps, Ken Burns, Nestle-Purina, Organic Valley, Samsung, West Elm, and YouTube. At Big Spaceship Michael has assembled “a crack team of digital inventors,” according to Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” list, and has led the company to be named one of Advertising Age and Crain’s New York Business Best Places to Work for multiple years in a row. Big Spaceship’s multidisciplinary team structure and progressive culture have been profiled by Harvard Business School, with the case study now taught at business schools in 40 countries. Speaking on creativity, innovation and the evolution of business, Michael speaks across the globe and has engaged audiences at top industry events including Cannes Festival of Creativity, SXSW, Click:NY, Forge Conference, Advertising Week, Click:London and ad:tech, as well as at business schools including NYU Stern, Long Island University and SLU’s Institute for Private Business. He frequently chairs and sits on juries for creative awards and influential industry organizations including the IAB Agency Advisory Board and annual MIXX Awards, The One Club, Society of Digital Agencies and The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, among others. And has led the agency to win countless awards of its own including an Emmy Award nomination for the agency’s work with HBO Voyeur, Cannes Lions, Clios, Webbys, Andys, and One Show Interactive Pencils, as well as numerous IAB MIXX, Webby, Shorty, FWA, Communication Arts, W3 and Pixel Awards, among others. Michael was also named among the 2010 Creativity 50 and the 2008 OMMA Online All-Stars.
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About Big Spaceship, Harvard Business School, NYU Stern School of Business: Big Spaceship creates the experiences, products, platforms, and content that help brands build meaningful relationships with consumers.
Aaron Fessler
Founder & CEO of TwineSocial
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About TripWorks, TwineSocial: Smart marketers build trust and tell brand stories with curated social media.
Rachel Zisser Kaplowitz
Co-founder & CEO of Honey
Rachel is the CEO of Honey. With over 10 years of business development and sales experience, Rachel leads the growth and sales operations at Honey. Before Honey, she led the sales team at Condition One, a venture-backed TechStars company. Rachel earned her MBA at NYU Stern and her BA at Columbia University.
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About Honey: Honey is a simple and beautiful modern intranet. We believe in loving your job and the tools you use at work.
Mike More
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of CoPromote
Mike More is CEO and co-Founder of CoPromote CoPromote is a cross-promotion network. The CoPromote network enables marketers to reach 1000x more new people per post by leveraging a large network of like-minded content creators.CoPromote rewrites the rules of social marketing marketing true authentic scalable social sharing, CEO and Founder of Selectable Media.Selectable Media (www.selectablemedia.com), the leading Gen Y online broadcast network. Selectable is in the top 10 on comScore’s March 2009 Video Metrix Key Measures Report, which rates online video content viewership. The report firmly establishes Selectable’s video network as the 5th most popular destination for Internet video viewers aged 12-24, and the 9th most popular video destination across all age groups.With a focus on marketing to Generation Y, Selectable Media broadcasts online video through a proprietary network of more than 400 social networking resource sites. Selectable Media shares the comScore Top 10 with some of the largest players in Internet video including Google, Fox Interactive Media, HULU.com, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Viacom Digital, CBS Interactive, Turner Network, and Disney.
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About CoPromote: CoPromote operates as a free content sharing community.
Fenner Stevens
CEO of Muze
Fenner Stevens serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Muze.
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About Muze: Muze is a creative messaging app that expands how users can communicate.
