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 United States based Director operating in the FinTech space. If you think a Director 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.
Jeremy Lewis
Senior Director, NFT Acquisition of Crypto.com
Sr. Director, NFT Acquisition at Crypto.com & Host of Wild ‘Til 9 Podcast
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About Crypto.com, Wild ‘Til 9: Crypto.com is a payment and cryptocurrency platform that empowers users to buy, sell, and pay with crypto.
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Robert Balousek
Director of Engineering of Carta
Robert Balousek is the Director of Engineering at Carta
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About Carta, Luna – Moonlit Deliveries, Radeeus: Carta is a global ownership management platform that helps companies, investors, and employees manage equity and ownership.
Diana Ellis
Director Of Operations of Truebill
Diana Ellis is the director of operations at Truebill.
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About Truebill: Truebill is a personal finance app that utilizes AI to enable users to manage their personal finances and improve their financial health.
Cliff Holekamp
Cofounder, Managing Director, & General Partner of Cultivation Capital
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About Cultivation Capital: Cultivation Capital is a venture capital firm managing funds focused on software, agriculture, geospatial, and health tech startups.
Wade Bitaraf
Founder and Director of Plug and Play Energy & Sustainability of Plug and Play Tech Center
Wade is the head of Energy & Sustainability practice at Plug and Play, an active early stage investor and global corporate innovation center. Wade holds master degrees in Chemical Engineering and Petroleum and Natural Gas engineering. His mission at Plug and Play is to bring innovation into the energy industry by bridging large corporations to the startup ecosystem. In the past 3 years, Wade has worked closely with the entrepreneurs that are building innovative products and solutions for the electric Utilities and Oil and Gas companies.
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About Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Allison Romero
Director of Marketing of Plug and Play Tech Center
Allison Romero is Director of Marketing at Plug and Play Tech Center.
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About Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Roja Amrollah
Director, Investment Operations of Plug and Play Tech Center
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About Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Seena Amidi
Managing Director, Co-head EMEA of Plug and Play Tech Center
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About Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Kevin Withstandley
Senior Director, Partner Success of Plug and Play Tech Center
Kevin is the corporate partnerships manager for the Internet of Things vertical at Plug and Play Tech Center, a global innovation platform headquartered in Silicon Valley. Plug and Play’s IoT vertical currently helps 30 partners such as Philips, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Bosch, and Samsung by introducing them to top tier startups for business development, pilots, investment opportunities, etc. Kevin also runs the Internet of Thursdays meetup consisting of 1,744 members, which helps engage the community around IoT topics, startups, and corporations. Prior to Plug and Play, Kevin worked for 6 years at Best Buy managing sales teams in different departments while helping grow the regional presence. Kevin holds a bachelor’s degree in Business with a focus in Entrepreneurship.
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About Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Lio Chen
Managing Director, Travel & Hospitality of Plug and Play Tech Center
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About Plug and Play Tech Center, Shanghai Jin Jiang International Hotels: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
RJ Carver
Director: Plug and Play NYC of Plug and Play Tech Center
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About Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Chris S. Johnson
Director of Enterprise & Mid-Market Business Development of Divvy
Chris was brought into Divvy to head the Enterprise and Mid-Market growth of the company. He’s been an integral part in helping Divvy grow from a few hundred clients to thousands and continues to strategically grow Divvy. Chris lives in Utah with his wife and kids and they enjoy sports and the outdoors.
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About Divvy: Divvy is a platform that helps businesses manage payments and subscriptions, build strategic budgets, and eliminate expense reports.
Denelle Dixon
CEO and Executive Director of Stellar Development Foundation
Denelle Dixon is the CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit organization using blockchain to unlock the world’s economic potential by making money more fluid, markets more open, and people more empowered. Before joining Stellar, Dixon served as COO of Mozilla, one of the most successful mission-driven open-source organizations. During her tenure at Mozilla, she led the organization’s business, revenue and policy teams including the ongoing fight for Net Neutrality and the global effort to ensure that people can control their personal data. She also pushed Mozilla to understand how to partner with commercial entities while staying true to its core mission of openness, innovation, and opportunity on the web. A lawyer by trade, Denelle previously served as a general counsel and legal advisor in private equity and technology. Throughout her career, Denelle has been a vocal advocate for net neutrality, encryption, the disclosure of vulnerabilities by governments, and greater user choice and control.
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About Stellar Development Foundation: Stellar Development Foundation supports the development and growth of Stellar, a blockchain network that connects financial infrastructure.
Andrea Lo
Sr. Director of Investments of Stellar Development Foundation
Profile from 2013: Andrea believes that regardless of a person’s educational background or socio-economic status, success can be achieved by those who think big, work hard, and persevere. She hopes that Piggybackr can inspire youth to learn those skills early on.
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About Stellar Development Foundation: Stellar Development Foundation supports the development and growth of Stellar, a blockchain network that connects financial infrastructure.
Lisa Nestor
Director of Partnerships of Stellar Development Foundation
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About Stellar Development Foundation, Stellar Development Foundation: Stellar Development Foundation supports the development and growth of Stellar, a blockchain network that connects financial infrastructure.
Nicole Stata
Founder and Managing Director of Boston Seed Capital
Ms. Stata is the Founder and Managing Director of Boston Seed Capital, LLC. From 2007 to 2010, Ms. Stata worked as an angel investor, advisor and start-up executive. Ms. Stata founded Deploy Solutions in 1996, an award-winning leading provider of SAAS Human Capital Management. As CEO and President, she led Deploy for eleven years through its sale to Kronos in 2007. Deploy was widely recognized as a national best place to work and was the recipient of Deloitte and Touche’s Fast 50 award in 2006. Before Deploy, Ms. Stata managed the global service center for Restrac (Webhire) and started her career with Lotus Development Corporation. Nicole serves as an advisor and board member for several companies and non-profit organizations.
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About Boston Seed Capital: Boston Seed Capital provides seed stage funding for internet-enabled businesses.
Peter Blacklow
Managing Director/GP and co-founder of Boston Seed Capital
Peter Blacklow is a Senior Partner at Boston Seed Capital. Peter was formerly the President of WorldWinner, a subsidiary of GSN (Game Show Network), a joint venture of Sony Pictures Television and DirecTV. In this role, he oversaw the online games businesses of WorldWinner.com and GSN.com, as well as its mobile and Facebook applications. Peter led the consolidation of WorldWinner and SkillJam.com, the two leading skill games sites, to create the world’s largest skill games network, with more than 30 million registered players globally. Prior to WorldWinner/GSN, Peter served as Senior Vice President of Marketing at Monster, the largest global careers website, where he was responsible for managing a $100+ million budget, including all advertising, promotions, public relations and business-to-business direct marketing. He negotiated and activated the company’s U.S. Olympics sponsorship, oversaw five Super Bowl commercials, and helped Monster become a top 20 most visited web destination. Before his time at Monster, Peter spent five years at Converse, Inc., where he became the Director of Marketing for five performance business units, including its flagship basketball line, developing its worldwide business plans and overseeing the negotiations of NBA endorsements. Peter has also spent several years at advertising and promotional agencies working on various consumer products. Peter is a graduate of Harvard University, and has received numerous awards and distinctions, including being named one of the nation’s top “Marketers of the Year” by Promo magazine. In addition, Peter serves as a board member of MassDigi, a trade association for digital games, and acts as a board advisor to Oyo SportsToys, AdAgility, DraftKings, and Ubersense.
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About Boston Seed Capital, Drive by DraftKings: Boston Seed Capital provides seed stage funding for internet-enabled businesses.
Andrew Inscore
Director Of Engineering of Doma
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About Doma: Doma is an insurtech platform that uses machine intelligence to remove friction from residential real estate transactions.
Andrew Poelstra
Director of Research of Blockstream
Andrew has been programming computers since he was four years old and has taken an interest in cryptography since 13. Today he is a main developer of the libsecp256k1 high-performance ECC library as well as the sidechain Elements Alpha. Andrew became involved in the Bitcoin community in late 2011; in 2013 he began contributing to the high-performance cryptography library libsecp256k1 which underlies Bitcoin Core’s signature validation and signing. While completing his Masters of Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, he wrote and co-wrote several papers about Bitcoin, wrote the rust-bitcoin library, and contributed code and design to the sidechain Elements Alpha. In March 2016 he joined Blockstream full-time as a mathematician, where he continues to interact with the Bitcoin research community.
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About Blockstream: Blockstream provides Bitcoin and blockchain technology solution for financial markets.
Wesley Chan
Managing Director, General Partner of Felicis Ventures
Wesley Chan is a Managing Director and General Partner at Felicis Ventures. He founded Google Analytics and Google Voice, built Google’s early advertising system, built Google Venture’s early investment team, and holds 17 US patents for his fundamental contributions in designing many of Google’s most widely-used services. Wesley is an investor and coach to some of the world’s most successful startups. He led investment rounds and holds board or observer seats in Canva, Guild Education, Turvo, CultureAmp, Okera, Hyperscience, Guideline, and Dialpad. He also led investments in Ring (exited for $1B+ to AMZN), Flexport, Carta, Checkr, Gusto, ZipLine, Orca Bio, Whole Biome, Skip the Dishes (exited to Just Eats/JE), and YES (exited to TWTR). Wesley was also one of the earliest General Partners at GV (Google Ventures), where he built the investment team, led many of GV’s investments and held board or observer seats in Angelist, Aptelligent (exited to VMWare), iPerian (exited to BMS), and Dialpad. Wesley was also one of the first checks into Plaid, RobinHood, Gusto, Optimizely, HelloSign (exited to DropBox), DataPad (exited to Cloudera), Freshplum (exited to TWTR), Namo Media (exited to TWTR), and Parse (exited to FB). He is a recipient of Google’s Founders Award–the company’s most prestigious recognition–for leading the development of Google’s early client efforts, which led to the creation of Google Chrome. Wesley worked at HP Labs as a senior software engineer and as a sponsored fellow at Microsoft Research. He holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT where he completed his graduate thesis at the Media Laboratory. Technology Review magazine featured Wesley as a “Top 35 Under 35” innovator. Wesley’s accomplishments have been covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Fortune, and his story as a product founder is featured in Steven Levy’s best-selling Google book, “In The Plex.”
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About Felicis Ventures: Felicis invests in seed through Series C stage companies across multiple sectors, industries, and frontier tech.
Sundeep Peechu
Managing Director, General Partner of Felicis Ventures
Sundeep Peechu is a Managing Director, General Partner at Felicis. He’s currently excited about re-invention of security and insurance and further developments in crypto and machine learning. Investor in ActiveHours (Earnin), Counsyl, BitPay, Gigster, Ginkgo Bioworks, HealthIQ, Matterport, Plaid, Pindrop, Recursion, Spoke, Troops, Top Hat, Wish and a few others. Prior to joining Felicis in 2010, he held various product roles at Intel within the software division. Sundeep joined Intel through the acquisition of Sarvega, where he was an early employee responsible for the design of the security infrastructure. He also had brief stints at NEA where he focused on mobile and emerging markets and at Simbol Mining where he developed key initiatives around the production of battery materials. Sundeep has a Bachelors in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, an M.S in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Earnin, Felicis Ventures, Pindrop, Top Hat: Felicis invests in seed through Series C stage companies across multiple sectors, industries, and frontier tech.
Victoria Treyger
General Partner and Managing Director of Felicis Ventures
Victoria is passionate about building great brands and scaling revenue through innovative sales and marketing. She joined Kabbage because she loved the opportunity to leverage technology and data to transform how financial services are delivered to customers.
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About Felicis Ventures: Felicis invests in seed through Series C stage companies across multiple sectors, industries, and frontier tech.
Daniel Friedland
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital
Daniel Friedland is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital.
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About Goldcrest Capital: Goldcrest is a venture capital fund that invests in private technology companies.
Sheila Bair
Independent Director of Avant
Sheila was appointed President of Washington College in August 2015 and also serves as Senior Advisor to DLA Piper, an international law firm. Prior to her appointment, she was Senior Advisor to The Pew Charitable Trusts for four years and the Chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 2006-2011. Earlier, Sheila was the Dean’s Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She also served in various roles such as Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Senior Vice President for Government Relations at the New York Stock Exchange, and Commissioner and Acting Chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Sheila is a director of Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. and Banco Santander, SA. She has a BA and law degree from the University of Kansas.
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About Fannie Mae, Washington College: Avant is an online lending platform that offers alternatives to its clients with safe financial products.
Miriam Rivera
CEO, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Ulu Ventures
Miriam co-founded Ulu Ventures, where she is the Managing Partner. Ulu is an early stage angel fund focused on IT investments and has made 30 investments in the last three years. She is also the co-founder and co-president of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs.
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About Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs, Ulu Ventures: Ulu Ventures provides early-stage investments to enterprise cloud and smart data companies.
Clint Korver
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Ulu Ventures
Clint is a co-founding partner at Ulu Ventures where his investment interests include technology-enabled services, educational technology, and companies that turn data into actionable information. Along with Miriam, Clint is the co-founder and co-president of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs a Stanford University alumni organization helping to build and connect Stanford’s entrepreneurial community. Prior to becoming a full-time investor, he co-founded and led four companies including Outcome Software, where he raised $10 million in venture capital to build web-based decision tools for large enterprises and was granted multiple patents in web-based decision analytics. He also co-founded Decision Quality International which trained over 1000 Fortune 500 executives in the principles of decision quality, licensed decision training programs to over 10,000 end users, and consulted to six of the largest financial institutions in the US. He also co-founded and led the consumer internet company, DecisionStreet and the analytics consulting firm, The Decision Company. Clint has a passion for teaching and regularly guest lectures at Stanford on entrepreneurship, decision-making, and ethics. He has taught courses in ethical decision-making at both Stanford and Grinnell College, and co-authored Ethics for the Real World (Harvard Business Press 2008) with Stanford professor Ron Howard. Clint is a Kauffman Fellow and Venture Partner at Crescendo Ventures and an advisory board member at the Decision Education Foundation. He holds a PhD and MS degree from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering with an emphasis in decision analysis and a BA with honors in mathematics from Grinnell College where he currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees.
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About Ulu Ventures: Ulu Ventures provides early-stage investments to enterprise cloud and smart data companies.
Megan Kaspar
Managing Director of Magnetic
Megan Kaspar is a co-founder and managing director of Magnetic, a blockchain and cryptocurrency investment firm.
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About Magnetic: Crypto, Blockchain, FinTech
Aldric Giacomoni
Director of Engineering of Stash Financial
Aldric Giacomoni is the director of engineering at Stash.
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About Stash Financial: Stash is a personal finance app that combines banking, investing, and advice into one platform.
Coy Henderson
Senior Director of Growth of Levelset
Coy Henderson is the senior director of growth at Levelset.
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About Levelset: Levelset is a platform that helps contractors get paid faster and more efficiently.
Jason Bull
Director of Data Research of Levelset
Jason Bull is the director of data research at Levelset.
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About Levelset: Levelset is a platform that helps contractors get paid faster and more efficiently.
Kanishk Parashar
Senior Director, Product -> Advisor of Addepar
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About Addepar, Square: Addepar is a wealth management platform that provides tools for data analytics and portfolio visuals.
Karla Fornell
Sr. Director, Growth Marketing of Credit Karma
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About Credit Karma, Credit Karma: Credit Karma offers a range of tools and personalized recommendations designed to help customers make the most of their money.
Ash Coleman
Senior Director, Head of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion of Credit Karma
Ash focuses her efforts within technology on bringing awareness to inclusion of women and people of color, especially in the Context Driven Testing and Agile communities. Though technology and inclusion have her heart today, engineering was not her first love. A former chef, Ash crafted her software approach through the learnings of hospitality. After 16 years, she put recipes aside when she began her career in software development, falling back on her skills in engineering she acquired as a kid building computers with her brother. An avid fan of matching business needs with technological solutions, you can find her doing her best work on whichever coast is the sunniest. Having helped teams build out testing practices, formulate Agile processes and redefine culture, Ash, formally Engineering Manager in Quality, now serves as Head of Diversity & Inclusion for Credit Karma. She continues testing and consulting based out of San Francisco
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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.
Martin Angert
Director of Susquehanna Growth Equity
Martin Angert is a Director with Susquehanna Growth Equity. He focuses on infrastructure and application software, SaaS, and marketplace businesses. Before joining SGE, Martin was a Principal at Insight Venture Partners, where he spent nine years leading investments in software and internet companies spanning multiple industries. Prior to that, he was a software developer in J.P. Morgan’s Application Delivery division. Martin’s prior investments include TeamViewer (acquired by Permira), Kaseya, Firemon, Wix (NSDQ: WIX), DrillingInfo, Cvent (NYSE: CVT), New Relic (NYSE: NEWR), Cherwell Software, SmartBear Software, Academic Partnerships, Whitney University System, B2B-Center, Lytx, and RTS (acquired by MICEX). Martin received dual degrees from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and its School of Engineering, graduating summa cum laude in Finance and Computer Science. Martin was born in a former Soviet republic called Moldova and is fluent in Russian. In addition to playing every competitive sport under the sun (not always well), Martin loves to spend time with his wife and dog in the great outdoors.
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About Susquehanna Growth Equity: Susquehanna Growth Equity invests in growth stage technology companies in the software, information services, and internet.
Scott Feldman
Managing Director of Susquehanna Growth Equity
Scott Feldman is a Managing Director with SGE and has been with the group since its inception. He focuses on financial services, healthcare IT and human resources technology. He currently serves on the boards of Credit Karma, Fundera, HMP Communications, iCIMS, iContracts and MMIT. He previously served on the board of Clearleap (acquired by IBM) and JK Group (acquired by CyberGrants). Before joining SGE, Scott was an investment banker with Broadmark Capital, a boutique investment banking firm serving telecom, technology and internet companies. He started his career at Gabelli & Company and worked directly for the founder Mario Gabelli, widely considered one of the greatest value investors of all time. A product of the 1980s, Scott was a serious video game junkie and today boasts one of the most complete collections of games and game consoles for the Vectrex, Odyssey, Atari, Commodore 64, Vic20, Intellivision, Colecovision and Sega. Scott’s favorite games include 1-on-1 Larry Bird vs Dr J, Pitfall, Yars Revenge, Tecmo Bowl and The Bard’s Tale. Scott also considers himself one of the greatest Chexx Dome Hockey players of all time and still owns one of the original machines featuring the “Miracle on Ice” game from the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics where amateur and collegiate players from the USA defeated the Soviet Union national team on their way to winning the gold medal. Having been a New York Knicks fan his entire life, Scott has learned how to be humble and intimately understands how to manage through failure and significant losses; lessons he regularly shares with the entrepreneurs with whom he works. Scott graduated with a B.S. in Finance from the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College with concentrations in Economics and Computer Science.
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About Susquehanna Growth Equity: Susquehanna Growth Equity invests in growth stage technology companies in the software, information services, and internet.
Ben Weinberg
Managing Director of Susquehanna Growth Equity
Ben Weinberg is a Managing Director with Susquehanna Growth Equity where he leads investments in vertical software, financial technology and marketplace companies. He is particularly interested in the use of technology in slower-adopting and highly fragmented industries. Before joining Susquehanna, Ben was a Principal at Element Partners, where he led investments in software and tech-enabled companies. He started his career as a banker in the TMT and Latin America groups at Citigroup. Ben graduated with an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Economics from Yale University.
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About Citigroup Global Markets, Susquehanna Growth Equity: Susquehanna Growth Equity invests in growth stage technology companies in the software, information services, and internet.
John Helm
Partner and Managing Director of RET Ventures
John Helm is the founder and a current Partner at the proptech-focused VC firm RET Ventures. Prior to founding RET Ventures in 2017, John was a Venture Partner with DN Capital in Munich, Germany. Before that, John ran and successfully exited two venture-backed real estate tech startups, was CFO of Marcus & Millichap, and a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. You can find John on his skis or mountain biking around Park City or—his favorite thing—spending time with his wife, son, and daughter.
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About RET Ventures: RET Ventures is an industry backed early-stage VC helping build the real estate industry’s cutting edge technology providers.
Christopher Yip
Partner and Managing Director of RET Ventures
Christopher Yip currently serves as Partner at the proptech-focused VC firm RET Ventures. Prior to RET, Christopher spent twelve years at the global private equity firm TPG, where he led growth investments in tech-enabled companies and partnered closely with CEOs and entrepreneurs. He began his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Christopher has an MBA from the Stanford GSB, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, as well as an AB in Economics and an SM in Computer Science from Harvard University. You can find Christopher flying between Park City and San Francisco, trailing the RET team on the snow, or driving anything with four wheels.
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About RET Ventures: RET Ventures is an industry backed early-stage VC helping build the real estate industry’s cutting edge technology providers.
Dipender Saluja
Managing Director of Capricorn Investment Group
Dipender Saluja is Partner and Managing Director at Capricorn Investment Group. Dipender oversees investments in energy technology, clean tech, and IT. Prior to Capricorn, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, a global market leader in electronic design, where he built and managed businesses that worked closely with the leading electronics companies around the world. Dipender is also President and CEO of Automatiks Inc, a Capricorn portfolio company developing electronic connectivity platforms for electric & hybrid vehicles, storage and smart grids. He is an electrical & computer engineer by training, and attended UND, the University of Minnesota, and Stanford.
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About Capricorn Investment Group: Capricorn Investment Group invests in the public equity, fixed income, private equity, and real assets markets.
Eduardo Vasconcellos Silva
Director of Capricorn Investment Group
Director at Capricorn Investment Group. Co-founder, along with senior partner, of Pragma’s Real Assets division. Also worked as analyst for PE/VC division. MBA Summer job at GP Investment and started as a trainee at Itau-Unibanco. Co-founder of Med Tech Venture Builder in Brazil and active Angel Investor. Successful experience as social entrepreneur, as founder and president of the “Fundo Amigos da Poli”, Brazil’s first and largest University Endowment, with BRL 22M in assets. Had the idea and led the founding team for four years, also responsible for fundraising and grant making before finally successfully transitioning to new management. Currently involved as an advisor. MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business, with merit based Fellowships from Fundação Estudar, Instituto Ling and POY-BACC. Co-founder of the Stanford GSB Impact Fund, an evergreen student-led seed fund. Graduated in Mechanical Engineering at the Polytechnic School of the University of Sao Paulo (Poli-USP). Brazilian and EU citizenship. Fluent in Portuguese, English and Spanish. H1B holder.
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About Capricorn Investment Group: Capricorn Investment Group invests in the public equity, fixed income, private equity, and real assets markets.
Sang Ngo
Director of Content of Foundation Capital
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About Foundation Capital: Foundation Capital is a venture capital firm made up of former entrepreneurs and helps companies and businesses grow.
Andrew Sohr
Co-Founder – Director of Enterprise Accounts of Built Technologies
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About Built Technologies: Built Technologies is an enterprise technology company that provides cloud-based construction lending software.
Holly McKay
Sales Director of Figure
Holly McKay was the Co-Founder and CRO at Kindest. She currently serves as a Sales Director at Figure.
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About Figure: Figure is a financial services company leveraging blockchain technology.
Tony Sun
Deputy Director and Blockchain Products & Solutions of Ant Group
Tony Sun is the Deputy Director, Blockchain Products & Solutions at Ant Group.
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About Ant Group: Ant Group strives to enable all consumers and small businesses to have equal access to financial and other services through technology.
Don Wilson
Managing Director of Digital Asset
Donald R. Wilson, Jr. is the founder and CEO of DRW, a principal trading firm with more than 800 employees across offices in Chicago, Austin, Houston, London, Montreal, New York, San Francisco and Singapore. Don started in the industry in 1989, focusing on capturing opportunities in the markets through technology, research and risk management, and founded DRW in 1992 while trading in the Eurodollar options pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. DRW has since expanded into real estate, cryptoassets and venture capital as part of its trading portfolio. Don is an influential leader in the financial futures industry and in 2010 founded the FIA Principal Traders Group. He is co-founder and board member of Eris Exchange, a designated contract market which trades an interest swap futures contract, and is the co-inventor of the Eris Exchange’s intellectual property. He is co-founder and board member of Digital Asset Holdings, a company which leverages distributed ledgers, such as the blockchain, to improve the settlement of financial instruments. He holds an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Chicago, where he is now a trustee. He also sits on the board of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Foundation. An avid competitive sailor, Don is the founder of the Chicago Match Race Center and chairman of Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Chicago.
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About Digital Asset, DRW, DRW Venture Capital: Digital Asset develops ledger technology intended to build distributed, encrypted straight-through processing tools.
Sunil Hirani
Managing Director of Digital Asset
Sunil Hirani was the Founder of TassatPay and the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at trueEX. He finished his M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.S. from Washington University.
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About Digital Asset, TassatPay, trueEX: Digital Asset develops ledger technology intended to build distributed, encrypted straight-through processing tools.
Khadija Ali
Director of Product Management and Consumer Experience of Better.com
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About Better.com: Better.com is a homeownership journey platform that utilizes technology to change the way people buy and own a home.
Victor Quinn
Director of Engineering of Better.com
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About Better.com: Better.com is a homeownership journey platform that utilizes technology to change the way people buy and own a home.
Malcom Glenn
Director of Public Affairs of Better.com
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About Better.com, Center for Workforce Inclusion: Better.com is a homeownership journey platform that utilizes technology to change the way people buy and own a home.
Carter Malloy
CEO and Founder, Board of Directors of AcreTrader
Carter grew up in an Arkansas farming family, which inspired a lifelong passion for agriculture and conservation. Prior to AcreTrader, he was part of a long/short equity investment firm for 5 years. Before joining in 2013, Carter was a Managing Director with Stephens Inc., a large private investment bank, where he was an equity research analyst focused on the Internet, Data & Analytics and Real Estate Processing sectors. Prior to Stephens, he owned small businesses focused on internet marketing and sustainable fuel technologies. He graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in Physics.
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About AcreTrader: AcreTrader is a technology company connecting investors, land, and farmers.
Garrott McClintock
Director of Farm Operations of AcreTrader
Garrott McClintock is the Director of Farm Operations at AcreTrader. He has deep roots in the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up as a fifth-generation family farmer. Previously, as a partner at Oxbow Agriculture, he co-managed a group of agricultural businesses involving $160 million worth of land and over $40 million in annual revenues. While at Oxbow, Garrott also advised agricultural startups on their early go-to-market strategies, product development, and testing. Prior to joining Oxbow in 2014, Garrott worked at SouthernSun Asset Management, a value-oriented investment firm, where he was on the real estate and operations teams. He graduated from Washington and Lee University with degrees in Art History and Environmental Studies.
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About AcreTrader: AcreTrader is a technology company connecting investors, land, and farmers.
Romain Serman
Executive Director Bpifrance USA of Bpifrance
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About Bpifrance: Bpifrance provides financial solutions for companies that are booting up the listing on the stock exchange and credit equity.
Osei Van Horne
Managing Director, Founding Member (Venture & Growth Equity Investor) of Wells Fargo
Managing Director and founding member of the Technology Division of Wells Fargo Strategic Capital (merchant bank), a multi-strategy growth capital and private equity investment vehicle, based in Palo Alto, California. In 2020, named a top 50 venture investor by Global Corporate Venturing. Operationally-oriented lean/6-sigma trained, private investment professional with over 15 years of transaction experience across multiple sub/asset classes including early-stage (Series A-B), growth equity (Series C-F), private equity (mid-market buyout), mezzanine debt and special situations. Experience across multiple market cycles, evaluating and executing deals in a variety of sectors including, PropTech, logistics tech, application software (AI/ML), broadcast and digital media, consumer electronics and packaged goods, as well as food and retail. Experience opening new offices as well as recruiting, building (0 – 20 FTEs), training, and managing cross-functional teams. Establishing and managing outbound and partnership-driven deal sourcing strategies, driving top quartile deal flow outcomes, per David Teten deal flow benchmarking research. Experience fundraising from institutional limited partners (U.S. public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, fund-of-funds investors, and North American family offices). Experience bidding on co-investment separate account programs.
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About Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Hope A. Hardison
Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, and Human Resources Director of Wells Fargo
Hope A. Hardison, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), and Human Resources Director assumed her CAO role in September 2015. She has been HR Director since September 2010. As CAO, Hardison manages Human Resources, Corporate Communications, Marketing, Government & Community Relations, the Innovation Group, and Enterprise Data & Analytics, overseeing the company’s brand, communications, reputation management, and stakeholder engagement efforts. In her role as Human Resource Director, Hardison leads a team that develops and implements people strategies to support Wells Fargo’s business objectives, as well as the management of compensation and benefits, human resource service centers, systems and payroll, finance, team member relations and assistance, talent management, learning and development and diversity for more than 266,000 Wells Fargo team members. Hardison is a 22-year veteran of Wells Fargo. From 2008 to 2010, she served as the head of Compensation and Benefits and was responsible for managing benefits, executive and team member compensation and mergers and acquisitions. She also managed international team member compensation and benefit programs. She has held numerous finance, strategic planning and compensation roles since joining Wells Fargo in 1993. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Swarthmore College and has done graduate work in applied economics and statistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz
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About Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Sid Vyas
Managing Director – Head of Wealth and Trust Technology of Wells Fargo
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About Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Susan G. Swenson
Board of Director of Wells Fargo
Ms. Swenson has served as a director since June 2012, chair of the board of directors since April 2014, and chief executive officer since October 2015 of Novatel Wireless, Inc. She previously served as president and chief executive officer of Sage Software, Inc., the North American division of The Sage Group plc located in the United Kingdom, a business management software and services supplier, from March 2008 until her retirement in April 2011. Before joining Sage Software, Ms. Swenson held positions as the chief operating officer of Atrinsic, Inc. (formerly known as New Motion, Inc.), Amp’d Mobile, Inc., and T-Mobile USA, president and chief operating officer of Leap Wireless International, Inc., and president and chief executive officer of Cellular One. She also serves as a director of Harmonic Inc. and Spirent Communications plc, and as chair of the board of directors of the First Responder Network Authority.
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About : Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
April Frazer
Managing Director, Head of Banks, Financial Institutions Corporate and Investment Banking of Wells Fargo
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About Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Federico F. Peña
Board of Director of Wells Fargo
Mr. Peña has been a senior advisor of Vestar Capital Partners, a global private equity firm headquartered in New York, since January 2009, and previously served as a managing director of Vestar from 2000 to 2009. Since July 2014, he has also served as Senior Advisor to the Colorado Impact Fund. Prior to joining Vestar in 1998, he led the Department of Energy from 1997 to 1998 and the Department of Transportation from 1993 to 1997. He founded and was president and chief executive officer of Peña Investment Advisors, an asset management firm, from 1991 to 1993. Mr. Peña served as the mayor of the city and county of Denver, Colorado from 1983 to 1991 and in the Colorado House of Representatives from 1979 until 1983. He is a member of the board of directors of Sonic Corporation and a member of the board of trustees of the University of Denver. Mr. Peña earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas.
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About : Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Susan E. Engel
Board of Director of Wells Fargo
Ms. Engel served as chief executive officer of Portero, Inc., an online retailer of vintage pre-owned luxury personal accessories located in New York, New York, from July 2009 until June 2013 when the company was acquired. She served as chairwoman and chief executive officer of Lenox Group Inc. (the successor to Department 56, Inc.) from November 1996 until she retired in January 2007. Ms. Engel earned her undergraduate degree from Cornell University in 1968, and her Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1976. Ms. Engel is also a director of Coolibar, Inc.
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About : Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Judith M. Runstad
Board of Director of Wells Fargo
Ms. Runstad is a former partner of, and has been Of Counsel since January 1997 to Foster Pepper PLLC, a law firm located in Seattle, Washington, practicing in the areas of real estate development and land use and environmental law for 41 years. Ms. Runstad is a former chairwoman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She is an emeritus member of the board of trustees of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
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About : Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Jesse Lee
Director of Wells Fargo
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About : Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Garrett Henn
Managing Director, Head of Life Sciences Credit – West of Oxford Finance LLC
Henn has over 10 years of commercial lending experience to public and venture-backed life sciences and technology companies. He became part of the Oxford team in 2008, and is responsible for overseeing the firm’s portfolio of loans in western United States and western Canada. Prior to joining Oxford, Mr. Henn held various positions at Silicon Valley Bank where he managed a portfolio of loans primarily comprised of early and late-stage life sciences and technology companies. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from California State University, Los Angeles.
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About Oxford Finance LLC: Oxford Finance delivers flexible financial solutions to healthcare and life sciences companies worldwide.
Tracy Maziek
Managing Director of Oxford Finance LLC
Maziek rejoined the Oxford team in 2015 and is responsible for managing the company’s healthcare services business. After establishing Oxford’s healthcare lending practice from 2010 to 2012, Mr. Maziek was the Senior Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Finance at Wells Fargo Capital Finance. Previously, Mr. Maziek served in various capacities in the healthcare corporate lending division at Siemens Financial Services. He began his healthcare financing career with FINOVA Capital in 1994. Throughout his career, he has focused exclusively on lending to middle market healthcare companies. Mr. Maziek has had numerous articles published in healthcare industry journals and is a frequent guest speaker at industry conferences and events. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Arizona.
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About Oxford Finance LLC: Oxford Finance delivers flexible financial solutions to healthcare and life sciences companies worldwide.
Noah Smith
Director of Business Development of LendingFront
Currently running business development for LendingFront, a cloud-based small business lending platform for banks and alternative lenders. Three-time founder. Three years in private equity before that. Began my career in China, where I got my first taste of startups and investing, and also did print and television reporting. Companies I founded or co-founded: • OCX, a marketplace business lender that taps into existing networks to signal creditworthiness, efficiently source high-quality borrowers, and reward investors for backing businesses they know. • Dwelleo, an online service for communicating with people and services around where you live and that brings residential real estate to life. • AirMaid, hotel-quality services for private homes, focused on the short-term rental market. I also served as Director of Finance and Operations at OmniTrail, a mobile technology firm, and have advised a number of growth-stage companies. Earlier in my career, I worked at private equity firm KP Capital Partners, where I led the execution of controlling investments in companies in the electronics, logistics, apparel and specialty foods sectors and was actively involved in overseeing portfolio company management and served on several boards. I was part of the early team at business intelligence firm ChinaLaw (now part of Thomson Reuters) in Beijing, where I also worked as a journalist and started the first American-style brunch in the Chinese capital. Hold an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University.
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About LendingFront: Small business lending software platform for banks and other financial institutions
Daniel Escobar
Director of Engineering Services of BitPay
Daniel Escobar Co-Founded Maestro Music, Inc. and serves as its Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Escobar manages the design and development of all Maestro technology. Mr. Escobar he Founded Aquiva, an innovative Enterprise Content Management software company that was designed to provide media companies a more robust and flexible solution than Vignette, Interwoven and Documentum, while seamlessly integrating advanced networking and mobile technology. Mr. Escobar also built Cox Radio’s first Web Content Management (WCM) system, which is shared by over 80 radio stations. Mr. Escobar provided IT consulting services to several national and international businesses and developed numerous software systems using multiple programming languages, which involve networking with UNIX, Linux and Windows machines. Mr. Escobar holds B.S. in Computer Science and Information Systems and has been designing and developing software applications including Internet applications, content management solutions, and digital media applications for over 15 years.
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About BitPay: BitPay provides enterprise-grade bitcoin payment solutions for businesses and organizations.
Steve Pratt
Director of Business Development of BitPay
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About BitPay, Superion: BitPay provides enterprise-grade bitcoin payment solutions for businesses and organizations.
Michael Krieger
Member of the Board of Directors of Finicity
Michael Krieger is a Member of the Board of Directors at Finicity.
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About : Finicity provides open banking services, real-time financial data access and insights.
Ilan Cohen
Director Hardware Outreach of Indiegogo
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About Indiegogo: Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform empowering people around the world to fund projects that matter to them.
Barron Zuo
Asia Regional Director of Strategic Programs of Indiegogo
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About Indiegogo: Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform empowering people around the world to fund projects that matter to them.
Barron Zuo
Asia Regional Director of Strategic Programs of Indiegogo
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About Indiegogo: Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform empowering people around the world to fund projects that matter to them.
Emily Watson
Director, Payments and Global Banking of Flywire
Emily has been working in cross-border payments her entire career, spending time in Operations, Technology, Payment Network and Product Management roles at Western Union Business Solutions and Citibank before joining Flywire in October 2018. At Flywire, Emily spends her time working with global banking partners to ensure the optimization and continuous expansion of the company’s payment network. Emily is a graduate of American University in Washington, DC, with a B.A. in Anthropology and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
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About Flywire: Flywire is a global payments enablement and software company.
Javier Hasse
Managing Director, Benzinga Cannabis of Benzinga
Javier Hasse is a cannabis, hemp, CBD and psychedelics-focused reporter, currently serving as: * Managing Director of Benzinga Cannabis. * CEO of Spanish-language news site El Planteo, a company he co-founded. * Senior Contributor at Forbes. His book, “Start Your Own Cannabis Business,” was published by Entrepreneur Media in 2018 and hit the #1 Best-Seller spot on Amazon. As an award-winning reporter and editor, Javier’s had roughly 5,000 unique articles in multiple languages published across numerous mass media outlets including CNN, Forbes, MSN, Chicago Tribune, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Entrepreneur Magazine, MarketWatch, Houston Chronicle, The Street, Nasdaq, Morningstar, Playboy, Benzinga, MERRY JANE, High Times, and many others. Beyond cannabis, Javier is a published photographer and Billboard-charting rapper, featured on hip-hop albums that also included Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and Inspectah Deck, Twista, Lil Windex, Riff Raff, Cyhi The Prynce, Yung Bleu, DJ Whoo Kid, Jonathan Hay, and others.
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About Benzinga, Billboard, El Planteo, Entrepreneur.com, Green Market Report, High Times, Playboy: Benzinga is a financial news and analysis service providing timely, actionable insights for investors.
Nicholas Lopardo
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Susquehanna International Group (SIG)
Lopardo has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Susquehanna Capital Management Group, an investment holding company, since January 2002. Lopardo retired in December 2001 as Vice Chairman of State Street Bank and Trust Company and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of State Street Global Advisors, the bank’s investment management group. Lopardo had been associated with State Street Bank and Trust Company since 1987, and previously held several executive level positions including Executive Vice President. Lopardo has over 38 years of experience in the pension industry, having served in a variety of roles with Equitable Life Assurance Society related to pension marketing, client relationships, and pension investment advisory services. Lopardo is a director of Myriad Entertainment and Resorts, Inc., and also serves as a director of several privately held companies. He served eight years as a member of the board of directors of Susquehanna University, holding the position of Chairman of that board in 2000 and 2001. He was also Chairman of the advisory board of the Weiss School of Business at Susquehanna University, and is Chairman Emeritus of the board and a lifetime trustee of the Landmark School, a premier secondary school for students with language-based learning disabilities. Lopardo is also a board member of Boston Partners in Education and USA Hockey Foundation. Lopardo received a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and management from Susquehanna University. Lopardo has spent almost four decades working in positions of executive leadership within the financial services industry. His demonstrated acumen for business leadership on an international scale enables him to provide expert oversight of our senior management team in his roles as a member of our board and as Chair of the compensation and benefits committee of our board. Additionally, Lopardo utilizes the skill and experience that he has developed in corporate financial matters as a member of the finance committee of our board.
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About Susquehanna International Group (SIG): SIG is a global quantitative trading firm committing its own capital to trade financial products around the world.
Niru Anisetti
Director of Product Management of American Express
Niru Anisetti is the Director of Product Management at American Express building a true Enterprise Hybrid cloud platform service for global customer base. In her previous roles, she worked at Hortonworks/Cloudera, IBM, Intuit and Yahoo among other companies to build products to not only generate revenues but to change lives of people for the better. She can be reached at nanisetti@gmail.com.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
David Knapp
Director, Digital Commerce Acceleration of American Express
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Glenn Hinks
Director of American Express
I graduated in 1991, no google, no iPhones, no www. Things have gotten much better, I started off writing software for fly by wire aircraft, moved into satellite & communications, worked in investments, tried my very best at startups and am still having a wonderful time. For the last few positions, I have had great team building experiences. There are certainly a great number of great people to hire but you have to work to find them, woe them and mentor them. When I look back every graduate I have hired has ended up at a great gig at a great company even if they started off small. I love to give talks at Meetup’s (when I think I have something to offer, which comes and goes). I admire the NPM echo system and am constantly thankful for all the amazing work done by others for the community. I try to give back as much as I can, after all its the contributors that are providing a way for me to put my children through school. Currently, I am really interested in the evolution of JavaScript and how all the new features are coming into the language. With Node on the backend and Webpack on the front, you can do more with less code. I am somewhat obsessed with Linting and unit testing and I think Eslint has taught me as much about JavaScript as I have taught myself. Thank you, contributors. In the day I wrote in our parent languages of C & C++, these are great for some things (if you need a C++ NPM module written, come find me!). I have gone from functional to class-based back to functional and it has been a great experience. I really have enjoyed the adoption of JavaScript as a fully fledged language. It is not just Brendon Eich’s 5-day meander. It is now fully accepted in the enterprise. Javascript of all the languages has adopted all the best practices that are only really given a nod and a wink in others. So many of the ideas that were floated are now firmly rooted in the JavaScript best practices and patterns and it has been a real pleasure to be around while it took root.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Benjamin van Rooy
Director of American Express
Benjamin specializes in business development and operational strategy. With diverse experience across finance, payments, travel and technology Benjamin delivers value to clients by identifying opportunities to reduce cost, leverage technology, and improve processes.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Steve Schepke
Director of Business Development of American Express
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About American Express, Sometrics, Tipalti, Tsavo Agency: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Christina Anzalone
Director, Digital Product Development of American Express
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About American Express, BI Intelligence: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Nicola Blue
Insights Director of American Express
Nicola has a track record of implementing strategies, innovative product/platform designs and successful marketing plans to enhance the business value proposition and drive tangible results. Nicola thrives on the journey of taking on new challenges and figuring how to navigate through complex situations and pushing through uncertainty to find an optimal solution to achieve a goal. She is experienced at building, developing and coaching teams across multiple countries to not only achieve group results but also ensure individual contributors are able to achieve their profession goals.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Clyde Van Blarcum
Director – Global Certification Services Point of Sale of American Express
Clyde Van Blarcum serves as Director for the American Express Global Network. Clyde joined American Express in 2000, holding various roles across issuing, acquiring and network business units, and holds a B.A. from Iowa State University.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Bryan Dougherty
Managing Director and Head of Technology of Arcesium
Bryan Dougherty is a Managing Director and the Head of Technology for Arcesium, overseeing platform development, infrastructure and security. Prior to the formation of Arcesium, Bryan was Head of Middle and Back Office Technology at the D. E. Shaw group for nine years. Bryan started his career at Random Walk Computing, a technology consultancy focused on the capital markets where he worked on a variety of projects for exchanges/marketplaces, investment banks, and hedge funds.
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About Arcesium: Arcesium is provider of middle- and back-office technology and services to alternative asset managers.
David Nable
Managing Director and Head of Sales of Arcesium
David Nable is a Senior Vice President and the Head of Sales for Arcesium. Prior to joining Arcesium, David was the Head of U.S. Sales and a member of the global operating committee for Credit Suisse Prime Fund Services, a fund services business that was acquired by BNP Paribas. Prior to that, David spent nine years at Goldman Sachs in sales and client management roles across both the Prime Brokerage and Fund Administration businesses.
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About Arcesium: Arcesium is provider of middle- and back-office technology and services to alternative asset managers.
Deryck Maughan
Board of Director of BlackRock
Deryck Maughan has held a number of senior positions with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a global asset management company, since joining the firm in 2005 including Head of the Financial Services Industry team within KKR’s Private Equity platform, a Managing Director of KKR, and Chairman of KKR Asia. He was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup International until 2004 and served as Vice Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange from 1996 to 2000. Deryck joined the board of Reuters in 2005. He also serves on the boards of several charitable organizations. Deryck is a graduate of King’s College, University of London and the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
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About : BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Mei Friedman
Managing Director of BlackRock
Mei Friedman, is a Managing Director on BlackRock’s Private Equity Partners investment team. She helps lead deal teams reviewing PE fund investments and direct co-investment opportunities. She also works closely with client coverage teams in business development and separate account client servicing. Additionally, she is serving on the board of American Express Global Business Travel. Prior to joining BlackRock Private Equity Partners, Ms. Friedman headed up the Asian investment team at Swiss Re Private Equity Partners based in Hong Kong. Previously, she ran business development in Asia and China private equity investing for Angelo, Gordon & Co. Before moving to Hong Kong, she was a Director at Angelo, Gordon in New York where she wasresponsible for sourcing, negotiating, structuring, and monitoring direct private equity investments in the U.S. She made investments in industries including specialty financing, power and energy, retail and consumer services. She was a member of the Board of Directors for six portfolio companies during the period. She also sat on the board of New York Private Equity Network. Prior to that, Ms. Friedman structured convertible and equity derivative securities at Merrill Lynch’s Equity-Linked Capital Markets. She also spent a few years at Merrill Lynch’s investment banking division covering industrial clients. Ms. Friedman graduated Summa Cum Laude from Wellesley College and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa National Honour Society and Omicron Delta Epsilon, International Economics Honour Society. She received an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. She speaks English, a number of Chinese dialects (Mandarin, Shanghainese and Cantonese) and Japanese.
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Geraldine Buckingham
Senior Managing Director and Chairman of BlackRock
Geraldine Buckingham, Senior Managing Director, is Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock and a member of the firm’s Global Executive Committee. She is responsible for helping BlackRock develop and implement long-term goals and respond to the competitive financial services landscape. She previously served as Head of Americas Corporate Strategy. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2014, she was a partner with McKinsey & Company’s financial services practice based in New York. She worked primarily with large global asset managers with additional experience in wealth management and private equity, as well as functional expertise in strategy and organization. She received the Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University, where she earned a Master of Philosophy degree in Comparative Social Policy. She earned her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degrees from Monash University.
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Kfir Godrich
Managing Director & Global Head of Technology of BlackRock
Kfir L Godrich, Managing Director, is Global Head of Technology for BlackRock. He is responsible for driving the firm’s technology platforms development, operations and Information Security. He is a member of BlackRock’s Global Operations Committee. Mr. Godrich served as CTO for Hewlett Packard Co. (HP) Technology Services, where he was responsible for road-mapping technology for company’s consulting and support business units as well as advising to HP Labs. Prior to that he was CTO for EYP MCF and actively involved in the acquisition by HP in 2007. Mr. Godrich has over 25 years of international experience in mission critical environments design, strategy and operations and began his career in the IAF. Mr. Godrich is a Senior Member and a reviewer of several IEEE transactions with interest in: IT strategy, mission-critical and complex systems applications, fin-tech and cyber-security. His R&D leadership is aligned with principles of “innovation by example” being developer of IP in the fields of converged IT, Data Centers and renewables. He earned a BaSc degree in Electrical and Computers Engineering from Ben-Gurion University where he also attended MaSc studies followed by later PhD studies at NYU/Polytechnic.
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Stefano Pasquali
Managing Director & Head of liquidity research of BlackRock
Stefano Pasquali is Managing Director in BlackRock and he is the Head of Liquidity Research. He oversees research for liquidity risk solution at Blackrock -20 years wide experience in the overall Risk Management. -Inventor and manager of Bloomberg Liquidity Assessment (LQA) based on innovative machine learning techniques. Cross asset class and portfolio level -Strong mix of Technology, Quantitative Finance and Business view -Speaker at main financial conferences Before finance, researcher in Computational Physics and long experience as free lance in IT project (Statistical Analysis & Data Management)
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Randy Fradin
Technical Fellow and Director, Aladdin Product Group of BlackRock
Randy Fradin is a developer in the Aladdin Product Group’s Core Systems Operations team. This team is responsible for developing the core software infrastructure in BlackRock’s Aladdin platform, including scalable storage, compute, and messaging services. Previously he spent time developing the market data, risk reporting, and core trading functions in Aladdin. He has been an enthusiastic Cassandra user since 2011.
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Joseph Hill
Managing Director & Head of legal & Compliance for Latin America and Iberia of BlackRock
Joseph Hill is currently a managing director and the head of legal and compliance for Latin America and Iberia at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. Prior to joining BlackRock, Hill served as the principal lawyer for Latin America at MetLife for six years and J.P. Morgan Chase for 12 years. Previously, Hill was an associate at Mayer Brown in New York and Uría & Menéndez in Spain. He is admitted to practice in both jurisdictions. He is a member of the New York City Bar Association, where he has served on the Executive Committee and chaired the Committee on Inter-American Affairs. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a BA, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Fordham University, a JD from Columbia Law School and MBA degrees from Columbia and London Business Schools. Hill is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
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About BlackRock, New York City Bar Association, The Council on Foreign Relations: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Lori Seidenberg
Director of BlackRock
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About BlackRock, Harbor Group Consulting: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Andrew Ang
Managing Director & Head of Factor-based Strategies Group of BlackRock
Andrew Ang is the Ann F. Kaplan Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. He is a financial economist whose work centers on understanding the nature of risk and return in asset prices. His work spans bond markets, equities, investment management and portfolio allocation, and alternative investments. Prof. Ang has served as associate editor for several leading journals, and he has received grants from various government and industry organizations. He has consulted for several financial institutions, most often the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. Prof. Ang received a Bachelor of Economics with First Class Honours from Macquarie University, Sydney, and a Masters of Statistics and PhD in Finance from Stanford University. Prof. Ang’s recent book, “Asset Management: A Systematic Approach to Factor Investing” published by Oxford University Press in 2014, is a comprehensive guide showing how factor risk premiums can be harvested in portfolio design and incorporated in all aspects of investment management.
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Philip Tseng
Managing Director, Co-Head of US Direct Lending and Special Situations of BlackRock
Philip Tseng is Board of Trustees at California Science Center.
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About BlackRock, Tennenbaum Capital Partners: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Lynn Baranski
Managing Director of BlackRock
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
David Xi Li
Global Head of Advanced Data Analytics, Director of BlackRock
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Edward Rzeszowski
Managing Director of BlackRock
Edward Rzeszowski, Managing Director, is a portfolio manager within BlackRock Alternative Advisors (BAA), the firm’s hedge fund solutions team. As part of the Absolute Return Strategies Manager Research Group, Edward Rzeszowski oversees sourcing, performance, due diligence and monitoring of hedge fund managers for both privately offered funds and mutual funds. Edward Rzeszowski’s service with the firm dates back to 1995, including his years with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), which merged with BlackRock in 2006. At MLIM,
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Scott Dennis
Director iShares Capital Markets of BlackRock
Scott Dennis, Director on the U.S. iShares Capital Markets team. He joined BlackRock in October 2009 working in Business Development, covering Registered Investment Advisors in the Midwest region. Prior to joining iShares, Scott worked for Morgan Stanley in their fixed income institutional sales division focused on short to medium term credit, rates and securitized markets. He started his career with Bloomberg in their trading systems sales group. He earned a B.A. in Political Science from Lafayette College.
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About BlackRock: BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
David H. Komansky
Board of Director of BlackRock
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About : BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Thomas H. O’Brien
Board of Director of BlackRock
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About : BlackRock is an investment company that offers its services to institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors.
Lou Rosato
Director – Investment Operations, Global Business Strategy and Relationship Management of BlackRock
Louis John Rosato, III, Director, is a member of BlackRock’s Investment Operations Group. He is responsible for Trading Operations in the Americas and has global oversight responsibility across the Confirmation and Settlements functions for all products including Cash Securities, Foreign Exchange and Derivatives, and is a member of the firms Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange, Equity and Liquidity Trading Oversight Committees. Before taking on his current role, Mr. Rosato lead the Global Trade Confirmations Teams in the US and EMEA. In previous roles at BlackRock he was regional Head of Fixed Income, Derivatives, Foreign Exchange and Equity Trade Operations, as well Head of the firms Retail Separately Managed Account Operation. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2004, Mr. Rosato was with Jennison Associates, LLC where he was responsible for establishing and managing the firms SMA Trading and Operations Teams. He performed similar roles for 1838 Investment Advisors and Rittenhouse Financial Services. He began his career in 1987 as an Operations Analyst with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Mr. Rosato is a Member and Chairperson of the Investment Company Institute Securities Operations Advisory Committee and Co-Chairperson of the Industry Working Group formed by DTCC, ICI, SIFMA and Industry Participants to analyze and plan for Settlement Compression in the US. He actively participates on multiple FPL Global Post-Trade Working Groups as well several SIFMA and SWIFT Buy-Side Working Groups and Committees, and previously sat on the OMGEO Regional Advisory Council in the Americas. Lou has participated in the American Corporate Partners Veteran Mentoring Program which connects Veteran Protégés with Corporate Mentors and focuses on helping to successfully transition Veterans from the military to the civilian workforce. He earned a BS degree in Business Administration from Widener University.
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