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 Founder operating in the Training space. If you think a Founder 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.
Eren Bali
Co-Founder of Udemy
Eren Bali is the CEO and Co-Founder of Carbon Health. Eren leads the Carbon team towards his vision to democratize healthcare and make quality care accessible for everyone. Previously, Eren paved the way to make education accessible by founding Udemy, the world’s largest marketplace for online courses, with over 10 million students worldwide. In his youth, Eren was a star mathematician, winning awards in mathematics, physics, computer science and chess including the International Mathematical Olympiads. He still loves chess today and plays to unwind after a long day at the office.
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About Carbon Health, Udemy: Udemy is an online learning platform that helps students, companies, and governments gain the skills they need to reach their goals.
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David Rogier
Founder and CEO of MasterClass
David Rogier is the founder and CEO of MasterClass, the streaming platform where anyone can learn from the world’s best across a wide range of subjects. As a kid, Rogier loved learning but often struggled in school. In 2015, he created MasterClass to reinvent the traditional model and provide life-long learning opportunities for everyone. MasterClass has since transformed the online learning category providing intimate access to over 90 of the world’s best practitioners. In 2020, David Rogier was named one of the most influential leaders in media and entertainment on Fortune’s “40 under 40” list and as one of Variety’s Hollywood New Leaders.
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About MasterClass: MasterClass is a provider of an online education platform designed to offer video based vocational courses.
Ruben Harris
CEO and Co-Founder of Career Karma
CEO of Career Karma Co-Host of the Breaking Into Startups Podcast Previously at: AtlSchool, Honor, and Hustle Prior to Tech: Investment Banker and Professional Cellist
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About Career Karma: Career Karma helps people find career advice and job training to navigate their careers.
Artur Meyster
Founder and CTO of Career Karma
Artur Meyster is the CTO of Career Karma (YC W19), an online marketplace that matches career switchers with job training programs. After graduating from a coding bootcamp, Hack Reactor, he joined Funding Circle as a full stack software engineer. This led him to start the Breaking Into Startups podcast featuring people with non-traditional backgrounds who broke into tech which reached over 3 million people. In 2019, Artur was one of the first bootcamp grads to graduate from Ycombinator, a startup accelerator that helps companies scale to millions of users.
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About Career Karma: Career Karma helps people find career advice and job training to navigate their careers.
Timur Meyster
Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Career Karma
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About Career Karma: Career Karma helps people find career advice and job training to navigate their careers.
Rodney Sampson
Founder, Executive Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of OHUB
Rodney Sampson is heralded as the leading inclusive innovation, entrepreneurship and investment ecosystem builder in the world, particularly given his mission to ensure that everyone, everywhere, particularly socially disadvantaged communities, have equitable access to the new multi-generational wealth creation opportunities afforded in the future of work and fourth industrial revolution as definitive paths to reducing poverty and the racial wealth gap everywhere. Throughout his twenty-year entrepreneurial career, Sampson has co-founded startup companies that have overcome the odds by collectively raising more than $20 million in angel and venture capital, created hundreds of new jobs, and generated tens of millions in revenue before the acquisition or going public. At the beginning of the 21st century, Sampson co-founded, built, and sold Multicast Media Technologies (Streamingfaith.com) and EFactor (EFCT). He was one of three Black co-founders during this era whose high growth technology startups raised over $1 million in angel and venture capital and were subsequently acquired for eight-figures. During this time, Sampson also built Intellectual Currency, a world-class integrated go-to-market, publishing, and advisory firm with clients ranging from major Hollywood film studios, cable networks, tech companies, global corporates, publishers, the United States government, African heads of state and leading Black church denominations. Since 2007, Sampson has worked closely with high growth startups and seed-stage venture funds as a selective advisor, investor, and limited partner. His current investment and advisory portfolio include Cross Culture Ventures, TechSquare Capital, Digit, York Exponential, Plum.io, Patientory, The Mentor Method, and Momentum Learning. In 2013, Sampson co-founded Opportunity Hub as a follow up to the highly successful Kingonomics’ book release and large-scale conferences in Atlanta, GA, and Washington, DC. OHUB scaled quickly to become the leading multi-campus coworking space, entrepreneurship center, and tech hub featuring over 300 events a year, a startup pre-accelerator, coding boot-camp, and scholarship initiative and angel investing platform for founders from underestimated and under-tapped communities. Over 15,000 people walked through OHUB’s doors each year. From 2015-17, Sampson was a Partner at TechSquare Labs, a tech hub, seed-stage venture fund, and creator of the $100,000 Atlanta Startup Battle. Today, TechSquare Labs’ portfolio companies have raised follow on the capital of nearly $300 million, are valued at over $1.5 billion, generate over $100 million in annual recurring revenue, and employ over 1000 people and growing. He remains the largest minority limited partner in the fund. Today, as Executive Chairman & CEO of Opportunity Hub and OHUB Foundation, Sampson is focused on scaling OHUB as the definitive global future of work, opportunity, and wealth-creating platform by ensuring that everyone, everywhere has early exposure to tech, startup, and venture; in-demand technology education, training, and talent placement; inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem building; and capital formation. This is driven by the thousands of college and young professional members and growing from hundreds of colleges and universities across America and beyond. OHUB is a supplier, vendor, and partner to over 50 tech companies, major corporations, high growth startups, venture funds, municipalities, foundations, associations, colleges and universities and growing. Current national initiatives include OHUB@Cities, OHUB@Campus, OHUB@SXSW, 100 Black Angels Fund I and DEIS, a new strategy, service, and future software platform to operationalize diversity, equity, and inclusion across the major divisions of growing enterprises. Sampson is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brooking Institution in Washington, DC, and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. Sampson previously served as the 1st Head of Diversity at Mark Burnett Productions, executive producers of the hit ABC show, ABC’s Sharktank. A strong believer in philanthropy and its role in social impact and advocacy, Sampson supports and serves on the boards of Artificial Intelligence for All (AI4All), Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), International Bishops Conference, and GA Technology for All Policy Summit. Sampson was educated at Tulane University, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, and Keller Graduate School of Management. Sampson resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife and six children.
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About Huddle Ventures, OHUB, Plum.io, ROHO: OHUB is an ecosystem building platform to ensure authentic diversity, equity, and inclusion in the fourth industrial revolution and beyond.
Russel Simmons
Founder and Chief of Learnirvana, Inc.
Russ co-founded Yelp Inc. in July 2004 with former colleague and friend Jeremy Stoppelman. Prior to Yelp, Russ was one of the early employees and the lead software architect at PayPal. He led a team of top engineers on critical projects related to security, scalability, stability, and internationalization as the company scaled rapidly. Following his time at PayPal, Russ joined Max Levchin’s (co-founder of PayPal) incubator, where he teamed up with Jeremy. Russ holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois.
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About Learnirvana, Inc.: Learnirvana, Inc. is a corporation that uses non traditional methodologies to help teach students learn about various subjects.
Derek Belch
Co-Founder and CEO of STRIVR
Derek Belch is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of STRIVR.
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About STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Jeremy Bailenson
Co-Founder of STRIVR
Professor at Stanford University, head of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and VR expert. Jeremy Bailenson is a Co-founder and the Chief Visionary at STRIVR. He is the founding director of Stanford University’s world-renowned Virtual Human Interaction Lab and a Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford. He is one of the world’s leading experts in virtual reality. His findings have been published in over 100 academic papers in several fields including communication, computer science, education, law, medicine, and psychology. Bailenson is an author of the book Infinite Reality which was recently quoted by the Supreme Court outlining the effects of immersive media.
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About Cognitive Leap Solutions Inc., Stanford University, STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Trent Edwards
Co-Founder & Sports Training of STRIVR
Trent Edwards is a Co-Founder at STRIVR. He was a Former Stanford and NFL Quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles. Trent is a former Stanford and NFL quarterback. He was drafted in the third round by the Buffalo Bills in 2007 and spent three seasons as the team’s starting quarterback. Following his stint with the Bills, Edwards spent a season each with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles and two training camps with the Oakland Raiders. Edwards brings his experience as a quarterback at the professional, collegiate, and high school levels to the development of STRIVR’s products and services.
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About STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Morgan Mercer
Founder, CEO of Vantage Point
Morgan Mercer is the founder of the VR-based enterprise training company, Vantage Point. Vantage Point’s suite of immersive training tools is initially aiming at tackling Anti-Sexual Harassment and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training. Mercer was recently regarded as one of the Top 10 Female Tech Innovators [in history] by TechRadar and has been featured in 4+ dozen publications including WIRED, NPR, The Economist, Vogue and more. Mercer was regarded by the UN Women chapter as a “Champion of Change” in the ‘Era of Equity’.
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About Vantage Point: We create experiences that change the way you think. Vantage Point is the future of workforce learning.
Arjun Dev Arora
Founder & Advisor of Format One
Arjun Dev Arora is the Founder & Advisor at Format One.
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About Format One, The House Fund: Format One provides operational assistance, fundraising support and executive coaching.
Yuchun Lee
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Allego
As an Executive-in-Residence with Summit Partners, Yuchun Lee works closely with the Summit team to help identify and build leading technology companies with a focus on enterprise software and data analytics. Yuchun currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Clarabridge, a company backed by Summit in 2013. Yuchun is the founder and former CEO of Summit portfolio company Unica Corporation, a software company focused on meeting the needs of marketers seeking to embrace technology to reach new customers. As Unica’s CEO since its inception in 1992, Yuchun chose Summit as a growth equity partner in 1999. Yuchun guided Unica to a successful IPO in 2005 and under his leadership, the company became a global provider of enterprise marketing management solutions serving more than 1,500 businesses worldwide. In 2010, Unica was acquired by IBM. Yuchun remained with IBM until 2012, serving as Vice President and General Manager of IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management Group, with a global responsibility focusing on the needs of Chief Marketing Officers. Yuchun holds both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Babson College.
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About Allego, Summit Partners: Allego provides a mobile video based sales learning and development platform for high tech, financial services, medical device and pharma.
Craig Stull
Founder and CEO of Pragmatic Institute
Prior to establishing Pragmatic Marketing in 1993, Craig Stull spent more than 15 years leading software product management and marketing teams, with a focus on new-product launches, turnarounds, positioning, naming and identifying potential client needs. During that time, he realized the industry had a distinct need for more strategic planning in product management. He created the world-renowned Pragmatic Marketing Framework to fill that void and help companies develop market-driven products that resonated with customers. The company, the Framework and the associated training have since become the standard for successful product management and marketing. In addition to serving as the CEO of Pragmatic Marketing, Craig frequently is requested as a speaker at industry events and is co-author of “Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs,” a best-selling book designed to help companies create products and services that people are eager to buy.
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About Pragmatic Institute: Pragmatic Institute provides product and data science training and education across the globe.
Mark Grovic
General Partner & Founder of New Markets Venture Partners
Mark Grovic co-founded New Markets Venture Partners in 2003 and is a General Partner. Mark serves or has served on the Board of Directors for Fishtree, Graduation Alliance, Think Through Learning, MediaSolv (sold to Nasdaq: TASR), Lightningcast (sold to NYSE: TWX), Moodlerooms (sold to Blackboard) and Workspace.com. Mark also serves or has served as a board observer for Aldagen (sold to NASDAQ: CMXI), American Honors College, Andera (sold to NASDAQ: EPAY), Appfluent, BioSET (sold to Ferring Pharmaceuticals), Mashable, Overture Technologies, Paratek Microwave (sold to NASDAQ: RIMM), Questar Assessment and Vision Chain. Mark also co-founded LifeJourney, an online educational company that allows students to test drive real life careers in specific corporations. Mark has been investing in high growth companies since 1992. Prior to New Markets, Mark was a Portfolio Manager for the Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF), a $200 million managed emerging market venture capital company, Director of Estonia-based Baltic Small Equity Fund, a Co-Founder and Principal of the Templeton Emerging Europe Fund, as Principal of Templeton Direct Advisors, and a Portfolio Manager of Private Equities at the Calvert Group. Mark is a Senior Advisor to University of Maryland University College (UMUC), advising on corporate development and entrepreneurship, and a Senior Lecturer at the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he has taught a Private Equity Clinic for the last 15 years. Previously, he was VC-in-Residence at the Smith School and Deputy Director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. He has earned three awards for his instruction at UMD and at Howard University, plus a fellowship awarded for the innovative use of technology in the classroom. Mark helped to found and served as Board Director of the Baltimore Chapter of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), is Board Chair at Emerson Preparatory High School in Washington, D.C. and serves as on the board of Partners for Affordable Excellence. He is a member of the Industry Advisory Council for the American Public University System and of the Innovation Advisory Board for the Lumina Foundation. Mark is also a member of the Washington Baltimore chapter of the Young Presidents Organization. Mark graduated with Honors from the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in political economies and received a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University, where his focus was in international, tax, and corporate law. Mark has also completed graduate work in accounting and finance at the George Washington University and Pace University, and completed the Private Equity and Venture Capital Executive Program at Harvard Business School. Mark lives in Silver Spring, MD with his wife and two children and is a mediocre musician and triathlete.
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About New Markets Venture Partners: New Markets Venture Partners is an early and growth stage venture capital firm.
Hakan Satiroglu
Co-Founder of LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator
Hakan Satiroglu is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at XR Terra.
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About LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator, Mountain Gap Solutions, Testive, XR InLearning, XR Terra: LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator invests in and supports entrepreneurs on the mission to positively transform education.
Eileen Rudden
Co-Founder & Board Member of LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator
Eileen Rudden is the founder of Sankaty Growth Partners, and co-founder of LearnLaunch. Most recently, she served as the Chief Officer of College and Career Preparation for the Chicago Public Schools, where she led the efforts of the third largest public school system in the U.S. to ensure that its 400,000 students are college and career ready. She was a 2009 Broad Fellow and graduate of the Broad Superintendent’s Academy. Rudden is the Board Chair of SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ: SDBT), and former VP and GM of the Unified Communications Division at Avaya, a Fortune 500 business communications provider. At IBM’s Lotus Software unit, Rudden was senior vice president and general manager responsible for Lotus Notes and Same Time, the leading email and collaboration software. She also served as CEO of FairMarket (NASDAQ:FAIM). She is currently Chair of the Advisory Committee on Computing and Information Technology at Brown. She also serves as a board member at The Achievement Network, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, Maria Mitchell Association, and Pew Center on the Internet and American Life. Rudden received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA from Brown University.
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About LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator: LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator invests in and supports entrepreneurs on the mission to positively transform education.
Alex Hern
Founder and CEO of Tsunami XR
Alex Hern has been an entrepreneur for more than 25 years. During his career, he has focused on early stage companies and on the incubation of technology companies. Alex Hern co-founded and served as a Director of Inktomi Goldman Sachs-led IPO (INKT), which powered and was the search technology for MSN, Yahoo and AOL. He was also the co-founder and Director of Yesmail Alex Brown led IPO (YESM), an email marketing and web directory company, which went public and then sold to CMGI, now ModusLink Global Solutions, for $650 million ten months later. Alex Hern co-founded Military Commercial Technologies a technology commercialization incubator funded by Lockheed and L-3, where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In addition, Alex Hern co-founded and served as Director of Arcsight (ARST), a cyber security company, which also went public and was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.5 billion. Alex Hern co-founded and served as Director of CloudShield a network security company which sold to SAIC, a large technology and engineering firm specializing in government and commercial projects. Alex Hern also founded and served on the Boards of NewHomes.com and of Triton Network Systems (TNSI). Alex Hern has also served on the board of Zero Knowledge Systems, a security and encryption company now named Radial Point.
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About Tsunami XR: Tsunami develops and delivers advanced digital collaboration services for teams.
Frank Yeary
Founder of WriteLab
Frank Yeary is executive chairman of CamberView Partners, a leading source of independent, investor-led advice for public companies. He was Vice Chancellor of his alma mater, University of California, Berkeley, from 2008 to 2012 and prior to this appointment was Global Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Citigroup Investment Banking. Until its sale in 2015, he was also Chairman and Co-founder of Level Money, Inc., a financial organization helping the next generation of young adults achieve financial balance. As vice chancellor at UC Berkeley, Yeary led the development of a new sustainable financial strategy, designed and implemented the university’s first comprehensive middle-class financial aid program and initiated and oversaw the implementation of one of the largest re-engineering and cost reduction efforts ever undertaken by a public university. In addition, for nearly two years he acted as chief administrative officer managing a portfolio including finance, human resources, labor relations, internal controls and intercollegiate athletics. Prior to his appointment at UC Berkeley, Yeary held various positions in the investment banking division of Citigroup. During the period 2004 to 2008 he was Global Head of Mergers & Acquisitions where he significantly restructured the department, nearly tripled revenues and led the firm from the fifth to the second largest M&A business, as ranked by global M&A volume. Prior to 2004 he was global head of the Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) investment banking practice at Salomon Smith Barney. Yeary received a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley in history and economics. He is on the boards of directors of eBay, Inc and Intel Corporation.
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About WriteLab: WriteLab is an online writing platform offering immediate, objective, and constructive responses to any writer’s prose.
Donald McQuade
Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer of WriteLab
Donald McQuade is the Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer at WriteLab.
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About WriteLab: WriteLab is an online writing platform offering immediate, objective, and constructive responses to any writer’s prose.
Vikas Gupta
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Wonder Workshop
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About Wonder Workshop: Wonder Workshop provides a platform that makes programming fun and accessible for children while they play.
Henry Shao
Co-Founder & CEO of Zippia
Henry is the founder and CEO of Zippia, Inc. Henry is a passionate technology entrepreneur who have started 4 software companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He brought innovations to the real estate industry through Movoto.com. Prior to founding Movoto, he co-founded MediSpark, which was acquired by iScribe and then Caremark, as well as Cranite Systems, a wireless security software company. Henry has also held a number of business and product management positions at Applied Materials and FormFactor. Henry holds Master of Science degrees in both management and in engineering from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University. https://www.zippia.com
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About Zippia: Zippia offers every person access to all of their career options and how those various paths will impact their professional lives.
Chris Kolmar
Co-Founder and VP of Marketing of Zippia
Chris helped co-found Zippia four years ago which helps college students and recent grads find jobs that fit them. He was previously the Sr. Director of Marketing at Movoto and graduated from Pomona College.
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About Zippia: Zippia offers every person access to all of their career options and how those various paths will impact their professional lives.
Michael Choi
Founder, CEO of Coding Dojo
Michael Choi is the Founder and CEO of Data Compass. He is an entrepreneurial engineer with deep experience training and managing talented teams, founding and building new companies.
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About Coding Dojo, Data Compass: Coding Dojo is a bootcamp that helps students transform their lives through programming literacy.
John Freddy Vega
Co-Founder & CEO of Platzi
John Freddy Vega is the Co-Founder and CEO of Platzi.
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About Platzi: Platzi is an effective online education platform that offers classes on marketing, programming, business, and design.
Christian Van Der Henst
Co-Founder of Platzi
Christian Van Der Henst is the Co-Founder at Platzi.
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About Platzi: Platzi is an effective online education platform that offers classes on marketing, programming, business, and design.
Deepak Diwakar
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of MindTickle
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About MindTickle: MindTickle is a software company that offers sales readiness and enablement tools for businesses.
Kunal Sarkar
Co-Founder & Chairman of the Board of Lumos Labs
Kunal is the CEO and Co-Founder of Lumos Labs. Prior to founding Lumosity, Kunal co-founded the private equity fund AIMLP, which manages over $400MM in capital. The fund focuses on investments in infrastructure and natural resources. Prior to founding AIMLP, Kunal was Vice President at McCown De Leeuw and Co., a $1.2 billion private equity fund making growth equity investments. Kunal started his career in the Strategic Planning and Development group at the Walt Disney Company, where he was involved in the development of Disney’s acquisition strategy and over $5 billion of M&A transactions. Kunal graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a B.A. in Economics and a certificate in Finance.
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About Lumos Labs: Lumosity is a neuroscience research company that provides online brain training programs.
John Zdanowski
Co-Founder, Investment Committee Member, Board Member of Assembled Brands
John Zdanowski joined Assembled Brands as Co-Founder, Investment Committee Member, Board Member in 2013.Part-time John Zdanowski is serial entrepreneur with experience growing companies from early stage startups to over $100 million in revenue.John has led or arranged 16 acquisitions, one IPO, dozens of venture capital, private equity and debt transactions for companies he either founded or joined as CFO.John was the CFO of Second Life as it grew from $10m to $80m and generated tens of millions of dollars of free cash flow from the sale of virtual land and virtual currency. Prior to Second Life, John was the CFO of HouseValues as it grew from $20m to $100m in revenue. John led the $94m IPO of HouseValues in 2004.Prior to HouseValues, Zdanowski co-founded Affinity Internet, Inc. raising more than $60 million from investors include JP Morgan and Columbia Capital to build a highly profitable Web hosting company serving more than 200,000 small- and medium-sized businesses. Affinity was sold to Hostway in 2007. Zdanowski holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University.
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About Assembled Brands, Dollar Donation Club, Foresight Ventures, Kachinga, Topia: Assembled Brands is a financial services company that specializes in providing expertise and business development to companies.
Jon Najarian
Co Founder of Investitute
Jon ‘DRJ’ Najarian was linebacker for the Chicago Bears before he turned to another kind of contact sport – trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. He became a member of the CBOE, NYSE, CME and CBOT and worked as a floor trader for some 25 years. In 1990 he founded Mercury Trading, a market-making firm at the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), which he sold in 2004 to Citadel, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. In 2005 Jon co-founded optionMONSTER and tradeMONSTER, sold a majority stake to private equity firm General Atlantic Partners in 2014 & two years later sold the firm to E*Trade for $750M. Today, he is a professional investor, money manager, stock & crypto markets analyst. Jon developed HeatSeeker Technologies, a patented trading application and algorithms used to identify unusual activity in stock, options, and futures markets. Jon publishes his market observations, trade recommendations on Investitute.com, his subscription and education website. Jon and his brother Pete co-founded Najarian Advisors & Najarian Alternatives, companies that advise & or trade for institutional investors as well as manage money for wealthy investors.
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About Cboe Global Markets, CNBC, Investitute, Market Rebellion, optionMONSTER: Investitute goal is to give you the most complete and in-depth market training possible.
Joel Scott
Co-Founder & COO of SV Academy
Joel Scott is Co Founder & COO at SV Academy.
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About SV Academy: SV Academy is building the workforce of the future for SaaS GTM
Rahim Fazal
Co-Founder and CEO of SV Academy
Co-Founder and CEO at SVAcademy.
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About Forbes Technology Council, SV Academy: SV Academy is building the workforce of the future for SaaS GTM
Jonathan Finkelstein
Founder & CEO of Credly
Jonathan Finkelstein is founder and CEO of Credly. The company’s enterprise-class digital credential platforms enable thousands of organizations to recognize, reward and market skills and achievement. As founder of LearningTimes, Jonathan’s work has helped hundreds of mission-driven organizations produce and launch innovative online programs, products and platforms that have impacted the lives of millions of learners. Jonathan is also the founder of the popular open source BadgeOS project. Prior to LearningTimes, Jonathan was co-founder and Sr. Vice President of Product Development at HorizonLive (now Blackboard). Jonathan is author of Learning in Real Time (Wiley), contributing author to The Digital Museum (AAM), and recently co-authored a report for the US Department of Education on the potential for digital badges. Jonathan is a frequent speaker on digital credentials, Open Badges, and the future of learning and workforce development. Jonathan graduated with honors from Harvard University.
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About Credly: Credly is a platform for verifying, sharing, and managing digital badges and credentials.
Zachary Sims
Co-Founder & CEO of Codecademy
Zach is the cofounder and CEO of Codecademy, the easiest way to learn to code. Since the company started in August of 2011, millions of people have begun learning to program using the site.Codecademy has worked with organizations like The White House, the Government of Colombia, American Express, Rakuten, and more. Zach and his cofounder Ryan have grown Codecademy to 18 full time employees in New York and have raised $12.5m in venture capital financing from top tier investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures, Yuri Milner, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, SV Angel, Richard Branson, Y Combinator, and more. Prior to founding Codecademy, Zach was a student at Columbia University. He has worked in product and business development/strategy capacities at startups including GroupMe (sold to Skype) and drop.io (sold to Facebook). He also has experience in the venture capital industry with AOL Ventures, the venture capital arm of AOL. Zach and Codecademy have been honored by many publications. TIME Magazine called Codecademy one of the “50 Best Websites of 2012,” while TechCrunch awarded Codecademy the “Best Education Startup” Crunchie Award in 2013. Zach has been named to Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list, along with Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list. The City of New York named him a New York City Venture Fellow in 2013.
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About Bowery Capital, Codecademy: Codecademy provides an online learning platform that teaches employable digital skills.
Ryan Bubinski
Co-Founder of Codecademy
Ryan and Zach have been working together on Codecademy since 2011, back when they were students at Columbia.He started building web applications at age 13 and hasn’t stopped since, except for an occasional break to practice cooking or spend time with team members and friends.
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About Codecademy: Codecademy provides an online learning platform that teaches employable digital skills.
Elena Masolova
Founder & CEO of Eduson
Founder & CEO at Eduson. Investor at TokenStars, the first celebrity management platform on the blockchain.
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About Eduson: Eduson is a corporate eLearning platform.
Le Dong Hai Nguyen
Founder & Executive Director of Global Association of Economics Education
Le Dong Hai Nguyen is a Vietnamese economist and social activist for economics education reforms. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Global Association of Economics Education (GAEE) and was the first person under 18 years of age to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). Nguyen studies international economics at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (SFS) and has contributed to The Diplomat, Asia Times, USA Today, Thrive Global, and The Georgetown Gazette, to which he has also served as Managing Editor since 2021. He is one of 36 persons being honored in the Royal Economic Society’s 2019 list of Young Economists of the Year.
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About Global Association of Economics Education: GAEE is an international NGO working to democratize economics education, financial literacy and entrepreneurship incubation
Shruti Kapoor
Co-Founder & CEO of Wingman
Shruti is the Founder-CEO of Wingman (now Wingman by Clari), which is an actionable conversation intelligence platform that unlocks insights from every sales interaction. As the founder of Wingman, Shruti was also their first salesperson who sold their first million dollars in revenue single-handedly. Despite being an outsider to the SaaS ecosystem and to the US, Shruti has managed to successfully scale the business, been selected to the prestigious YCombinator program, raised funding, and hired a team of 40+ talented folks.
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About Wingman: Wingman is a real-time sales coaching tool for sales representatives.
Helen Adeosun
Founder & CEO of CareAcademy
Helen is CEO and Co-Founder at CareAcademy.com. She is passionate about caregiving and the impact that the right caregiver can have on families. Prior to this, Helen had worked with Teach for America, Boston Public Schools, and Pearson Education as well as a number of companies focused on caregiving issues. Care Academy was born out of her own experience as a nanny and she hopes that sittercycle.com is a place to continuously learn and share with current and future nannies. She holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an EdM. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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About CareAcademy: Online training empowering senior care professionals to deliver the highest caliber of service and improve the lives of older adults.
Tim O’Reilly
Founder, Chairman & CEO of O’Reilly
Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media Inc. Considered by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world, O’Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, Strata: The Business of Data, the Velocity Conference on Web Performance and Operations, and many others. Tim’s blog, the O’Reilly Radar “watches the alpha geeks” to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is also a partner at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, O’Reilly’s early stage venture firm, and is on the board of Safari Books Online, PeerJ, Code for America, and Maker Media, which was recently spun out from O’Reilly Media. Maker Media’s Maker Faire has been compared to the West Coast Computer Faire, which launched the personal computer revolution.
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About O’Reilly, Oreilly AlphaTech Ventures, Oreilly AlphaTech Ventures, POPVOX: O’Reilly provides technology and business training, knowledge, and insight to help companies succeed.
Taylor Freeman
Founder & CEO of Axon Park
Taylor Freeman is the Founder & CEO of Axon Park, a virtual campus where students from around the world can learn together in VR. He has been working at the intersection of VR and education over the last five years during which time he established two incubation spaces in LA and San Francisco housing over 150 AR and AI startups, hosted over 500 events focused around VR and AR, oversaw the training of nearly 1,000 students in-person on VR development, consulted with companies like NASA, Stanford Medical, Google, and IDEO and built a news media platform focused on VR that reaches millions of people per month. Taylor was awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017 for his work building the industry and he taught the first remote in-VR class with at MIT in 2018. He is deeply passionate about using VR to unlock new levels of human cognition and overcome the challenges many students face in the classroom around geographical limitations, student and teacher bias, and overall accessibility.
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About Axon Park: Welcome to your new virtual campus. Empowering organizations and individuals to harness the power of XR + AI for learning.
Daniel Daks
Co-Founder, CEO of TradeUp Labs
Daniel heads up product vision, marketing strategy, and sales. He enjoys cooking, philosophy and hugs.
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About TradeUp Labs: TradeUp is changing the recruiting and training process for companies trying to attractive top-quality talent and individuals trying to
Jacqueline Novogratz
Founder & CEO of Acumen
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About Acumen: Acumen is a non-profit venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty.
Cristobal Viedma
Founder & CEO of Lingokids
Viedma Cristobal is the Software Engineer: Head of platform at Viki Inc.
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About Lingokids, Viki: Helping families around the world raise amazing kids.
Cameron Yarbrough
Co-Founder and CEO of Torch
Cameron is the Co-founder and CEO of Torch Leadership Labs. He brings 15 years of entrepreneurial experience to his role as CEO, along with a deep background in mindfulness and psychotherapy. After the successful sale of a “click and mortar” retail company in 2005, Cameron spent 30 days on a silent meditation retreat. Insight from that period of silence and subsequent meditation retreats were foundational to his development as a leader, and lead him to study the roots of Freudian and Humanistic psychology at the California Institute of Integral studies, after which he co-found Well Clinic: a mental health company in San Francisco. Under Cameron’s leadership, The Well became the Bay Area’s leading provider of private pay psychotherapy services. Torch is the natural next step in Cameron’s leadership journey, as it aims to democratize coaching by making it available to leaders at every level of an organization. Cameron has also served as an interpersonal dynamics facilitator at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Torch: Torch is a leadership development platform that provides coaching, software, and feedback to raise performers to the next level.
Keegan Walden
Co-Founder & COO of Torch
Dr. Keegan Walden is the Co-founder and COO of Torch. In this capacity, he leads a product team focused on building software that uses ongoing feedback and analytics to help leaders recognize and overcome their challenges. He also coaches a select group of C-suite leaders at high-growth startups. Prior to co-founding Torch, Keegan led the outcomes research team at a national provider of behavioral health services (5,000 clients per year), where he studied the role that personality, mindfulness, and psychotherapy play in improving wellbeing over time. Before becoming a psychologist, Keegan spent 11-years in UX design, creating interfaces for complex financial applications. Keegan has served on the faculty of the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research has been published in Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience the International Journal of Psychophysiology, among other peer-reviewed journals. He has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University.
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About Torch: Torch is a leadership development platform that provides coaching, software, and feedback to raise performers to the next level.
Joshua McAfee
CEO / Founder of McAfee Institute
Josh McAfee is the found and CEO of McAfee Institute and FraudDivision.
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About Forbes Coaches Council, FraudDivision, McAfee Institute, McAfee Institute: McAfee Institute is a professional certification and training organization specializing in the intelligence and investigative industry.
Justin Beals
Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer of NextStep
Justin Beals has developed companies, products and technologies across the human capital marketplace for the last 20 years. An expert in solutions that make use of AI and enterprise technologies he has helped guide fast growth companies and institutions to delivery and large scale impact. Prior to Nextstep Justin was the CTO for Koru which developed AI systems for hiring and talent management. Justin was the VP of Product for Hotchalk which allowed legacy higher education institutions to rapidly join the online learning marketplace. Justin has also held roles as the Executive Director of R&D for Macmillan Publishing and CEO and Founder of Roundbox Global developing next generation educational technologies. Justin has a BA in English/Theater from Fort Lewis College but learned Apple Basic in grade school and never looked back.
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About NextStep, Strike Graph: NextStep is an information technology company that provides training and job placement for workers via mobile application platform.
Chris Hedrick
Co-Founder and CEO of NextStep
Before founding NextStep, Hedrick served as CEO of Kepler, an innovative online/offline university program in Rwanda and CEO of Intrepid Learning, a venture capital-backed learning technology and outsourcing company. He previously served as Science and Technology Advisor to the Governor of Washington state. He was also the first employee of the Gates Library Foundation, the precursor organization of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and managed national philanthropic programs for Microsoft. He has a deep background in public health, leading an Africa-wide malaria prevention program, working as country director for the largest Peace Corps program in the world, and serving on the board of PATH, the global health non-profit. A graduate of Stanford University, Hedrick was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.
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About NextStep: NextStep is an information technology company that provides training and job placement for workers via mobile application platform.
Charissa Raynor
Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of NextStep
Charissa is nationally recognized as a thought leader on creating a qualified and sustainable long-term care workforce and addressing the coming care crisis. She has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare policy, research, and practice. Prior to co-founding NextStep, Charissa was the founding Executive Director of an organization that delivered training and healthcare benefits to more than 50,000 long-term care workers annually. She holds a Master’s degree in Health Service Administration and a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing.
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About NextStep: NextStep is an information technology company that provides training and job placement for workers via mobile application platform.
Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon
Founder & Chief executive officer of Founder Gym
As a six-year startup veteran, Mandela SH Dixon specializes in helping anyone from part-time hustlers to full-time founders accelerate their business and achieve their dreams. Mandela began her career in Silicon Valley in 2011 as a startup founder backed by Kapor Capital, 500 Startups, and Imagine K12 (acquired by Y Combinator). Thereafter, she led a global entrepreneurial program called Startup Weekend Education (acquired by Techstars) that spanned six continents and empowered thousands of entrepreneurs. Most recently, Mandela worked at venture capital firm Kapor Capital, supporting the success of over 120 tech startups, and on nights and weekends, she hosts The Startup Couch, a web series featuring interviews with the influencers of Silicon Valley. To-date, Mandela has shared her frameworks for success on over 60 stages, including TEDx, Google, and Facebook. She has also received several recognitions, including being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List, LinkedIn’s Top 10 Voices in Venture Capital and Startups, and Medium’s Top 10% of Writers.
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About First Round Capital, Founder Gym, Sequoia Capital: Founder Gym is an online training center for underrepresented founders who want to build successful tech startups.
Alexi Robichaux
CEO & Co-Founder of BetterUp
Alexi Robichaux is the co-founder and CEO of BetterUp. He founded the company in 2013 with a mission to enable all professionals to live with greater purpose, clarity and passion through one-on-one coaching. Prior to BetterUp, Alexi was the Director or Product Management at VMware and co-founded Youth Leadership America, a non-profit organization that fosters peer-to-peer leadership in high school students.
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About BetterUp: BetterUp develops an AI-driven platform that helps people and businesses grow personally and professionally through coaching.
Amanda Freeman
Founder & CEO of SLT Group
Amanda Freeman is the Founder & CEO of Limber & she attended Duke University in 1994.
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About Limber, SLT Group: SLT Group is a boutique fitness studio operator engaging clients with full body workouts.
Shaan Hathiramani
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flockjay
Shaan Hathiramani is a Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Flockjay. He is a former CXO at Thistle and Portfolio Manager at Balyasny Asset Management L.P. and Alyeska Investment Group. Mr. Hathiramani graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts in Applied Mathematics.
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About Flockjay: Flockjay is an online academy that empowers job seekers with the tools and training they need to break into tech.
Michael Ellison
Founder and CEO of CodePath
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About CodePath: CodePath is a nonprofit increasing diversity in tech by transforming CS college education.
Marco Marinucci
Founder and CEO of Mind The Bridge
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About Mind The Bridge, Mind the Seed – MTS Fund: Mind The Bridge provides innovation advisory services for corporations and startups.
Kevin Cornish
CEO and Founder of Moth + Flame
Kevin has established himself as a leader in directing high-end, cinematic VR. He has worked with talent ranging from Taylor Swift to Karlie Kloss and Coco Rocha, as well as brands ranging from Chanel, Donna Karan, MTV, AT&T and AMD. His piece, Believe VR, was a first-of- its-kind cinematic VR experience that used gaze-activated technology to put the viewer inside a live action scene. It received much acclaim in the VR community, described by HuffPost as “groundbreaking” and “visionary.” He is a regularly recognized innovation leader in the space having spoken and presented at SXSW, VRLA, GDC, and Stanford. His work will be featured at the Future of Storytelling Summit this fall. Kevin is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
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About Conversive, Moth + Flame: Moth + Flame VR is the leading provider of immersive learning experiences for enterprise scale customers across a range of verticals.
Alan Paller
Founder & Director of Research of SANS Institute
Alan Paller founded SANS, a college and training school that has trained more than 145,000 cybersecurity technologists in 72 countries. Paller oversees a global program that celebrates people responsible for remarkable improvement in cyber-risk reduction. He has testified before the Senate and House and was a charter member of the President’s National Infrastructure Assurance Council. In 2010, the Washington Post named Paller as one of seven people “worth knowing in cyber security.” He serves on the NASA Advisory Council, chaired the DHS 2012 Task Force on Cyber Skills and headed the FCC Task Force on Best Practices in Cybersecurity. Earlier, Paller helped build one of the first large software companies, took it public and merged it into a larger company listed on the NY Stock Exchange.
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About SANS Institute: SANS Institute is a research and education organization that provides education related to information security.
Elise Smith
Co-Founder & CEO of Praxis Labs
Elise Smith is a co-founder and CEO at Praxis Labs. Prior to co-founding Praxis Labs, Elise invested in and coached entrepreneurs developing diversity and inclusion solutions at NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy. Prior to that work, she developed ed-tech products and led ed-tech partnerships at IBM Watson. Elise holds a B.A. in Geography & Social Inequity from Dartmouth College and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University. Inspired by her parents’ fight for educational equity, Elise is dedicated to scaling access and opportunity with the goal of creating a more equitable society.
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Melina Lopez
Founder of Praxis Labs
Melina Lopez is a Co-Founder of Praxis Labs.
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Heather Shen
Founder of Praxis Labs
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Mahesh Chand
Founder of Mindcracker
Mahesh Chand is founder of C# Corner. C# Corner founded in 1999 is a FREE member contributions based open platform for developers to solve problems, learn new technology and hang out. Mahesh has been awarded prestigious Microsoft MVP Award for 9 consecutive years for his contributions to the developer community. Mahesh is also an author of several programming books. Mahesh authored and published his first book A Programmer’s Guide to ADO.NET in C# with APress at the age of 25. Since then, Mahesh went on to author several more .NET programming books.
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About Mindcracker: Mindcracker is a software development firm that offers software solution, training, blockchain consulting and cloud services.
Peter Zandan
Executive Board Chair/Co-Founder/Investor of Quantified
Global Vice Chairman of Hill & Knowlton Strategies Founder and CEO of Intelliquest (IQST) a NASDAQ traded information firm, sold to WPP. Founder and CEO of Zilliant. Ph.D. in Evaluation Research, MBA from University of Texas, Austin
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About Quantified: Quantified is an AI-Powered Coaching Platform that helps you have Better Conversations with Better Outcomes.
Gautam Jayaraman
Co-Founder and CTO of Greenwork
Gautam Jayaraman is the co-founder and CTO of Greenwork.
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About Greenwork: Greenwork is a professional network for the people re-building America’s infrastructure. The company provides trade schools and their students with a community where they connect with one another and top companies, helping students get jobs for after graduation. Greenwork’s mission is to rebuild a large, well-paid, well-trained industrial workforce to tackle big physical challenges like decarbonization.
Sam Steyer
Co-Founder and CEO of Greenwork
Sam Steyer is the co-founder and CTO of Greenwork.
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About Greenwork: Greenwork helps government-funded training programs find jobs for their graduates.
Ian Brady
Co-Founder & CEO of AVA
Ian Brady is the Chief Executive Officer at Hologram Sciences.
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About AVA, Great Marsh Brewing Company, Hologram Sciences, Plenty: AVA is a personalized, data-driven nutritional coaching solution.
Ihsan Ecemis
Co-Founder & CTO of AVA
Ihsan Ecemis is the CTO at Hologram Sciences.
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About AVA, Hologram Sciences: AVA is a personalized, data-driven nutritional coaching solution.
Stefano Bellasio
CEO & Founder of Cloud Academy
Stefano started working with web stuff, projects and big messy websites when he was fifteen and never stopped. He loves building things and creating companies that solve real problems in any industry. Cloud Computing, E-commerce and SaaS Software are among his preferred topics and passions.
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About Cloud Academy: The best enterprise e-learning platform for cloud technologies including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and the DevOps ecosystem
Giacomo Marinangeli
CTO & Co-Founder of Cloud Academy
With a Computer Science background, Giacomo has a long experience as a Sr. Software Engineer and Project Manager on several IT Projects for small and big companies. He loves creating products with Python, Django, Linux, PostgreSQL and Javascript.
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About Cloud Academy: The best enterprise e-learning platform for cloud technologies including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and the DevOps ecosystem
Diego Villegas
Co-Founder & CEO of Slang
Diego Villegas is the Co-Founder & CEO at Slang.
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About Slang: Slang offers a variety of online specialized English courses for career development using a proprietary ML-driven engine,
Kamran Khan
Co-Founder & CTO of Slang
Kamran Khan is a Co-Founder and CTO at Slang.
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About Slang: Slang offers a variety of online specialized English courses for career development using a proprietary ML-driven engine,
Joe Moriarty
CEO & Co-Founder of Raven360
Joe Moriarty has a long history of motivating teams and delivering increased sales for various technology providers. He joined Raven360 in May 2011, previously working with Hybrivet Systems, where he was vice president of sales and marketing. While there, Joe led efforts that delivered a 2003 percent increase in sales from April 2010 through February 2011, when 3M acquired Hybrivet Systems. Joe also served as vice president of sales at TR3 Solutions, where he led the sales group to successfully market a portfolio of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions for retail and consumer packaged goods. His work experience also includes director of sales roles for both Sterling Commerce (now IBM), and TR2 Solutions, a cloud-based startup acquired by Sterling Commerce, as well as senior software sales positions at Commerce One, AppNet, and Research and Planning. Joe holds a Bachelor of Science in Resource Economics from the University of Connecticut.
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About Raven360, Raven360: Raven360 provides a sales readiness platform that delivers up-to-date and consistent sales content, training and coaching.
Vasu Ram
Chief Product & Technology Officer / Founder of Raven360
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About Raven360: Raven360 provides a sales readiness platform that delivers up-to-date and consistent sales content, training and coaching.
Scott Montgomerie
Co-Founder, CEO and CTO of ScopeAR
Serial entrepreneur, Scott Montgomerie, has over 15 years of consumer software and AR experience that he brings to his roles of co-founder, CEO and CTO at Scope AR. In addition to managing day-to-day company operations, Scott is one of the true pioneers in the industrial AR space and passionate about how AR can help organizations achieve their goals quickly. Scott is also a full-stack developer, in everything from iPhone games to Ruby-on-Rails corporate tools, and has experience founding and creating products and teams from the grassroots startup stage through to acquisition. Throughout his career, Scott has aimed to make the world a better place by solving complex problems with transformative tech. He sees AR as having tremendous potential to simplify complex issues across industries. Scott graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computing Science and is a published researcher in the field of Bioinformatics.
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About ScopeAR, Xfire: Scope AR develops augmented reality solutions and products for industrial clients focused around field maintenance.
Daniel Brody
Founder and President & CEO of Health Data Services
Mr. Daniel Brody is the Founder and President/CEO of Health Data Services. As CEO, Mr. Brody is responsible for the development of corporate strategy and marketing. He is also Manager of Greenwood Partners, LLC., an early stage investor group. Mr. Brody is an adjunct Professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and a lecturer at other schools in the University. He serves on the board of Prolifiq Software. Previous to founding Health Data Services in 1988, Mr. Brody was employed by Federated Department Stores and Brody Brothers, Inc. He was a member of the faculty of Indiana University(PA) where he taught marketing for seven years. Among other professional experiences, Mr. Brody consulted for Unisys Corporation; served for many years on the Board and as a member of the Executive Committee of Insmed, Inc., and a publicly traded biotech company. He served as a member of the Board of the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance (Virginia Medicaid) from 1994 through 2002 and was Chairman of that Board from 1996 to 2000. Mr. Brody is a member of the University of Virginia’s 2020 Strategic Planning Committee. He is a 1973 graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in Economics and a Masters degree in Business Administration from New York University.
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About Greenwood Partners, Health Data Services, University of Virginia: Health Data Services is a Health Care company.
Rajeev Surati
Chairman and Founder of Scalable Display Technologies
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About Scalable Display Technologies, Skyline Nav AI: Designs, develops, and commercializes display technologies for immersive environments such as simulation, collaboration & Augmented Reality
Jeremy Rossmann
Co-Founder of MakeSchool
Jeremy Rossmann is the founder of Make School, a computer science and software engineering school based in San Francisco. Make School offers summer programs for high school and university students as well as a 2 year alternative to the traditional computer science degree where students have already received offers from Google and Facebook. Jeremy dropped out of MIT to found Make School and has received funding from Y Combinator, Tim Draper, East Ventures, and other top US and Asian investors.
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About MakeSchool: MakeSchool provides a higher education degree program, creating a more direct connection between education and employment.
Ashu Desai
Founder of MakeSchool
Ashu Desai is the Founder at Make School.
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About MakeSchool: MakeSchool provides a higher education degree program, creating a more direct connection between education and employment.
Gene Williams
Founder & CEO of Athletes Untapped
Gene is the Founder & CEO of Athletes Untapped, a platform that connects young athletes with experienced private sports coaches. He currently serves as the president of VeryApt, a real estate technology company. Prior to his career as an entrepreneur, Gene played professional basketball in Ireland and received his BA in economics from Johns Hopkins University.
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About Athletes Untapped, VeryApt: Athletes Untapped operates an online portal for aspiring athletes looking for professional coaches.
Al Lieb
Co-Founder of Gixo
Al Lieb joined Gixo as Co-Founder in 2016.
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About CreatorPlus, Gixo, SFR3 Fund: Gixo develops a mobile application that offers online fitness classes from professional coaches.
Max Yoder
CEO, Co-Founder of Lessonly
Max Yoder Lessonly Co-Founder and CEO Lessonly. Max Yoder is grateful that he got cut from the basketball team two years in a row. Out of thousands of applicants, Max was one of 20 recipients of the Orr Fellowship, earning a position at one of Indiana’s most dynamic companies.
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About Lessonly, Quipol: Lessonly is a simple training software that helps teams learn, practice, and do better work.
Tracy McGrady
Co-Founder of Seven1 Sports Group and Entertainment
Tracy Lamar McGrady, is an American retired professional basketball player who played professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is a seven-time NBA All-Star, seven-time All-NBA selection, and a two-time NBA scoring champion (2003–2004). McGrady played as a swingman. McGrady entered the NBA straight from high school after being selected in the 1997 NBA draft with the ninth overall pick in the first round by the Toronto Raptors. He played in the NBA for the Raptors, Orlando Magic, Houston Rockets, New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks, and San Antonio Spurs. He also played for the Qingdao DoubleStar Eagles of the Chinese Basketball Association. In 2013, after the Spurs lost that year’s NBA Finals he announced his retirement from the NBA.
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About Seven1 Sports Group and Entertainment: Seven1 is a sports agency that focuses on positively guiding and impacting the next generation of professional athletes.
Jermaine O’Neal
Co-Founder & CEO of Seven1 Sports Group and Entertainment
Jermaine O’Neal is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Seven1.
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About Athos, Golden State Warriors, Hash House A Go Go, Next Caller, Seven1 Sports Group and Entertainment, TrueVault, Uproxx Media Group, Zesty: Seven1 is a sports agency that focuses on positively guiding and impacting the next generation of professional athletes.
Jonathan Greechan
Co-Founder of Founder Institute
Jonathan Greechan is the Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at the Founder Institute (http://fi.co), the world’s largest startup launch program with over 1500 graduate companies across 100+ cities and 6 continents. Jonathan is also the Executive Producer of the Founder Showcase (http://foundershowcase.com), a leading Silicon Valley startup conference that has run since 2009 and featured speakers like Elon Musk and David Sacks; and a Partner of TheFunded.com, the leading website for startup founders to rate and review venture capitalists and share tips on startup financing. Prior, Jonathan built and ran content and marketing at Game Trust, an online gaming startup that raised $20M+ in VC and sold to RealNetworks (RNWK) in 2007; and managed the online community content product strategy, roadmap, and execution as a Product Manager at Real Networks. In his career, Jonathan has mentored and advised hundreds of technology startups on marketing, PR, and growth. Follow him on Twitter @jonnystartup
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About Business France, Cardinal Ventures, Fortune, Founder Institute, Founder Showcase, TechCrunch, The Funded, University of Oxford: Founder Institute is a pre-seed startup accelerator, with chapters in 180+ cities and a portfolio with $20B+ in value.
Aline Lerner
Founder and CEO of interviewing.io
Aline Lerner is the co-founder and CEO of interviewing.io, an anonymous technical interviewing platform where companies like Facebook, Twitch, and Lyft have hired great software engineers. Before that, she wrote code, ran hiring at Udacity, and wrote a lot of stuff about hiring on the internet. Her data-driven posts about how typos matter more than pedigree, how resumes are a low-signal filtering tool, and how technical interviews aren’t deterministic have been read by millions of people, and her work on the subject has appeared in dozens of publications, including Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company (where she was recently named one of the Most Creative People in Business of 2018).
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About interviewing.io: Interviewing.io focuses on technical interview practice and engineering hiring.
Thomas Laughlin
Founder & CEO of AMAGI
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About AMAGI: AMAGI builds software and communities that connect humans with the best parts of data and technology.
Thomas Brunskill
Co-Founder and CEO of Forage
homas Brunskill is the co-founder and CEO of Forage. Before moving to San Francisco in 2018, Tom was a corporate lawyer at a multinational law firm in Australia.
It was during his own career journey that Tom discovered that an education and a degree doesn’t necessarily translate to knowing how to do a specific job role.
After observing the unfair advantage those with access to connections or educational opportunities had, Tom co-founded Forage to provide anyone the ability to learn through virtual job simulations produced by the world’s top companies.
By breaking down barriers to gaining workplace-specific skills, Tom hopes to level the opportunity playing field and help students get great jobs.
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About Forage: Forage creates free open-access training courses for candidates to build their career skills and confidence.
Gene B Sperling
Founder and Advisory Board Chair, Center for Universal Education of The Brookings Institution
1996-2001, National Economic Adviser to US President Clinton. During the financial crisis, Counsellor to Secretary of Treasury Geithner; 2008, Economic Adviser to Hillary Clinton during the presidential primary campaign. 2011-14, National Economic Adviser to US President Obama. Currently, President, Sperling Economic Strategies. Founder, Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution, which focuses on girls’ education and universal education in poor and conflict-ridden nations. Former Chair, US Global Campaign for Education. Member, World Economic Forum Basic Education Expert Group. Co-Author of What Works in Girls’ Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World (2004). Author, The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity (2006).
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About The Brookings Institution: The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization that focuses on analyzing public policy issues at the national level.
Soham Mehta
Founder of Interview Kickstart
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About Interview Kickstart: Technical Interview Preparation Courses
Ryan Corey
CEO / Co-Founder of Cybrary
Co-Founder at Cybrary
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About Cybrary: Cybrary is the cybersecurity and IT Career Development Platform. Cybrary is the fastest growing, fastest-moving catalog in the industry.
Ralph Sita
President / Co-Founder of Cybrary
Co-Founder at Cybrary; CEO / Founder at TrainACE
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About Academy of Computer Education, Cybrary, Game Planner Pro: Cybrary is the cybersecurity and IT Career Development Platform. Cybrary is the fastest growing, fastest-moving catalog in the industry.
Kush Patel
Founder & CEO of App Academy
Founder of App Academy.
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About App Academy: App Academy is a web development school where 98% of graduates are placed in developer roles earning an avg. of $105K in SF and $89 in NYC.
Craig Schlanger
Co-Founder of Apple Seeds
Craig grew up in Oceanside, New York and has lived in NYC since 1993. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Craig pursued an equity trading position at Spear Leeds & Kellogg and by 1998 was co-managing the new issue trading department on the NASDAQ desk. In 2002, after Spear Leeds & Kellogg merged with Goldman Sachs, Craig was one of the first to transition onto Goldman’s trading desk in their Biotechnology/Healthcare sector. In 2005, shortly after his sons Sam and Ari were born, Craig left Goldman to eventually take on his current project — apple seeds.
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About Apple Seeds: Apple Seeds operates all-in-one indoor play spaces for families with newborn babies to five-year-olds.
Richard Farmer
Founder of Cintas
Richard T. Farmer is the founder of Cintas Corporation. He has served as Chairman of the Board of Cintas Corporation and its predecessor companies since 1968. Prior to the founding of Cintas, Mr. Farmer was with his family owned company, which Cintas acquired in the early 1970’s. Prior to August 1, 1995, Mr. Farmer also served as Chief Executive Officer.
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About Cintas: Headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, Cintas Corporation provides highly specialized services to businesses of all types throughout North
Alvin Hung
Founder & Executive Chairman of Vyond
Alvin is happiest when he sees people use his products with ease and enthusiasm. A well-rounded serial entrepreneur, you’ll find him going through product designs, digging into usage statistics, architecting scalable systems, experimenting with business models, and driving online marketing for GoAnimate. Alvin is about building companies that transform difficult processes into user-friendly solutions. Prior to GoAnimate, Alvin was the co-founder and CTO of Ascent Technology, a dead-simple CRM system for financial professionals. Before that, he was the co-founder and CTO of Net Strategy, an international domain name technology company. Alvin holds a B.A. from Columbia University where he double majored in Computer Science and Economics. You can follow Alvin on Twitter at @alvinhung
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About Vyond: Vyond puts the power of video in the hands of everyone.
Christine Tao
Co-Founder and CEO of Sounding Board
Christine Tao serves as Chief Executive Officer and Director at Sounding Board Labs. She is also the Strategic Advisor at Startups. Ms. Tao is a former Advisor at Adenda Media Inc. and Governing Board of Directors at HR West & NCHRA (Northern California Human Resources Association). Christine graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business with a bachelor of science in Business Administration and received an MBA in Marketing & Operations at The Wharton School.
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About Sounding Board: Sounding Board provides a data-driven virtual leadership development platform for corporate leaders.
Lori Mazan
Co-Founder and Chief Coaching Officer of Sounding Board
Lori Mazan is a Co-Founder, President, and Chief Coaching Officer at Sounding Board, Inc. She also currently serves as President/Founder/ Executive Coach at Leading From Center.
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About Leading From Center, Sounding Board: Sounding Board provides a data-driven virtual leadership development platform for corporate leaders.
Paul Siegel
Managing Director & Founder of Starweaver
Developing great strategies, teams, and products, Paul Siegel has been active in various roles in or related to international banking, private equity and management for many years. Paul holds a BA degree (honors in economics) from the University of Pennsylvania where he participated in the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program; MBA from the NYU Graduate School of Business (International Business and Finance); and, a certificate from ESADE in Barcelona, Spain. Specialties:””Blue Ocean”” strategies, product development, technology-based products and services, enterprise software, business process outsourcing, and, publishing. Paul has been instrumental in start-up businesses and product ideas (e.g., Epromos, Infosafe, Medivault), as well as early stage firms ($2-10 mm pa: e.g., American Life Resources, Ecologic, Movietime, iGain), and expansion stage or mature businesses ($25 mm – $2 bn pa: e.g., Nutriplus, Liberty Travel), and many others.
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About Starweaver: Starweaver is an edtech educational publishing, streaming, distribution & collaboration SaaS platform for serious enterprises & instructors.
Meder Mamutov
Co-Founder and COO of Outtalent
Meder Mamutov is the co-founder and COO of Outtalent. He holds a BS degree in business finance from San Francisco State University.
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About Outtalent: Outtalent helps top software engineers from emerging markets get jobs abroad at companies like Google.
Tilek Mamutov
Co-Founder and CEO of Outtalent
Tilek Mamutov is the co-founder and CEO of Outtalent. Prior to that, Tilek served as a project lead for Google[x]. He holds a BS degree in software engineering from the American University of Central Asia (AUCA).
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About Outtalent: Outtalent helps top software engineers from emerging markets get jobs abroad at companies like Google.
James Hamet
Founder & President of LIT Conversations
Inventor in Neurotech, Education, and Mental Health
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About LIT Conversations: 501c3 providing career readiness training to high school students