Students and alumni have the opportunity to schedule 20-minute sessions with some of the Bay Area’s top entrepreneurs, VCs and attorneys through our Mentoring Hours program.
We have over 50 mentors who generously donate their time to help students with their business ideas in person or via Zoom.
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Adrián García is Founding partner at Carao Ventures. He has invested and worked with early stage startups based in Latin America and US for the past 10 years. His recent experience includes companies in the SaaS, consumer software, marketplaces, fintech, and education industries. Before founding Carao Ventures, Adrián was Associate at Mesoamerica, a leading consulting and private equity firm in Latin America. Also, he has an active role in relevant causes in Costa Rica such as marine conservation, public education improvement, and Internet openness and transparency. Adrián is father of 2 children and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics with honours from the University of Texas in Austin, an MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management, and is Fellow at Central America Leadership Initiative (CALI), part of Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN).
I am a highly motivated product marketing professional and a former solutions engineer/solutions architect. I have undertaken several marketing and engineering initiatives that have significantly increased pipeline and won business for my employers. As a product marketer, I enjoy crafting compelling messaging and showcasing a product’s value through thought leadership, sales enablement collateral, and other creative content. I serve as an ambassador for the Oracle for Startups Program, which helps startups scale with Oracle Cloud. I also serve as an ambassador for Product Marketing Alliance, the world’s biggest product marketing community. I am a Berkeley Haas MBA and a Georgia Tech engineer.
Albert Chiang is a Partner at Photon Ventures, the US arm of an HK-based family office, with investments in East Asia, South Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. His role focuses on identifying and early-stage investment opportunities and helping them succeed globally. These investments focus around the themes of automation and AI, in sectors ranging from commerce to autonomous vehicles. Previously, he has worked as a lead in product, strategy, and machine learning roles at a major consulting firm, as well as in roles with the US Trade Representative and US Congress. He graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in International Political Economy.
Alex Chang is a serial entrepreneur and active early stage investor & advisor who has founded and exited multiple technology companies as well as held large operating roles at publicly traded companies. Alex’s startup experience includes co-founding GetawayZone (vacation rental business which merged with VacationSpot and sold to Expedia); Roost (online real estate business sold to Vertical Response) and Perfect Coffee (eCommerce business sold to Blue Bottle Coffee & subsequently Nestle). Most recently Alex joined Pillow (real estate technology business) to help it successfully pivot and be acquired by Expedia Group. In addition, Alex has held large Operating roles at Walmart.com and RealPage. Alex is currently a partner at Underdog Labs, an early stage pre-seed fund. Alex has a passion for working with early stage entrepreneurs and helping them create laser focus on the highest priority issues they face. He lives in the East Bay with his wife, two kids and Labradoodle puppy.
Alex is a Principal at Initiate Studios, a company creation and venture investing platform that creates transformative companies at the intersection of healthcare, life sciences, and technology.
He recently completed a dual-degree MBA and Master’s of Public Health program at Cal, during which he co-founded two startups in the digital health and wellness space, both of which raised capital from the Berkeley seed fund and top-tier accelerators, and participated in the Flare Capital Partners fellowship program. Prior to Cal, Alex worked in healthcare management consulting with COPE Health Solutions and as a biotech scientists with BASF. Alex loves advising healthcare startups, founders, and students!
Alex is obsessed with helping early stage entrepreneurs go from -1 to 1, all the way up to product-market fit. He’s coached 15 startups from pre-idea to YC/Techstars funding, founded a startup that was funded by YC, and works with 200 universities across the US to find the highest potential student entrepreneurs and help them grow. He’s worked with student entrepreneurs for the past 12 years, at places like AWS Startups and at the University of Virginia. He prefers meeting entrepreneurs that are super early, well before they are fundraising.
Allan Spivack is the Founder, President and CEO of RGI, where he oversees global operations – from product and people development to sustainable manufacturing – that deliver natural-fiber and fashion home-storage solutions to retail chains such as Home Goods, TJX, Bed Bath & Beyond, Meijer, and Lowes.
RGI’s original business model centered on key principals of constant innovation, the quality/value proposition, and the use of sustainable materials. From its beginnings in 1984 as one of the first direct-import firms in the global home-retail trade, RGI soon transitioned to serve the then emerging home furnishings market. By the 1990s, Allan brokered and managed RGI’s decade-long partnership with Williams Sonoma as its buying agent in Asia. Today, RGI has grown to include two offices in Asia, and strives to use sustainable materials in its products, engages in ongoing corporate philanthropy projects, and follows a socially responsible business model.
Allan holds an MBA from the Berkeley-Haas School of Business and a JD from University of San Diego School of Law. Previous to RGI he worked with the San Francisco branch of the SEC in their antitrust division, as well as Jenkins and Perry, a San Diego based real estate litigation firm. He also invested five years in his fourth-generation family firm, where he acquired the just-in-time development and manufacturing principles that started him on his journey to building RGI through sustainability-driven innovations. He has two adult sons, Jordan and Ben.
Amanda Pouchot is the Co-Founder of Levo League, an online career network for millenials that is active in 30 cities. Amanda is currently working on a new venture in the education space. Together10 delivers a fun learning activities to parents to do with their kids. She began her career in the Organization Practice at McKinsey and Company in New York and currently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors for the UC Berkeley Cal Alumni Association. She is a Lean In Launch team member and her writing has appeared on Fortune.com.
Andrew is a partner in the Palo Alto and San Francisco offices of Sidley Austin LLP and a member of its Emerging Companies & Venture Capital group. Andrew provides strategic counseling to technology and life sciences companies, ranging from newly formed startup teams to mature late-stage private companies, on matters spanning the entire corporate life-cycle, including pre-incorporation planning and founder issues, general corporate counseling on day-to-day matters, venture capital financings and mergers and acquisitions. He also regularly represents venture capital firms, strategic investors and private equity investors. Andrew has handled a wide array of transactions ranging from pre-seed funding to multibillion-dollar venture capital and strategic financings.
Andrew also previously served as general counsel of a venture-backed company in the Bay Area, which provides him with deep, first-hand knowledge of the issues and challenges facing entrepreneurs and startups.
Andrew McCraith (MBA 08) joined Rakon in 2010. In his current role as Global Director – Strategic Marketing & Business Development, he is responsible for all aspects of Rakon’s global business development and strategic marketing activities. Andrew has spent ten years in the timing industry. Prior to his current role, Andrew was Rakon’s Product Manager for the XO and VCXO product lines and previously co-founded Silicon Clocks, a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) timing company, acquired by Silicon Laboratories.
Andrew is a product executive and entrepreneur with extensive experience across the product and corporate lifecycle in B2B and B2C SaaS companies. He excels at leading teams through difficult times and aligning focus on what really matters.
Formerly VP Product at Flickr, Sr. Director of Product at Yahoo, and COO of IQ Engines (a venture-backed startup that was acquired by Yahoo), Andrew has launched massive scale products, deployed new business models, led and retained teams through two acquisitions and integrations, and raised millions in VC funding.
Apoorva Ruparel is a serial Entrepreneur with 3 successful exits, very active angel investor, 500 Global Mentor. Apoorva is a Partner at Venturerock, a digital venture capital platform and ecosystem of founders, backers & builders building the next generation of global tech companies. He has over 20 years of experience in Consulting, Sales, Strategy and has raised over $740M in Venture Capital. He specialize in Marketplaces, Embedded Finance, and transition from Web2 to Web 3.
Arthur Chiang is Senior Vice President at Hewlett-Packard. His business experience has spanned global executive positions at technology leaders like HP, IBM, and Oracle, principally in Software Product Management and Services in domains including Mobility, Infrastructure and SaaS. At the other end of spectrum, Arthur was on the executive team at Corio from start-up to IPO, to acquisition by IBM; similarly at BEA Systems, from early stage to nearly a billion dollar company. While a principal at Booz, Allen & Hamilton in Chicago, Arthur consulted to global clients in a range of industries. Arthur has managed organizations and worked with customers in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. More recently, he has focused on establishing businesses in China. Arthur holds a bachelor of science from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Arun is a General Partner at Z5 Capital, a seed stage venture capital fund based in Palo Alto that invests in enterprise startups. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs solve challenges associated with go to market, finding product market fit and scaling the business.
Before Z5, he was a General Parter at Pinnacle Ventures and prior to that he worked in various roles spanning strategy, marketing, and product development.
Arun is a Berkeley-Haas alum, has a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan and did his undergraduate at IIT Madras.
Arup Banerjee (FTMBA ’13) is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Windfall. Windfall is a data company focused on modeling out the net worth of every person in the world. It recently raised financing from strategic angels and seed-stage venture capital firms. Prior to Windfall, Arup served as SVP, Product at Radius, a B2B predictive marketing company that raised over $125 million from firms like Founders Fund, AmEx Ventures, and Formation 8. Arup is also a product alum of GoodData and Box. Prior to business school, he worked at Updata Partners, a growth equity firm based out of Washington DC, and deployed over $45 million over 3 years. Arup started his career at Citigroup working in the Global Technology Investment Banking Group.
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Benjamin specializes in the representation of emerging growth companies throughout their lifecycles. His practice focuses on general corporate counseling, venture capital financings and mergers and acquisitions.
Benjamin represents a wide variety of technology companies including consumer internet, software, telecommunications, crypto, life science, advanced learning, data analytic and entertainment technology industries. He also represents a number of leading venture capital firms and their respective portfolio companies.
Benjamin graduated from UC Berkeley in 2021 with a JD from Berkeley Law and MBA from Haas School of Business. While at Berkeley, he was involved in Startup@Berkeley Law, Arrow Capital, and the UC Berkeley I&E Council.
Ben Bayat is the San Francisco partner for NextGen Venture Partners, an early stage firm that utilizes a custom built technology platform and venture partner network to drive a powerful portfolio support machine for founders and CEOs. The firm makes investments in early stage companies with a focus in enterprise SaaS, digital health, and next generation commerce. Prior to joining NextGen, Ben was a partner at Illuminate Ventures and stated his career as a data scientist at IBM before moving into executive positions in Engineering and Sales. Ben holds a BS degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA form the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.
Bhavin Parikh sets the vision and strategy for Magoosh, along with whatever else needs to be done. With a BS/BA in Economics and Computer Science from Duke University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, he’s on a mission to change the way people learn and how they think about learning. Years ago, Bhavin played on several Nationals-level ultimate frisbee teams. Today, he’s our resident gelato connoisseur.
Billy Leung is an experienced entrepreneur and product executive who is currently Chief Product Officer at Datacy. During his 18+ years of Silicon Valley experience, Billy has focused on building B2B and consumer products that delight hundreds of millions of users, including some of the most beloved consumers products such as eBay, Trulia (Zillow), Zynga, and two successful startups. Billy has specific experience and interest in AI, mobile/social/VR gaming, online marketplaces, B2B, ecommerce, and user-centered design. Billy earned an MBA from UC Berkeley, a MSME from Stanford University, and a BSME from UC Berkeley.
Brent Locks (MBA 11) is the Sr. Director of Product at Popsugar, where he runs product for the ShopStyle business, the leading fashion shopping search engine on the web. Most recently he was the Co-founder and CEO of PICT, a shoppable photo technology platform, which was acquired by Popsugar in January 2014. Brent spent over five years with PricewaterhouseCoopers in their M&A advisory group focused on buy-side and sell-side transactions in the software and retail industries. He has a B.A. in Business Management Economics from UC Santa Cruz and an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, where he was an Appel Award winner and Turner Fellow.
Brian Peters is the Founder and CEO of Inneos, a Pleasanton, CA-based fiber optic communications company that develops and manufactures subsystems used in the transport of high definition video. Brian actively manages the marketing, sales, and hardware development teams, and has led the definition, design and launch of multiple market-leading optical subsystems. Prior to Inneos, Brian founded Blaze Network Products, a developer of optical transceivers for the Ethernet LAN market. He also helped launch Universal Lightspeed, a company born from technology developed at UC Berkeley that created optical read-write heads for the then-emerging optical disk drive industry. Brian’s career also includes management consulting for PRTM where he specialized in implementing high-performance manufacturing and supply chain operations for Semiconductor and Telecommunication clients. He was recruited to PRTM from Haas where he received his MBA in 1995. Prior to attending Haas as a fulltime student, Brian spent several years in high-performance photonics and electronics manufacturing operations in Santa Clara and Palo Alto as an engineer or manager. Brian received his BS in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from UC Davis in 1988.
Brooks Kincaid (MBA 11) is the Co-founder and President of Imprint Energy, a battery technology company developing printable, ultra-thin, flexible batteries for wearable electronics and the Internet of Things. Brooks oversees Imprint Energy’s marketing, business development, and finance activities, as well as general operations. Prior to founding Imprint Energy, Brooks worked as a Financial Analyst at Google focusing on sales, strategic partnerships, and new business development. He worked closely with sales and engineering teams to structure deals with global footprints worth over $2 billion. Prior to Google, Brooks worked in investment banking with Seven Hills Partners, where he focused on acquisitions and late-stage financings for venture-backed technology companies spanning medical devices, semiconductors, enterprise software, cleantech and consumer Internet. Brooks also has experience in venture capital with Elan Management (now Prelude Ventures) and in physical sciences startups with LightSail Energy, a company developing modular compressed air energy storage systems. Brooks has a B.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.
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Cameron Barador is a proud Golden Bear and graduate from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program at UC Berkeley. After spending his time as a student building up the grass-roots ecosystem of organizations to support Cal startups, he’s now continuing to build support for Berkeley startups through The House – a startup institute built to support Berkeley founders at all stages. Cameron manages The House Residency accelerator which aims to provide early stage startups with access to the resources they need to scale. Previously, Cameron spent time as a biomedical researcher in UC Berkeley’s Herr Lab, and as a software engineer at the Cal-founded data analytics startup Mapsense (acquired by Apple), where he joined as the third employee. Go Bears!
Dr. Carolin Funk serves as the COO at FreeWire Technologies, a startup company building mobile, connected energy storage solutions that change the way energy is delivered to the construction, entertainment and utility industries. Prior to FreeWire, she was the Director of Venture Technology at Siemens Technology to Business, where she orchestrated the strategic partnership between FreeWire and Siemens. Earlier in her career, she worked as a Project Director for the German Energy- Agency in Berlin, driving public-private partnership project with European utilities and governmental organizations. Dr. Funk holds masters degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration from the Technical University of Berlin and a doctorate degree in automotive engineering.
Caroline Shalitari, MSc, transitioned from a Merchant Navy Ship’s Pilot to a Social Innovation Professor and Life Mission Coach. Her journey spans militarism, Silicon Valley, and the pristine forest reserve in the Chilean Andes, blending leadership, innovation, and immersive holistic practices. Trained in mountainous terrains by Native spiritual leaders, MSc Caroline collaborates globally with elite executives and coaches, actively engaging with prestigious entities such as the United Nations, Microsoft Partner, Google, and MIT Press Partner. Central to her transformative approach is Nascent, empowering leaders to integrate positive impact into their path to business success through its unique methodology.
Cedric Crocker is a Partner with Sage Partners LLC, a growth-focused advisory firm. Cedric works with early-stage and established media, digital learning, ed tech, professional development, and publishing enterprises globally. He has served in senior positions at Wiley, CBS/Viacom, The Compage Company, and Cengage, and has served on the boards of both for-profit and not-for-profit companies. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley where he has been a judge for both the Dean’s Seed Fund Grant and the Trione Student Venture Fund and served as District Chair, Europe/Middle East/Africa for the Alumni Association Leadership Award. He is a Trustee of Common Purpose, a U.K. charitable trust devoted to developing leaders who can cross boundaries and is Senior Advisor to the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG), a European Commission-sponsored consortium of companies and universities committed to changing the way Europe learns.
Charles Hua brings more than a decade of experience as a product leader and entrepreneur focused on consumer internet products, platforms, and businesses. Mostly recently, Charles was at Basis Science (acquired by Intel) focused on problems around behavior change to help people lead healthier lives. Formerly he led product management at GREE, where he oversaw teams developing one of the highest grossing mobile applications in the world, and Playdom (acquired by Disney), helping to create social games with iconic Disney characters and stories. Charles is a MBA candidate at Berkeley Haas and holds a bachelor’s degree concentrating in information systems from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He was born and raised in the Bay Area, California.
Christina Pearson represents companies in every stage of their life cycle, from start-up to maturity, and counsels her clients through liquidity transactions such as venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, and initial public offerings. Christina works extensively with private companies, providing guidance on incorporation, corporate governance, capital raising, securities laws and transactional matters. She also regularly assists public companies in their public and other equity offerings, acquisitions, corporate governance and periodic reporting matters.
Curtis MacDonald is an Entrepreneur and Early Stage VC. As a Venture Partner at HTGF, Curtis helps the VC firm manage their US startups and activities. While an investor at HTGF, Curtis led Seed and Series A Investments in over a dozen high-tech startups, including HTGF’s first international investments. He created and managed a profitable portfolio of 12 startups. In his role as Senior Investment Manager, Curtis negotiated with founders and led HTGF’s participation in the financing, then took a directorship position on the board and mentored the startups. He managed each stage of the investment, from initial contact to exit. Prior to moving to Germany, Curtis founded a VC-backed consumer WiFi company, hField Technologies. Over the next five years in his roles as CEO and later as CTO, Curtis was responsible for the technological and product development of the company’s first product, the Wi-Fire (at the time available at Best Buy). At Lehigh University Curtis was awarded a dual IBE Business and Computer Engineering degree, followed later by a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. Curtis writes about his startup and VC experiences at www.startupde.com and spends his free time working on various hardware and python projects.
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Darren Cooke is an investor with Life Science Angels. He sits on the deal screening committees of LSA, where he hears 120 live pitches a year and leads IP diligence on potential investments. LSA invests in 4-6 seed-stage biotech, medical device, digital health, and therapeutic companies per year, and to date has funded about 60 companies with some great results. Before becoming a full-time investor, Darren led the IP legal team for the Life Science Group of Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO). In his ten years at Bio-Rad, he led IP diligence and integration on dozens of deals, including Quantalife (digital PCR), GnuBIO (droplet-based sequencing), and Propel (cell sorter). He and his team also evaluated every new Bio-Rad invention, filed 400 new patent applications, had 250 US patents issue, and cleared 50+ new products for FTO. Before Bio-Rad, Darren was a patent litigator with Covington & Burling, and before law school, a mechanical engineer developing surgical tools in the Dept. of Otolaryngology at UCSF. Darren has a JD from Columbia Law School, MS in mechanical engineering, UC Berkeley, and BS in mechanical engineering, Cal Poly.
David Denberg is on the Senior Team at Summit Powder Mountain where he holds the unique job title of Curator. David is passionate about company culture, community building and lifestyle design. Summit Series events and the Powder Mountain Real Estate project are platforms through which David has explored experience curation, real-estate acquisition and deal finance structure. Summit recently purchased Powder Mountain, and is in the process of developing a year-round intentional community for Summit Series attendees. A young entrepreneur in a fast paced environment, David played a key role in taking Summit from startup to enterprise. In the past 3 years, the company has grown from an organization of eight employees to three hundred during peak season all the while donating millions of dollars to charity. David has also co-founded C’est Beau; a pop-up clothing boutique that specializes in men’s streetwear and lifestyle products. C’est Beau’s first location was in the heart of New York City where it received acclaim by such sources as The New York Times and Time Out New York. David holds a B.S. in Environmental Economics and Policy and a minor in Global Poverty and Practice from The College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. Above and beyond job titles, David considers himself to be a life artist; he speaks four languages, has traveled to more than 30 countries and has made it a priority to explore the world connecting passionate entrepreneurs.
David Goldsmith is President and Co-founder of the Goldsmith Organization (New York and Hong Kong), a consulting firm servicing executive clients worldwide in commerce, nonprofits, governments, militaries, and education; Co-founder of Buzd, LLC (San Francisco), a firm in which he is a patent holder for technological applications and products related to artificial intelligence, cell phone applications, battery technologies, and consumer products; Co-founder of ecosystem.AI (San Francisco), a predictive analytics and visualization company that finds hidden value in market and organizational complexity relation-ships through identified patterns and spatial trends to reveal how business and organizational ecosystems change over time; Co-founder and Partner with Jay Abraham of Intellectual Capital Investors (Los Angeles), an equity-alliance based exponential growth business stimulator that drives rapid, notable organizational growth and profitability; Co-founder and CEO of TymSync, Inc. (San Diego), a patented- cellphone technology company; Chief Officer of Strategy for N2 (New York), a company specializing in SuperGrid and IOT technology for use in advanced smart city development for the future; Founder of the Project Moon Hut Foundation and Project Leader of the global social movement, Project Moon Hut/The Age of Infinite, a four-year effort with NASA (Silicon Valley) to improve life on Earth through the accelerated development of an earth-and-space based ecosystem; and an adviser and stakeholder in several cutting-edge startups from around the world.
David Hartford is currently a seed/angel investor in, and advisor to, companies and funds in applied AI, ag/climate change and cybersecurity. Previously, David has been an entrepreneur and VC both in the US and Europe, and a founding partner in a German/Swiss family office, investing in PE and VC funds on six continents, and companies on five. He has also been a software/systems engineer and manager, and technology and securities attorney. He was elected four times to the board of the European Venture Capital Association, and has been a frequent speaker and contributor at conferences in Europe, Asia and the United States on a number of private equity and technology topics. He has also been an adjunct professor for New Venture Finance at Cal State University – East Bay’s MBA program in Hayward, and in Moscow at the Academy for the National Economy. David received his B.Sc. from the University of Pittsburgh, his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed the Advanced Executive Program “Competing in a Global Environment” at The Anderson School at UCLA.
David Hehman (MBA 98) is a lifetime entrepreneur and an angel investor. David has co-founded and sold 5 technology businesses: HealthDesk (HDSK), GetawayZone (VacationSpot/EXPE), MarketHome (CLAC), EscapeHomes (TotalMove/AWAY), Pagewise.com (DMD). He currently serves on the Boards of several private internet businesses. Mr. Hehman received a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science from University of California at Berkeley in December 1992, and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, Hass School of Business in 1998. In 2001, Mr. Hehman attended the PriceBabson@Berkeley symposium for Entrepreneurial Educators.
Diana Benedikt brings extensive experience as a strategic advisor to seed and early stage venture startups. Over the years, she has assisted companies to obtain over $100 million from angel and venture sources. Diana has advised numerous notable Internet, software and consumer goods companies on strategic finance, marketing, and infrastructure development issues. Notable advisory relationships include ecomom, Aggregate Knowledge, Telltale Games, and CafePress Diana has been a Mentor for UC Berkeley’s Haas School MBA class in Entrepreneurship, a Mock Judge for the California Clean Tech Open, an Astia Technology Committee member, and a judge for the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition.
Dr. Jin Lee is an oxford trained child neuropsychologist, a digital health investor, and serial entrepreneur. She worked at the innovation and venture group of Humana and Providence St. Joseph Health, and founded startups in the healthcare, food, and education industries: BabyNoggin, My Medical Valut, Anacrusis Press, and various restaurants. She is an advisor to multiple accelerators and occasionally also do angel investment.
Drew is President of New Mexico Angels (nmangels.com), a 20 year membership-based investing group. He has supported more than 100 start-ups. Most notably with Meow Wolf, he served as their first CFO, a B Corp that creates immersive arts experiences to wow. His efforts there led to raising more than $125 million in investment, purchase of a new headquarters, and growth from 50 to 400. Other rising stars are Build with Robots and Electric Playhouse.
Consulting has taken him across the US to 40+ countries. That generated over $300 million in investment and 10,000s of jobs.
Previous experience includes a Bluetooth wireless firm, lending, and program officer for Grameen Foundation. He is a Member of SVC and Lifetime Member of Net Impact.
Drew completed his MBA from the University of Washington. He finished his BA, Cum Laude, from Washington University in St. Louis.”Drew is very active with New Mexico start-ups. Most notably with Meow Wolf, serving as their first CFO, a New Mexico B Corp that creates immersive arts experiences to wow. His efforts there, among others, led to raising more than $125 million in investment, purchase of a new headquarters, and growth from 50 people to more than 400. He has also worked with Build with Robots, Electric Playhouse, and Parting Stone.
Consulting has taken him across New Mexico, the U.S., to Native American nations, and more than 40 countries. He has contributed to 100+ business plans and dozens of start-ups to get going. His work has generated over $300 million in investment and 1,000s of jobs.
Drew values community engagement. He serves on Pueblo of Acoma’s Business Advisory Board, member of the Serve New Mexico Commission. He is a member of the national Social Venture Circle and Lifetime Member of Net Impact.
Drew completed his MBA from the University of Washington in Seattle. He finished his BA, Cum Laude, in History and International Relations from Washington University in St. Louis.
In his free time, Drew plays ultimate Frisbee anywhere he can, is learning tennis, hikes to get lost, eats food he doesn’t recognize, and enjoys bad puns more than he should.”
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Elan Tye is a Principal with JAZZ Venture Partners focused on technologies that unlock human potential, particularly in healthcare. JAZZ is a mid-sized traditional venture capital firm typically leading or co-leading late seed through series B rounds. Previously Elan founded and grew several startups as an operator and adviser across digital health, neuroscience, and AI, including co-founding Swing Therapeutics and Blue Note Therapeutics. Other past experiences include the Boston Consulting Group and Monitor Deloitte, where he incubated startups and advised executives. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and his MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Florian Pestoni is the CEO and co-founder at InOrbit, the leading RobOps (robot operations) platform. He has over 15 years’ experience leading products from startups to public companies including Facebook, Microsoft and Adobe. With hands-on experience in enterprise, SaaS and media products used by hundreds of millions of users, Florian shares a compelling vision and applies Lean Product principles to build and scale technology products and companies.
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Gary Little is a General Partner at Canvas. He led the firm’s investments in Folloze, Kinetica, Platform9 and Totango, and is on the board of Viewics. He focuses on innovative software and services investments. Twice in the past five years, Gary has been named to the Forbes Midas List which seeks to identify the venture capitalists that were instrumental in creating the most impactful and valuable companies of tomorrow. Gary joined Morgenthaler Ventures in 1997 and continues to serve on the boards of Morgenthaler portfolio companies, including Adara, Evernote and MuleSoft. He also led the investment in NexTag and PeopleMatter. Gary serves, or served, as a board observer of Lending Club, Practice Fusion and Sonatype.Previously, Gary held several roles at Apple Computer, including SVP of Apple’s Power Macintosh Division, VP Sales Americas, and Sr. Dir. of Marketing for Apple’s Pacific division (China, Japan, Asia, Latin America, Canada). Prior to his time at Apple, Gary spent seven years at Sun Microsystems as Director of Product Marketing, Director of Asia Pacific Marketing (including a posting in Hong Kong), and as Group Manager of Industry Marketing. Before Sun, he held sales and marketing positions at IBM. Gary began his career as an IC design engineer for TRW’s microelectronics research labs. Gary earned an MBA from Harvard University and a BSEE from the University of California, Los Angeles.
George Willman (MBA 93) is a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. He assists clients in transactions involving licensing, intellectual property, development, collaboration, manufacturing, distribution, joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs. George is Co-President, Chairman of the Board, and Co-Founder of the Berkeley Angel Network. He was awarded the Raymond E. Miles Alumni Service Award from Berkeley-Haas (2014) and the Richard H. Holton Teaching Fellow Award from the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program (2010). Prior to his legal career, he worked as a telecommunications software engineer for IBM and Siemens. George holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, a B.S., Computer Systems Engineering, from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.
Georgia Athanasiou is the founder of Bay Area CFO Consultants, a firm that consults with private companies from the start-up phase to operating companies with $20M in revenue. Georgia’s strength is helping her clients create money strategies that position them to meet their financial and operating goals, both through growth opportunities and challenging economic times, with a focus on key metrics which drive revenue growth, cash management and profitability. Previously, she was a founding member of the Sensys Networks management team, a Berkeley founded and based high-tech company, with revenue growth of 3000% over a three year period, debuting in 80th position on the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies in 2010 and 35th position on Deloitte’s 500 Growing High Tech Companies in 2011. Georgia has been in the San Francisco Bay Area start-up community for 20 years. She holds her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration/Accounting from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, and her M.S. in Business Analysis and Finance from San Francisco State University.
Glenn Takayama (MBA 08) is currently the CEO and founder of PathCom Systems, a company that designs and manufactures robotic liquid handling equipment and also develops and manufactures reagents used on the equipment. Glenn has also founded, ran and sold two other biotech companies in the Bay Area.He has worked for companies in Telecommunications Electronics, Aerospace and Computer Electronics before going into the Biotech field. He has experience in M&A, accounting, engineering, manufacturing, materials, sales & marketing and facilities design and construction. Glenn has a BS in Engineering and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Gurkern Sufi is the CEO and co-founder of Ravata Solutions, a medical device company automating embryo selection during in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to increase patient pregnancy success. A bio-informatician and data scientist by training from UC Davis, his entrepreneurial career began when he invented and brought to market a platform for gene editing in animals using CRISPR Cas-9. Since then his technical expertise has centered on bio-sensor design, synthetic biology, semi-conductor manufacturing, and medical diagnostics. He is alum of the Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab and SOSV’s IndieBio Accelerator. Today he continues leadership responsibilities at Ravata as well as in his community as Finance and Budget Commissioner to the City of Davis, Co-Chair of his Rotary Club, and volunteers as mentor to the UC Davis’ Keller Pathway Fellows, Business Development Fellows, and Bio-Innovation Group.
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Harry has founded and advised multiple businesses. Infyrno, his current company, is a spin-out of a successful exit (2022), and builds machine learning solutions for deep technology companies. He is on the advisory board of multiple R&D-intensive companies, especially aerospace, driving their AI implementation and DoD contracting and transition strategy. He is also the co-founder of the Mojave Spaceport Coalition, a group of over 11 organizations which came together to promote technology innovation in the spaceport region. He has written extensively about innovation and entrepreneurship in Entrepreneur Magazine, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere, and has a cross-functional scientific and technical background in theoretical and applied physics, Earth sciences, software engineering, journalism, and data science.
Heather Koshinsky is an entrepreneur, advisor, and investor with a proven track record of success and 20+ years of deep operational and leadership experience in start-ups. She started her career in consulting at McKinsey & Company, where she formed her strategic and analytical know-how. Then, turning to entrepreneurship, she co-founded, built and sold multiple ventures: first, a search marketing firm sold in 2005; next, a fintech business in insurance sold in 2010; most recently, an e-decor platform sold in 2019. Along the way, she has invested in multiple start-ups, and she sits on various advisory boards. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Davidson College and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, Haas School of Business.
Hu Liang is a long-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur and financial service executive with extensive technical and business backgrounds.
Most recently Hu led Gemini Trust Company’s efforts to create an institutionally focused Prime Brokerage offering for the digital assets industry through Gemini’s acquisition of Omniex, where he was the founder and CEO. Omniex, inspired by over a decade of Hu’s experience in fin-tech and capital markets, was one of the first institutionally focused investment and trading platforms for digital assets.
Prior to founding Omniex, Hu led Senior Vice President and founder of the Emerging Technologies Center (ETC) at State Street Bank & Trust. ETC focused on the prototyping of emerging technologies, such as AI/ML, blockchain, augmented reality and others that could have a long term impact in institutional finance, by working & establishing partnerships with innovative technology companies, startups & industry groups. From 2011 to 2015, Hu was in Hong Kong, where he established the regional strategy and executed the expansion of the bank’s electronic platforms and newly established analytics businesses for the entirety of Asia Pacific.
Hu joined State Street in 2007 through the acquisition of Currenex, the first Internet based large scale FX (foreign exchange) platform targeting institutions and the HFT (high frequency trading) market. With its fully distributed technology platform, Currenex supported the routing and trading of over $100B per day through micro-second matching and ultra-low latency execution with some of the largest hedge funds and investment banks in the world. Prior still, Hu was the founder of a managed security startup, Forion, and was a senior consultant for a boutique consulting firm in the e-commerce industry. He started his career programming at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA.
Hu holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University in New Jersey and received his MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
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Ignacio Garcia (MBA 13) co-leads Ingram Micro Labs, the Silicon Valley-based innovation outpost of Ingram Micro, the world’s largest technology distributor and commerce services provider. His work focuses on facilitating corporate innovation and insider entrepreneurship, applying Lean Startup and Open Innovation methods. Previously, Ignacio was Operations Program Manager at Amazon Lab126, where he implemented and managed reverse logistics initiatives and sales of used and refurbished devices. Prior to Amazon, Ignacio had an extensive career in the automotive industry, where he held program management and engineering roles for Tesla Motors and Toyota Motor in US, Europe and in Japan. Ignacio holds an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, an MSc in Automotive Engineering from Cranfield University in the UK and an MS Mechanical Engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Isabel HJ Song has around 20 years of experience in consumer electronics industry. She has received her Ph.D. in CS (Computer Science) department at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in 1998. She continued to research parallel & distributed computing as a postdoctoral research staff at CS&E (Computer Science and Engineering) department at University of California at San Diego. In 2000, she joined Samsung Electronics in Korea. She led the development of Java mobile technology (J2ME, Java 2 Micro Edition) for the first time in Samsung. The technology was embedded for all Samsung Java phones, which enabled users to enjoy Java games. From 2007, she led the development of multi core technology, including multi-core/GPGPU computing, programming model and parallelization of mobile applications, to build high-performance & low-power smart phones. The multicore technologies were embedded for Galaxy S2 in 2010 which is the first multi core smart phones in the world. In 2011, she became the first female engineering VP in Samsung Mobile. Since then she led the product development of Samsung Internet browser. Samsung Internet browser is the main browser for all Samsung mobile phones (100+ devices per year), Samsung Gear VR, Samsung TV and Samsung smart refrigerators. Its MAU (monthly active users) is 300 million. She oversaw the end-to-end process of the product development including product strategy setup, the product management, customer engagement, UX, technology development and team building. Her team obtained the best SCI (Samsung Cultural Index) score in Samsung mobile in 2016 and 2017. After leaving Samsung in 2018, she moved to California in Jan. of 2019 and now she is a faculty member of SFSU (San Francisco State Univ.). She has a keen interest in transforming her consumer electronics experience in a big company into agile experience for young entrepreneurs in start-ups. Her recent mentoring preferences are with MetaVerse, VR/AR, virtual avatar, and machine-learning.
Itamar is the founder of Recursive Ventures, a pre-seed fund focused on AI and emerging tech startups. Itamar has been on all sides of the startup table: as a founder and executive, an institutional VC, and an angel investor. He has supported over 50 successful startups, including Deel, Honeybook, Placer, Credible (IPO), MileIQ (acquired by Microsoft), Automatic Labs (acquired by SiriusXM), Tile (acquired by Life360), SafeGraph, and Armory. He’s been recognized by Business Insider as a Top 100 global seed investor in 2021 and 2022. As an operator, he helped take Life360 from Seed to IPO, scaling the business to over $250m in revenue. Before that, Itamar was a founding team member and head of Product at Gigya (acquired by to SAP). Itamar holds an MBA from Berkeley-Haas and an undergraduate degree in computer science from the Tel-Aviv Jaffa College.
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Jack Kloster is an entrepreneur and media executive with domain expertise that crosses content development, media, marketing and advertising technologies. In 2005, Jack co-founded Yardbarker, a sports and celebrity media company that was funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Hall of Fame NFL players. Yardbarker was named a Top 50 Web property by Time Magazine, resided in the ComScore 100 and was acquired by Fox Sports in 2010. Post-acquisition, Jack led Media Business Development for Twitter responsible for Twitter’s News, Sports, TV and Politics verticals as well as for Twitter’s Media Technology Ecosystem. Jack is currently EVP of Business and Corporate Development for Tongal, a creative company and leader in the gig economy that has built a global network of 150,000+ writers, directors and animators to design content strategies and execute TV, Digital and Film production for Fortune 500 brands. In 2017, Tongal was named to the prestigious Ad Age A-List. Jack earned his MBA from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and his Bachelor of Science at Rutgers College. He currently serves as a mentor to entrepreneurial ventures incubated at Haas and is also a member of the Big Data Advisory Board at the Rutgers Center for Innovation Education.
Jay Clemens is an executive coach and a legal and business advisor to U.S. and multinational technology companies. He previously served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the Lenovo Group, a global leader in computer technology and telecommunications. Mr. Clemens was instrumental in transforming the Lenovo legal team into a globally integrated organization with special expertise in intellectual property, compliance, and data security issues.
Prior to joining Lenovo, Mr. Clemens served as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of the eBay Marketplaces business. He played a major role in building the in-house legal function at eBay over a period of 13 years. Prior to eBay, he managed international legal affairs at VeriFone Inc., before and after its acquisition by the Hewlett-Packard Corporation. He has taught classes related to in-house legal function management, cross-cultural issues in Chinese and Western business organizations, and legal issues arising from business transactions involving US and Chinese companies.
Mr. Clemens currently serves as Board Chair of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He holds a Juris Doctorate from the Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies from Dartmouth College.
One of the true pioneers of online commerce, Jed has spent his career developing, advising and investing in early stage technology ventures, including founding four companies. He is currently on the boards of Thumbtack, SmartAsset, HighArc, Fello, Landed and Linqia, and is a board observer for MasterClass, Carbon Health and Homeward.
Prior to forming Javelin Venture Partners, Jed was a Managing Director of DFJ Gotham Ventures in New York. Prior to DFJ Gotham, Jed was the COO of Yamcon, the developer of the highly acclaimed “SkyScout”, one of the best selling astronomy products of all time. Prior to Yamcon, Jed was the Founder and COO of Rent Net, the Internet’s first rental and relocation guide, which launched disruptive technology solutions that revolutionized the way real estate related advertising was done. Jed later used Rent Net as the foundation for the formation of Move.com, one of the Internet’s largest real estate sites. Move.com was ultimately acquired by Homestore.
Jed holds a B.A. in Business Economics from UCLA and an M.B.A. from The Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was awarded the Price Fellowship from the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Jed is the father of 2 silly boys and a baby girl.
Jeff Morgen has over 25 years of experience in senior leadership, finance and business development roles across several industries including software, manufacturing, CPG, wellness and digital media. After starting his career in investment banking, he has helped lead ventures of all dimensions including venture-backed start-ups, F100 corporate divestitures and family-owned businesses. He enjoys working on ventures of all dimensions rregardless of the organization’s lifecycle stage – startup, hypergrowth, re-boot, turnaround, maturation, distress, spinoff and exit.
Jeff is currently serving as a senior advisor to the Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures (“MSIV”), which is a regional venture capital fund with a dual mission – generate significant investor returns AND deploy capital locally to stimulate job creation and economic development.
Jeff received his BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley and his MBA from the University of Southern California. A native New Yorker, he is thrilled to live in Marin County, CA with his wife and two daughters.
Jennifer Hopp is Venture Partner at Outsell, where she oversees investments in early stage startups in media, information and digital marketing. Currently investing in solutions for data visualization, entertainment, fashion and fitness (portfolio to be announced shortly), Jennifer also partners with other VCs to help entrepreneurs validate markets. In addition, Jennifer is founder and CEO of WeMakeItSafer, a tech company that builds web applications to improve communication between brands and consumers, especially around issues related to product safety and recalls. Prior to WeMakeItSafer, Jennifer was a testifying and consulting Commercial Damages Expert, helping companies deal with crises such as product recall, product liability, intellectual property infringement, antitrust and breach of contract. Most recently, she was a Principal with ERSGroup and, before that, a Senior Consultant with Navigant Consulting. Jennifer graduated with Honors and as a Community Fellow from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business where, in addition to her MBA, she earned certificates in Entrepreneurship and in Management of Technology (MOT), a joint curriculum program with the College of Engineering. Jennifer completed her BA in three years, also at the University of California at Berkeley, where she double majored in Economics and Japanese. She also studied and conducted research in Economics at Oxford University.
Jerald Weintraub received his B.A. in Business from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981. He completed the course work at the Berkeley Graduate School of Business (now Haas School of Business) at the age of 22 in December of 1981 and completed his master thesis in 1988.Jerry formed Weintraub Capital Management LP (WCM) in February 1992. WCM managed a series of domestic and offshore investment partnerships intended for “qualified purchasers”. Assets grew from an initial level of $4 million to over $1.2 billion.The partnerships managed by Weintraub Capital Management LP invested in long and short equity securities, derivatives, and convertible bonds, focusing primarily on U.S. stocks. A bottoms up, fundamental analysis, approach to long term stock selection was complimented by a trading orientation which focused on near to intermediate term catalysts.The funds put a strong emphasis on risk management. The initial fund achieved a compound net return on investment of 11.7% over 21 years. Investors in the fund experienced only two down years, with a maximum annual draw down of only 3% in 2008.Jerry decided to wind down the Prism Partners funds as of 12/31/12 after 20+ years of fund management. All capital was returned to existing outside investors and WCM converted to a family office focused on the personal investing of Jerry Weintraub in 2013.Jerry is an active investor in commercial real estate and has interests in a number of multi-family, student housing, and office complex partnerships. He also has a number of early stage venture investments.
Jeri Cafesin is a creative director, a Stanford entrepreneurship educator, and the founder of IPPglobal.org—mentoring entrepreneurs in effective Marketing PRACTICE. A Silicon Valley MarCom specialist since the dot-com boom, from Fortune 500s (HP; Intuit; ViacomCBS), to seed-funded fledglings (The Learning Co/Mattel; Bay Networks/Nortel; MD2/Sybase; Location Labs/Avast;), her marketing strategies for digital, print, and viral campaigns have helped generate substantial business growth, and create sustainable startups, some ultimately selling for millions. A business writer of the Lean Startup Marketing series, and a 10+ yr university educator, Ms. Cafesin has also taught hundreds of college students and business pros how to actualize and market their offerings into profitable, thriving, sustainable businesses.
Joe Wadcan is an entrepreneur, developer, sales leader, as well as a Berkeley-Haas alumni (MBA 2012). Previously Joe co-founded Bevy Inc. a calendar startup in San Francisco, served as VP of Sales at Abstract, Head of Business Development at GitHub helping scale sales from 8 to 150+ people. Joe has founded a dozen prior software startups, invests in Berkeley startups and teaches Intro to Code, and Startup Sales at UC Berkeley Haas.
John Hubinger, President Hubinger Ventures – Venture Capital Angel Investor, Board Member and Adviser – Enterprise Software, SaaS, Cloud, Mobile, Sustainable Agriculture. Investor, Board Member or Board of Advisers: Emotive Communications Inc. (Mobile Software: Cloud Infrastrucutre), Virtus Ginetics (BioTech: Big Data, Cloud, Genetics), Cortex Systems (Symbol: “CBX” – TXS Exchange): E-Procurement Software, Feeding Forward (community supported hunger exchange), Silverwood Sustainable Farms, UC Berkeley: SkyDeck and Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program: (Lecturer, Mentor, Judge, Member Start-up Board), Berkeley Angel Network, CEO Venture Fund EBXIV, Entrepeneur Fund Norwest VP XXI, Crowdcast: (Aquired by Spigit), Hybrid Wisdom Labs: (Aquired by Survey Monkey), AmberPoint: (Aquired by, Oracle), CrossWeave (Aquired by AmberPoint), Forte – Symbol: FRTE: (Aquired by SUN), Network For Teaching Entrepeneurship (NFTE).
John is co-founder and general partner at Swift Ventures. He has been a successful entrepreneur, inventor and product leader for two decades.
While completing his Berkeley MBA in 2007, John built an early version of video ad platform, TubeMogul, that won the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition. Throughout the next decade — from John’s co-founding of TubeMogul to the company’s rapid growth, IPO (Nasdaq: TUBE) and acquisition by Adobe — John’s unique blend of leadership and high standards for creativity and execution enabled a blistering pace of innovation.
John lives in Lafayette with hie wife and their three children. An avid woodworker and cyclist, John loves creating, learning and exploring.
Jonathan Heyne is an entrepreneur, educator and startup executive. He is the Chief Operating Officer at DeepLearning.AI and has previously served as an Executive Vice President at ThriveDX and VP and General Manager at Springboard. He founded two educational companies (one acquired in 2013) and is a startup mentor, advisor and judge in various startup competitions. In addition to his business roles, Jonathan has been a Professional Faculty at UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business since 2017 teaching entrepreneurship courses. Jonathan is a former commercial lawyer and has an MBA from BerkeleyHaas and degrees in Law and Political Science from Tel Aviv University.
Jordan Greene is responsible for defining and managing the ongoing execution of AEye’s strategic business goals with partners, investors, and internally. Jordan was formerly an Operating Partner at Tri-Valley Capital, an early-stage investment firm focused on fostering companies at the intersection of hardware, software, and data. He co-led investments into a number of enterprise software-enabled companies, including AEye, Deep Sentinel, Vivalnk, 4DS, and more. Prior to Tri-Valley Capital, Jordan was the Co-Founder and Head of Business Development for VIRES Aeronautics, a startup focused on improving the aerodynamics of vehicles through new methods in mechanical design. Jordan received his Bachelor’s of Science at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley in addition to a Concentration in Engineering Leadership from the College of Engineering. Jordan has been recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30, Kairos 50, and Inc Magazine’s Coolest College Startups amongst receiving Cal Alumni Association’s Leadership Award, Rotary Club of Ignacio Outstanding Achievement Award, and NYSA’s Achievement Award.
Joshua Ephraim (JD MBA)specializes in the representation of emerging growth companies throughout the corporate lifecycle, including incorporation and founder matters, strategic advisory, general corporate and securities law matters, venture capital financings, joint ventures, merger and acquisitions, and public offerings. In addition, Josh represents leading venture capital funds and other investors on investment transactions and portfolio company matters.Prior to joining the firm, Josh served as managing partner at Dorm Room Fund, where he led seed investments in several early stage companies. Josh also has prior experience working at a startup accelerator and as a management consultant.
Juan is Founder and Managing Director of OneValley Ventures, where he leads the OneValley Ventures team strategy and investing activity. Juan focuses on investments in Enterprise SaaS, FinTech, robotics and automation, and digital health.
Before joining OneValley, Juan was Managing Director of Nimble Ventures and led growth investments at Passport Capital. His past investments include Alto Pharmacy, Auris Health (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), Dataminr, Figure Technologies, Periscope Data (acquired by Sisense), 23andMe (public), Hortonworks (public), New Relic (public), and Zuora (public).
Juan has been in the venture capital industry for 14+ years and has worked in technology investing and research for the past 20+ years. He earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley and a B.S in Accounting from Florida A&M University’s School of Business & Industry.
As Co-Founder and Executive Director of the social enterprise Team4Tech, Julie Clugage is responsible for growing partnerships with tech companies and non-profits around the world, to improve the quality of education for under resourced learners. She brings more than 20 years of experience in the world of education, technology and international development.
Before founding Team4Tech, she served as Chief of Staff for Intel Corporation’s Corporate Affairs Group and as Global Operations Manager for Intel’s Education Market Platforms Group. While at Intel, Julie launched the Intel Education Service Corps, a service and career-development program that links Intel technology and 100 employees per year with non-profit organizations working to improve educational quality in developing countries. This successful program served as a tested model for Team4Tech.
Before joining Intel, Julie worked in international development for seven years at the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, USAID, and a teacher training high school in rural Guatemala.
She is the mother of three girls and holds an MPA from Princeton University, an MBA from UC Berkeley, and an AB from Dartmouth College.
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Katie Hurley is currently a Product Marketing Manager for Salesforce’s Big Data & Analytics Product, Wave Analytics. Prior to working in Product Marketing, Katie held positions in M&A Finance and Sales Strategy where she oversaw company-wide investment strategies for Salesforce’s acquired companies and worked closely with Salesforce’s EVP of Sales.Katie understands what it takes to grow and integrate technology start-ups within larger companies and knows what companies look for when evaluating acquisition targets. She also has experience building out go-to-market strategies for new products with nascent sales teams as she’s designed sales forecasting processes, compensation models, and sales territory coverage and alignment plans for Salesforce’s specialist sales army. In her current role as a Product Marketing Manager, Katie works closely with Product Management to execute product launches, create sales enablement strategies, and articulate the value of product. Katie has a deep appreciation for emerging technologies, has intimate experience with enterprise customers, and looks forward to helping entrepreneurs innovate and execute on their product vision.
Kelly Ling is a proud Double Bear, graduating from the Full-Time Haas MBA program in 2015 with a focus on entrepreneurship, innovation and technology. In her role as Director of Enterprise Initiatives at Change Healthcare, she is focused on cultivating Intrepreneurship within a 15,000 person organization. There, she coaches teams through customer-centric problem solving, rapid research techniques including design sprints and Lean Startup principles, and garnering stakeholder buy-in. Her diverse background ranges from New Product Development at Ghirardelli Chocolate, to public accounting at Deloitte and Touche, to being a finalist in startup and venture capital competitions while at Berkeley-Haas.
Kevin Casey (MBA 09) is Founder and CEO of New Avenue, a mission driven company dedicated to solving the housing crisis. New Avenue is a vertically integrated Proptech company that turns single family homes into complexes of two to more homes. It has been a leader in the ADU market since 2009. Casey’s experience includes various roles in community development, technology and finance. He obtained an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, researched economic and community development as a Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia, and holds a B.A. in Economics and Anthropology from Fordham University. Early in his career he was a Vice President responsible for the design and project management of Oracle business intelligence systems for US Trust and Charles Schwab.
Kevin Kopczynski is an experienced entrepreneur, executive and investor who is currentlySenior Director of Corporate Development at First Solar (FSLR). From 2013 to 2016 he wasPresident and CEO of Enki Technology, where he guided the solar materials company from the development to revenue stages and established key customer partnerships in the US and China that culminated with Enki’s acquisition by First Solar. Prior to Enki, Kevin was aPartner at RockPort Capital Partners, where he led venture capital investments in the powergeneration, oil & gas, materials and agriculture value chains. Kevin’s primary investments at RockPort were Enki Technology (acquired), GlassPoint Solar, New Leaf Symbiotics,Northern Power Systems and REPOWER America. He previously held several operating andsenior technical positions at IQuum, a molecular diagnostics company that was acquired byRoche.Kevin began his professional career as a product design consultant at Arthur D. Little,assisting clients from startups to the Fortune 500 on consumer, healthcare and industrial product design efforts. He also serves as Executive Chairman of Ascension Industries, a closely held industrial manufacturing and filtration products company. Kevin earned a BSE with honors from Princeton University, an MS in engineering from Stanford, and an MBA with honors from UC Berkeley.
Kishore is a product leader and an entrepreneur with domain experiences in AI, SaaS, Marketplaces.
He is a mentor and a coach at a couple of startup accelerators/studios based in San Francisco Bay Area, helping startups with fundraising as well as helping them on Zero-to-One stage, along with product mentorship/guidance.
In his entrepreneurial venture as a Founder of BuyinZen, he has helped accelerate digital transformation goals of large organizations by connecting innovative vendors/startups to the decision makers. He has also been into product consulting to address critical gaps in the product function.
Prior to that, he held product and marketing leadership roles at startups, high-growth mid-sized organizations as well as large companies contributing to product, managing and growing product teams, and ensuring product and company success.
He graduated from the Haas School of Business in 2013 and is keen on the success of the HaaS startup ecosystem.
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Lars Leckie is a Managing Director at HWVP and has played a key role in the firm’s investments in SaaS, virtualization, cloud and mobile technologies. Prior to joining Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in 2006, Lars was involved in founding and operational roles at start-up companies. He was a co-founder of AutoFarm (now Novariant), a company focused on GPS and robotics. Lars was in charge of strategy, product marketing, business development and building the sales team across three continents. While Lars spends less time programming now, he started his technical career coding and hacking computer games. He is the holder of several US patents. Lars is an avid sailor and a former member of the Canadian Sailing Team. He represented Canada sailing Snipes in the Pan American Games as well as other international events. Lars has a Masters of Science (Engineering) from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also holds an Engineering Physics degree from Queen’s University (with Honors). Lars previously sat on the board of the SIIA (Software Information Industry Association) Piston, and PLUMgrid , and is a founding charter member and previous co-chair of the C100 (Canadians in the Silicon Valley). Lars currently sits on the board of Kiip, InsideSales.com, NeuVector, amberdata, TidalScale and Aria Systems. He has played a key role in the firm’s investments in Karmasphere (Big Data Analytics) and NuoDB (Scalable SQL database).
Laura Oliphant is an Investment Manager in Intel Capital, where she makes and manages investments in the semiconductor capital equipment and materials areas. She joined Intel in 1991 and Intel Capital in 2001. In 2006, Laura was given the Intel Achievement Award for the strategic impact of her investing activities. She is Intel’s observer to the board of directors for Oasys Design Systems, Persimmon Technologies, and Xradia. Prior to joining Intel Capital, Laura was one of the key coordinators for Intel’s transition to the 300 mm wafer size. As part of this project, Laura managed the selection activities for about 20% of the fab tools, which required her to interact with the key executives of the major equipment suppliers. In 2000, Laura served as the industry co-chair for the SEMATECH Metrology and Yield Management Tools Program Advisory Group. Laura also played key roles in the Year 2000 transition and in the management of major suppliers to Intel. During her time at Intel, Laura has also been a process engineer, developing a process that is still used in Intel’s processors, and a yield engineer. Laura currently represents Intel as one of Intel Capital’s key contacts with the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. As part of that role, she has participated in numerous business plan competitions, representing Intel as a judge. Laura holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and a BE from Manhattan College.
Leigh Thompson is a senior technology scout, responsible for identifying, screening, prioritizing and pursuing a variety of emerging technologies and assessing their viability as business opportunities. Leigh joined The Dow Chemical Company in 1997 where she worked in a variety of corporate and business research and development (R&D) roles, including oxygenated solvents, acrylic monomers, epoxies, and polyurethanes. Most recently she led the Corporate R&D Strategic Implementation group, responsible for implementing key strategic programs across leveraged corporate R&D resources (comprising a significant fraction of Dow’s $1.7 billion R&D budget), as well as working with counterparts in business R&D groups, universities and external partnerships to drive strategic programs and facilitate delivery on Dow’s growth commitments. Leigh received her B.S. (1993) and Ph.D. (1997) in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University (ISU) in 1993 and 1997. In 2008 she also earned her MBA from the DeVos/Dow Executive MBA and received the Professional Process in Engineering Award (PPEA) from Iowa State University
Lev Mass (BCEMBA 12) is a Venture Partner at XSeed Capital, with prowess in cloud computing, mobile, and business development. Prior to joining XSeed, Lev ran operations and business development for the Cloud Group at Yahoo!. While at Yahoo!, Lev helped to facilitate the spin-off of the Hadoop Group into what is now Hortonworks, a leading big data company. In addition, he held a number of executive roles at Yahoo! helping to define strategy for mobile, social, cloud and big data. Previous to Yahoo!, Lev was an investment banker with Thomas Weisel Partners focused on TMT (technology, media, telecommunications) and health technology. Lev holds a BS from University of Kansas and an MBA from Columbia University and UC Berkeley, where he is currently a mentor at the UC Berkeley Skydeck Incubator.
Louisa is a results-driven Latina product coach and fractional CPO, recognized for exceptional execution ability and a unique talent for swiftly overcoming barriers. Specializing in coaching teams and leaders, she guides them to collaborate with their directs and cross-functional partners, fostering an environment conducive to rapid progress. Her passion is centered around making a positive impact on climate and sustainability.
Her professional journey encompasses roles in early-stage startups and high-growth companies, including notable stints at Gusto, Airtable, and Clover Health. Beginning her career at JPMorgan Chase, she most recently held the position of VP of Product at Gusto, where she spearheaded a revenue increase of over 180%, elevating annual recurring revenue (ARR) to over $100 million. Leading a team of 15 product managers, she played a pivotal role in achieving this significant milestone. Prior to Gusto, she played a key role in establishing and leading Airtable’s first customer support organization.
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Mallika currently works within the Product team at Impossible Foods where she leads their pricing strategy. She has worked directly on Impossible’s latest product launches including chicken nuggets, meatballs, and ground pork. Before this, she graduated with an MBA from Berkeley in 2020. While at school she founded her own food startup – Eat Makhana which in less than two years’ time grew to over $60k monthly revenues while managing a team of 10. Prior to her MBA, she was a macro economist at Goldman Sachs in Singapore covering ASEAN countries.
Mark Atlas is President of Laboratory Equipment Commercialization Consulting. He received his BS at the University of California in Santa Barbara in Pharmacology. After spending 5 years in research, he was a top sales performer for Waters Corp. for 7 years. In 1997, Mr. Atlas founded an online laboratory equipment marketplace which he successfully merged with SciQuest.com and helped take it public in 1999. Mr. Atlas took his start-up experience and joined Eksigent in 2003. There, he served in diverse roles overseeing sales and marketing programs where he guided the branding and lead generation efforts. Eksigent was sold to Sciex/Danaher. in 2007. In 2007 Mr. Atlas was recruited to lead Global Sales at Fluxion Biosciences. Growing the company from 4 to 30, Mr. Atlas led the product release of 2 novel technologies and developed cost effective and productive methods for sales management and lead generation. Mr. Atlas, is now applying his 20 years of experience in Start-ups to guide emerging companies to success. He has redefined the sales process, developed key techniques for market validation and created methods for young companies to determine the best go-to-market approach. His background in sales and marketing in younger environments enables him to develop and execute plans with capabilities of testing them prior to scaling the go-to-market solution for all aspects of life science reagents and equipment. Mark’s preference for mentoring is with life science companies or companies involved in chemical products sold into pharmaceutical companies or academia.
Mark Leverette is a CPA with BPM LLP, a nationally recognized public accounting firm providing value added accounting services to entrepreneurial companies, including real-estate, blockchain, SaaS, Bio-tech, financial services, manufacturing and distribution, and consumer product clients. He has consulted and advised many start-up phase companies on many technical areas, including equity and debt funding, industry specific revenue recognition, mergers and acquisitions, Internal Controls, and initial public offerings. His practice includes both public and private companies.
Matt Caspari (MBA 06) is Managing Partner of Strawberry Creek Ventures, an Alumni Ventures fund. He is a two-time venture-backed founder/CEO with 20 years of operating experience ranging from idea-stage startups to Fortune 100 global scale. Before joining Strawberry Creek Ventures, he was an Investing Partner at Spike Ventures. He’s an active angel investor and leads an AngelList syndicate with over 1,000 backers. Prior to joining Alumni Ventures, Matt was a leader of the innovation team at Nike where he oversaw a portfolio of projects and led global cross-functional teams. While at UC Berkeley, Matt founded Aurora Biofuels, which grew to over 100 employees and raised more than $100m in capital before being acquired by Reliance Industries. He’s a longtime Judge / Mentor at LAUNCH: The University of California’s Startup Accelerator and a Mentor at Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship. Matt holds an MBA with a Certificate in Entrepreneurship from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a BS in Biochemistry from Georgetown University.
Matt Evans (MBA 08) is passionate about finding ways social business models can generate returns and improve the world. He co-founded UpEnergy Group, a developer of energy efficiency projects in Africa, and worked as Managing Director of Impact Carbon, a climate finance nonprofit, to launch new business lines including a water filter retail and financing business. Prior to completing his MBA, Matt co-founded Live Climate, a carbon offsetting organization, worked with social enterprises in the NESsT venture fund to measure and grow their impact, and evaluated social entrepreneurs at Ashoka. Matt serves on several boards and holds an MBA from Haas and a BA in Economics from Stanford. He loves the mountains in winter and running on Ocean Beach with his dog.
Matt Kirmayer is a partner at the San Francisco office of Perkins Coie LLP and a member of its Emerging Companies & Venture Capital group. Matt represents emerging technology companies and the investors who fund them across a range of industries, including software, educational technology, digital media, social media, artificial intelligence systems and life sciences. Active in the technology and investment communities in Silicon Valley and the East Coast, Matt often works with emerging companies as their outside general counsel, managing legal, financial and operational issues, from formation and angel and capital investment through to exit, that arise when entrepreneurs enter the marketplace. Matt has more than 25 years of experience in the emerging company and venture capital ecosystem, including numerous seed and venture financings for technology and life science companies. Matt also has a background in guiding clients in securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. As part of his commitment to gender equality, Matt sits on the advisory board of Astia, which is a nonprofit organization that invests in companies with women in positions of equity and influence. Matt is a mentor at the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley and a Sky Advisor to SkyDeck, the unique accelerator at UC Berkeley. Matt is also an adjunct professor at the Integrated Innovation Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
Meghana advises, speaks, and writes at the center of social, eCommerce, brands, and creators.
Meghana has held several executive positions in tech, driving Partnerships, GTM, and Strategy. Most recently, she was the Global Head of Brand Partnerships at Snap Inc. She previously led the Shopping Partnerships team at Instagram and before that, worked with the CEO of eBay on a strategic corporate restructuring.
Meghana received a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, MBA from Harvard Business School, and was named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.
Founder and Managing Partner of Bee Partners, the top pre-Seed venture firm in Silicon Valley, Michael launched his first business at 11 and interned at an early social network startup at age 13. After three startups, Michael started advising founders at the inception of their venture creation, and Bee Partners was born.
At Bee Partners, we embrace the reality that machines will win at precision, complexity, and data inference. Humans will still own purpose, ingenuity, and instinct. We seek exceptional Founders with unbounded potential who execute in frontier businesses and technologies. We then write them their first check, and live their mission. As a result, we have been that first check writer in 60% of our portfolio, we’ve led or co-led 17 of our last 20 investments, 70% of our companies succeed to the Series A, and we resolve 95% of our portfolio requests within 48 hours.
Michael Cheng (MBA 2001) has 20 years experience in venture capital, leading early stage investments and working with private companies in China. Currently Managing and Founding Partner of Drum Tower Ventures, a private fund that invests in global startups and is designed to assist startups optimally expand and succeed. As part of that strategy, Drum Tower at times “embeds” into the management at it portfolio companies. Currently Michael is head of the China operations for one of its global startups, managing sales, strategic alliances and government relations. Prior to Drum Tower, Michael was a private investor and served as Director on the Board of a number of companies, mostly in China. Most notable of these was Red Octane, the inventor of the Guitar Hero game, where he was a first round investor. Red Octane was sold to Activision Blizzard for over 30 times return. Before, Michael was a partner at Fidelity Ventures, a proprietary fund of the Fidelity Investments Group. Michael worked at Fidelity from 1996 to 2005 primarily responsible for looking at early stage companies in China in the communications, Internet, IT software, media and healthcare sectors. Michael earned a BA and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993 and 2001, respectively.
Mike Vladimer (MBA 2013) is the founder of Nascent Startups: How to spend your first 100 days and $100 when you have an idea for a tech business. He has 20 years experience in entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, specializing in new product development. Currently, he develops new products at LG NOVA, the innovation lab for LG Electronics. Mike holds an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and an MS Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Follow him on Twitter @MikeVladimer
Mukesh Goel is currently VP and co-founder at Agentz.ai. Agentz.ai provides pre-trained conversational AI digital assistants for specific verticals with an initial GTM focused on SMB. Prior to joining Agentz.ai, Mukesh headed Customer development for Nymi’s always on authentication solution with Big Pharma companies. Previously, Mukesh was a Vice President at Sensifree, a cuff-less blood pressure wearable company. Prior to Sensifree, as a head of Mobile Ecosystem at Intel, Mukesh was instrumental in launching three generations of Intel’s mobile platforms. Mukesh has an MBA from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and B.S. in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology – BHU, India.
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Nanxi Liu is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Blaze.tech, a platform that enables teams to build software and applications with no code. She was named Forbes 30 Under 30 and previously served as CEO and co-founder of Enplug (acquired by Spectrio), a leading global digital signage software company. Nanxi serves on the Board of Directors of CarParts.com (NASDAQ: PRTS), a leading e-commerce auto parts company, and CarLotz (NASDAQ: LOTZ), the nation’s largest consignment-to-retail used car marketplace. She also served on the Board of Directors of Kindred Biosciences (NASDAQ: KIN), which was acquired by Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) and as 1 of 5 voting members of the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ New Motor Vehicle Board.
In college, Nanxi co-founded Nanoly Bioscience, a venture-backed biotech company that invented polymers that eliminate refrigeration for vaccines. Nanoly received the Top Research award at the World Biomaterials Congress. Nanxi is on the Board of Advisors for Covington Capital Management ($3 billion AUM) and is a producer of multiple Amazon TV shows including The Bay, where she won an Emmy Award. Passionate about community service, Nanxi serves on the Board of Directors for the National Foster Youth Institute, After-School All-Stars Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation. Nanxi is a Partner at XFactor Ventures, which has invested in 80 women-founded startups. Nanxi graduated with a BS and BA from UC Berkeley (Class of 2012).
Nathan Dintenfass (MBA 06) is founder of Hotel Delta, a software studio in San Francisco. He has over fifteen years of technical and business experience with a focus on Internet technologies, product development, and brand positioning. He co-founded ChangeMedia, a web consultancy, and Branuity, a software firm helping growth companies with brand strategy and market positioning. He has also held senior roles in two venture-backed startups, Redux and Kinfo, and served as CEO of Trumpet.io. His past clients include Cisco Systems, Visa International, Kaiser Permanente, Cellular One, Hazelden, oDesk and a host of startups. Previously, he worked at the Andersen Consulting Center for Strategic Technology (now part of Accenture), Syntegra (British Telecom Services), Apple, and VideoEgg (now Say Media). For 15 years he has also co-directed Nicenet, an education technology project he co-founded that has provided online classroom tools for over 2 million teachers and students worldwide. He sits on the Board at Alta Vista School in San Francisco. Nathan holds an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and a B.A. with honors from Macalester College.
Neal Sarin is an entrepreneur, music executive, record producer and screenwriter. He is currently the cofounder and CEO of sona, an award-winning AI-based music therapy app for anxiety. sona uses AI to recommend research-backed restorative music that’s designed to relieve symptoms, naturally and efficiently.
Previously, he served as Head of A&R at JioSaavn – South Asia’s leading music streaming platform (100+ million MAUs) . He co-founded the company’s in-house record label and led creative strategy towards ‘artist-friendly’ deals, while producing cross-continental hit records with artists like Nas and Marshmello. After developing the careers of independent South Asian artists, JioSaavn was selected as India’s Most Innovative Company by Fast Company in 2019
Nick Caldwell is the Chief Product Officer at Looker, creating a powerful platform for building modern data experiences. Prior to joining Looker he spent 2 years at Reddit as VP of Engineering, helping quintuple the engineering team while working on a bottoms-up revamp of every part of the world’s 4th most popular website. He also spent 13 years at Microsoft, culminating in a role as General Manager of the Power BI product family where he rapidly transformed the company’s business intelligence suite. Nick holds a degree in computer science and electrical engineering from MIT and an MBA from UC Berkeley. He’s also a board member of /dev/color, a non-profit whose mission is to maximize the impact of Black software engineers. Nick is a native of P.G. County Maryland, but is happy to call San Francisco home.
Nick Triantos is Founding Partner at NextStep Ventures, a pediatric medicine-focused VC firm. Nick has been a partner-level VC for 6 years, across firms with over $2B under management. He has also used his computer science degree as an engineer and entrepreneur.. Nick was a very early hire at NVIDIA, where he wrote much of the 3D software in their early days, and later served as Chief Software Architect. Nick has also cofounded 3 different companies, two of which sold to multi-billion-dollar publicly traded companies. Nick is now most interested in commercialization of scientific breakthroughs, especially in fields which benefit pediatric medicine. Nick has been a CEO multiple times, including once for a Sequoia-funded startup (Tokbox), and so he has perspective on the challenges as an operator, investor, and entrepreneur. Nick has a BS in Computer Science and dual MBA degrees, one from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business (and the other from Columbia University in New York).
Nikhil Matani is an associate in Venable’s Corporate group in San Francisco. Prior to joining Venable, Nik was a private equity associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP where he represented private equity sponsors in all aspects of their business and was a corporate associate at Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian LLP where he represented venture capital firms and high-tech growth companies on various corporate matters. In law school, Nik served as a judicial extern to the Honorable John T. Noonan on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Nik received his Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he was an Article Editor for the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. He holds a B.A. in Political Science, summa cum laude, and a B.A. in Rhetoric, summa cum laude, from University of California, Berkeley.
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layinka is a Berkeley MBA early-stage founder, and Kleiner Perkins Fellow. While at Haas, Olayinka won the Haas Seed Fund and Techstars Launchpad Fellowship. His undergraduate degree was in Computer Science and he has 8 years experience working in startups, consulting, impact for companies including EY & Cisco.
Olayinka is happy to chat about various aspects of early-stage startups including: fundraising from angels or VCs, finding early talent and building your MVP.
Olayinka spends most of his time in fintech, future of work & social Networks
Oren Tversky (MBA 99) is Senior Vice President, Business and Corporate Development at Apportable. With a background in mobile, developer tools, data, consumer electronics and gaming industries, Oren Tversky has held numerous executive positions in the technology industry. Most recently, Oren served as SVP Business and Corporate Development at Apportable, a mobile developer tools solution. Previously, he was Vice President of Unity Technologies’ Unity Games business unit where he spearheaded Unity Technologies’ content syndication and platform business development efforts. Prior to Unity Technologies, Oren served as Head of Business Development at mobile operating system vendor Symbian, where he launched and led Symbian’s Korean business. Prior to receiving his MBA from UC Berkeley, he worked in the video games industry for The 3DO Company. He is an advisor to several start-ups and active in the entrepreneurial community in the Bay Area.
Orian Williams (MBA 16) is currently a strategy consultant with Deloitte where he works with software and hardware technology clients. Prior to consulting he was with Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC) where he focused on sourcing and evaluating early to late-stage investment opportunities in the areas of IoT, deep learning / AI, autonomous driving, energy, healthcare, and emerging market solutions. Before RBVC, Orian worked in sales operations and finance roles with Thomson Reuters (SaaS) and Johnson & Johnson (Medtech). Orian earned an MBA from BerkeleyHaas and holds dual degrees in Finance and International Studies from The Ohio State University.
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Paul Hsiao is a General Partner at Canvas Venture Fund, where he focuses on partnering with innovators building mobile software, proprietary data graphs and large peer networks. A seasoned entrepreneur, operator and venture investor, Paul is on a mission to find early-stage companies that are tackling big, intractable problems and driving progress in marketplaces, enterprise, education, real estate and gaming, where he has deep domain expertise. Paul joined Canvas in May 2014 from New Enterprise Associates (NEA)—a global investment firm with $14 billion in assets under management — where he spent 10 years as a partner in the firm’s Menlo Park office. During his time at NEA, he worked with seven companies that have since gone public on the NASDAQ or NYSE and helped lead tens of companies to successful acquisitions. Some of his more noted investments include Houzz, Gaikai, Boingo, Elance-oDesk, SayMedia, and 42Floors, where he served on the boards. Before taking the plunge into the world of venture capital, Paul founded a venture-backed startup called Mazu Networks, a pioneer in network security that was built from technology developed at MIT. Today, the company provides enterprise IT organizations with the ability to manage, secure and optimize their business services. Paul went on to serve as President and later VP of Product at Mazu, before the company’s sale to Riverbed Technology in 2009. Paul began his career working in product development at medical device giant, Medtronic, and leading market entry strategy for China at McKinsey & Company. He earned his BSc in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering from MIT and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
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Rahul Ravulur (MBA 08) was most recently the co-founder and CEO of AppOrbit.AppOrbit built one of the first cloud application platforms with a strong value proposition for accelerating application modernization, optimizing the application test lifecycle and cloud migration.Customers of AppOrbit included large enterprise customers likeEricsson, Micron and Autodesk. Prior to AppOrbit, Rahul’s experience spans Product Management and Engineering roles at VMware and BMCSoftware. At VMware, Rahul had product management responsibilities for their virtualization management platform, vCenter and the Availability suite of products subsequently. Previously, at BMC Software andMarimba, he led a team of engineers that built their application configuration management platform. Rahul holds a Bachelors inElectronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai, a Masters of Electronics and Computer Engineering from University of South Carolina as well as an MBA (’08) from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley.
Raif Barbaros (MBA 08) is currently the Head of eCommerce Technology for Loblaw, Canada’s largest retailer. Prior to Loblaw, he was the CTO at MavenSay, a trusted recommendations start-up where he built & led the team that developed and launched MavenSay’s flagship iPhone app which was featured by Apple. He was also a co-founder of fooddel, an online grocer based in Toronto. Before that, he was the CTO at Locavore – an award-winning mobile app for the iPhone and Android platforms, named one of top 10 iPhone apps by Time magazine. Prior to Locavore, he was a co-founder of Carsala, a venture capital backed start-up that introduced a revolutionary used car buying service which was featured by Wired Magazine, New York Times among others. He founded Carsala and raised the first round of funding during his last year of his MBA at Haas. He’s also worked in product management at eBay, web development at Deloitte and started and sold an online career services company in Canada. He also spent a year as a venture capitalist at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. In addition to an Haas MBA, he also holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from Queen’s University in Canada.
Raj Pai is a seasoned product executive with over 20+ years hands-on experience at successful early stage and public companies. He is an expert in big data, analytics and machine learning, and has worked at industry leaders like Teradata, Oracle, Informatica and recently he was GM/head of products at energy IoT leader, AutoGrid. Raj is Haas MBA ’98 and Bachelors’ in Technology from IIT Bombay. He is actively involved in the angel investor community in Silicon Valley and is interested in mentoring the next generation of data-driven leaders from the Berkeley ecosystem.
Ravi Krovidi is a trusted advisor to leading companies in the technology, media, and telecom sectors for transforming operations to drive revenue growth and scale business models and monetization approaches. He currently works with Price Waterhouse Coopers as Managing Director based out of the Silicon Valley office.
During 19 years of consulting experience with PwC, Ravi advised clients that include pre-IPO companies, PE-owned companies, and Fortune 50 organizations going through M&A activity. In addition, he has worked with start-up firms in Silicon Valley for four years. As a mentor within the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program, Ravi can leverage his unique experience and executive relationships to help Haas students accelerate their entrepreneurial journey.
Ravi received an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and he has a bachelor’s degree in engineering. In his spare time, he enjoys making wine from his backyard vineyard, cycling, and spending time with his wife and two boys at their home in Pleasanton, CA.
Rebecca Lynn (MBA/JD 2008) joined Morgenthaler’s Menlo Park office in 2007, and she focuses on early-stage investments in mobile, internet services, digital media and financial services. Rebecca began her career at Procter and Gamble where she worked in international new product market entry. She then spent four years at NextCard where she led product development efforts and later served as the Vice President of Marketing where she managed one of the top five largest online marketing efforts. After NextCard, she ran her own consulting business focusing on online marketing for financial services and affiliate marketing. During law school, she was a Summer Associate at Heller Ehrman/Venture Law Group and at Quinn Emanuel where she focused on intellectual property litigation. Rebecca is also an inventor on several issued patents. She was published in the Berkeley Law and Technology Journal, and she is a registered Patent Agent. During business school, Rebecca chaired the Berkeley Business Plan Competition and was a member of New Venture Fellows. Rebecca earned a JD/MBA degree from the Haas School of Business and Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri.
Rhonda Shrader (MBA 96) Rhonda is Executive Director of the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program as well as the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program for the Bay Area Node. She has founded or was an early stage team member of start-ups in biotech, behavioral health, retail, non-profit and AI. She served as a long-time mentor for UCSF’s Idea to IPO course, is an active advisor for NASA spinoff BrainAid, and recently lead the winning teams for both the Health Tech Forum Codeathon and the San Francisco MedHack 2.0 Hackathon. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in neuropsychology and holds an MBA in strategy and operations from Berkeley-Haas.
Richard D. Harroch is a Managing Director and Global Head of M&A for VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital fund near San Francisco. He is also an angel investor and entrepreneur, focusing on Internet, software, mobile and digital media companies. He was the founder of several Internet companies that were sold to NBC, Dun & Bradstreet and LexisNexis. He has written for Forbes, Fortune, AllBusiness.com, FoxBusiness, MSN, Yahoo, Huffington Post, BusinessWeek and other publications on angel financing, venture capital, startups and M&A. A number of his articles can be found at www.allbusiness.com/author/richard-harroch. Richard is the author of several books on startups and entrepreneurship as well as the co-author of Poker for Dummies and a Wall Street Journal-bestselling book on small business. He was also a corporate partner at the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, with experience in startups, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, and venture capital. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the UCLA School of Law, where he was Managing Editor of the Law Review.
Richard Lui is an early-stage investor with Next47, a $1.2B fund created in partnership with Siemens to invest in the next categories of enterprise software and frontier tech. His primary focuses are next-gen developer/infrastructure software and robotics investments in both domestic and emerging markets. Richard partners closely with founders and teams, building a collaborative and trusted relationship at the earliest stages of a company. He is involved in Next47’s investments in Logz.io, 15Five, Gecko Robotics and Built Robotics. Prior to Next47, Richard was part of Merrill Lynch’s Palo Alto-based technology investment banking team where he supported Salesforce’s acquisition of MuleSoft as well as Fastly’s and Avalara’s respective IPOs. He also worked for Tumblr’s Ad Tech team in New York when the company was still under the Yahoo umbrella and spent time with Wish’s business development arm. Richard graduated from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Outside of work, you can usually find Richard at urban/hip-hop dance classes at On One Studios (San Jose) or scouring the bay area for adequate Hong Kong food when he misses home.
Robin Mansukhani is CEO and Co-Founder of Alzeca Biosciences. Alzeca is developing advanced imaging technologies for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease. He has been featured speaker on the topic of life sciences and entrepreneurship, and most recently at TED. Previously, he cofounded Cense Biosciences (advanced insulin technology for diabetes) and Ecorithm (advanced algorithms for building energy utilization). In the community, he co-founded BlueStamp Engineering, a hands on technology program for high school students. He also serves as a mentor for the Thiel Fellowship (20 under 20). Prior to his work in early stage start-ups, he served as an associate with The Maple Fund, an early stage venture capital firm. He has also served as an EIR at NYU’s Stern School of Business, contributing to curriculum development and giving guest lectures. He has a B.S. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University, where he served a term in AmeriCorps, teaching health and literacy to disadvantaged youth.
Rosie Atkins is a product advisor and consultant. Prior to launching her own practice, Rosie led product teams for more than 20 years. Most recently, Rosie was VP of Product at Homebase, a company whose mission is to make it simple for local businesses to hire, schedule, pay and communicate with employees. She previously held product leadership roles at OpenTable, Groupon, and Upserve. In 1997, Rosie was a founding employee at Reel.com, the first business to rent and sell movies online. Reel had a successful exit in 1998. Prior to Reel.com, Rosie was Executive VP of Videosmith, a 20 unit chain of arthouse video stores in Boston.
Russell Holdstein was CFO at Rolling Stone magazine in its early days in SF. After backpacking around the world, he became one of the first start up tech entrepreneurs in San Francisco, becoming founding CEO of Payday which was recognized as one of the 500 fastest-growing companies in the US and Russ was named one of the top 10 entrepreneurs in San Francisco. After a successful exit, he became one of the early angel investors in the Bay Area and has been involved in starting and growing dozens of companies including StubHub, HotelTonight, Ask.com (Ask Jeeves) and Trulia (Zillow). He has been a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Haas off and on for over 20 years.
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Sam’s professional background includes helping in the development of two accelerator programs with partnerships such as MetLife Insurance and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations and a focus on female and BIPOC founders. This experience solidified her commitment to empowering underrepresented entrepreneurs! She mentors female founders and connects investors to them whenever she can!
Recently, Sam has ventured into a new realm – podcasting. Her podcast aims to inspire and guide early-stage founders and those enthusiastic about entrepreneurship. Some of her guests include founders with top 1% exits of Y-Combinator, AI pioneers, and investors at top accelerators such as 500 Global! Each episode of her podcast is a step towards creating a more inclusive and vibrant entrepreneurial landscape, reflecting her deep dedication to fostering a diverse community of innovators and thinkers.
Samuel Kwok is a Venture Partner at Garage Technology Ventures where he is focused on investments in Software, Internet, Data, and Artificial Intelligence and enjoys helping startups solve how to make and raise money. Prior to Garage, Sam was a Director at Pacific Venture Investments in Hong Kong and Silicon Valley and a management consultant at Deloitte and Ernst & Young, where he consulted with multinational companies in the financial and technology sectors on operations, risk, and e-commerce issues. Sam holds a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.
Early stage founder, operator, advisor, and investor with experience across functions and industries.
I started my career as the second hire at Clip, one of Mexico’s first Unicorns. During my MBA at Haas, I co-founded StEP, an incubator that connects students across campus to build companies. We have graduated +150 companies in the past 2.5 years and started StEP Ventures, a VC that invests in UC Berkeley students/founders at the earliest stage.
I’ve founded 2 companies that failed and Callisto Spirits, a startup still operating. I’ve worked for two VC firms and do Angel investments. Currently I’m VP of Operations at InnerPlant, a startup I joined as the second hire two years ago; since then, valuation has increased 5x.
Sarah Peach is Director of Venture Technology at Siemens Technology-to-Business (TTB) Center, based in Berkeley, California. At Siemens TTB, Sarah is responsible for turning early-stage innovations from start-ups and universities into viable business opportunities for Siemens’ Industry Sector business units. Her primary focus is industrial infrastructure, including all aspects of manufacturing, factory automation and control, and energy efficiency. Before joining Siemens in 2006, Sarah was Director of New Initiatives at the University of California’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Program. She has directed business development at optics start-up Chelix Technologies, and previously managed the technical team and business development activities at Chelix’s parent company, Reveo, Inc.. She also worked in polymer research at BASF AG in Germany. Sarah holds a Bachelor’s degree from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Cornell University, both in physics.
Scott is a seasoned executive with extensive experience in scaling consumer driven healthcare businesses. At companies like Foresight Mental Health and Carbon Health, Scott helps companies build the strategy and playbook required for expansion from a regional operator to a national brand.
Scott is a proven leader with boots-on-the-ground experience building teams necessary to scale companies to profitable growth and brand dominance. His multidisciplinary background in strategic and financial management provides the foundation required to transform market and operational challenges into timely solutions and competitive advantages. He is adept at applying technology innovations to streamline operations and provide distinct value to consumers.
Most recently as the Chief Development Officer at Foresight Mental Health, Scott led the teams responsible for all things Growth: M&A, Real Estate, Corporate Structure and Organization, Patient Acquisition, and HR. Scott built the teams required for Foresight to grow from a regional California mental health provider, to one of the largest mental health groups in the country operating across 18 states.
Prior to joining Foresight Mental Health, Scott was a member of the founding team and Chief Development Officer at Carbon Health. Similar to his expansionary efforts at Foresight, Scott was able to build the teams and playbooks required to accommodate Carbon’s tremendous growth from its initial clinic in Berkeley, California to a national operator with 100+ locations nationwide and plans to IPO in the near future.
Scott received a Masters of Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. In his spare time, he enjoys flying planes, playing on the mountaintops of the Sierra Nevada and spending time with his wife and two boys at their home in Sonoma, CA.
Scott Kucirek (MBA 99) is CEO and Managing Partner of Ocho Candy. Scott brings 15 years of entrepreneurial experience to OCHO. As co-founder of ZipRealty, Inc. (ZIPR, NASDAQ), Scott took the company from a two person start-up and grew it to a top ten national real estate brokerage, raising over $40 million in venture capital and working in a variety of leadership roles. Prior to his current position, Scott started and led a statewide Multiple Listing Service (MLS) initiative, calREDD, to a successful launch and eventual acquisition, creating the largest MLS entity in the country. Scott started at OCHO Candy in 2010 as its CEO and runs the day-to-day business, overseeing operations, employees, online marketing, accounting and retail relationships. Scott earned a BS in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley in 1988, spent 9 years as a Naval Aviator and then earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business in 1999. He is married and has two daughters and enjoys coaching soccer and participating in Crossfit.
Scott Orn is Chief Operating Officer at Kruze Consulting, a fast growing Startup CFO Consulting firm that works with over 130 startup clients. Kruze is based in San Francisco with clients in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York. In addition to his Operations responsibilities, Scott runs the Venture Debt Consulting practice at Kruze. Before Kruze Consulting, Scott was a Partner at Lighthouse Capital, a private debt fund that lends to startups. In addition, Scott ran Community Products at Callisto Media. In his spare time, Scott co-founded Ben’s Friends, an Internet patient support community for people with rare diseases. Ben’s Friends is a 501C3 non profit and has become one of the largest rare disease support communities on the Internet with 120,000 uniques last month (a 20% increase month over month). Both LinkedIn and Google have made sizable grants to Ben’s Friends.
A puzzle solver, a strategic thinker, a beyond-the-horizon watcher and a hands-on doer. Sebastien thrives in a fast pace, innovative environment. His technical products and professional experience spans more than 20 years in various industries. Sebastien has shaped ecosystems and products around payments (mobile, real-time, embedded, online) game consoles, FinTech, mobile security, mobile identity and consumer solutions. The path to executive management was laid at PayPal and constantly demonstrated in his book “The Delivery Man: The Art of turning ideas into products in Silicon Valley” (#1 Best Seller Amazon) or his roles as SVP/Head of DevX at Envestnet, Chief Technologist for Zelle, CTO of Validity Sensors or Mastercard lead of Open API developer program including the world-acclaimed Masters of Code hackathons series. His entrepreneurial spirit has been at work in 3 start-ups with a 50% exit success rate and advises / mentors entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds and industries, including via the angel investors syndicate Angel Squad under Hustle Funds VC.
Shaoching Bishop is the President of Regiis Ova. Before partnering with Chef Thomas Keller, most recently, she was Managing Director and CEO of Sterling Caviar where she oversaw sturgeon farming operations, caviar production, finance and accounting, sales and marketing as well as international expansions and acquisitions. Prior to Sterling, Bishop was the General Manager of TNC Holding Co. which is one of the oldest brands in caviar. Her main function was to re-structure the management team and streamline operations to bring a troubled company back to profit and develop an exit strategy for the business. Bishop received her Chinese literature degree in Zhejiang University, China, and her business degree from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Her favorite role is being mother to her two children.
Sharath brings over 14 years of experience driving software development and product strategy at companies of various stages. He is a passionate two-time founder with one successful exit. He currently leads the product and engineering teams at CivilGrid, a construction tech startup building the ‘Google Maps for underground’. He holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California—additionally, Sharath mentors at Springboard (SWE boot camp). Ask about the travel startup scheduled to launch in March 2020 when you chat with him!
Shawn Merani is the Founder and Managing Partner of Parade Ventures, a pre-seed & seed stage focused venture capital firm.
Previously, Shawn was a co-founder and partner at Flight Ventures, investing in early stage software, internet and mobile companies across a variety of sectors. He has also made select later stage investments. Shawn’s investments include Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever), Sapho (acquired by Citrix), Moveworks, Side, Trusted, Tonal, Plastiq and others.
As an operator, Shawn was a founding partner of Liquidnet’s Private Shares marketplace, which enabled over 750 of the world’s leading asset managers to invest in high-growth, pre-IPO companies. He was able to grow the marketplace to $150MM+ GMV in the first two years. Prior to Liquidnet, Shawn was Senior Director of Business Development at ReachLocal. Shawn has a BA in Economics and a BS in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Shawn enjoys spending time with his family, riding his Peloton, fantasy sports and supporting the Cal Bears.
Siddarth Sanghvi runs a Real Estate investment company in Oakland and has a diverse entrepreneurial background spanning retail, social responsibility, tech, CPG and sustainability. After graduating with an MBA from Haas, he co-founded World of Good, a fair trade brand that was sold in over 2,000 retail locations before being acquired by eBay in 2010. He also led Marketing and Operations for Back to the Roots, another Haas alumni company, where he oversaw a period of rapid expansion. Prior to starting his own firm, he was the COO at Riaz Inc., where he helped grow the company’s assets under management from $100m to $200m. Siddharth has a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Colorado College and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Stephan was the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Identify3d, a software company he recently sold where he led strategy, sales & marketing, business development, partnerships and fundraising. Stephan has more than 30 years of experience in business development, operations, M&A and restructuring with companies such as EY, Alvarez & Marsal, and REL Consultancy. As a partner or senior director in these consulting firms, Stephan was responsible for business development, thoughts leadership and practice development. He also led the commercialization effort of two previous start-ups he co-founded. Stephan also lectures at the Berkeley Haas Executive MBA on performance-improvement topics.
Steven Horowitz is a founder and the current principal of the Ovidian Group, an innovation and IP business strategy consulting firm. He also advises Berkeley entrepreneurs and start ups. Before joining Ovidian, Dr. Horowitz was a Vice President at Yahoo!, where he built and led the Media Innovation Group, a team of designers and engineers pushing the boundaries of consumer experience and engagement with online content. His group filed 55 patent applications; Dr. Horowitz is an inventor on 30 of them. Also while at Yahoo!, Dr. Horowitz served as a technical and creative consultant to such notable media innovators as Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett on jointly-developed Web-based programming projects. Prior to Yahoo!, Dr. Horowitz headed product development, engineering and operations for AvantGo, a mobile app subsidiary of Sybase, delivering personalized, name-brand content to smartphones. Before that, Dr. Horowitz was CTO, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Palladium Interactive, a hybrid CD-ROM / Internet entertainment, education and productivity software developer and publisher. After Palladium’s acquisition by The Learning Company, he became a founding member and Chief Scientist of Genealogy.com, a destination website for family history content, research and community, throughout its acquisition by A&E Television Networks. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. from Princeton University.
Suyog is a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Samsara, leading the company’s product and partner marketing efforts for several product areas. Suyog is responsible for building and driving product go-to-market strategies and running integrated marketing programs that fuel Samsara’s awareness, pipeline, and ARR.
Suyog has spent 7.5 years at Salesforce, progressively attaining various roles as a User Experience Design, Experience Architecture, and Director of Product Marketing. His responsibilities included Go-To-Market, Industry Marketing, and working with a campaign team to help the cloud reach its growth ambition. After Salesforce, Suyog led product and customer marketing for Amplitude, a leader in the product analytics space.
He has a deep understanding of the SaaS, Enterprise, and Analytics space. Suyog earned an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, a Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati. He holds six patents and is an inventor on four additional patent applications.
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Ted Sorom (MBA 08) is a serial entrepreneur, mechanical engineer and businessman. Ted is currently the CEO and founder at Mantle Inc. which is bringing a new form of metal 3D printing to market which is an order of magnitude faster and less expensive than traditional manufacturing methods. Previously Ted founded Rixty, Inc. an online payment system for the unbanked. Rixty was founded during Ted’s second year of the Haas MBA program and grew to be the largest cash-based online payment system for online entertainment in Brazil with reach across all of North and South America. Before attending Haas, Ted worked in the toy and high-end consumer products industries where he managed product development for products sold at such retailers as REI, Target, and Gap Kids. Ted holds a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, a Master’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the full-time program at the Haas.
Tejas is currently the Head of Strategic Partnerships at Turquoise Health, where he is helping create greater price transparency in healthcare. He has previously worked on scaling virtual care solutions at Teladoc and was the first product partnerships hire at Livongo. Earlier in his career, Tejas developed medical devices in womens health and cardiology at Medtronic. He has worked in healthcare for over 10 years across product, engineering, marketing, business development and sales at seed stage startups to Fortune 500 companies. He is a Tata Scholar, Mahindra Scholar and 2-time MIT Hacking Medicine runner-up. He has an MBA from Berkeley-Haas (EWMBA’21) and a masters in engineering from MIT (MEng’11). Tejas enjoys mentoring and advising early stage startups and founders. He lives in Burlingame, CA.
Terry Kelly is a partner in Dorsey’s Corporate practice. His practice focuses on representation of emerging high-technology companies with respect to venture capital financing, intellectual property law, and licensing and distribution agreements. Terry has extensive experience advising clients in connection with financing, and intellectual property protection and exploitation, including the acquisition, protection and sale of intellectual property and buying, selling, leasing, distribution, licensing and development of high-technology products and services. His clients include software, Internet, hardware, video on demand, semiconductor medical devices, photonics and life sciences companies. Terry earned his J.D. at UC Berkeley and has an A.B. in Economics and International Relations from Stanford.
Timothy J. Harris is the Managing Partner of the Palo Alto office and member of the firm wide Emerging Companies and Venture Capital group. He specializes in representing startup companies in corporate and securities matters. In his startup practice, Mr. Harris advises emerging growth technology enterprises from formation through acquisition or initial public offering in matters including venture capital financing, debt financing, equity incentive compensation, and technology development (including licensing, joint development, distribution, and other technology transfer matters). He also represents venture capital firms, strategic corporate investors, and angel investors in their investments in startup companies. Mr. Harris specializes in modeling complex capital structures, financing scenarios and liquidity events, helping entrepreneurs and investors analyze possibilities and understand consequences of various transaction structures. Mr. Harris represents startups and investors in a variety of technology sectors, including life sciences, enterprise technology, consumer technology and financial services technology. Prior to practicing law, Mr. Harris designed, programmed, and implemented software systems for clients in the financial services industry. Mr. Harris was an Associate Editor of the Law Review and was elected to Order of the Coif at Northwestern University School of Law.
Timothy Campos is currently the Founder and CEO of Woven – a software company building productivity software for the future of work. Before founding Woven, Mr. Campos was one of the early executives at Facebook and served as Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the company. Prior to Facebook, Mr. Campos was Chief Information Officer for KLA-Tencor. He has deep expertise in enterprise software development, large scale distributed systems, and data services and analytics. Mr. Campos sits on the Board of Directors Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV), Rackspace, Inc. (NASDAQ:RXT) as well as at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. Mr. Campos has an MBA from both Columbia University and the University of California at Berkeley and a degree in electrical engineering and computer science also from the University of California at Berkeley
Trevor Cox is a consultant and lawyer with 17 years experience. He founded Eisbach Group, a consulting firm, and also TC2 Legal, a boutique law firm. He has a MBA from the Berkeley-Haas/Columbia program, and a JD from the McGeorge School of Law. In his legal practice, Trevor assists startups and emerging companies in the areas of venture capital financing, M&A and technology transactions, including customer agreements, complex licensing, joint development, distribution, resellers and other technology agreements. In his consulting practice, Trevor assists startup and emerging companies in strategy, investor pitching, business development, international expansion, exit planning and other areas. He works with companies in a variety of technology sectors, including analytics, big data, mobility, cloud computing, enterprise software, and computer networking. He has spoken numerous times and been a judge at various student competitions at Berkeley-Haas and UC Merced, and has written numerous articles on a variety of topics for startups (see eisbachgroup.com to read the articles). Prior to his current roles, Trevor worked at Silicon Valley law firms, in-house counsel for U.S. and international VC/PE portfolio companies, and strategy/corporate development for a public company. He has held a variety of roles at startups from CEO to business development.
Tyler Elliston (MBA 08) leads performance marketing for Eventbrite globally, focusing primarily on acquiring both sides of the marketplace – organizers and attendees – through channels such as SEM, SEO, Display, Retargeting, Facebook, and others. He’s held marketing leadership roles at companies at various stages, from unfunded seed stage to large and publicly traded. He has learned greatly from past startup failure and has since taken great pleasure in successful exits. He studied Economics at Baylor and earned his MBA at Berkeley.
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Vince advises startups on finding product market fit and building their product teams. He can help with:
* Pitch Decks, Fundraising
* Finding PMF
* Building your Product Org and hiring your first PM
He’s currently the VP Product of Laurel, an AI startup in the legal space. He’s served as Chief Product Officer at 15Five a Series C startup and as VP Product at Springboard an Ed-Tech startup helping learners get jobs in Data Science and Design. Vincent specializes in helping startups find product market fit and scale, and has held product leadership roles in gaming, mobile, enterprise SaaS, and Ed-Tech.
He is also Venture Scout for Reach Capital, investing in education and the future of work.
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Wes Selke (MBA 06) is Managing Director and Founder of Better Ventures. He’s the resident “numbers guy” and enjoys helping startups figure out how they’re going to make and raise money. Wes has 15 years of venture capital and financial advisory experience with Good Capital’s Social Enterprise Expansion Fund, William Blair, and Ernst & Young’s Mergers & Acquisitions group. He earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and a BBA from the University of Michigan. Wes has volunteered with organizations around the globe, which has fueled his passion for applying his business skills to build a better world. He lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and two young kids and enjoys road cycling in the East Bay hills and Sunday trips to the farmers market.
William von Blasingame (MBA 86) is a long time Angel Investor and Advisor. Prior to becoming an Angel investor he served as Senior Vice President of Mirant Energy (now NRG) and prior to that he served for a decade as Chief Financial Officer for Edison Mission Asia based in Singapore. During his career von Blasingame restructured and later managed the sale of Mirant Caribbean for $1.1 billion and managed approximately $3 billion of acquisitions and divestitures at Edison Mission. William von Blasingame holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.