Kayvon Beykpour

Periscope Co

Kayvon is the CEO and cofounder of Periscope, an app that enables anyone to capture or watch live video broadcasts, which was acquired by Twitter in 2015. Prior to Periscope, Kayvon led the Mobile division of Blackboard where he also served as a Senior Executive for four years after his startup was acquired by the company. Kayvon studied Computer Science at Stanford, and grew up in the bay area.

John Borthwick

Betaworks

John Borthwick is CEO and co-founder of betaworks. Betaworks is an internet studio that builds and invests in companies across the social, data-driven media internet. Companies that betaworks has built include Giphy, Dots, bitly and Chartbeat, betaworks acquired and re-launched Digg and Instapaper. Betaworks investments include: kickstarter, tumblr (acquired by Yahoo), Summize (acquired by Twitter as their search engine), IFTTT, OMG Pop (acquired by Zynga), Tweetdeck (acquired by Twitter), along with 100+ others. Prior to betaworks John was Senior Vice President of Alliances and Technology Strategy for Time Warner Inc. John's company, WP-Studio, founded in 1994, was one of the first content studios in New York's Silicon Alley, it was acquired by AOLTW. John holds an MBA from Wharton (1994) and an undergraduate degree BA in Economics from Wesleyan University (1987). He sits on the board of WNYC, Data and Society, and Rhizome at the New Museum.

Robert Bowman

MLB Advanced Media

Bob Bowman was appointed President, Business & Media of Major League Baseball by Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. on December 4, 2014. He directs revenue-generating and media rights activities across all MLB entities while continuing to oversee MLB Advanced Media, LP (MLBAM) and MLB Network. Bowman has been President & Chief Executive Officer of MLBAM, the league's world-class technology company, since its inception in 2000. Bowman joined MLBAM in 2000 following two years of work in the Internet space. He took on oversight of MLB Network in 2014. MLBAM was created in January 2000, when the owners of the 30 Major League Clubs voted to follow the recommendation of Commissioner Selig and centralize all of Baseball's Internet and Interactive Media operations under one roof. MLBAM operates the official League site, MLB.com, as well as each of the 30 individual team sites. It also develops, deploys and distributes the highest grossing iOS app, At Bat, as well as manages live video content for dozens of clients. In 2014, MLBAM captured, encoded and distributed 30,000 live video events. MLB.com is an award-winning multimedia business at the forefront of the digital revolution. Prior to joining MLBAM, Mr. Bowman was President and Chief Operating Officer of ITT Corporation, one of the world's largest and preeminent conglomerates. He joined ITT in 1991 as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ITT Sheraton, the Boston-based global hotel network. In 1992, he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the parent company before being named President and Chief Operating Officer in 1995. Following the trivestiture of the Company's business divisions in 1995, Mr. Bowman successfully oversaw the growth and operations of the $8 billion conglomerate until its merger with Starwood Hotels and Resorts in 1998. During his tenure, Mr. Bowman and the senior management team at ITT created more than $25 billion of value for the company's shareholders. Before joining ITT, Bowman served as Treasurer for the State of Michigan from 1983-1991. The youngest State Treasurer in the nation at the time of his appointment, during his eight-year term, the State's pension system grew from $6 billion to $19 billion in asset value, and improved the State's credit rating from BBB to AA. Immediately prior to his appointment in Michigan, Bowman also worked as a municipal finance investment banker with Goldman Sachs & Company, and from 1979 to 1981 he served in the U.S. Department of the Treasury as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Domestic Finance. In that role, he worked on both the New York City Loan Guarantee Act and the Chrysler Loan Guarantee Act. A native of Milwaukee, Bowman graduated from Harvard College in 1977, and received his M.B.A. from The Wharton School in 1979. Bowman serves as President of the Michigan Education Trust and is a member of the Board of Directors of Take-Two Interactive Corp., and ViaSat, Inc.

Joanne Bradford

Joanne Bradford (@pinjoanne) is Head of Partnerships at Pinterest, where she focuses on building both commercial and content partnerships globally.Bradford has held executive leadership positions at Microsoft, Yahoo, Demand Media and BusinessWeek. Her experience includes leading product marketing, business development, and programming, as well as building and growing large, international sales teams. Bradford served as the Chief Revenue Officer at Microsoft, Senior Vice President at Yahoo, and Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer at Demand Media. She most recently served as President of The San Francisco Chronicle. Bradford has worked on strategic partnerships with major brands such as American Express, L'Oreal, and Unilever.Bradford serves on the board of CARE, which provides aid to the poor around the world. She is an Advisor to Greycroft Partners and a founding advisor to LeanIn.org. Joanne has a bachelor's degree in journalism with an emphasis in advertising from San Diego State University.

Brooks Buffington

Yik Yak

Brooks Buffington, COO, co-founded Yik Yak in 2013 with Tyler Droll, shortly after graduating from Furman University. The duo created Yik Yak because they recognized a need for hyper-local, open messaging to give everyone in the community a voice. Today, Yik Yak is popular on over 1,600 college and university campuses across the US. Brooks is originally from Atlanta, Georgia.

Adam Cahan

Yahoo

Adam Cahan serves as the Senior Vice President of Mobile and Emerging Products at Yahoo, where he oversees the company’s global mobile effort. In this role, he is responsible for leading product, design and engineering for Yahoo’s mobile products, Flickr, and Smart TV. In 2011, Adam joined Yahoo with the acquisition of IntoNow, where he was the founder and chief executive officer. Prior to creating IntoNow, he was the CEO of Auditude, which was later acquired by Adobe. Previously, he served as the executive vice president of strategy and business operations at MTV Networks, and held leadership roles at Google, McKinsey & Company and NBC Universal. Adam started his career as an associate producer and wildlife filmmaker for National Geographic Television, based in Zaire, Africa. Adam serves on the board of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. He holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School with Beta Gamma Sigma Honors.

Kevin Carter

SV Angel

Kevin Carter is a General Partner at SV Angel. He joined the firm upon launch in 2009. At SV Angel, Kevin originated investments in Snapchat, Pinterest, and GroupMe (acquired by Skype), and works particularly close with Sunrise, Inbox, FlightCar, FarmLogs and Optimizely. He was included in Forbes Magazine's 30 under 30 in 2012 and 2013. He is also on the Engineering Advisory Board at Santa Clara University (EAB). Prior to SV Angel, he worked in the Private Equity Group at Silicon Valley Bank. At SVB he was a part of the Entrepreneur Services and Venture Capital Relationship Management Groups and helped with diligence and cross platform relationship efforts. Before SVB, Kevin worked at Affinity Circles, Inc. where he performed sales and client account management. Kevin graduated from Santa Clara University with a degree in Finance. While at SCU, he worked closely with the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was awarded "Outstanding Student Entrepreneur".

Ronald Conway

Ronald Conway has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. Ronald was previously with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions from 1973-1979, and Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO from 1979-1990. He eventually took Altos public in 1982 and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS) from 1991-1995. PTS went on to be acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft. Ronald has served/serves on Boards/Advisory Boards including: Twitter, Digg, Brightmail, Ask Jeeves, Rupture (acquired by EA), Associated Content (acquired by Yahoo!), Facebook, RockYou, ScanScout, Zappos, Trulia, StumbleUpon, Plaxo (acquired by Comcast), Photobucket (acquired by Fox), and Anchor Intelligence (co-founder). Ronald was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top deal-makers in 2008 and is actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. Ronald is Vice Chairman of the UCSF Medical Foundation in SF, Board Member of The Tiger Woods Foundation, and SF Homeless Connect, and on the Benefit Committee of Ronald McDonald House, College Track, and the Blacked Eyed Peas-PeaPod Academy Foundation. Ronald is also featured in Gary Rivlin's book _The Godfather of Silicon Valley: Ronald Conway and the Fall of the Dot-coms, described as 'the man who has placed more bets on Internet start-ups than anyone else in Silicon Valley.

Topher Conway

SV Angel

Topher Conway is a Co-Managing Partner of SV Angel. At SV Angel, he works particularly close with Niche, URX, Bluebox, and Zenefits. He was included in Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 in 2015. Prior to SV Angel, he worked at EQAL, Inc. At EQAL, he worked with the Business Development and Sales teams and lead efforts in creating new business opportunities. In his Sales position, he developed and maintained relationships with top ad agencies and brands. Prior to EQAL, he held positions at eCost and a 2004 summer internship in Google's Direct Sales Organization. Topher graduated from University of California Los Angeles with a degree in History. He is also a member of the UCLA VC Fund, helping foster entrepreneurship at the University. In addition to investing, Topher leads platform partnerships where he is responsible for establishing relationships with Corporate Partners and helping portfolio companies with Business and Corporate Development needs.

Dennis Crowley

Foursquare

Dennis Crowley is co-founder and executive chairman of Foursquare, overseeing strategic vision for product and innovation. Before stepping into his current role, Dennis was the company’s CEO for nearly seven years. He previously founded Dodgeball, one of the first mobile social services, which was acquired by Google in 2005. He holds degrees from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.

Chris Dixon

Andreessen Horowitz

Chris Dixon is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm and also a contributing writer for TechCrunch. He was a co-founder and the CEO of SiteAdvisor and also co-founded Founder's Collective, Hunch, and more. Chris is a personal investor in early-stage technology companies, including Skype, TrialPay, DocVerse, Invite Media, Gerson Lehrman Group, ScanScout, OMGPOP, BillShrink, Oddcast, Panjiva, Knewton, and a handful of other startups that are still in stealth mode. Chris Dixon obtained his bachelor’s degree from Harvard Business School.

Tyler Droll

Yik Yak

Tyler Droll, CEO, co-founded Yik Yak in 2013 with Brooks Buffington, shortly after graduating from Furman University. The duo created Yik Yak because they recognized a need for hyper-local, open messaging to give everyone in the community a voice. Today, Yik Yak is popular on over 1,600 college and university campuses across the US. Tyler is originally from Duluth, Georgia.

Tara Feener

FiftyThree

Tara Feener is an engineer at FiftyThree, makers of Paper for the iPad (Apple’s iPad App of the Year 2012) and Pencil (the world’s top selling digital stylus). Tara helped bring Mix, the creative collaboration service and platform by FiftyThree, to market in the fall of 2014 which recently surpassed one million users worldwide. Before FiftyThree, Tara was working at Adobe in San Francisco in the experience design group as an engineer prototyping future 1.0 products and experiences.

Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina is a passionate, articulate advocate for conservative policies that advance economic growth, entrepreneurship, innovation, and effective leadership. When Carly was recruited to Hewlett Packard, she became the first woman to lead a Fortune 50 business, taking HP from the 28th to the 11th most profitable company in the US. In her six years as Chairman and CEO of HP, she would double its revenues to $90 billion; more than quadruple its growth to 9%; triple the rate of innovation to 11 patents a day; achieve market leadership in every market and product category and quadruple cash-flow. She currently serves as the Chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, which annually hosts CPAC (the largest annual gathering of conservatives); the Chairman of Good360, the world's largest product philanthropy organization; and the Chairman of Opportunity International, the largest non profit micro-finance lender in the world giving out $6 billion at an average of $150 per loan lifting millions out of poverty around the world. In 2014, Carly launched the Unlocking Potential Project, a new PAC aimed at engaging women voters and refuting the false notion that conservative ideas and principles amount to a “war on women.” The UP Project’s grassroots efforts aided Republican wins in crucial elections across the country, from Iowa to Colorado.

Shana Fisher

Third Kind Venture Capital

Shana Fisher is the Managing Partner of HLVP, a NY Based venture fund focused on early stage investments. From December 2003 to June 2010, Ms. Fisher served as IAC's Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning & Mergers and Acquisitions, and prior to that as the Senior Vice President of Business Operations for IAC. Previously, Ms. Fisher served as Vice President and Director, Media and Technology Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance for Allen & Company, LLC. In this capacity she led principle investments and advised publicly traded technology firms, private telecommunications firms and media companies. Prior to Allen & Company, LLC., Ms. Fisher was a program manager for the Microsoft Corporation. Ms. Fisher received her B.A. from Hampshire College with a triple major in Sculpture, Philosophy and Linguistics and attended the Master of Arts program at New York University's ITP.

Julie Fredrickson

Stowaway Cosmetics

Stowaway's Co-founder and CEO Julie Fredrickson is an e-commerce and digital marketing expert, having worked in-house with brands like Ann Taylor and Equinox and as an agency director across brands as diverse as Gap, Nike and Michael Kors. She’s also a well-known entrepreneur— her first company, Coutorture Media, was a pioneer in the fashion blogging and affiliate marketing space, and her other ventures have specialized in everything from helping marketers build branded games to fitness for people on the go. Before Stowaway, Julie constantly hoarded sample-sized cosmetics, which were the perfect size to fit in her gym bag or carry-on for last-minute getaways. The samples were usually difficult to find, impossible to purchase regularly, and rarely the items she wanted, leading Julie to the realization that market for smaller makeup wasn’t being met by existing brands. An inveterate optimizer, Julie is always looking for ways to make her life easier, and uses her knowledge to help Stowaway’s customers. She believes beauty should fit into your life instead of making your life fit your beauty products.

Limor Fried

Adafruit

Adafruit was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer, Limor "Ladyada" Fried. Her goal was to create the best place online for learning electronics and making the best designed products for makers of all ages and skill levels. Over the last 6 years Adafruit has grown to over 45 employees in the heart of NYC. Adafruit has expanded offerings to include tools, equipment and electronics that Limor personally selects, tests and approves before going in to the Adafruit store. Limor was the first female engineer on the cover of WIRED magazine and was recently awarded Entrepreneur magazine's Entrepreneur of the year.

Patrick Gallagher

CF

Pat has dedicated the past two decades to working with and investing in some of the most exciting technology startups in Silicon Valley. He co-founded CrunchFund in 2011 with Michael Arrington and has held the role of managing partner since the fund’s inception. Successful companies CrunchFund has invested in include Cruise, Digital Ocean, and x.ai, amongst more than 200 other leading early-stage startups. Prior to CrunchFund, Pat’s VC experience included VantagePoint Capital Partners and Morgan Stanley Venture Partners. He has invested across all segments of information technology and has been on numerous boards including Constant Contact (public), Plateau Systems (Board Observer, acquired by SuccessFactors), Immobilien Scout (acquired by Deutsche Telecom), and TouchTunes (acquired by Searchlight Capital). Patrick graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and literature.

Kevin Gibbon

Shyp

Kevin Gibbon started Shyp in 2013 to make shipping items anywhere in the world frictionless. As CEO, Kevin is responsible for Shyp's day-to-day operations, guiding the company's vision and leading its growth. An engineer by training, Kevin previously founded Shoparound, an iPhone application that garnered a top 100 ranking. Prior to that, he led the Boeing engineering team, where he was responsible for creating the organization's first iPad application approved for cockpit use. Kevin first anticipated the opportunity to transform the shipping industry as an eBay powerseller in his hometown outside Vancouver. Under Kevin’s leadership, Shyp has raised $12.2 million in venture capital from venerated investors including Sherpa Ventures and Homebrew and launched its operations in San Francisco, New York City and Miami. Kevin’s bold vision to transform shipping has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and WIRED.

Jonathan Grado

Grado Labs

Jonathan Grado is the Vice President of Marketing for Grado Labs, and if he wasn't making headphones he'd be taking a lot more pictures. Brooklyn born, Jonathan is the third generation of Grado in its six decade history, being called the “second-in-command” by Esquire and bringing the Brooklyn company to Mashable’s Top Eight Most Social Small Companies in America.

Logan Green

Lyft

Logan Green, co-founder and CEO of Lyft, has long been fascinated by innovation in transportation, having grown up in Southern California with much of his childhood spent stuck in traffic. Lyft, the on-demand ridesharing platform, was founded in 2007 with Zimride as the first of two products built to create a more social, sustainable and affordable transportation system. The idea for Zimride (and ultimately Lyft) struck while Logan was studying in Zimbabwe during college, where carpooling is a common form of transportation among neighbors and communities. Logan also created the first car-share program at UC Santa Barbara and served on the board of the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District prior to starting Zimride. As a Lyft driver himself, Logan has a vision to fill the 80 percent of empty seats on the road and ultimately transform the face of transportation around the world. Since unveiling the product in June 2012, Lyft has quickly become one of the fastest-growing tech companies with more than $860 million raised from leading investors Rakuten, Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue and Founders Fund and has been featured in The Economist, the New York Times and on NBC’s TODAY Show. Lyft is currently in 65 cities across the country with more than 10 million rides shared to date.

Fabrice Grinda

Fabrice Grinda is among the world’s leading Internet entrepreneurs and investors. He has over $300 million in exits and 150 angel investments. Fabrice has served as CEO for three multinational companies and has an impressive track record as an early investor in Alibaba, Lending Club, Delivery Hero and Brightroll. Fabrice is currently investing in startups and building companies through FJ Labs, which he cofounded with business partner Jose Marin. Fabrice is also co-founder and executive chairman of Beepi, a next generation used car marketplace. Beepi recently raised $60 million in series B funding. Prior to FJ Labs and Beepi, Fabrice was co-founder and co-CEO of OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 200 million unique visitors per month. The company operates in 40 countries and has over 1,200 employees. OLX is the largest classifieds site in India, Brazil, Pakistan, Poland, Ukraine, Portugal and many other emerging markets. Before OLX, Fabrice was co-founder and CEO of Zingy, one of the largest wireless media companies in the Americas. Fabrice successfully grew the business to $200 million in sales in four years. Fabrice started his entrepreneurial journey in 1998, at 23, when he co-founded and was CEO of Aucland. Soon after, Aucland grew into one of the largest auction sites in Europe. Before his entrepreneurial endeavors, Fabrice worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Fabrice holds a BA in Economics from Princeton University. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1996, and was awarded the Halbert White prize, given to the most distinguished economics student, as well as The Wolfe Balleisen memorial prize, awarded for best thesis. In his free time, Fabrice likes to travel the world, kitesurf, play tennis, and blog about his personal and professional life at http://www.fabricegrinda.com.

Rachel Sterne Haot

New York State

Rachel Haot is a Managing Director at 1776, a global incubator and seed fund focused on industries impacting essential human needs. Prior to 1776, she served as Chief Digital Officer and Deputy Secretary for Technology for New York State under Governor Andrew M. Cuomo from 2014-2015 and as ChiefDigital Officer for the City of New York under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from 2011-2013. Earlier in her career Rachel was Founder and CEO of GroundReport, a global news startup, from 2006 to 2010. She is a World Economic ForumYoung Global Leader, a former Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School and was named Chief Digital Officer of the Year by the CDO Summit in 2014.

Eric Hippeau

Lerer Hippeau

Eric Hippeau is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures, New York’s most active early-stage technology fund. Hippeau is also Chairman of RebelMouse and co-founder of NowThis News. Hippeau is the former Chief Executive Officer of The Huffington Post and a Special Partner at Softbank Capital, where he served as Managing Partner for many years. Prior to Softbank Capital, Hippeau was Chairman and CEO of Ziff-Davis, which was the largest media company serving the technology sector. Hippeau serves on the Board of various private and public companies, including Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Jennifer Hyman

Rent the Runway

Jennifer Hyman is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rent the Runway, a fashion company with a technology soul that is disrupting the way women get dressed. In her role, she sets the strategic priorities of the business and leads the company in growing all areas of the business, including marketing, technology, product, and analytics. She co-founded Rent the Runway in 2009 with Jennifer Fleiss, and has since raised $126 million in venture capital, growing the business to over 6 million members, 950 employees and 400 designer brands. Jennifer has been honored with numerous recognitions including: Forbes' "Women Entrepreneurs to Watch", TriBeCa Film Festival’s “Disruptive Innovation Awards”, Fortune Magazine’s “Trailblazers, 11 People Changing Business in 2013,” “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs,” and “40 Under 40”; Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30”; and Fast Company’s “Most Influential Women in Technology.” She has been a featured speaker at Fortune Brainstorm Tech, the Forbes Women’s Summit, Tech Crunch Disrupt, and Marie Claire’s Power Trip, and has appeared as a guest on NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and CNN Money, among many others. In 2015, Jennifer launched the Rent the Runway Foundation with Jennifer Fleiss to inspire and ignite the next generation of female entrepreneurs. The foundation’s first initiative, in partnership with UBS, is Project Entrepreneur, a venture competition and educational program designed to provide women entrepreneurs nationwide with the tools to build high-growth, high-impact businesses. Prior to Rent the Runway, Jennifer was the Director of Business Development at IMG where she focused on the creation of new media businesses for IMG's Fashion Division. She also ran an online advertising sales team at WeddingChannel.com and was an in-house entrepreneur at Starwood Hotels, creating Starwood’s first wedding business which was recognized on the Oprah Winfrey Show for its innovation. She received her BA from Harvard University and MBA from Harvard Business School. Jennifer is a Bloomberg Fellow, a TechStars mentor, and a member of both the Entrepreneurship Board at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Women in Business Board at Harvard University. She is an investor in and advisor to several high-growth startups throughout the U.S.

Payal Kadakia

ClassPass

Payal Kadakia is the CEO and Co-Founder of ClassPass, a membership program that provides people of all fitness levels access to the best boutique studio classes across the US. Since its launch in 2013, ClassPass has facilitated 2 million reservations across 2,500 studios in 28 cities. Payal is also the Founder and Artistic Director of The Sa Dance Company, founded in 2009 with the mission to increase awareness of Indian Dance in the mainstream and serve as a platform for expressing the Indian-American identity through movement. Payal previously worked as a consultant at Bain & Company and holds a degree in Operations Research from MIT.

Brendan Kennedy

Privateer Holdings

Brendan Kennedy is CEO of Privateer Holdings, the world’s first private equity firm investing exclusively in legal cannabis. Brendan and his team have raised $82 million to launch a portfolio of global, responsible and mainstream cannabis brands leading the future of the industry – including portfolio companies Tilray, Marley Natural, and Leafly. Prior to founding Privateer Holdings with two other partners, Brendan served as Chief Operations Officer of SVB Analytics, a non-bank affiliate of Silicon Valley Bank that provided valuation services to early-stage start-ups and venture capital firms, and as CEO and President of Mindability, a software company focused on customer experience measurement. He earned a BA in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley; an MS in engineering from the University of Washington; and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. Brendan lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter. He has finished six Ironman triathlons.

Alex Klein

Kano Computing

Co-Founder & CEO at Kano Computing.

Mo Koyfman

Mo Koyfman is a General Partner at Spark Capital, a venture capital firm that partners with imaginative entrepreneurs who are driven to move people with the products and experiences they create. He is based in Spark’s NYC office. Prior to joining Spark, Mo was an executive at IAC (NASDAQ: IACI) where he most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of Connected Ventures, parent of Vimeo.com, CollegeHumor.com, and BustedTees.com. He previously held the roles of Vice President of Programming and Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions. Mo began his career as an investment banker at Bear Stearns. Mo serves on the non-profit board of Sefaria.org, an open source project committed to bringing Jewish texts into the digital public domain. He is also a member of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Collections Council and the New York Public Library Tech Advisory Group. Mo graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania where he received a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School with a concentration in Finance and a B.A. in English from The College of Arts & Sciences.

Philip Krim

Casper

A serial entrepreneur, Philip Krim started his first company out his dorm room at the University of Texas over a decade ago. As an early e-­commerce executive, Philip has been focused on the evolving consumer shopping trends — both online and off — in a number of different verticals throughout his career. In 2014, he co­-founded Casper, a sleep startup that launched with an outrageously comfortable mattress. Its direct-­to-­consumer model has been praised for disrupting the mattress industry, and its universally comfortable designed has been critically acclaimed.

Bastian Lehmann

Postmates

Bastian is the CEO of Postmates, the on-demand delivery company he co-founded in 2011. The idea for Postmates was originally conceived in 2005 when Bastian was relocating from Munich to London and he struggled with finding a simple solution for moving goods around a city. He later pursued this notion of “ride-sharing for stuff” through AngelPad in San Francisco, where he met his co-founders Sean Plaice and Sam Street. Postmates now operates in 40 US markets. Prior to Postmates, Bastian co-founded Curated.by, a real-time tweet curation platform based in London. Before that, at 12snap, he managed marketing budgets for Adidas and Lufthansa and helped many European startups in product related roles. A native of Germany, Bastian now lives in San Francisco.

Aaron Levie

Box

Aaron Levie is Chief Executive Officer, Cofounder and Chairman at Box, which he launched in 2005 with CFO and Cofounder, Dylan Smith. He is the visionary behind Box’s product and platform strategy, which focuses on incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Levie leads the company in its mission to transform the way people and businesses work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions. He has served as a member of Box’s board of directors since April 2005. Levie attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005 before leaving to found Box.

Danielle Levitas

App Annie

Danielle leads the research and analysis team at App Annie. She has 20 years of experience as an industry analyst and market research executive working with many of the world’s leading technology companies advising them on product development and marketing, consumer behavior and customer segmentation, and corporate strategy. Most recently, Danielle was the group vice president and GM of IDC’s Mobility, Digital Media & Consumer research team where she developed new research offerings, built analyst teams, and advised industry executives. Danielle graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a bachelors in finance. Her favorite apps include Facebook, MapMyRun, Lyft, Dwelp, Twitter and Munchery.

Geoff Lewis

Founders Fund

Geoff Lewis is a Partner at Founders Fund. He is focused on backing the founders of transformative companies across a wide range of emerging sectors. Geoff was an early lead investor in the now-mainstream on-demand services, food tech, and mobile commerce sectors. He is also known for leading the first venture capital investment in the legal cannabis space. Prior to joining Founders Fund in 2012, Geoff was a founder himself. As Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Topguest, he created a loyalty software platform that counted United Airlines, Hilton Worldwide, and Standard Hotels as clients. Topguest was then acquired in an eight figure transaction less than two years after Geoff founded the company. Earlier in his career, Geoff served as a Vice President at a global macro hedge fund, a management consultant, and a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble. Geoff is a regular expert commentator on entrepreneurship and technology for Bloomberg, CNBC, and Fox Business. He is also a frequent speaker at events such as SXSW and Disrupt. Born and raised in Canada, Geoff received his Bachelor of Commerce degree with First Class Honors from Queen’s University at Kingston.

Noah Lichtenstein

Cowboy Ventures

Noah has been helping build startups in Silicon Valley for over a decade, first as an entrepreneur and then as an investor. He was most recently a Partner at Cowboy Ventures, where he spent 3+ years as a Partner focused on investing in seed stage consumer and enterprise companies. Some investments include: Lending Home, Tenor (f/k/a Riffsy), Product Hunt, Homebase, After School, Aviso, Locality, and Kimono Labs. Prior to Cowboy, Noah was a founding member of HomeRun, a leading social commerce platform reaching 100M+ consumers at its peak (acquired by Rearden Commerce). Before HomeRun, Noah led consumer business development at the Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto (MON)), was the Co-Founder & President of Annuvia (acquired by a PE firm), and served as a wildland firefighter in rural Oregon. He attended Stanford University and serves on the Board of Directors for the United Way of the Bay Area.

Jessica Livingston

Y Combinator

Jessica Livingston is a founding partner at Y Combinator. She is also the organizer of Startup School, the big annual startup conference, and the author of Founders at Work, a collection of interviews with successful startup founders. Y Combinator was the first of the new startup “incubators” that fund a bunch of startups at once. Since 2005 YC has funded over 560 companies, including Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit.

Alfred Lin

Sequoia Capital

Alfred Lin is a partner at Sequoia Capital and works with inspiring founders focused on disrupting the mobile, marketplace, commerce, consumer services, and online-to-offline sectors. He currently represents Sequoia on the boards of Airbnb, DoorDash, Houzz, Humble Bundle, Kiwi, Stella & Dot and Zipline, and was previously on the Board of Achievers (HAWK). Prior to joining Sequoia in 2010, Alfred was fortunate enough to be associated with a variety of successful upstarts and served as COO/CFO of Zappos.com(AMZN), VP of Finance and Business Development of Tellme Networks (MSFT), and VP of Finance of LinkExchange (MSFT). Alfred also co-founded Venture Frogs, LLC and invested in companies such as Ask Jeeves (IACI), MongoMusic (MSFT), MyAble (OPWV), OpenTable (OPEN), Tellme (MSFT) and Zappos.com (AMZN). Alfred has a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford.

Paula Long

DataGravity

Paula Long is the CEO and co-founder of DataGravity. She draws from more than 30 years of experience in high-tech innovation. previously serving as vice president of product development at Heartland Robotics. In 2001, Paula co-founded storage provider EqualLogic, acquired by Dell for $1.4 billion in 2008. She remained at Dell as vice president of storage until 2010. Prior to EqualLogic, she served in engineering management positions at Allaire Corporation, and oversaw all aspects of the ClusterCATS product line while at Bright Tiger Technologies.

Susan Lyne

Susan has had a long career in media, commerce and consumer products. She has held leadership positions at companies of all sizes and stages, from startups to public companies, often during periods of internal or external change. She began her career in the magazine industry, where she founded and led Premiere Magazine. She spent almost a decade at Disney, rising to President of Entertainment at ABC. She was the CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; CEO and then Chair of Gilt.com; and she led AOL’s Brand Group, overseeing such brands as TechCrunch, Engadget and Moviefone, immediately before launching BBG Ventures. She has four daughters, three sisters, and a wide circle of entrepreneur-advisees who give as much as they get. Her biggest wins have all come from listening to, building for and betting on women.

Jason Mante

Vine

Kanyi Maqubela

Collaborative Fund

Kanyi Maqubela is a Partner at Collaborative Fund, an early-stage venture firm headquartered in New York. The firm invests in consumer brands pushing the world forward. Collaborative Fund has backed such companies as Lyft, Hopscotch, AltSchool, Blue Bottle, Earnest, Sweetgreen, and Skillshare. Kanyi is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at New York University's Tisch School of The Arts, and lives uptown with his wife.

Bill Maris

GV

Bill Maris is an entrepreneur and prominent venture capitalist focused on technology and the life sciences. He is the founder and first CEO of Google Ventures (GV). With $3.0 billion under management and investments in Uber and Nest, GV was described as one of the hottest venture funds in Silicon Valley under his leadership. Maris oversaw the growth of the team from 1 to 70+, across 7 offices, 2 continents, and 400 investments, including Nest, Uber, Flatiron Health, Impossible Foods, Editas, Iperian, Grail, Orbital Insights, Cloudera, Carbon 3D, Slack, Docusign, Adimab, The Climate Corporation, Silver Spring Networks, Kobalt Music Group and 23andme. Maris has particular interest in the life sciences and artificial intelligence. He is the creator of Google's Calico project, a multi-billon dollar company focused on the genetic basis of aging. He is the founder of early web hosting pioneer Burlee.com, now part of Web.com, and most recently the founder of Section 32, a California-based venture fund focused on frontier technology, and a practicing magician.

Marissa Mayer

Yahoo

Marissa Mayer was the final CEO of Yahoo, until selling the company's internet assets to Verizon. Previously as a VP at Google, Marissa Mayer led the product management and engineering efforts of Google's local, mobile, and contextual discovery products including Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile, Local Search, Google Earth, Street View, Latitude and more. At 36 years old, she was also the youngest member of Google's executive operating committee. During her 12 years at Google, Marissa led product management and design efforts for Google web search, images, news, books, products, toolbar, and iGoogle. She started at Google in 1999 as Google's 20th employee and first woman engineer. Marissa's contributions and leadership have been recognized by numerous publications including the New York Times, Newsweek and BusinessWeek. Fortune magazine has listed her for the past 3 years on their annual Most Powerful Women's list, and she was the youngest ever to appear on the list. In 2010 Marissa was honored by the New York Women in Communications, Inc. with a Matrix Award. She also been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and Woman of the Year by Glamour Magazine. Marissa serves on the board of various non-profits, including the Smithsonian National Design Museum, the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Prior to joining Google, Mayer worked at the UBS research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich, Switzerland, and at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. Marissa received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems and her M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University. For both degrees, she specialized in artificial intelligence.

Dave McClure

500 Startups

Dave McClure is a venture capitalist and founding partner at 500 Startups, a venture capital firm & startup incubator headquartered in Silicon Valley founded by PayPal and Google alumni, with over $200 in assets under management. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for twenty-five years as a developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor & investor, blogger, and internet marketing nerd. Dave is a frequent speaker at technology & entrepreneurship conferences and has invested in hundreds of companies around the world including: Credit Karma (valued >$1B in 2014), Twilio (raised >$100M as of 2013), MakerBot (acq $400M Stratasys), Wildfire Interactive (acq $350M Google), Viki (acq $200M Rakuten), Mashery (acq by Intel ~$200M), SendGrid (raised >$45M as of 2014), Mint.com (acq $170M Intuit), SlideShare (acq $119M LinkedIn), among others. From 2008 thru 2010, Dave managed the FF Angel seed investment program for Founders Fund, and ran the 2009 fbFund incubator program on behalf of Facebook, Accel Partners, & Founders Fund. From 2006 thru 2008 Dave was an advisor & consultant to several startups and helped teach the nation's first-ever class on Facebook and social networking platforms at Stanford University in 2007. From 2005 thru 2006 Dave ran marketing for job search engine Simply Hired. From 2001 thru 2004, Dave was Director of Marketing at PayPal (acquired by eBay in 2002), where he started the PayPal Developer Network program. Prior to PayPal, Dave was a database consultant & programmer for several companies, including Microsoft and Intel. In 1994 he founded Aslan Computing, an internet & e-commerce consulting group later acquired by Servinet / Panurgy in 1998. Before coming to Silicon Valley, Dave barely graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a BS Engineering in Mathematical Sciences and a minor in frisbee, billiards, & foosball. His interests include microfinance and economic innovation, entrepreneurship and venture capital, ultimate frisbee, cartoons and animation, and an ever-growing collection of funny-looking hats.

Leandra Medine

The Man Repeller

Leandra Medine is the founder of ManRepeller.com, a humorous site for serious fashion. Launched in 2010 during Medine's Junior Year studying Journalism at The New School, Man Repeller has since grown into a global fashion and lifestyle destination. In that time, Leandra has been honored in Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business, Business Insider's Most Inspiring Innovators and Entrepreneurs Under 40, and Forbes' 30 Under 30 for 2012 and 2013. In addition to running the business, she continues to write daily. Medine lives in New York City.

Heidi Messer

Heidi Messer has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the digital economy since the commercialization of the Internet. She currently serves as co-Founder and Chairman of Collective[i] is a business intelligence network built around technology designed to transform what is currently referred to as Big Data into insights and intelligence. Collective’s technology integrates and analyzes disparate data sources through a network where business insights and knowledge can be shared throughout large enterprises in real time through finished applications for sales, marketing, services and customer support. Messer is Co-founder and CEO of World Evolved, a platform for global investment and expansion. Messer is one of the founding members of the Zokei Network, a global network devoted to encourage innovation across art, science, business and technology. In addition, Messer is an active angel investor in and advises numerous startups. Prior to Collective, Messer and her brother, Stephen Messer, co-founded LinkShare Corporation, which is host to one of the world’s largest online affiliate networks representing some of the largest and fast growing publishers and merchants on the web. The company is widely considered to be a pioneer in the world of digital advertising. Under Messer’s leadership, LinkShare was recognized by Deloitte and Touche for two consecutive years as the fastest growing technology company in the New York Region. Messer served as a board member, President and Chief Operating Officer of LinkShare until its sale to Rakuten (4755:JASDAQ) for $425 million in 2005. Messer is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world and universities on entrepreneurship, digital marketing and advertising, business intelligence and the future of Internet services. She has been cited in various publications including, The New York Times, Inc. Magazine, The Nikkei, Women’s Wear Daily and Chief Executive Magazine. Messer has also appeared on national television and radio programs including the Today Show, Rock Center with Brian Williams, Business Talk Radio, Fox News, CBS Morning News and the Fox Morning Show.Messer has received several honors including being selected as one of 2012’s 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs. Messer serves on advisory boards for Dell Computers, NBC Universal and American Express OPEN. Messer received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. She received her juris doctorate from Harvard Law School graduating cum laude.

Nate Mitchell

Oculus

Nate Mitchell is Co-Founder and vice president of product at Oculus, the company that’s bringing immersive virtual reality technology to the world. Nate currently heads up Oculus product development, including the highly anticipated Oculus Rift headset. Before Oculus, Nate worked on the product teams at Gaikai, the cloud-gaming company acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2012, and at Scaleform, developers of the leading user interface solution for the video game industry, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2011.

Adam Neumann

WeWork

Adam Neumann is the Co-founder and CEO of WeWork, which provides workspace, community, and services to more than 60,000 members in more than 30 cities around the world. Adam, along with co-founder Miguel McKelvey, started WeWork in 2010 in the Soho neighborhood of New York City with the intention of creating a workspace environment centred around the idea of community, and the belief that people will achieve more together than they could on their own. Adam and team want to grow WeWork everywhere to serve everyone, expanding globally and focusing on building technology that connects members around the world so they are empowered to do what they love. Previously, Adam co-founded and ran Big Tent Inc., where he developed Egg Baby and Krawlers, well-known brands of children’s clothing. Adam lives in New York City. He is the proud father of four children, Elle, Loulou, Isaiah, and Elijah, and loving husband to his wife, Rebekah.

Alexis Ohanian

Y Combinator

Alexis Ohanian, born April 24, 1983, is an entrepreneur and investor in Brooklyn, NY, best known as the co-founder and executive chair of reddit, a platform for online communities to share links and have discussions. While he learned his earliest lessons in leadership and web design from his high school Quake 2 clan and Everquest guild, Alexis continued his official studies at the University of Virginia, where he met his future co-founder Steve Huffman during freshman year move-in day. This would lead to the founding of reddit, which he recounted along with many lessons for entrepreneurs, in his national bestseller, Without Their Permission. At UVA, Alexis majored in business and history with a minor in German. Though he had originally planned to become an immigration lawyer, he experienced an epiphany in his junior year (while sitting in a Waffle House) that led him to the realization that he didn't want to practice law. Instead he convinced his best friend Steve to start a company with him. The pair traveled to Cambridge, MA during their senior year spring break to hear Paul Graham give a talk titled "How to Start a Startup." After the lecture, Alexis invited Graham out for a drink so he and Steve could pitch Graham on their business idea. Graham agreed, loved the idea, and suggested they apply to a new seed stage venture firm he'd launched called Y Combinator. Alexis and Steve's original plan was to build an infrastructure that would allow people to order food from their cell phones. Though the idea was rejected, Alexis and Steve were invited to join the first class of Y Combinator, on the condition that they'd come up with a new concept. The next idea they pitched to Graham would become reddit.com.

Susan Paley

General Motors

Susan Paley knows a few things about working with a creative mind. She has teased out some of the most innovative, disruptive concepts to impact the audio world in decades, many of them ‘firsts,’ by understanding how to cull hard and fast realities from ideas that started out as ethereal as fairy dust. Bridging the gap on a continuum that often has the visionary founder on one end and the pragmatic engineers on the other, Paley adds the vital part to a 3-part story of ingenuity, collaboration and enterprise. A 15+ year veteran in consumer technology and the driving force behind some of the most innovative consumer products and embedded solutions in the audio/digital audio space, Paley has worked with global, emerging and disruptive brands such as JBL/Harman Kardon and Beats by Dre, to name a few. Her expertise: developing businesses from inception to scale that are focused on transforming markets to capture significant revenue and consumer mindshare. More than anything Paley is a builder. In her tenure she has created successful, sustainable businesses based on innovative consumer platforms comprised of hardware, software and digital content to realize new paradigms for global lifestyle brands. She has applied this winning formula to global lifestyle brands such as Beats by Dr. Dre, JBL, GM, Chrysler/Fiat, HP, Quiksilver/Roxy, Nickelodeon and Universal Music Group. In her most recent role Susan was the first employee and CEO of Beats By Dre, chartered with building the business from the ground up. Paley successfully guided all aspects of the company's unparalleled growth from both a strategic and operational aspect, making it the #1 headphone globally and the fastest growing brand in CE. She created "Beats Audio", a proprietary audio enhancement technology now deployed in millions of mobile phones, automobiles and PCs through licensing partnerships with HTC, Chrysler/Fiat, VW, Hyundai and HP respectively. Susan led the investment deal team that resulted in a 300M+ investment by HTC. She then moved into a General Manager/EVP Product Development role where she was responsible for building and leading engineering and product management teams to create, manage and execute the Beats product portfolio. Paley joined Beats Electronics from Harman International Group where she was responsible for identifying and developing new markets for the global brands across the Harman portfolio. For JBL, she created a new line of lifestyle products linked to a strategic partnership with Quiksilver Inc., one of the largest global youth lifestyle brands driving $40M of annualized growth. Paley was responsible for all aspects of the business from inception through launch including the business plan, product portfolio development, manufacturing, channel distribution strategy, marketing and PR. Prior to Harman Paley served as Head of Business Development for PhatNoise, a Los Angeles-based start-up that created the first digital media platform for the car In this role, Paley was responsible for the company’s revenue through her acquisition and management of the company’s key partnerships—General Motors, Volkswagen/Audi and Kenwood. Paley worked with closely with General Motors to develop first digital content strategy for in-vehicle infotainment systems inking deals with Audible, Nickelodeon, Universal Music Group and video game publisher Capcom for General Motor’s ground breaking Mobile Digital Media System. Currently, Paley is pioneering a health and wellness product in the wearable space with IdeaLab. Additionally, she operates as a business strategist for early stage ventures and global brands that are focused on building entirely new businesses or creating new opportunities within existing businesses. On the other side of the spectrum Paley and her husband are parents to their son, 3.5-year old son Ashi, whom they adopted from the Sidamo region in Ethiopia. Dedicated to providing the whole family with a balanced life, Paley takes ample time out for activities with her son, and their dogs, pursue her love of yoga and outdoor sports in their mountain retreat in Mammoth, California.

Ron Palmeri

Layer

Ron Palmeri As an early stage product and markets guy, Ron launched a number of highly innovative companies, including Grand Central/Google Voice, OpenDNS, Scout Labs and Swivel as managing director of Minor Ventures. As founder of MkII Ventures, Ron cofounded Prism Skylabs which is working to brings physical spaces online, creating new places for people and businesses to understand and engage each other.

Jacques Panis

Shinola

With over 10 years of experience spanning marketing, branding, and sales, Jacques Panis joined Shinola in 2010 to direct the company's product development and strategic direction, becoming President in 2013. Prior to Shinola, Panis served as a founding member of Webosaurs and led the interactive division at the Dallas-based animation studio, Reel FX.

Serkan Piantino

Facebook

Serkan is currently a Director of Engineering at Facebook’s AI Research lab and founder and Site Director of Facebook’s New York office. Previously he developed the Multifeed system powering Facebook News Feed, the EdgeRank algorithm for ranking social content, and lead the infrastructure engineering behind Timeline and Messenger. He serves on the board of the Academy for Software Engineering and the Anita Borg Institute. Prior to Facebook, Serkan was an Investment Associate at Bridgewater Associates. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Brian Pokorny

SV Angel

Brian Pokorny is a General Partner of SV Angel. Prior to this, he was at Airbnb, where he joined via an acquisition of DailyBooth/Batch. DailyBooth was a venture backed social media start-up that Brian led for 3 years as their CEO. Before this, Brian was a partner at SV Angel with David Lee and Ron Conway upon the launch of the firm. Prior to SV Angel he was a founding team member and partner at Baseline Ventures, a leading seed-stage investment firm. Before joining Baseline, Brian spent close to 4 years at Google within various positions in the Content Partnerships team and Direct Sales Organization. Before this, he had various roles within sales operations and finance at Juniper Networks, TIBCO Software, and Applied Materials. Brian graduated with a degree in Operations and Management Information Systems from Santa Clara University. Brian's first angel investment was in Twitter and he is also a personal angel investor in Square, OMGPOP (Acquired by Zynga), Tweetdeck (Acquired by Twitter), Milo (Acquired by eBay), Chomp (Acquired by Apple) and others. Brian has advisory positions with Ooyala (Acquired by Telstra), Rupture (Acquired by EA). At SV Angel, Brian has also originated investments in companies such as Instacart, Patreon, Mesosphere, Credit Karma, and foursquare.

Robert Pollak

SV Angel

Robert Pollak is a General Partner at SV Angel. He joined in 2011 and is responsible for all aspects of running the firm. At SV Angel, Robert has originated investments in and works particularly closely with Fundbox, iCracked, Delighted and Dronebase. Prior to SV Angel, Robert worked for a multi-family office within Morgan Stanley, that focused on VCs, late-stage technology companies, and entrepreneurs. He also worked at Arnold & Porter LLP on large-scale M&A transactions in their anti-trust group. Robert graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Economics and Foreign Affairs.

Sean Rad

Tinder

Sean Rad is the Founder of Tinder, and was the company's CEO & Chairman until late 2016. Prior to Tinder, Sean was the Founder & President of both Adly and Orgoo. He attended the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, where he received an honorary degree and gave a commencement speech in 2016.

Ben Rubin

Ben Rubin is the CEO and co-founder of Life on Air Inc., which most recently released the popular Meerkat app. Ben works with his team to pioneer "participatory media" through life-streaming communities.

David Samuel

Freestyle Capital

David Samuel is an experienced executive, serial entrepreneur, and Internet pioneer in software & media. Today, Dave is co-founder of Freestyle Capital, an early-stage Internet & technology venture capital firm, with investments in over 66 companies. Prior to Freestyle, Dave co-founded Crackle.com in 2004 (acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment for $65 million in 2006) and founded Spinner.com in 1996 (acquired by AOL for $320 million in 1999). Dave graduated from MIT with a degree in Electrical Engineering, is an SF Giants fan, enjoys both wake boarding and snowboarding, and lives in Marin with his 4 children.

Marcela Sapone

Hello Alfred

Marcela Sapone is Co-Founder & CEO at Hello Alfred.

Kegan Schouwenburg

Sols

Kegan's passion to bring nascent technologies to the consumer market is reflective in her years of experience in the industrial design and mass-manufacturing space. Before launching SOLS, she was the director of engineering and operations at Shapeways, where she helmed one the world’s largest 3D printing factories. Prior to Shapeways, Kegan co-founded her first company, Design Glut, a company which sourced and managed production for more than 30 brands including national chains Urban Outfitters and Target. Kegan was most recently recognized on Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ list for 2015 and has been featured by Business Insider on their ‘30 Most Important Women under 30 in Tech’ and ‘20 Hottest Startups Founded by Women’ lists. Kegan holds a B.S. in industrial design and manufacturing from the Pratt Institute.

Sam Shank

HotelTonight

Sam Shank is the Co-founder and CEO of HotelTonight, the on-demand mobile hotel booking app. A travel-obsessed serial entrepreneur, Sam previously founded and was CEO of DealBase a travel deals search engine, and was CEO of TravelPost, a hotel reviews site. SideStep acquiredTravelPost and Sam stayed on as VP of business development until its fortunate acquisition by Kayak. Sam also worked in comparison shopping at Excite, CNET and NexTag. Sam attended the University of Virginia and received an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Minerva Tantoco

Raised in Flushing, Queens, Tantoco is a product of New York City public schools. She attended Bronx Science High School and while still in college, moved to Silicon Valley where she co-founded technology startup, Manageware Inc, which was successfully sold five years later. Since then, Ms. Tantoco has led emerging technology initiatives including artificial intelligence, e-commerce, virtualization, online marketing and mobile applications. Ms. Tantoco holds four US patents on intelligent workflow and is a speaker and author on mobile, security, big data, and innovation. As Senior Product Manager at Palm, Tantoco pioneered mobile enterprise solutions in the early 2000s which helped pave the path in mobile technology, developing and deploying some of the world’s earliest mobile applications. As Chief Architect at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Tantoco led the re-design and implementation of the company’s Investment Banking data warehouse, a project that mirrors many of the City’s big data and analytics initiatives. Ms. Tantoco most recently served as UBS APAC CTO for client-facing technology and innovation, with regional responsibility for the Asia Pacific region. She currently holds four US patents in artificial intelligence and workflow systems.

Halle Tecco

Rock Health

Halle Tecco is an active angel investor and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School. Previously she founded and ran Rock Health, the first seed fund devoted exclusively to digital health companies, and worked at Intel and Apple. Tecco has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC. She was named as one of Goldman Sach’s Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs and listed on the Forbes 30 under 30. Tecco has spoken at Aspen Ideas Festival, CES, SXSW, TechCrunch Disrupt and has guest lectured at Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

David Tisch

David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, a New York City-based early stage investment fund. BoxGroup is an investor in over 200 seed-stage companies, including Vine, Blue Apron, Sunrise, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Behance, Handy and more. David is also the co-founder and Chairman of Spring, a mobile marketplace where customers shop directly within the app from a curated community of brands. Spring was named by Apple as one of the Best Apps of 2014. In 2014, David was named Head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech, the University’s New York City-based graduate campus focused on digital technologies and the information economy. He is also Entrepreneur in Residence for Wharton’s Entrepreneurship Program. David is the co-founder of TechStars NYC and has served on numerous boards, including Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology, the Investor Board of Venture for America, and the Entrepreneurship board at NYU. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University School of Law, and currently lives in New York City

Matt Turck

FirstMark

Matt Turck is a partner at FirstMark and invests across a broad range of early stage enterprise and consumer startups. Prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the investment and incubation arm of Bloomberg LP, which he helped start. Previously, Matt was the co-founder of TripleHop Technologies, a venture-backed enterprise search software startup that was acquired by Oracle. Matt is passionate about building communities, and organizes two large monthly events: Data Driven NYC (which focuses on data-driven startups and Big Data) and Hardwired NYC (which focuses on the Internet of Things, 3D printing, and wearable computing). Matt graduated from Sciences-Po Paris and holds a master of laws (LL.M.) from Yale Law School.

Yossi Vardi

One of Israel’s early entrepreneurs, Yossi Vardi co-founded, led, funded and helped build more than 80 high-tech, energy, natural resources, and clean-tech companies. Many of them went public, including Tekem, Alon Energy, Granite Hacarmel, answers.com, scopus, International Lasers Technologies, epals, tocows, brightcove, other were acquired : Gteko (by Microsoft), Tivella (by cisco,) Airlink (by sierra wireless), Foxytunes (by yahoo),starnet (by IAC),Gift project (by ebay). As the founding investor ofMirabilis Ltd, -the creator of iCQ - Vardi co-pioneered instant messaging. ICQ was one of the internet’s earliest successes, later sold to AOL. Vardi was chairman of the board of trustees of Jerusalem Foundation, serves on the board of trustees of the technion and served on those of Weitzman Institute. Hebrew university, open university .he was advisor to the World Bank, United Nations Development Program , CEO’s of Amazon, AOL, Siemens Albis, and Allied–signal. member of the World Economic Forum, and Co-chairman of the EU-Israel business dialogue. Vardi had an extensive government and public career, hewas the director general of Ministry of Development and Ministry of Energy. was chairman of Israel National Oil Company, and Israel Chemicals. participated in the peace talks with Egypt, Palestinians, Jordan and Syria. He received Honorary Doctorates from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and the Ben Gurion university , the Prime Minister Hi-Tech Award for life achievements (twice); Best Internet Personality by TechCrunch Europe; Entrepreneur of the Year by Tel Aviv University , Europe’s 25 top techs by Wall Street Journal; and one of the 200 Greatest Israelis of all times by Ynet. was elected by Israel 21c to the top 10 icons of Israeli high tech - the pioneers, by The Algemeiner for the "jewish 100 - the top 100 people positively influenced jewish life " and by wired magazine (uk) as number 9 of the wired 2014 top 100 influential people in Europe Yossi Vardi sits on the advisory boards of 3i and Amdocs and has served on boards of numerous state and private corporations including Bezeq, Israel Electric, and the Bank of Israel. Yossi has also been an Advisor to the CEOs of AOL, Amazon, and Allied Signal. Yossi Vardi has received many awards, including the Prime Minister of Israel Hi-Tech Award for life achievements on two occasions, the Industry Prize, the Ramniceanu Prize and CEOs Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame.

Hunter Walk

Homebrew

Current: Partner @Homebrew. Seed stage venture fund serving founders who enable individuals and small biz to think big. Brewed in SF. Enjoyed nationwide. Find us at Homebrew.co .Previously: Led consumer product management at YouTube, delivering billions of playbacks a day across computers, phones, tablets and TVs. Joined Google in 2003 managing product and sales efforts for Google’s contextual advertising business. Founding member of the product and marketing team at Linden Lab, the creators of online virtual world Second Life. Earlier, a management consultant and also spent a year at Late Night with Conan O’ Brien, broadcasting to an audience of insomniacs, truckers and college students. Grinded a BA in History from Vassar and an MBA from Stanford University.Got a wife, a daughter and a house in San Francisco. Life is good.

Tristan Walker

Prior to his founding Walker & Company he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Andreessen Horowitz. Prior to his time at Andreessen Horowitz, he was the Director of Business Development for foursquare, where he oversaw strategic partnerships and monetization. In this role, Tristan managed integrations with large brands and media entities including American Express, The New York Times, CNN, MTV, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and Starbucks. He has been named to Ebony Magazine's 100 Most Powerful People list, The Hollywood Reporter's Digital Power 50, and Black Enterprise's 40 Next. He is also the Founder and Chairman of CODE2040, a program that matches high performing black and latino undergraduate and graduate coders and software engineering students with Silicon Valley start-ups for summer internships. Tristan holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Stony Brook University, where he graduated as valedictorian, and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Emily Weiss

Glossier

Emily Weiss is the founder and CEO of Glossier, a digitally native beauty brand inspired by real life. Emily is heavily involved in product development, creative and brand marketing, ensuring that all products and content are created with the signature Glossier voice. After founding Glossier in 2014, the company now has over 60 employees in its New York City headquarters and over $34M in venture capital funding. The company has been recognized as a top beauty brand by Allure, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Nylon, Women’s Wear Daily and Cosmopolitan, and won Women Wear Daily Beauty Inc.'s 2015 Digital Innovator of the Year award and is one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2017. Emily has been included in Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2015 and AdWeek Top 20 Content Creators 2016. Emily lives in New York City.

Tom Wheeler

Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Tom Wheeler became the 31st Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on November 4, 2013. Chairman Wheeler was appointed by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. For over three decades, Chairman Wheeler has been involved with new telecommunications networks and services, experiencing the revolution in telecommunications as a policy expert, an advocate, and a businessman. As an entrepreneur, he started or helped start multiple companies offering innovative cable, wireless, and video communications services. He is the only person to be selected to both the Cable Television Hall of Fame and The Wireless Hall of Fame, a fact President Obama joked made him “The Bo Jackson of Telecom.” Prior to joining the FCC, Chairman Wheeler was Managing Director at Core Capital Partners, a venture capital firm investing in early stage Internet Protocol (IP)-based companies. He served as President and CEO of Shiloh Group, LLC, a strategy development and private investment company specializing in telecommunications services and co-founded SmartBrief, the internet’s largest electronic information service for vertical markets. From 1976 to 1984, Chairman Wheeler was associated with the National Cable Television Association (NCTA), where he was President and CEO from 1979 to 1984. Following NCTA, Chairman Wheeler was CEO of several high tech companies, including the first company to offer high speed delivery of data to home computers and the first digital video satellite service. From 1992 to 2004, Chairman Wheeler served as President and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).

Fred Wilson

Union Square Ventures

Fred Wilson has been a venture capitalist since 1987. He currently is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures and also founded Flatiron Partners. Fred has a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Fred is married with three children and lives in New York City.

Joanne Wilson

Vengo Labs

Joanne Wilson has had many careers. She started out in retail, eventually moving to the wholesale arena. She then transitioned to the media side of the technology world, before once again reinventing herself as an investor. She is currently an active angel investor with a portfolio of over 90 companies such as Food52, Sweeten, Vengo, Nestio, Phin and Phebes, Makers Row, Clutter, and Union Station. She has been involved in numerous real estate transactions from beginning to end and continues to make investments in that world. She is also an investor in a few restaurants in the New York area. In addition to these endeavors, Joanne has been involved in various education projects and served as chairperson at Hot Bread Kitchen, non-profit committed to increasing access to the culinary industry for woman and minority entrepreneurs. She also sits on the board of The Highline. Joanne has maintained her very popular blog, http://www.gothamgal.com for over 11 years and has recently take her talents to the airwaves on her podcast, ""Positively Gotham Gal"". She loves to bake, cook, throw a good party, travel, read, collect art, do the crossword and stay on top of what's happening around the globe and in NYC. Her most successful venture is being married to her best friend, Fred and raising their three kids- Jessica, Emily and Josh

Cameron Winklevoss

Winklevoss Capital

Cameron Winklevoss is the Co-founder and President of Gemini, a next generation Bitcoin exchange. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Economics and earned an MBA from Oxford University. In 2008, he represented the United States at the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing, China, placing 6th. Cameron has been an angel investor and entrepreneur in emerging technologies since 2003. He began participating in the Bitcoin economy through direct investment in 2012. In addition to being President of Gemini, he and his brother Tyler are currently seeking SEC approval for the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, a bitcoin ETF, and have launched the WinkDex, a bitcoin price index that will price the ETF.

Tyler Winklevoss

Winklevoss Capital

Tyler Winklevoss is the Co-founder and CEO of Gemini, a next generation Bitcoin exchange. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Economics and earned an MBA from Oxford University. In 2008, he represented the United States at the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing, China, placing 6th. Tyler has been an angel investor and entrepreneur in emerging technologies since 2003. He began participating in the Bitcoin economy through direct investment in 2012. In addition to being CEO of Gemini, he and his brother Cameron are currently seeking SEC approval for the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, a bitcoin ETF, and have launched the WinkDex, a bitcoin price index that will price the ETF.