We are pleased to have the following speakers and judges join us this year for Disrupt NYC 2012. We will continue to announce special speakers and judges on an on-going basis.
Michael Abbott
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Michael is a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Michael was previously Twitter’s Vice President of Engineering. Before that he lead the application platform and services development for Palm’s next-generation Palm webOS platform. He has extensive experience in building technically challenging web-based applications and services. Before joining Palm, Michael was the general manager of .NET Online Services at Microsoft, where he led efforts to deliver a services platform that enabled the development of large-scale Internet-based services. Prior to Microsoft, he co-founded Passenger Inc., where he served as chairman and led the development of the company’s consumer marketing SAAS platform. Michael also founded Composite Software, creator of industry-leading enterprise information integration software, where he served as the CEO/CTO.
Michael Arrington
General Partner, CrunchFund / Founder, TechCrunch
J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995), and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. His clients included idealab, Netscape, Pixar, Apple and a number of startups, venture funds and investment banks. He also co-authored a book on initial public offerings.
In 1999, he left WSGR to join RealNames as VP of Business Development and General Counsel. In 2000, he cofounded Achex, an online payments company, that was later acquired by First Data Corp for $32 million. Achex is now the back end infrastructure to Western Union online. Arrington worked in an operational role at a Carlyle backed startup in London, founded and ran two companies in Canada (Zip.ca and Pool.com), was COO to a Kleiner-backed company called Razorgator, and consulted to other companies, including Verisign.
In May 2008, Time Magazine named Michael Arrington as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Jon Auerbach
General Partner, Charles River Ventures
Jon Auerbach is a general partner at Charles River Ventures, where his focus is identifying and investing in innovative companies that are poised to become category leaders in mobile and advertising technology. Prior to joining CRV, Jon was a general partner at Highland Capital Partners. Jon has more than a decade of venture funding experience, and he has been an active investor in numerous successful start-ups, including Starent Networks, Quattro Wireless, Optasite, and CCTV. He is a frequent speaker on wireless trends and technologies worldwide. Jon is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Adrian Aoun
Founder & CEO, Wavii
At an early age, Adrian Aoun founded two companies, one developing online business-to-business software, and another, a consulting company specializing in helping companies incorporate the latest in university research in their businesses. After college, in search of a new challenge, Adrian sold both of his companies privately and was quickly recruited by Microsoft. Working on Microsoft Office, Adrian specialized in working to bring Microsoft Office to the web. Thereafter, Adrian was hired out by Fox Interactive Media as a Director in their Seattle office, focusing on cutting-edge social networking and user-generated content. Most recently, Adrian has decided to leverage his experiences by founding Wavii with several rounds of angel investment. The company is building a real-time search engine using the latest research in language processing to better understand information on the web. Adrian attended the University of Southern California, achieving two bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Computer Science, as well as a Masters in Computer Science.
John Backus
Founder, New Atlantic Ventures
John Backus is a technology investor, entrepreneur and policy advocate with more than 25 years of experience investing in and managing emerging, high-growth technology companies. Prior to forming New Atlantic Ventures in 2007, John spent nearly a decade as a general partner with Draper Atlantic. Before his career as a venture capitalist, John was appointed as President and CEO of InteliData Technologies. He joined InteliData through the acquisition of US Order, a company he founded and led through a successful $65 million IPO in 1995. He is the past Chairman of the Wolf Trap Foundation Board of Directors, the past Chairman of the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), the founding Chairman and current Board member of the NVTC TechPAC, and was appointed by former Virginia Governor Mark Warner to co-chair the Virginia Research and Technology Advisory Commission, which he served on for 4 years. John began his career at Bain & Co. and Bain Capital, where he was the first Bain & Co. management consultant to take a full time operating role (as CFO) in a portfolio company. He received his BA in Economics and his MBA from Stanford University.
Cyan Banister
Founder and CEO, Zivity
Cyan Banister is an entrepreneur and prolific angel investor with her partner and husband Scott Banister – http://angel.co/cyantist. Some of their investments to date include SpaceX, Uber, Tagged, Ecomom and Facebook.
Cyan co-founded the controversial website Zivity.com, which is a subscription based social networking site for creators and fans of beautiful and tasteful glamour photography. She currently serves on the board of directors for Mimoco, best known for their MIMOBOT line of designer USB storage devices.
Previously, Cyan was the CTO of a non-profit organization where she taught women in welfare to work programs how to configure and operate Cisco routers. Cyan worked at several companies in technical management roles, including IronPort, an email security company that was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007 for $830 million.
Katia Beauchamp
Co-founder, Birchbox
Katia Beauchamp is the Co-Founder of Birchbox, the discovery commerce company changing the way women shop for beauty and lifestyle products. Through its multi-channel platform, the Birchbox experience features personalized sampling, informative editorial content and a hand-picked online store. Katia began her career as an entrepreneur after graduating from Harvard Business School in 2010, where she met Hayley Barna, her Birchbox Co-founder. Their connection grew into friendship and the pair’s collaborative idea for Birchbox inspired the company’s debut in September 2010.
Prior to founding Birchbox, Katia worked in structured finance and commercial real estate for three years. Katia’s love for all things beauty and style combined with her skills from a deal-focused and finance background are instrumental in forming partnerships with brands as well as in growing and scaling the Birchbox business.
Henry Blodget
Co-Founder, CEO, & Editor In Chief, Business Insider
Henry Blodget is co-founder, CEO and Editor-In Chief of Business Insider, one of the fastest-growing business and tech news sites in the world.
A former top-ranked Wall Street analyst, Henry is also the host of Yahoo Daily Ticker, a Yahoo Finance video show viewed by several million people a month. He is often a guest on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and other networks. He has contributed to The Atlantic, Slate, Newsweek International, The New York Times, Fortune, New York, the Financial Times, and other publications. He is the author of The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual: A Consumer’s Guide to Investing.
Neil Blumenthal
Co-founder and Co-CEO, Warby Parker
Neil Blumenthal is one of the founders of Warby Parker. As the former director of non-profit VisionSpring, Neil spent the better part of 5 years giving glasses to people living on less than $4 per day who otherwise would not be able to see. A native of New York City, Neil is a Leo, enjoys long walks in the park and is a big Hall and Oates fan.
Roelof Botha
Partner, Sequoia Capital
Roelof Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital focusing on financial services, cloud computing, bioinformatics, consumer internet and mobile companies. Roelof sits on the boards of Aliph, Eventbrite, Mahalo, Meebo, Nimbula, Square, TokBox, Tumblr, Unity and Xoom. Roelof is a champion of consumer Web plays and considers himself as “just another consumer.” Roelof’s previous investments at Sequoia include Insider Pages and YouTube. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2003, Roelof served as the Chief Financial Officer of PayPal during its sale to eBay. Earlier, he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Roelof is a certified actuary (Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries). Roelof was listed as #23 on Forbes’ 2007 Midas List, which identifies venture capital’s most successful professionals.
John Borthwick
CEO, betaworks
John Borthwick is CEO of betaworks, a new form of Internet media company. 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. John holds an MBA from Wharton (1994) and an undergraduate degree BA in Economics from Wesleyan University (1987).
Chi-Hua Chien
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Chi-Hua Chien joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2007. At KPCB he focuses on investments in consumer web and mobile. He serves on the Board of Directors or works closely with the teams at Booyah, Chegg, Erly, GOGII, Home Value Protection, Klout, Path, Reputation.com, Spotify, and Twitter. Prior to KPCB, Chi-Hua worked with Accel Partners as a Venture Advisor and Associate focusing on software as a service, consumer Internet, and online advertising infrastructure. Chi-Hua was instrumental in Accel’s investments in AdECN (acquired by Microsoft) and Facebook, while also working on the firm’s investments in BitTorrent, fbFund, Glam, Trulia, and YuMe Networks.
Previously, Chi-Hua was the Director of Marketing at hosted software provider Coremetrics, where he led the marketing and inside sales teams as the company grew from 20 to more than 200 customers. He also served as the company’s interim CFO through two rounds of venture funding. Chi-Hua’s prior roles include corporate development at Google, business development at start-up eCoverage, and investment banking with Morgan Stanley’s Technology Group.
Tracy Chou
Backend/ Infrastructure Software Engineer, Pinterest
Tracy is currently a backend/infrastructure software engineer at Pinterest. She was previously at Quora, where she joined as the second engineer. She holds an MS in Computer Science and a BS in Electrical Engineering, both from Stanford University.
Mimi O Chun
Design Director, General Assembly
Mimi leads design efforts at General Assembly across its myriad offline and online experiences including communications, environments, products, services, and educational offerings. Prior to joining GA, Mimi led project teams at user-centered design consultancies including the New York office of IDEO and IA Collaborative in Chicago, and has worked across a range of industries including education, media, retail, financial services, technology, and hospitality. Mimi is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and received her MFA from Yale University.
Ron Conway
Angel Investor, SV Angel
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. Ron was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine’s Midas list of top “deal-makers” in 2008 and is actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. Ron 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 Black Eyed Peas’ PeaPod Academy Foundation.
Dennis Crowley
Co-founder, Foursquare
Dennis Crowley is a co-founder of Foursquare, a location-based social networking service. Previously, he co-founded Dodgeball, a network of the same nature which sold to Google in 2005. He has been named one of the “Top 35 Innovators Under 35” by MIT’s Technology Review magazine (2005) and has won the “Fast Money” bonus round on the TV game show Family Feud (2009). His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Time Magazine, Newsweek, MTV, Slashdot and NBC. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Chris Dixon
CEO and Co-founder, Hunch
Chris Dixon currently works as the CEO and Co-founder of Hunch. He is also a contributing writer for TechCrunch. He previously was the CEO and Co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee. 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. In addition to his personal investments, Chris is also a co-founder of Founder’s Collective and the host of TechCrunch TV’s Founder Stories.
Soraya Darabi
Co-Founder, Foodspotting
Digital maven Soraya Darabi has her finger firmly on the pulse of today’s changing media landscape. Featured on the cover of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business” issue, named one of Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30,” and included in AdAge Magazine’s “25 People in Media to Follow on Twitter,” Darabi began her career as Manager of Digital Partnerships and Social Media at The New York Times.
While there, she positioned the Times on such networks as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter; partnered with startups large and small; established award-winning campaigns; and taught journalists and chief executives alike how to best use and leverage social media. Renowned Times columnist Nicholas Kristof credits Darabi as being “the only reason why he has [millions] of followers on Twitter.”
Following her tenure at the Times, Darabi served as product lead for drop.io, a real-time online sharing, collaboration, and presentation service recently acquired by Facebook, then helped found the mobile application Foodspotting. Today, Foodspotting boasts over two million downloads, was named by Apple and Wired as an app of the year, and was featured in Businessweek as a “Most Promising Startup.”
John Frankel
Partner, ff Venture Capital
John Frankel has been an early-stage venture investor since 1999. Mr. Frankel was one of the earliest investors in Quigo Technologies, which was purchased by AOL in December 2007, and in Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD on NASDAQ) which had a successful IPO in March 2011. He has also served and/or now serves on the boards of 500px, Apparel Media Group, Alerts.com, ClearPath Immigration, Infochimps, Klout, Patents.com, Phone.com, Quigo Technologies, StrongTech, The Goldman Sachs Trust Company, Track.com, and Voxy. He is also a Mentor with the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator program.
He worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. for 21 years in a variety of roles that involved technology development, re-engineering, and capital markets. In particular, he established Goldman’s Cayman offshore administration business, its London global custody business, and re-engineered its global prime brokerage business. In capital markets, he worked closely with some of the world’s leading hedge funds, and developed a keen understanding of portfolio risk/return management. He started his business career with Arthur Anderson & Co. in the audit and insolvency divisions.
Shana Fischer
Managing Partner, High Line Venture Partners
Shana Fisher is the Managing Partner of High Line Venture Partners, 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.
Chris Fralic
Managing Partner, First Round Capital
Chris Fralic is a Managing Partner at First Round Capital. He joined the firm in 2006 and is based in their New York office, and has focused on a number of the firm’s investments in areas such as Advertising Technology including Invite Media (acquired by Google) and Demdex (acquired by Adobe), Social Media including CoTweet (acquired by ExactTarget) and myYearbook (acquired by QuePasa), eCommerce, Gaming, Mobile and more. Chris has 25 years of technology industry experience, with significant Internet business development roles since 1996. Chris was VP of Business Development at social bookmarking and tagging company del.icio.us through the Yahoo! acquisition. Chris was also one of the early employees and VP of Business Development at Half.com starting in 1999, and after the eBay acquisition spent six years with eBay in a variety of entertainment, business development and media roles. Chris earned his BS in Finance from Villanova University and his MBA from St. Joseph’s University.
Pat Gallagher
General Partner, CrunchFund
Pat has 17 years of technology investing, operations and finance experience. Prior to starting CrunchFund, Pat was a Partner at VantagePoint. Before that Pat worked at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners. His experience cuts across many different IT sectors and stages and he has made dozens of initial and follow-on investments. Before joining Morgan Stanley, he held management roles at RealNames, an internet services company, and Toyota Motor Corporation. Pat is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College (BA).
Brad Garlinghouse
CEO, YouSendIt
Brad Garlinghouse joined YouSendIt in May 2012, and manages the company’s core operations, business growth strategy and key partnerships.
Brad believes that a truly successful company begins with its employees and the culture they build together as a team. Brad is focused on creating a winning culture at YouSendIt by constantly challenging the way people think and how they approach their day-to-day roles at the company.
Prior to coming to YouSendIt, Brad was President of Consumer Applications and head of AOL’s Silicon Valley operations, where he led the company’s efforts to expand the global reach of its communications products like, AOL Mail and AIM as well as reinvigorate the company’s mobile and social strategy. In addition, Brad was the West Coast lead for AOL Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm.
Jason Goldberg
Founder and CEO, Fab.com
Jason Goldberg is the founder and CEO of Fab.com. Fab is the fastest growing e-commerce site on the planet. Each day Fab features daily design inspirations and sales across all verticals at all price points. Prior to founding Fab, Jason was Chief Product Officer at XING AG and before then he was founder and CEO at socialmedian (sold to XING AG) and Jobster. In a prior life, Jason spent 6 years working 100 hours a week for Bill Clinton in the White House. Jason is also an investor in and Board Member at RJ Metrics. Notable prior investments: TweetDeck. Jason is a product guy. He loves to blog, loves transparency, and loves trying to make people smile. Jason authors the blog betashop.
Adrian Grenier
Founder, Churchkey Can Co.
Adrian Grenier is an actor, filmmaker, musician and social entrepreneur. A creative person with an entrepreneurial spirit, he is always searching for new projects, keeping an eye out for those ideas that challenge conventional wisdom and add positive values to our culture. While some never leave the idea phase, others–like Churchkey Can Co–prove to be spot on.
In search of a symbol for the craft and community lifestyle, Churchkey came forward as an opportunity to connect to the collective experience. Passionate about creating something from nothing, Adrian is dedicated to the value system based on hard work and giving that Churchkey offers. His ability to overcome obstacles by being bold and aggressive, while also knowing when to be delicate and graceful, make him a great asset to Churchkey Can Co.
Adrian grew up in Manhattan and now resides in Brooklyn – with plenty of travel in between. When not working on one of his many projects – including Churchkey Can Co. and SHFT.com – he can be found cooking and playing music, both of which offer him an escape, entertainment, and way to connect with friends and family.
Justin Hawkins
Co-Founder & Creative Director, Churchkey Can Co.
A passionate designer and fair weather artist from Portland, Justin Hawkins has worked as graphic designer for more than 10 years. With experience at creative Pacific Northwest companies such as Nike, Weiden & Kennedy and Peetkegler, Justin thrives on working with others to make interesting projects or products come to life.
On a mission to discover his passion in life, Justin developed a keen interest in business, branding and marketing. After three years of researching and brainstorming projects that might be worth quitting his job over, he stumbled into the opportunity to create Churchkey Can Co. With the endless opportunities for collaboration and connecting with the community, it was the perfect fit. Justin has spent almost his entire life in the Pacific Northwest. Originally from Salem, Oregon, Justin attended school in Seattle before settling in Portland where he’s been for the past 10 years. When not enjoying great beer and food at one of the many amazing restaurants in Portland, he can be found exploring the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest. He makes a point to get out of the city and connect with nature for at least a few hours every weekend.
MC Hammer
CSO & Co-Founder, DanceJam
MC Hammer is an American MC who brought rap music to a mass pop audience during the late 1980s and early 1990s, selling millions of copies of his chart topping albums. He is known for his important influence on hip hop culture and music. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Hammer released the patriotic album Active Duty on his own WorldHit label and donated portions of the proceeds to 9/11 charities. MC Hammer has a television show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Hammer is an advisor to the online video site for the dance community, Dance Jam.
Jennifer Hyman
CEO, Rent The Runway
Jennifer Hyman has been the Chief Executive Officer of Rent the Runway since the company’s inception in November 2009. She is responsible for all areas of the business including technology, fashion, sales, marketing, operations, customer service and team management.
Jennifer co-founded Rent the Runway with her Harvard Business School classmate Jennifer Fleiss. After receiving approximately $31 million in venture capital from Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, they quickly built the company to include over 2 million members, 120 employees and 160 designer brands.
Jeff Jordan
General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
Jeff is general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Jeff has been CEO and remains an active board member of OpenTable, which has transformed the restaurant industry with 20,000 restaurants and 200 million diners served. Before that, Jeff ran PayPal, the definitive online payments company of the Internet era, resulting in a business with 133 million user accounts and $38 billion of payment volume when he left. And before that, Jeff ran eBay North America for five years, where he helped build eBay into the Internet’s leading e-commerce company and led eBay’s successful and transformative acquisitions of PayPal and Half.com.
David Karp
CEO, Tumblr
David Karp is a high school dropout and the founder and CEO of Tumblr. Karp grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the son of Barbara Ackerman and Michael Karp. He attended The Calhoun School from 3rd to 8th grade, where his mother taught science, until high school when he briefly attended Bronx Science before dropping out at the age of 15 and being homeschooled. Karp began interning for animation producer Fred Seibert at 14, and from there went on to work as a software consultant for UrbanBaby, an online parenting forum. Karp left UrbanBaby in 2006 and began working on Tumblr later that year. The site launched early in 2007 and has since gained major traction on the Web.
Josh Kopelman is a venture capitalist and Managing Partner at First Round Capital. Previously, Kopelman founded Half.com, which was acquired by eBay in 2000. He remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay’s Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual sales. In late 2003 Kopelman helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world’s first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later. In 2001 Kopelman co-founded the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit grant fund for social entrepreneurs. He also serves as a member of the advisory boards for Wharton Entrepreneurial Center and the Weiss Tech House at the University of Pennsylvania.
David Lawee
VP Corporate Development, Google
David Lawee was named vice president of corporate development at Google in February 2008. Previously Lawee was vice president, Marketing, at Google. He had global responsibility for all Google marketing activities. His worldwide mandate encompassed product marketing, field marketing, customer analytics, creative and advertising, as well as directing all of Google’s regional marketing groups in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Initially hired to expand Corporate Development at Google, David brings significant entrepreneurial and general management experience to his role. David co-founded Xfire, a leading online gaming community, where he led product development, marketing and international business development. Within 2 years of launch, Xfire became the fastest growing Internet gaming site with over 5 million registered users. Xfire was sold to Viacom in early 2006.
David Lee is the Managing Member at SV Angel, where Ron Conway is a Special Partner. SV Angel focuses its investments on early-stage consumer media companies. He focuses on investments within the consumer Internet, mobile, video and other IT industries. Prior to SV Angel, he was at Google, where he led new business development efforts in video, media and content/data partnerships. After Google, he led all business development-related efforts for StumbleUpon.
John Lilly
Partner, Greylock Partners
John joined Greylock as a partner in 2011. Prior to Greylock, John was CEO of Mozilla, the organization behind Firefox, an open source Web browser used by more than 450 million people. John also co-founded Reactivity, an enterprise security infrastructure company acquired by Cisco in 2007, where he served as founding CEO and later CTO.
Earlier in his career, John held positions on the executive team at Trilogy Software and as a Senior Scientist in Apple’s research labs.
John is currently on the Board of Directors of Citrus Lane, Clearslide, Code for America, Mozilla Corporation, and the Participatory Culture Foundation. He is a board observer at Tumblr, and led Greylock’s investment in Dropbox. John previously served on the boards of directors of TripIt (acquired by Concur in 2011), CenterRun (acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2003), and Reactivity (acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007). John holds a BS in Computer Systems Engineering and an MS in Computer Science with a focus on Human Computer Interaction, both from Stanford University. He is currently a Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford’s d.school, and an adviser to the Stanford Technology Ventures Program as well as SSE Labs, an incubator at the University.
He is a co-inventor on seven United States patents.
Cyrus Massoumi
Founder & CEO, ZocDoc
Cyrus Massoumi is founder and CEO of ZocDoc, which he created in 2007 after rupturing an eardrum. Massoumi struggled for four painful days to find a doctor, and became convinced that a better healthcare system is possible. He has extensive experience in the healthcare-technology nexus, web commerce and management.
Prior to ZocDoc, Massoumi served as an Engagement Manager at the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he focused on healthcare and technology. Massoumi’s four-year tenure at McKinsey & Co. began soon after his 2003 graduation from Columbia University, where he earned an MBA and received the Heffernan Award for Outstanding Service.
Alexis Maybank
Founder & CSO, Gilt Groupe
Alexis has dedicated her career to building and launching innovative and compelling e-commerce experiences for consumers. In 2007, Alexis, along with a founding team, launched Gilt Groupe. She served as Gilt’s Founding CEO, and today she serves as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer.
Prior to founding Gilt Groupe, Alexis served as General Manager and Business Development Director for AOL’s e-commerce businesses. In 1998, she became an early member of the eBay team, where she helped launch the company’s first strategic planning group working for Founder Jeff Skoll, and later launched and ran eBay Canada, which grew to become Canada’s largest e-commerce business. She later helped found eBay Motors, which grew to over $2.5 billion in gross sales in its first two years and continues to be the largest category of goods sold on eBay today.
Marissa Mayer
VP, Google
As a VP at Google, Marissa Mayer leads 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 35 years old, she is also the youngest member of Google’s executive operating committee. During her 11 years at Google, Marissa has 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.
Greg McAdoo
Partner, Sequoia Capital
Greg McAdoo is a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital. Greg partners with IT systems, internet services, mobile and energy companies. Greg currently sits on the board of directors at Airbnb, Bump Technologies, Clustrix, Greplin, Imageshack, MeLLmo and Rock You and Songkick. Greg’s previous investments at Sequoia Capital include Isilon which was acquired by EMC.
Prior to Sequoia Capital, Greg was President and CEO of Sentient Networks (CSCO). Previously, Greg held senior engineering and executive level management positions at Cisco Systems, Sourcecom, Micom Communications and Datability Systems. (Source: Sequoia Capital)
Stephen Messer
Vice Chairman, Cross Commerce Media
Mr. Stephen Messer is Co-founder and Vice Chairman of Collective[i], a software-as-a-service business intelligence solution for marketers. The first decision-support technology to manage large sets of business and marketing data, Collective[i] provides the technology, analytics and collaboration functionality that CMOs and other business leaders need to gain a 360-degree view of their target audience, campaign performance and internal operations. Mr. Messer is Chairman of the Council for Accountable Advertising, an industry association for best-of-breed advertising technologies, and is Co-Founder and President of World Evolved, a platform for global investment and expansion. Prior to these ventures, Mr. Messer, along with his sister, Ms. Heidi Messer, founded, built and managed LinkShare Corporation until its sale in 2005 to Rakuten for $425m. Mr. Messer is recognized as an authority on entrepreneurship and online marketing. He is frequently cited in industry publications, has appeared on numerous national business programs and regularly speaks at industry events. Mr. Messer holds a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and a B.A. from Lafayette University.
Charlie O’Donnell
Founder, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures
Charlie O’Donnell founded Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, where he is a Partner. BBV is the first venture capital fund to be located in Brooklyn. The fund focuses on seed stage companies in and around the NYC area.
Charlie has been an active member of the NYC venture capital and startup community for ten years in roles ranging from institutional fund investor to venture capitalist to entrepreneur–with a little product management in between. He has venture experience at two of the top venture capital firms in the country, Union Square Ventures and First Round Capital, and sourced First Round’s Investment in GroupMe, which sold to Skype in 2011. The investments he sourced at First Round Capital also include Refinery29, chloe + isabel, Backupify, SinglePlatform, Salescrunch and Docracy.
Ron Palmeri
Founder, Prism Skylabs
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 Prism Skylabs, Ron is working to brings physical spaces online, creating new places for people and businesses to understand and engage each other.
Jonah Peretti
Founder & CEO, Buzzfeed
Jonah Peretti is Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, the first true social news organization that provides a pioneering mix of breaking news, entertainment and shareable content. Mr. Peretti, known for creating viral hits, tracking online social behavior and building technology to amplify buzz is also a co-founder of The Huffington Post. He has been called a “viral marketing hotdog” by the New York Times, “the poster boy of guerrilla media” by AlterNet and a “computer-whiz” by The New Yorker. Fast Company named Mr. Peretti one of the “New Faces of Social Media” and Business Insider listed him as one of the “11 Rising Tech Stars to Watch in 2012.”
Mr. Peretti is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab and has taught at NYU and the Parsons School of Design. His work has been covered by Time, the Economist, Fortune, and Business Insider and he has appeared as a guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America and CNN.
Shervin Pishevar
Managing Director, Menlo Ventures
Shervin Pishevar joined Menlo Ventures as a Managing Partner in 2011 after a successful career as an entrepreneur and angel investor. His focus is on consumer technology investments, specifically in the gaming, mobile and social web industry sectors. Shervin works closely with portfolio companies Uber, Shaker, Warby Parker and Mr. Number, and was the driving force behind Menlo’s investment in Tumblr. During his first few months at Menlo Ventures, Shervin helped launch the Menlo Talent Fund, a $20M seed fund that invests in innovative early stage deals within a 24 to 72 hour timeframe. Prior to joining Menlo Ventures, Shervin was the Chief Application Officer and General Manager at Mozilla Corporation. Shervin is a graduate of the University of California (BA, Interdisciplinary Studies Field Major), an author of several US patents, and has been published in JAMA and Neuroscience Letters.
Bre Pettis
CEO & Co-Founder, MakerBot
Bre Pettis makes things that make things. Passionate about invention, innovation, and all things DIY, Pettis builds infrastructure for creativity.
He is a founder of Makerbot, a company that produces robots that make things, and a founder of NYCResistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn.
Besides being a TV host and video podcast producer, he has created new media for Etsy.com, hosted Make’s podcast Weekend Projects, and has been a schoolteacher, artist, and puppeteer.
Keith Rabois
COO, Square
Keith Rabois is Chief Operating Officer at Square where he oversees the company’s business operations including marketing, communications, business development, distribution, human resources and risk management. Keith specializes in transforming early-stage startups into successful businesses and has deep expertise in the financial services industry and government affairs. An accomplished executive, entrepreneur and angel investor, Keith has held leadership roles at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide and began his career practicing law at Sullivan & Cromwell. Keith was an early investor in several high-profile Internet companies including YouTube and currently serves on the board of directors of Yelp and Xoom. Keith holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an undergraduate degree in political science from Stanford University.
Bijan Sabet
Partner, Spark Capital
Bijan Sabet has been a General Partner at Spark Capital since its inception in 2005. Bijan led Spark’s investments at Twitter, Tumblr, Boxee, Foursquare , Stack Exchange, ExFM, OMGPOP, and Bug Labs. He also led the investment in thePlatform (acquired by Comcast) and was on the board at Next New Networks (acquired by Google).
David Samuel
Co-founder, Freestyle Capital
David Samuel is serial entrepreneur, Internet pioneer, and an experienced executive with a proven ability to identify market trends and build companies from the ground up. He has repeated success providing significant investor ROI. Dave has specialized in software & media since 1994. His success comes as a result of his strong technical background, ability to manage large teams, and adept leadership to adjust company direction while navigating through volatile or unchartered markets.
MG Siegler
General Partner, CrunchFund / Columnist, TechCrunch
MG Siegler is a general partner at CrunchFund and a columnist for TechCrunch, where he has been writing since 2009. His focus is on Apple. Prior to TechCrunch, MG covered various technology beats for VentureBeat.
Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where he worked in web development. He also writes at his own blog, ParisLemon, and tweets a lot. He now lives in San Francisco.
Ryan Sowards
CEO, Churchkey Can Co.
An expert in his field, Ryan Sowards joined the team with more than 15 years of experience in the beverage industry. With past roles including sales and marketing for companies such as Red Bull and vitaminwater, it’s his passion for cultivating business that makes him as asset to the team.
Known for his ability to pull resources and teams together, Ryan was an early adopter of the Churchkey concept and finds himself passionate about the brand because of how unique it is. With no boundaries, plus a creative and exciting team, there are new challenges and new experiences to be had every day – and never a dull moment.
Ryan, who grew up in Seattle and still considers it home, now lives in Pleasanton, California. For him, the perfect Sunday is a combination of his kids and recreation– maybe the park and a hike, rounded out by a delicious dinner on the grill.
Sarah Tavel
VP, Bessemer
Sarah Tavel, a vice president in the Menlo Park office, joined Bessemer in 2006. She focuses on the software and Internet sectors and has been closely involved in investments with consumer internet company Pinterest; Microsoft SharePoint migration solutions provider Metalogix; leads-generator Yodle; learning-and-talent-management company Cornerstone OnDemand (IPO); e-commerce site Onestop; energy-management company CPower (acquired by Constellation Energy); SaaS online-marketing company Convertro; business-software company MindBody Solutions; and leading Russian e-commerce company KupiVIP. Sarah also works with Bessemer company eEye Digital Security and worked with Quidsi (operator of Diapers.com and Soap.com), acquired by Amazon.com, security software company Intego, and classifieds-provider OLX, acquired by Naspers.
Spencer Wang
Managing Director & Head of US Media & Internet Equity Research, Credit Suisse
Spencer Wang joined Credit Suisse in August of 2008 as Managing Director and Head of US Media & Internet Equity Research. In this role, Mr. Wang is the senior analyst covering the Internet & Entertainment sectors and, as Sector Head, oversees a team of 12 research professionals across Media, Internet, and Telecom. He has been named to Institutional Investor’s prestigious All-America Research Team for the past eight consecutive years in multiple different categories including Entertainment, Internet, Cable/Satellite TV, and Broadcasting. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Mr. Wang has worked in a similar capacity at numerous leading investment banks including Bear Stearns, JPMorgan, and Salomon Smith Barney. Mr. Wang holds a B.S. in International Trade from Johns Hopkins University.
Fred Wilson
Partner, Union Square Ventures
Fred Wilson began his career in venture capital in 1987. He has focused exclusively on information technology investments for the past 17 years. In 1996, Fred co-founded Flatiron Partners. While at Flatiron, Fred was responsible for 14 investments including, ITXC, Patagon, Starmedia, TheStreet.com and Yoyodyne. Fred currently serves on the boards of Alacra, Comscore, iBiquity, Return Path, Instant Information and Tacoda Systems.
Michelle Zatlyn
Co-Founder & Head of User Experience, CloudFlare, Inc.
Michelle is the co-founder and Head of User Experience at CloudFlare, Inc. Michelle creates products people love. Growing up in Canada, she earned a degree in Chemistry and now applies the scientific method to improving businesses. Prior to CloudFlare, she worked at Google and Toshiba, launched two successful startups and got her MBA from Harvard Business School.
Michelle holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a minor in Management, with Distinction, from McGill University. She also holds her MBA from Harvard Business School and was awarded the Dubliner Prize for Entrepreneurship.