Experienced Investors on Judging Panels

Dave Berkus

Dave Berkus has a well-established track record in operations, venture investing and corporate board service, both public and private. As an entrepreneur, he has formed, managed and sold successful businesses in the entertainment and software arenas. As a private equity investor, he has obtained healthy returns from over twenty-five liquidity events from investments in early-stage ventures. He acts as CEO coach and advisory board member to a number of technology companies, both public and private.

Dave is current or recent Board Chairman or board member for numerous public and private technology companies. Active in a total of over forty companies, he was recognized as “Director of the Year” by the Orange County-based Forum for Corporate Directors, and “Technology Leader of the Year” by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Dave is co-author of fourteen books for entrepreneurs, investors and corporate boards. He speaks of his lessons learned and those of “his” entrepreneurs in keynotes worldwide.

He has made over 197 investments in early stage ventures, for which he has an IRR of 105%, and manages six early stage funds, including Berkus Technology Ventures, LLC, Kodiak Ventures, L.P., Wayfare Ventures LLC, and three Tech Coast Angels ACE Funds, where Dave is also Chairman Emeritus of TCA.

Dave serves as a Trustee of Occidental College, where he is Vice Chair of the Board. He is often engaged as keynote speaker for events worldwide, speaking on trends in technology and of success factors for early stage companies.

Richard Sudek

Richard Sudek, Ph.D. is UCI’s Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director of UCI Applied Innovation.

Sudek earned a Ph.D. in management and master’s degrees in business administration and organizational behavior at Claremont Graduate University. His research focuses on the angel investment decision process, examining how and why angel investors choose their investments.

Sudek received a B.S. in Information and Computer Sciences from UCI in 1981. He founded Nadek Computer Systems, a data networking design business and served as its CEO for 17 years. In 1999, he sold the company to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), an international firm and was a vice president at SAIC before pursuing his academic career.

Universities and businesses throughout the world have benefited from Sudek’s expertise in entrepreneurial finance, strategy and leadership, as well as angel investing, executive coaching and business partnerships. He has served as an advisor to several MBA programs, served as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation, and has judged business plan competitions in the U.S. and Europe. He has taught entrepreneurship at Chapman University, INSEAD in France, the Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, and the Peter F. Drucker & Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. He also has served on advisory committees for Microsoft, IBM, Novell and Cisco.

Sudek has been an active angel investor through direct investment and angel funds in over 100 startup companies since 2000. He has served on the Angel Capital Association board, a national trade group, and is Chairman Emeritus of Tech Coast Angels (TCA), the largest angel organization in the U.S. investing $235+ million in over 400 startup companies. In addition, these companies have attracted over $1.8 billion in follow on investments. Through TCA, Sudek has screened over 1,000 startup companies. Sudek currently sits on the TCA Board of Governors, as well as boards of engineering and high-tech firms. 

Fred Haney

Dr. Fred Haney is the founder and President of the Venture Management Co., a firm that provides startup guidance to high tech companies. He is the author of “The Fundable Startup: How Disruptive Companies Attract Capital,” published on February 6, 2018, by Select Books of New York.
Other accomplishments include: 1) Founder, Monday Club, a 1000-member mentoring network (MondayClub.com) that has helped hundreds of startups raise capital; 2) Co-founder, Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest angel investor groups in the U.S.; 3) Founder and manager of 3i Ventures, California, a venture capital fund that was the largest fund in Southern California in the 1980s and that invested $80 million in 60 companies and produced 19 public companies and highly profitable, top quartile returns.
Dr. Haney has been a co-founder of five startup companies, including: NovaDigm Therapeutics, the first fungal vaccine tested in humans; DRC Computer, the most powerful gene sequencing computer in the world; NMR Finder, an artificial intelligence nuclear magnetic resonance imaging accelerator.
He served as a director of Orange County’s Parcel Pending, leading supplier of kiosk-based locker systems for package delivery, which was acquired in January, 2019, for over $100 million.
He served on the Board of Directors of Rainbow Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNBO), a provider of digital security products, until it was acquired by Safenet, Inc. in 2003 for $457 Million.
He has been a director of over 30 high-tech companies.
In 1999, Dr. Haney was selected “Mentor/Angel of the Year” by the American Electronics Association in Orange County.  In 2002, he was named “Director of the Year for Early Stage Companies” by the Forum for Corporate Directors.
Before 1983, Haney held senior management positions with Xerox, CSC, and TRW.
He earned a Ph.D. degree in Computer Sciences from Carnegie-Mellon University, an M.S. in Mathematics from Colorado State University, and a B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Jeff Bocan

Jeff Bocan is a Partner at Okapi Venture Capital. Jeff is an 18-year veteran venture capitalist and executive in the technology industry, and serves as the deal lead for Okapi on several deals including: WhiteFox Defense Technologies, TrackStreet, CloudKeyz, Nimble for Good, CLI Studios, Daasity and Trellis Research.

Prior to joining Okapi, Jeff served on the executive team for 3+ years of one of his portfolio companies as the Senior Vice President of Mophie, helping drive revenues to $250+M and a successful exit. Prior to joining Mophie, Jeff was a venture capitalist for 13+ years, last serving as a Managing Director at Beringea where he sourced, led, or managed the investments for 35 of Beringea’s portfolio companies and served on 22 boards including: Mophie, eSpotting, MergerMarket, Steak Digital, Sakti3, amongst others. Jeff has also been an active angel investor with several successful exits, with the most notable as one of two angels in Duo Security (acquired by Cisco for $2.4 Billion).

Jeff earned undergrad and MBA degrees from University of Notre Dame, the University of Virginia, respectively.

David Friedman

David Friedman is a tech-savvy marketing and business executive and angel investor with more than 30 years’ expertise in bringing to market new technology. His passion is innovation and commercializing technology to meet the needs of customers. He is currently President, TechCoastAngels OC.
During his career he has commercialized more than $1.5 billion in new products. He has helped companies build top line revenue growth and EBITDA while mentoring the next generation of business leaders. David has been CMO for Narus, a cyber company, executive vice president and Chief Marketing Officer for ATX Group (now Sirius Connected Car), and VP of Marketing and Direct Sales for Connexion by Boeing.
Friedman holds an MBA (economics) from George Washington University, an MSEE degree from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering (summa cum laude) from City College of New York.

Grant Van Cleve

Grant, the Chairman of the prestigious Tech Coast Angels, is involved in 74 start-ups, serving as a board member or formal advisor in a quarter of those. He is also Managing Partner of Hangar 75 Ventures. Grant has served as CEO and Executive Chairman of portfolio company, Buy It Installed, Inc, which uses artificial empathy to automate the installed-sales process, allowing any manufacturer or retailer to bundle national installation at the point of sale. Alongside SoCal startups, Grant also does real estate development locally and in Eastern Europe, and clean-tech and education projects globally. Grant pours time into catalyzing the entrepreneurial ecosystem locally and in the developing world, and can be found in leadership roles in his church and in local politics. He returned to CA in 2010 after studies at Wharton followed by 19 years in Europe. Grant is regularly on the OC50 list of top influencers in Orange County, CA.

Jim Pickell

Jim Pickell is the chair of Tech Coast Angels OC Fund. He’s spent the last decade building scalable, hyper-growth, innovative businesses, across modular building (using shipping containers to build schools and affordable housing), HomeExchange.com (allowing people to put vacant homes to use while saving on travel) and OpenEnglish.com, Latin America’s leading language school. As SVP at Sony he helped forge new business models for film, music and games. Jim started as an attorney focused on M&A, but ultimately sought to collaborate with like-minded thinkers and influence positive change. He holds degrees from UC Berkeley, Loyola Law School, and Anderson business school.

Thomas Lee

Dr. Thomas Lee, M.D., M.B.A.: Dr. Lee is the Chair of the Medical and Life Sciences Committee for the Orange County chapter of Tech Coast Angels (TCA). He has been the deal lead for several of Tech Coast Angels’ medical and life sciences companies and also heads the medical/life sciences prescreen process for TCA-OC. Dr. Lee is a practicing anesthesiologist in Orange County, California with interests in neurosurgical and trauma anesthesia. He has recently taken a keen interest in the burgeoning field of aesthetic and regenerative medicine and will soon be opening the Jade Phoenix Aesthetic Medicine Medical Spa to put into practice what he has learned. Moreover, Dr. Lee has published works in the medicinal natural products research space and is heavily involved with the medical, pharmaceutical, and medical device startup community in Orange County.

Patrick Flynn

Patrick Flynn is an investor and advisor focused on understanding market opportunities, identifying solutions and helping develop teams to build and grow businesses. Success requires an instinct for spotting value and opportunity and seeing this in people, technology, an innovative product or an opening in the marketplace. Patrick has deep experience in customer relationships, product development and lean manufacturing. Bringing people together who thrive on challenge is the common thread in these accomplishments.

Girard Miller

Girard Miller is a seasoned expert investor and corporate executive, now active as an angel investor in the Southern California venture capital marketplace. He is an active member of Tech Coast Angels. Having begun his career in the public sector, Girard has led investment and business teams over three decades years in the executive capacity of CIO, CEO and COO at three major national investment management companies. In 2019 he authored Enlightened Public Finance to encourage fiscal literacy. Girard has been qualified previously as a Sarbanes-Oxley financial expert and as a federal court expert witness on pension finance and investments. He is an MPA graduate of the Maxwell School of Public Affairs, Syracuse University, and a MA Economics graduate of Wayne State University with a BA degree from the University of Washington, Seattle. Now writing a biweekly public finance column for Governing.com, Girard is a retired CFA charterholder.

Steven Mednick

Steven Mednick is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business and is an expert in entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, strategic alliances and angel funding. He is the past Associate Director of Marshall’s Center for Global Innovation and Academic Director, Graduate Programs, Lloyd Greif Center, and is an author and frequent speaker and writer in the field. Professor Mednick currently teaches in the Marshall MBA, EMBA and Master of Medical Management programs and is a two-time winner of the Marshall Golden Apple teaching award. Education: JD, MPA, University of Southern California; BA, UCLA.

Outside of USC, he has advised over 1400 early stage companies through his thirteen-year relationship with the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers. Steve’s clients have reported over $750 million in economic impact to the SBA, and he has been awarded the SBA’s State Star for outstanding performance. Steve is also a member of Tech Coast Angels, Orange County.

During the “dot com” era, Mednick established the corporate ventures office for a $2.3 billion global computer hardware company in Silicon Valley where he contributed $100 million+ in new revenue through investments, strategic sales and alliances.

In the mid 1990s, Mednick launched and ran a new division of publicly traded healthcare company wherein the division became cash flow positive within twelve months and established a new distribution channel of over 100 partners.

In 1990 he joined a very early stage data services company in Orange County as Vice President of Sales & Marketing and General Counsel. Within 30 months, revenues grew 945% without outside capital, marketing and sales expanded nationwide, a number of key strategic partners were established and venture capital funding was secured positioning the company for eventual purchase.

Volker Huther

Volker Hüther, a trilingual German, with a passion which goes far beyond numbers, who always strives to be the catalyst for improvement in any situation. Volker started his career in Investment Banking. He then ventured into the Life Science sector and the Health Care Industry before founding his personal corporation, Hüther Consulting, which focuses on change management.

With over thirty years of experience in enterprises ranging from Startups to Fortune 500 companies, he possesses the know-how needed to provide council to a broad spectrum of businesses. He is a member of the Harvard Alumni Association (both in the US and Germany), the Senate of Economy, Device Alliance, the Greater Irvine Chamber, OCRA, Pacific Council on International Affairs, Tech Coast Angels and PCA Orange County.

Phil Gill

Phillip Gill served as CTO for The Gill Corp, privately owned, developing sustainable competitive advantages that still exists. He also ran sales and operations. Gill grew from $1M to $24M over the 25 years. We manufactured advanced composites, notably aircraft flooring for large commercial jets.
As CEO of Royal Engineered Composites, we made advanced graphite/epoxy composites for aircraft, both military and commercial. He Grew the company from $0.6M to $24M with no outside investors and for 20 years no bank loans. This limited growth but that was how I understood business.

Phillip turned around a manufacturer of aluminum honeycomb for aircraft in Maryland, to be close to daughter who had breast cancer while pregnant.

Phillip Gill has B.S. in Chemical Engineering. He is an expert in advanced composite manufacturing. He is an active angel investor with Tech Coast Angels.

Eelco Niermeijer

Eelco is a partner at B2B CFO, the nation’s largest CFO firm and is an angel investor. He was the CFO for a mountain bike manufacturing company with global sales and production. Prior he was the CFO and member of the Board of Element Materials Technology, a Private Equity owned group of 30 materials testing laboratories in the US and Western Europe. Prior to joining Element, Eelco worked as a controller for several operating companies of the Stork Group in finance and accounting positions serving the Chemical, Oil & Gas and Infrastructural sectors in Europe. Eelco has a master degree in Business Economics.

Hans Imhof

He also is a Board Member of the University of California, Irvine Innovation Board and Manager of The UCI Cove Fund. (A Fund to create Companies from UCI patents and Technologies).

He currently is a member of Vistage in Orange County. Past board member of two public electronics companies and a member of Tee Coast Angels since 2008. At the present time he is on the board of six companies.

Xandra Laskowski

Xandra Laskowski is a startup advisor with over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience with large
multinational tech companies as well as startups as founder, investor, advisor and board member. She has
held positions as Worldwide Commodity Manager and National Major Accounts managerial roles before
moving into the Angel Investment and startup worlds. She founded OSEA Angel Investors in 2017, a
woman focused angel investment group based at the UCI Cove, University of Irvine, California. OSEA
Angel Investors is an investment partner with Tech Coast Angels, Titan Angels (CSUF) Angel
Syndication Network and Family Office Networks. Through Xolas, Ms. Laskowski provides startup
consulting assisting entrepreneurs in producing their “Startup Roadmap”.

In 2019 Ms. Laskowski was included in the Orange County Business Journal OC 500 Directory of
Influence for Innovation and in February 2020 was nominated to the Orange County Business Journal
Woman in Business Awards. In March 2020 Ms. Laskowski was nominated as a Women of Influence
Awards finalist for the Gamechanger Award.

Ken Hubbard

After running a successful angel investment network for over 5 years, he developed Pitch Pro, to improve the success of fundraising entrepreneurs. The unique program, improved fundraising by 6-fold. It includes video coaching, pitch pitfalls, and investor insights (www.pitchproceo.com). He also has investments in medical device, streaming video, team recruiting as well as brick and mortar companies.

Mr. Hubbard started his entrepreneurial career in 1988 with the launch of Kenne Sport. He successfully exited in 1991 going on to work for some of the fastest growing and global tech companies in California. His focus recently has been on guidance for CEO’s on all aspects of company governance, capital structures and financial strategies to streamline corporate fundraising.

Scott Fox

Scott Fox is a serial Internet entrepreneur, best-selling author, startup ecosystem evangelist, and angel investor. After early careers as an investment banker and attorney, he has founded, worked for, invested in, or coached hundreds of startup ventures. An advocate for early stage entrepreneurs, Scott has also written 3 best-selling books to help first-time entrepreneurs get started, including the classics Internet Riches (2006) and Click Millionaires (2012). Today he invests through Tech Coast Angels, is the OC chapter Chairman of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, and also serves as CEO of the Startup Council, a community service association dedicated to accelerating tech startup company success in Orange County, California. Learn about how the OCSC’s monthly MasterMinds Startup Accelerator Workshops for founders can help your startup with fundraising at http://MasterMindsWorkshops.com, and join the Startup Council for publicity at http://StartupCouncil.org.

Bob Warshawer

Currently:
Investor, father of 7 kids, 9 grandkids, and 1 great grandkid. Happily married. Love boating.

Work History:
General Redneck – furniture maker, welder, logger
Owned and operated Waterworks drilling company
Founder of Application Group (human resources consultants and Peoplesoft implementations) & Application Resources (contract technical resources). Sold to ADP and Renaissance) in 1993. San Francisco California
Founder of Black Rock Cable (fiber optic utility). Sold to Wave Broadband in 2013. Bellingham Washington
Major investor in Optic Zoo Networks (fiber optic utility). Sold to Zayo in 2018. Vancouver Canada

Mike Krebs

I started my professional life as an auditor with a public accounting firm in Chicago. While I had good passion for my fellow auditors (I married one) I had no passion for accounting. I returned to school for an MBA and a career switch. This led me to 25 years in the west coast auto industry working for 2 OEM’s in product development and operations.

The background I bring to angel investing is quite broad – from accounting to product development through product launch. I discovered angel investing when someone showed me a deal sheet for the Pasadena Angels. To me the deal sheet was a menu of exciting (mostly) ideas and interesting founders. I had my application in to join the Pasadena Angels that evening and am currently invested in 7 different start-ups.

I especially enjoy meeting entrepreneurs and learning about companies through pitch events. I’m looking forward to meeting you all someday in person.

Mike Napoli

Mike Napoli has been mentoring and investing early stage companies since 1997. He has been a member of the Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel investor network in the U.S., since 2000. He currently is the President of the Tech Coast Angels Inland Empire Network and serves on the Tech Coast Angels Board of Governors.
Mike was the Chief Investment Officer and head of Wilshire Associate’s Hedge Funds Group and Funds Management Division. In this role, he worked with large institutional investors in the implementation and monitoring of equity, fixed income and alternative investment programs.  Mike was a member of
Wilshire’s Board of Directors, Chairman of Wilshire Mutual Funds and a Director of the Wilshire Emerging Markets Institute. In the 1970’s and 80’s Mike held senior positions with Bankers Trust Company and Drexel Burnham Lambert. In 2008 Mike founded Performing Arts LIVE, a community service promoting performing arts events in Southern California. He is the Executive Director at Performing Arts LIVE and advises numerous Performing Arts organizations on a variety of strategic and marketing issues.

Jiri Modry

Active Angel investor. Career spans Multiple CEO & Senior Sales Positions. Successful Entrepreneur as well as Accomplished Senior Corporate Executive (General Electric). Board Member, Advisor and Investor in several companies in Diverse Industries.
Extensive Experience in Hi-Tech, both Domestic and International, driving High Growth through Focus on Market Disrupting Innovation. Several Startups and Turn-Arounds, with several High Multiple Exits. Operational experience range – startup companies, mid-size companies, as well as GE Security with $2B in revenue.
Interests: Angel investing, with focus on Due Diligence and Post investment engagement – as an advisor or board member.

Jeff Koenig

Jeff Koenig owns Open 4 Business, providing fractional CEO and CFO strategic planning services to small businesses from pre-launch to exit. With his own outside-the-box methods and tools, Jeff offers an executive education program and lab series in strategic financial planning to expert COOs who need help rounding out their CEO and CFO skills. Jeff also prolifically invests in alternative asset classes including angel capital and institutional real estate with a portfolio of investments spanning many States, GPs and angel groups. On the board of the Desert Angels and two committees of the Angel Capital Association, Jeff enjoys screening, due diligence and process re-engineering with a desire to help the next generation of investors spot investable companies. Jeff advocates as a Trustee of the National Small Business Association and on the National Regulatory Fairness Board. With what time is left, Jeff practices risk assessment as a technical mountain biker.

Scott Lopez

Scott Lopez is a Senior Vice President and Private Client Advisor at Bank of America Private Bank in Orange County, CA. He has more than 25 years of business, leadership and management experience, working with business owners, individuals and their families.

Scott began his career at the Private Bank in 2018. He is part of a collaborative team that strives to help high net-worth clients manage the complexities of their wealth and legacy planning, and to develop an integrated wealth strategy tailored specifically for their goals and aspirations. Scott can also offer clients access to banking, credit and lending opportunities from Bank of America, N.A.

Prior to joining Bank of America Private Bank, he served as Managing Director at Primary Capital LLC, providing him with experience and insight into investment banking and the public markets, as well as working with high net-worth investors, venture capitalists, private equity and family offices. Early in his career, he served as a Fighter Pilot and Public Affairs Officer in the United States Marine Corps.

Scott obtained an M.B.A. from The Thunderbird School of Global Management. Scott is an active member of OCTANe, Executive Next Practices and Disabled American Veterans.

Matt Kelliher

Matt is an acknowledged entrepreneur and innovator in global healthcare, with over 30 years of experience improving health care systems at public and private insurers, academic medical centers, community hospitals and medical group practices worldwide. He has been a frequent university lecturer, author of many innovative papers on the future of healthcare and co-author of the acclaimed book “Status One: Breakthroughs in High Risk Population Health Management”.

Matt is currently an executive advisor and investor in Omada Health, one of the fastest growing digital health startups, based in the Bay Area. In 1997 he founded StatusOne Health Systems in Boston. StatusOne was the first remote SaS, licensing an internet application for B2B and was acquired in 2003 by Healthways Inc. In addition, Matt has held senior leadership positions at Healthways, UCSD, Harvard Health and BCBS. He is a native of Massachusetts and enjoys the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics. He now lives in Dana Point.

Barry Easterling

Barry (Bear) has been a Medical Device company leader, proven strategist, and tactician with a 30 year track record of success driving company or division sales and profits to the next level. He is an active Angel Investor and member of Tech Coast Angels (TCA). Barry is on the TCA Orange County MedTech Device Committee. While being a successful serial entrepreneur he concurrently was a decorated Army Aviator Company Commander of an Air Assault unit in the Ohio Army National Guard. In addition to being an Army Helicopter pilot he also wears the Air Assault and Airborne badges along with many other prestigious awards as an Army Officer. Barry has had several successful exits in his career. His most successful exit was American Table Manufacturing to STERIS. From scratch his company designed, engineered and manufactured the most sophisticated minimally invasive carbon fiber surgical table in the world. He accomplished that along with being awarded 3 patents, UL, CE mark, FDA 510k all within a 3 year time frame from start to exit. STERIS is a 2.5 Billion dollar leading medical manufacturer. He achieved this with an exceptional multiple. He donates a lot of his time to mentoring startups and early stage businesses in addition to Angel Investing.

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Eric Hsiao

Eric is an active Angel investor and Entrepreneur at heart. He has been a member of Tech Coast Angels Orange County for 5 years. He is part of TCA Executive Committee and Sponsorship Chair for the TCA Orange County Chapter.

Eric also has over 25 years of banking, lending, financial services, and investment experience working with individuals, families, business owners, institutions and/or private equity firms throughout the nation. Eric has held several management and leadership positions with many financial banking institutions throughout his career. Eric spent part of his career managing and leading M&A, business, real estate, and/or construction financing transactions in the franchise restaurant and c-store/gas industries with CitiCapital, Merrill Lynch Capital, and GE Capital. Eric was part of the leadership team that started a successful line of business amassing over $1.5 Billion in assets for a large banking financial institution, which was subsequently acquired by another large institution within 3-years.

Currently, Eric is a Sr. Banker with BNY Mellon Wealth Management working with clients on their wealth plan and reaching their long-term financial, estate, and legacy goals through investments and lending.

Eric also serves on the Board, Treasurer, and Chair of the Finance Committee for Irvine Public Schools Foundation. Eric has a BA from UCLA in Psychology and Business Administration.

John Pollara

John has actively supported his community through his dedication and involvement as a member of the Whittier City Personnel Board, Whittier Host Lions Club, Whittier Citizens for Responsible Government, Skills for Adolescence Foundation, The Whittier College Board of Visitors and the California Poly University School of Business Leadership Board. He was named to Cal Poly’s Accounting Hall of Fame in 1995 and was named the Distinguished Alumnus of the College of Business Administration for 1999.

He has also served as a director of the National Bank of Whittier and McFarland Energy, both publicly traded Corporations.

He is a former International Chair of the Institute of Management Accountants and continues to serve on its Board of Directors.

He is currently an active member of The Orange County Tech Coast Angels.

Kathie Priebe

She is co-founder of the MIT–Stanford Venture Lab which is now VLab and the Wyoming Women’s Foundation which invests in the economic self-sufficiency of women and opportunities for girls. Kathie is an active philanthropic investor.

Michael Lynch

For over 35 years Michael was a full member of the Urban Land Institute and served on an Advisory Board associated with American Homes for Rent, a real estate investment trust. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Mt. St. Mary’s College and a Master of Architecture from Virginia Tech. Additionally, he is a trail runner in Angeles National Forest, plays tennis, is a student of modern European history and enjoys traveling with his wife, Beth.

Sanjay Shrivastava

Dr. Sanjay Shrivastava is an entrepreneur, investor, and a corporate executive in the field of medical devices. He has been involved in developing, commercializing, evaluating, and acquiring medical devices for the past 20 years. After holding leadership positions in R&D, business development, and marketing at Medtronic, Abbott Vascular, Edwards Lifesciences, and BTG, plc, he cofounded BlackSwan Vascular–a funded medical device startup company, where he serves on the board of directors. Sanjay also serves as a member of the board of directors at Hancock Jaffe Laboratories, Inc., which is a Nasdaq traded medical device company based in Irvine, CA. In addition, Sanjay currently works as a director, business development at Johnson & Johnson in its cardiovascular group of companies. He is also a part of the Tech Coast Angels and TIE Angels groups.

Sanjay serviced as a vice president, upstream marketing and strategy at BTG, plc, when it was a $800MM revenue company traded at London stock exchange. BTG was later acquired by Boston Scientific. As a director, global marketing at Medtronic, he was instrumental in starting and building its vascular embolization business. Prior to that, he was a director, R&D, where he led the development of Solitaire FR clot retriever for treating acute ischemic stroke through its CE mark and IDE approval for the US clinical trial SWIFT. He also led R&D teams for various stents and other interventional products through their FDA clearances and approvals. Sanjay holds 30 issued US patents and numerous International patents in medical devices and has edited two books including one titled “Medical Device Materials” published by ASM International. He was named among 100 Notable People in Medical Device Industry by the prestigious MD&DI (Medical Devices and Diagnostics Industry) magazine. He has been an invited speaker at clinical, business, and engineering conferences to speak about medical device innovation and commercialization. Sanjay holds a doctorate in materials science and engineering from the University of Florida and a bachelor’s from the Indian Institute of Technology. He resides in Southern California with his wife and two children.

Lawrence Jordan

His working career included business development and corporate management positions of various startups primarily in IT. Those roles included VP and CEO roles in public companies that achieved up to $billion dollar market caps.

In addition to the Tech Coast Angels, Mr. Jordan is Director Emeritus of the Forum for Corporate Directors, and has served on the Advisory Boards of the UC Irvine Schools of Art and Computer Science. He has also served as Coach, mentor and judge at Loyola Marymount University EMBA and the UCI MBA programs. He continues as judge for the UCLA Anderson School Global Access Program.

Mr. Jordan received a BS Economics from Arizona State University. He also holds a certification from the Directors Institute UCLA.

David McNeil

David is widely known as a Renaissance Man due to his varied interests. He is a former executive of United Artists Entertainment and is in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Industry & Finance as one of the original developers of the Pay-Per-View television concept.

David was also Executive Producer for a full-length feature film, THE BIG DAY.

Executive Producer of a number to TV shows: FACETStelevision, EyeOnBusiness, The Judge’s Chambers, Orange County Most Wanted, Innovation, The Berkus Report, Street-savvy Business, Ask Dino Show, EyeOn Entertainment

David’s passion for photography has expanded his photography resume’ to include:

The OSCARS, Supermodels Grammy Party, Night of 100 Stars, Music Videos; Book Covers; Model Portfolios, TEDx conferences, Movie Set Stills, Custom Product Shots,. And, of course, Landscapes & Exotic People.

David’s video work has been seen on ACCESS HOLLYWOOD, FOX, PBS, TED and GOOD DAY LA.

David has been an active investor in the fields of Insurance, Digital Media, Social and Finance. His investments are directly with private parties or via Tech Coast Angels.

Ronald Weissman

Today, Ron advises financial and corporate venture funds, national and regional governments and G2000 corporate innovation programs. He is a frequent conference speaker and advisor on startup ecosystems, entrepreneurship, venture and angel capital trends, AI, startup governance, term sheets and valuation, M&A and other aspects of venture and corporate investing. He has advised governmental and private organizations in Emilia-Romagna (Italy), Armenia, Chile, Israel and the Republic of Georgia as well as the US White House on developing effective startup ecosystems. He lectures regularly at Stanford, the University of Santa Clara and other universities in the US and abroad on venture and angel capital trends.

Prior to Apax, he directed Marketing (CMO) and Investor Relations at Verity (enterprise knowledge retrieval), which won “Large Cap Turnaround of the Year” from the Turnaround Management Association) after the company increased its market cap from $50M to nearly $2B and gained top market share. Before Verity, he directed Strategic Marketing and European Marketing for NeXT, reporting to Steve Jobs. Prior to NeXT, Ron consulted for federal agencies on IT strategy and served on the faculty of the University of Maryland, first, as Associate Professor (History) and then as head of Academic Computing, and then directed academic computing at Brown University before leaving the academy join Steve Jobs at NeXT.

Ron invests in enterprise software, analytics, AI and health IT. He has led or co-led dozens of investments, has led M&A deals and secondary public offerings. His current passion is outreach to angels and entrepreneurs at startup hubs worldwide.

He is a former Fulbright Scholar and received his BA, MA and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley.

Tunde Oshinowo

He helps manage the Fund’s investments in Verata, ID Experts, and Payfone. Prior to BVF, Tunde was an associate at Abundant Venture Partners, where he focused on digital health and senior care. Tunde started his career in digital product design at Next College Student Athlete, the largest athletic recruiting network in the US.

Tunde holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. An NFL alumni, Tunde also played professional football for four years following his time at Stanford University, where he received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering.

Greg Woodson

Greg is a global consumer packaged goods marketing professional and spent 36 years with the Colgate Palmolive Company. He held management positions in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia. From his last overseas posting as Vice President Asia Business Development in Hong Kong, Greg was promoted to President Global Fabric Care at Colgate Palmolive’s NYC headquarters and later promoted to President Global Home Care. Greg’s keys to profitable growth: assessing the competitive landscape, consumer insights leading to relevant new product innovations, focus on pricing/margins, building brands, speed to market and developing winning teams. Greg also restructured several businesses and led numerous M&A initiatives.

Greg lives in Lake Tahoe, serves on the Sierra Angel’s Executive Committee and is an active investor. He is on the USC Marshall Business School Dean’s Advisory Board and is Chairman Emeritus of an Educational Foundation. In addition to skiing, Greg enjoys coaching executives, businesses and startups.

Jonathan Hung

Jonathan has experience running U.S. and China offices as the President of United Overseas Textile Corporation. An international clothing manufacturing and textile business that was started by his father in 1996. UOTC specializes in designing and manufacturing apparel in partnership with retailers such as Amazon, Burlington, and Costco. In addition, he was the Managing Member for his family office fund, J Heart Ventures, which made investments in startup companies such as Gyft, ChowNow, Miso Robotics, Clover Health, Bitmain, etc.

Jonathan has also worked at Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Cummins.

He holds various degrees from the University of Southern California, London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Shane Kelly

As a tech investor in California, he backed founders including Rachel Payne (FEM, Acquired by Nielsen Gracenote), Shane Hegde (Air), and Ramses Alcaide (Neurable).

In total, Shane has invested in 20+ tech startups and participated in financing 20+ feature films. He has spoken on venture investing and human and machine bias to organizations including Female Founders Alliance, F50, Google Developers, and Startup Runway.

An active member of the tech startup community, Shane has served as Entrepreneur in Residence for Techstars Los Angeles, Advisor for Plug In South LA, and Mentor for programs including Backstage Capital and Nex3.

Shane holds an MBA with distinction from University of Michigan and a BS cum laude from Morehouse College.

Quan Nguyen

Quan is a seasoned Patent Attorney experienced in all aspects of IP matters. In particular, Quan concentrates his practice in patent procurement, opinion work (patentability/validity/freedom to operate analysis), and intellectual property management in bioinformatics, biotechnology, chemistry, optics, microfluidics, and medical devices. His clients include publicly traded companies, multinational corporations, universities, investors, and entrepreneurs. Prior to forming Nguyen & Tarbet, Quan was a Partner at Cozen O’Connor, an international law firm based in Philadelphia. Quan also worked at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, a cutting edge biotech company in San Diego, where he was Assistant Director of Patents.

Graduated from FDU in 1985 with a BS in Chemistry. Worked at Lonza, Inc. Applied and went to UCLA to get a PhD in Biochemistry. Started buying properties, realized PhD is not the way for me. Purchased gas station in Tacoma, WA in 1991. Grew business to 5 gas stations and 5 car washes. Sold business, but kept real estate. Went back to School for MBA in Strategy and Finance from WUSTL. Started angel investing in 2016.

Hershel Mehta

Hershel Mehta is a Venture Capitalist in charge of U.S. investments through his Family Office’s proprietary fund called Mehta Ventures. He has gone through the entrepreneurship journey himself, having published a mobile application in the Apple App Store in 2015, and Hershel uses that experience to help guide entrepreneurs through their own journeys. He finished his Venture Investing Education through the Executive Education Program at the Wharton School of Business. Hershel has invested in 28 startups in the past two years.

Jeff Clark

For over 30 years, Jeff has worked on behalf of clients and investors to create value for new and existing businesses. Most recently his focus has been on advising new cleantech companies commercialize their technologies. Previously, he has founded and been a managing partner of management consulting, technology commercialization and venture capital firms.
He is an MBA (with Honors and a Specialization in Finance) from The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and holds a BA (cum laude, with Distinction in Economics) from Whitman College. Jeff was the recipient of The Wall Street Journal Award.

Christopher Mirabile

Christopher Mirabile is the Chair Emeritus and Public Policy Chair Emeritus of the Angel Capital Association and the co-founder of portfolio management tool www.seraf-investor.com. He is also co-Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group, a Boston-based venture investment group focused on seed and early-stage investments in technology-oriented companies. Launchpad is top-three ranked group in the U.S. As a full-time angel investor and an active member of the Boston-area angel investing community, in addition to his Launchpad work, Christopher has personally invested in over 65 start-up companies. He was named one of the “Top Angel Investors in New England” by Xconomy and one of “Boston’s Most Helpful Investors” in an entrepreneur survey by Companyon Ventures. Christopher has been a columnist on entrepreneurship for Inc. Magazine, an adjunct lecturer in the MBA program at Babson’s Olin School of Business, a member of the board of advisors of The Capital Network, a regular advisor and mentor to start-ups, and a frequent panelist and speaker. He is a member of the Board of Directors or Board of Advisors of numerous start-up companies and non-profits. Christopher is a member of the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee. Christopher has served as a public company CFO and General Counsel with enterprise software provider IONA Technologies PLC, a corporate and securities lawyer with Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault and as a management consultant with Price Waterhouse’s Strategic Consulting Group.

Barbara Russell

Barbara Dalton Russell co-founded Cap W – an Advisory/investment Banking firm focused on early/mid-stage tech-enabled companies, characterized by strong female and/or POC founders & teams, solving BIG problems with massive market opportunities. We advance the ability of companies principally focused on the AI/ML, VR/AR, ed-tech, clean-tech and fin-tech sectors to succeed through our model of investing and providing strategic advice that maximizes the ability of these companies to scale via targeted fundraising from optimal/inclusive strategic, venture, and other capital sources.
Barbara serves on the board of several rapidly-scaling, early and mid-stage companies, providing advice fueled from her 28 years of experience in private equity, investment banking, M&A, and capital markets. She also serves on non-profit boards including: Alliance for Business Leadership (ABL)and NFTE, both of which represent her progressive views on diversity and inclusion.
Since the outbreak of COVID, she has been busy! In addition to continuing to raise significant amounts of capital during this pandemic, she just completed serving as a judge in her SEVENTH pitch competition (virtually, of course) since COVID began:
1. Techstars – Boston
2. Techstars – Airforce
3. NY Business Plan Competition
4. Rice University Business Plan Competition
5. BU Pitch Competition
6. NFTE (National Fdn. For Teaching Entrepreneurship – underserved high schools across the US)
7. University of Arizona FORGE Accelerated Entry Program
Prior to Cap W, Ms. Russell was Managing Director of Investment Banking at Detwiler Fenton, co-founder of: the Social Internet Fund (2011) with Lou Kerner; Bold Cap, a woman-focused venture fund, with Kay Koplovitz, Heide Miller,& Barbara Corcoran, and before that, Senior Partner, and Group Head of the Media, Entertainment, New Media investment banking group at CIBC Oppenheimer, where she raised significant amounts of capital as well as provided advice to technology, media, & digital companies.
Ms. Russell is a mentor, judge, and/or investor in several accelerators, angel investment groups, and not-for-profits including: TechStars; LearnLaunch; Harvard i-Lab; NYS Bus.Plan Comp; Rice University Bus.Plan Comp; and MIT Alumni Angels. She is a senior lecturer at Babson, MIT, U-Mass, and BU. She received her MBA from the Sloan School at MIT and a BA in Economics from Boston University.

Pat Hwang

As part of a founding team in a tech startup exited with acquisition by Texas Instruments in 2000, Pat has since focused her mission on investing and nourishing entrepreneurship as her way of “paying forward” to the successful exit she experienced. She had founded and currently manages portfolio of ADP Investment Group, LLC, a privately owned focusing on real estates and venture investments. Some of ADP current holding includes dozens of startups, private equity fund and venture funds such as Okapi, Cove and Vintage Fund.

Pat was involved in engineering and had published research papers in heat transfer and cryogenic cooling. She also managed satellite component manufacturing for PamSat and DirectTV in her prior career. She is an active member of Tech Coast Angel, Context Family Network and Asian American Investment Group.

Pat is a passionate philanthropist. She serves on the board of Mission Hospital Foundation and is a committee member of several charities including United Way, Human Options.

Pat has a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from USC.

Amy Bann

Amy serves on the E8 Board, a cleantech-focused early stage investment group. She has been engaged in cleantech innovation and policy for over two decades. Currently she leads sustainability strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, with a recent focus on finance and ESG (environmental & social governance). Notable past projects include representing industry in United Nations climate talks reaching historic agreements and helping to accelerate commercialization of renewable energy technologies. Prior, Amy worked in government and as an attorney.

Ray Chan

Ray Chan is a prominent investor who has been recognized as one of Orange County Business Journal’s most influential business leaders since 2017. Ray is the Chairman of Koa Accel, co-founder and Managing Director of K5 Ventures, and has been leading county-wide efforts to build the tech and startup ecosystem within Orange County throughout the past decade. He is also an active member of Tech Coast Angels, a former member of their Board of Governors and an Investment Partner for their Angel Capital Entrepreneur Fund I, II and III.

Ray has a 30+ year track record of successful business execution and of being a startup queen/kingmaker. Some of K5 Ventures successful exits include Everyone.net (acquired by Proofpoint), Connectifier (acquired by LinkedIn), SignNow (acquired by Barracuda Networks), Filpagram (acquired by ByteDance, owner of TikTok) and Slack.

Victoria Mehran

Victoria is an Investment Associate at Expert Dojo; she has over ten years of experience in investment, due diligence, financial analysis, strategic planning, and business development in various industries, including Sensor & Technology, Semiconductor, Oil & Gas, Asset Management, Private Equity, and Venture Capital Industries in the UK, US, and Europe. Since 2018, she has been investing, mentoring, and advising women entrepreneurs in their journey. Additionally, she is an Advisor at Astia Angel Group, Women Network, Green Hill Group and WAYNE in the US and the MENA region.

Robb Stowell

All-American and Professional Athlete turned Venture junkie. I lead Capital Thirteen’s investment efforts in Seed and Pre-Seed stage tech startups. Before launching Capital Thirteen, I spent 5 years focused on early stage tech investments in the local community. In addition to investing, I also consult with and operate our portfolio companies helping with sales management, operations, and financial analysis.

Prior to starting my career in venture investing, I worked at McKinsey & Co. where I advised clients on distressed turnarounds.

I studied at Business Brigham Young University with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship. While there, I was a Captain of the Men’s Volleyball team where I led our team to four consecutive second place finishes and broke the school record for career points.

I am a competitive sports fanatic. When I’m not in the office, you can find me on the basketball court, football field, golf course, soccer pitch, beach or ski slopes.

Jay Cormier

Jay Cormier is CEO and Founder of Eyedaptic, and an experienced technology executive and entrepreneur, with a track record of founding, growing, and turning around businesses with multiple successful exits totaling over $750M. He spent over two decades in the semiconductor industry, which included helping industry leaders grow like Analog Devices as well as turnarounds, leading to successful exits, at Mindspeed, Sierra Monoliths and Teridian. Building on both hardware and software expertise lead to Eyedaptic, an augmented reality vision aid MedTech company with the goal of revitalizing life for people with AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration). Jay earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Northeastern University, and is member of Tech Coast Angels and the Cove Fund as well as a mentor at the University of California, Irvine Merage Business School.

Robert Stasey

Robert Stasey is an investor with Hub Angels, one of the oldest angel organizations in Boston. He is a member of the Angel Capital Association deal syndication task force.

Robert Stasey was the Director of Strategic Initiatives for twenty years at Analog Devices (ADI). He directed the Six Sigma program, headed process improvement and led a Corporate entrepreneurial program. Entrepreneurial program participants developed skills in identifying attractive market segments, validating business models and creating effective go-to-market strategies. His entrepreneurial ‘boot camp’ developed ADI’s future leaders.

Prior to joining ADI, Mr. Stasey served as Consulting Partner with Coopers & Lybrand in charge of New England’s Manufacturing Strategy Practice.

Previously, Mr. Stasey was the Durant Digital Instrument Plant Manager at Eaton Corporation. He applied strategic and productivity improvement skills toward achieving a remarkable plant turn-around chronicled in his book, Crossroads (published by Dow Jones Irwin in 1991).

Mr. Stasey earned an MBA in Management, a B.S. in Finance and was certified as a CPA in Illinois.

Mr. Ortiz is the Founding Managing Partner at Praetorian Venture Partners, LLC, a Southern California based venture capital, and private equity firm focused on direct capital investments at the Seed – Series A & Series B round(s) for early and mid stage initiatives.

Jon Freeman

Jon Freeman is a Managing Director of Praetorian Venture Partners, LLC, a Southern California based venture capital, and private equity firm focused on direct capital investments at the Seed – Series A & Series B round(s) for early and mid stage initiatives.

Jon cut his teeth as an analyst for Amplite Capital where he did a lot of market review and financial strategy analysis for an incubator up in the bay called plug n’ play. While completing his masters at UCI he came on full time at praetorian and handles all things operations for the firm.

Jon enjoys participating in numerous mentoring and philanthropic efforts, as well as golfing, boxing, investing, and travel.

Samer Yousif

Technology (GIST) Investor mobilization training programs, working closely with local partners and Embassies to plan and implement training, mentorship, and networking programs for angel investment networks in emerging markets. Samer has led early-stage startup training programs in over 10 countries, working with innovators from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Central Asia. Previously, he spearheaded the North America outreach strategy for Ashoka. Samer has a Masters of Global Policy Studies, with an emphasis on international entrepreneurship, from the University of Texas at Austin.

Janice Varney-Hamlin

Janice Varney-Hamlin is founder and CEO of Marketing Immersion, a boutique marketing agency with an expertise and passion for building businesses and brands profitably. Ms. Hamlin holds several Board of Director and Advisory positions within the start-up and nonprofit communities. Her scope of expertise spans the entertainment, consumer products and retail industries where she built billion-dollar global brands.

Varney-Hamlin’s roles include head of Business Development and Franchise Management for Disney ABC Television Group, Global Vice President for Warner Bros. Retail, Marketing and Product Development managing brands like DC Comics, Batman, Superman, Director of Global Marketing for Barbie and Hot Wheels, Mattel Consumer Electronics, serving as VP of Strategy for Nickelodeon across all business units and reporting into Viacom Board of Directors. She has collaborated with Industry leaders from Fortune 100 companies like Sara Lee, McDonald’s, Champion, Pepsi, Foley Wine, PBS, Sony Entertainment, Paramount Studios, Helzberg, Martha Stewart, Apple, and Toshiba as part of her portfolio of powerful promotional and strategic partnerships. Her expertise is truly global—among other accomplishments, she successfully brought Barbie to Japan, Looney Tunes to Europe and Australia, SwimWays to South America, and Asia. In addition to her work with entertainment and consumer companies, Janice has worked with numerous retailers including Walmart, Target, Sears, and Lowes. She won “Vendor of the Year for Excellence” on behalf of from these retailers as an executive at Mattel, Warner Bros. and as Vice President of sales, marketing and product development for Swimways. She holds 2 Masters an MBA Nad in Digital Marketing. She has been featured on the covers of the WSJ, DSN, USA Today, etc.

Janice Orlando

Her investments include Early Seed to Series B funding. She serves on multiple Boards as Adviser and/or Director, including Vice Chair for the Board of Directors of the Pasadena Angels and Chairs the Portfolio Management Committee.

Tony Caramagno

Tony is a partner and founding member of Projection Capital Markets. In lieu of trading as individuals, the partnership trades its non-ERISA assets as a corporation using hedge fund trading strategies. Tony currently serves on the Advisory Board for Airion Dynamics, Incorporated. He serves as an Expert-In-Residence with University of California, Irvine – Applied Innovation and as a mentor for the Master of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program in the University of California, Irvine – Paul Merage School of Business. His LinkedIn profile is

Jim Huston

25 year venture investor with more than 125 investments. Co-founded Portland Seed Fund in 2011 which is now a majority female firm. We are a professionally managed venture firm but invest at the style and stage of angels, and co-invest with many angel groups.

Faisal Mushtaq

Faisal is an innovative, dynamic, and inspirational executive and entrepreneur with extensive leadership experience. He has built global organizations, delivered innovative products, driven growth, improved efficiencies and gained market share, both in fast pace startup environment as well as Fortune 500 companies.

Currently he is serving as CTO of Sleep Number corporation, a leader in smart bed space redefining the future of sleep with individualized sleep experiences, where he leads the global technology, product development and innovation. Previously he was VP Technology at GlobalLogic leading Global Cloud/DevOps Practice organization and responsible for providing thought leadership and technical excellence in areas of public/private/hybrid clouds, DevOps, Containers and SDN/NFV. He was also a Founding member/VP of Engineering at multiple startups from PLUMgrid (Acquired by VMware), Allot Communications, Ortiva Wireless (Acquired by Allot) and Wichorus (Acquired by Tellabs). Faisal began his career at Cisco Systems where he designed and developed several routing/switching product families.

Faisal is also the Founder and President of TechCon SoCal, the catalyst for technology innovation and entrepreneurship in Southern California. He is also a member of Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest and most active angel investment networks in the country. He is an advisor and investor in several startups and is a mentor/charter member at several organizations including CONNECT, OPEN and TIE. He received an MSEE from Purdue University and an MBA from Santa Clara University. He holds 8 patents in the areas of networking, including control plane, data plane, load balancing and video delivery.

Anil is a resourceful technical leader and solutions-driven strategist with a passion for leveraging emerging technologies to achieve key business objectives. He has experience in leading technically complex Solution(s), and Delivery/Operations Management initiatives for multiple companies, as well as including his more than 20 years of On the Job Training (OTJ) — to get the job done! — this work ethic has led to CQ InfoTech Inc, — bringing Success to their Clients.

Marylou Garcia

Marylou Garcia is the Area Director for Expense Reduction Analysts, a worldwide network of more than 600 consultants in 30 countries specializing in delivering extra cash flow for mid-sized companies through cost reduction. ERA’s 18,000 successful client projects show that many supplier costs can be lowered by another 10%-30% without jeopardizing existing supplier relationships or forcing them to use specific suppliers.

Marylou has an MBA in Finance from the Wharton Business School. She has held senior positions in Finance, including CFO and Corporate Finance Director for various multinational hotel chains such as, Hyatt Hotels, Pan Pacific Hotels, The St. Regis and others. She has worked in 18 countries in Asia, Caribbean, North/Latin/South Americas. She has helped many companies in the US and internationally increase their operating margins and cash flow.

John Bradley Jackson

John Bradley Jackson is Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at California State University, Fullerton. At CSUF Jackson is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and he teaches New Venture Creation and New Venture Launch. Known affectionately as “Professor JJ”, Jackson brings startup experience along with practical marketing and sales knowledge to the classroom from both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. He is founder of the CSUF Startup Incubator which is located in downtown Placentia and on the CSUF Irvine Campus. Jackson also founded Titan Angels, LLC which invests in early stage startups.

Anshuman Sinha

I am an Entrepreneur, Angel Investor, Thought Leader & CEO @ Optizm Global, the Right Fit Recruitment & Placement Agency.

I am also the President of TiE SoCal (www.socal.tie.org), a non-profit, global community of entrepreneurs from all over the world. We believe in the power of ideas to change the face of entrepreneurship and growing business through our five pillars: Mentoring, Networking, Education, Incubating, and Funding.

As an Angel Investor I look for Business Plan, Cashflow, Core Team, Board of Advisors, Secure IP, Quality Investors, Monetization Models, USP, Scalability, Strong Returns, Growth Market, Board Role

My company Optizm Global Helps Growing Businesses Find The Best Talent! in the Executive Search Space

Nitin Bajaj

Nitin Bajaj is the Director of Strategy at Pratham, the education-focused non-profit that has positively impacted 75+mn lives. Nitin is also the founder-host of The INDUStry Show, a widely broadcast talk show sharing global entrepreneurial journeys. The show has more than 2 million views and has a global engagement of several hundred thousand. Nitin previously led strategic, multi-million dollar initiatives for enterprise organizations such as Esri, IBM, and Thomson Reuters; and launched industry-first products that now have millions of global users. Nitin has a Doctorate in Strategy & Innovation, and an MBA in Organizational Change Management from Pepperdine University. As a proud Wave, he loves standup paddle-boarding and is an upcoming sailor. An avid cyclist, he has a few century rides under his saddle.

Mike Connolly

Executive, entrepreneur, and business leader with a career history of providing strategic vision and direction in the development and commercialization of software solutions at startup and scale-up levels. Leverages a valuable blend of engineering experience, deep technical expertise, and business acumen to lead development and delivery of software products that positively impact the way companies do business. Sets goals, plans strategies, explores new markets, and fuels growth by being personally involved in business development opportunities. Founded, grew and exited a software company in the municipal water industry. Since then, I’ve been mentoring startups and doing some angel investing as well as leading deals within Rockies Venture Club in Denver. Love learning from startups and scaleups, looking for my next gig.

Sanjay Dalal

Sanjay B Dalal is founder & CEO of oGoing – the leading business community’s. A community volunteer, digital marketing consultant, novice author, aspiring speaker and entrepreneur.

Mark Alexander

This is achieved by skillfully re-positioning and retooling companies into customer-facing, data-driven, strategically-centered innovation hubs, best equipped to anticipate and fulfill on the core demands of the most lucrative segments of the value chain.

Success is measured in terms of achieving industry-defining and sustainable levels of maximum growth, return-on-growth and wealth creation.

Diana Murakhovskaya

Diana Murakhovskaya is the co-founder and General Partner of The Artemis Fund. The Artemis Fund is an early stage venture capital fund that backs women-led companies nationally. She spent a decade in tech investment banking M&A and commodities sales and trading on Wall Street. After building and launching the first women-only iPhone app for new friends and networking she became compelled to solve the difficulties women founders faced in fundraising. She went on to co-found the Monarq Incubator, the first national, funding focused incubator curated for gender diverse founding teams. She and her partner sold the Monarq Incubator to the Female Founder Alliance. She is an active angel investor and member of the Houston entrepreneurial community with deep roots in her home town of NYC.

Ken Borkan

Ken Borkan is an investor in the Tech Coast Angels network focusing on sports/entertainment technology, cannabis, and social impact. He is the former Director of Strategy, Operations & Research for the Phoenix Suns’ Partnership group and served on the NBA’s Analytics Advisory Board. Ken oversaw their Strategy & Operations team focusing on strategic projects, research, and streamlined best-in-class operations. Before integrating fully into Partnerships, Ken spent the previous four in the Suns Analytics group leading the team’s non-ticket sales business analytics, heading up WNBA basketball analytics and supporting Suns basketball analytics. Prior to joining the Suns, Ken was a senior analyst for Capital One developing credit policy and optimizing line strategy. Originally from Miami, Ken graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with focuses in Marketing, Business Strategy, International Business, and Psychology. Post-undergrad, he has also attended Harvard Business School Executive Education, completing the High Potentials Leadership Program as well as the Business of Entertainment, Media & Sports. Most recently, he received his MBA as a Venture Fellow at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management focusing on Venture Capital, Entertainment Management, and Social Impact.

Donald Kasle

Don Kasle, is an active investor in and a coach for start-up companies through his membership in the Tech Coast Angels. He is Chairman Emeritus of TCA having been a Past Chairman of the Board of Governors. In 2016, Don was elected into the Tech Coast Angels Orange County – Hall of Fame.

Previously, he also concurrently spent eleven years as a Senior Consultant for the SBDC (Small Business Development Center at the University of California Irvine Applied Innovation. The SBDC is funded in part by the SBA (Small Business Administration), UCI and other public and private entities. Their mission is to provide FREE consulting to high growth – highly scalable, entrepreneurial companies. He was the recipient of the SBDC’s State Star Award for his Outstanding Performance.

Mr. Kasle is a retired bank CEO, having served three different banks in that capacity during his career. He has over 40 years experience in executive management and service on boards of directors, as well as commercial banking and capital formation. During his career, Mr. Kasle has served on over 30 Boards of Directors in the public, private and not-for profit sectors, including 7 bank boards. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) and also the Miami University Foundation.

Long active in the field of Education, Mr. Kasle was the founding Chairman of the Institute of Certified Bankers of the American Bankers Association and past Chairman of the Board of the ABA’s Stonier Graduate School of Banking. He was also a former board member of America’s Community Bankers and previously taught Banking/Commercial Lending at 10 national banking schools including Rutgers University, Southern Methodist University, University of Wisconsin, University of Oklahoma, and Louisiana State University. He has lectured at a number of business schools including Miami University (Ohio), Chapman University (Orange, CA), University of California at Irvine, the University of Southern California and Cal State University, Fullerton.

Mr. Kasle is a graduate of Miami University (Ohio) and the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University. Stonier previously honored him with its Distinguished Alumni Award. He is a past President of the National Alumni Association of Miami University. Don is also a past recipient of the Dolibois Alumni Award given by Miami for Meritorious and Sustained Service over many years.

Manmohan Chopra

Entrepreneur.

Author (Parenting where are we going wrong).

Community Leader (Past President, and currently Director, India Association of Los Angeles)
Director, Festival of India Association.

Former Federal Agent (India).

Inventor – The invention relates to how to capture Rain / Stream water Runoff, pre-clean it, and recharge the aquifers (Patent Pending).

Kevin King

Kevin King is a seasoned, successful corporate and community leader, investor and attorney with over 30 years experience recognizing opportunity in multiple business segments, designing growth strategies, implementing process improvements and positioning companies for sale or liquidity events. His background includes leadership positions with ten privately-held companies and encompasses startups, acquisitions, turnarounds and high growth environments resulting in successful dispositions to publicly traded companies, private equity firms and strategic acquirers. Mr. King began his career at Fulbright and Jaworski (now Norton Rose Fulbright). He has an undergraduate degree from SMU in Finance and JD from the University of Houston. He is a Managing Director of Texas HALO Funds II, III and IV.

Ray Weston

Mr. Ray Weston serves as a Board Member, consultant, investor, mentor, and professor. He focuses principally upon scaling brands and businesses, particularly abroad, by leveraging IP, structuring franchise & license systems, and creatively crafting M&A, JV’s and strategic relationships. A dedicated generalist, he has served as an international business executive, in-house and outside counsel, and law professor, and likes to blend attributes of all four. An ardent internationalist, he has lived, studied, and worked abroad for 6+ years and traveled through some 60 countries 6 continents.

Mr. Weston is a member of Tech Coast Angels and teaches as an Adjunct Law Professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He also is an engineer, patent lawyer, photographer, artist, and former Army officer.

Minda Brusse

Minda Brusse is a co-founder and Managing Director at First Row Partners. Prior to First Row Partners, Minda spent time building investor skills and making select angel investments. In 2019, she assumed the fund manager role within Seattle Angel Conference and led record setting investments in two companies. Minda’s depth of experience comes from founding team and leadership roles at StormX, Via Airlift, Copper Six, and Epylon (acq by Accenture) over the course of 25+ years. She actively advises startups as a WeWork Labs Investor in Residence and through various startup accelerators. As leader in the Seattle startup ecosystem, she speaks to audiences about blockchain, art and entrepreneurship, startup fundraising, and early stage investing.

Serdar Topak

Serdar Topak graduated from Duke University in 2003. His majors were Electrical Engineering and Economics.
After his graduation from Duke, he worked at Corporate Executive Board in Washington, D.C. between 2003 and 2004. The company provided services in best business practices research area. Between 2004 and 2006, he worked at Analysis Group that was in economic consulting sector. The final deliverables were expert reports in intellectual property infringement and anti-trust cases. The reports dived into monetary damages resulting from such cases. After that, he worked at Stemcor U.S.A. that operated in physical commodities trading sector, focusing on steel and raw materials. Post leaving Stemcor in 2009, he joined Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi A.S. in Istanbul, Turkey as a Project Manager in the Project Finance Team. This team was mainly responsible for closing the financings of power plants and toll-roads (it provided term sheets to the clients, presented the projects to the bank’s board, and post-board approval, they negotiated the loan agreements with the clients). The total loan amount related to his projects extended by the bank was in the vicinity of USD 1 billion. After having worked for 4 years in this department, he worked for 1.5 years in the bank’s business development department. During his tenor in this department, his team and he established a subsidiary in Malta, and submitted a non-binding offer to acquire HSBC Turkey.

After that, he worked in the Strategy department of Turkiye Sise ve Cam Fabrikalari (“Sisecam”), A.S. for 5 months. After leaving Sisecam, he worked in Pir-Inci Bujiteri A.S. between 2016 and 2019 in the Business Development and Export Departments. He was mainly responsible for making the newly-established company in Germany profitable, and managed exports activities to Germany, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. Between January 2020 and July 2020 he worked in shopi, a startup providing solutions in Omnichannel sector. Since July 2020, he is acting as the Chief Strategy Officer of Ephesus Healing, a healthtech company that provides software solutions to primary care physicians.

Dan Rosen

Dan Rosen is Chair of the Alliance of Angels (AoA), a position he has held for 23 years. Under his leadership, the AoA has invested over $125M in more than 220 companies with an IRR in excess of 20%; it is recognized as one of the premier angel groups in the country. He is also on the investment committee for the AoA Seed Fund II.
Dan is also CEO and President of Dan Rosen & Associates, an early-stage technology investment and advisory firm. He is an internationally known angel investor, deal negotiator, and strategist. He has an active portfolio of over 60 companies. He is also Chair of Transformative Med, and has served on the boards of many public and private companies and non-profits, including UUNET, Modumetal, SnapIn, AutoGraph, Individual Inc, Seattle Humane and the Angel Capital Association.
Dan is also a professional photographer (www.rosen-photo.com). He travels the world capturing stunning images of nature, wildlife, landscapes, and people, and has been published in National Geographic. In 2000, Dan was founding Managing Partner of Frazier Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund in Seattle, where he stayed until 2006. From 1994 through 2000, he was General Manager of New Technology in Microsoft, where he was one of Microsoft’s leading “deal guys.” In this role, Dan was also responsible for technology transfer into Microsoft’s product groups. Prior to that, Dan was General Manager for MSN. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dan was at AT&T for 15 years, where he served as Vice President and General Manager of AT&T Consumer Interactive Services, leading AT&T’s first consumer-oriented Internet service offering and was Managing Director for Northern & Eastern Europe.

Shahin Enayati

I am passionate about building sustainable solutions and empowering excellence in work and life through business. Our work with the Made Noble start-up studio and the investment vehicle, Sustain Equity LLC, advances values for impact-oriented and purpose-driven solutions for our planet and its people by supporting company building to better our future.

My experience ranges from biotech to food/ag-tech and from sales/negotiations to logistics. While working in these industries, I acquired a wide range of experiences in project management, business development, marketing, and business analysis.

My deep involvement in these fields has afforded a sound understanding of running a business and how to effectively utilize marketing and innovation in various business models. My focus on sustainability with its 3 pillars being economics, environment, and social impact, allows me to envision as well as contribute meaningfully to a better future.

Catherine Chiu

Cathy is Co-President of Berkeley Angel Network. With BAN, she is responsible for the managing deal flow, including sourcing, vetting, selection, diligence, terms negotiation, & syndication. Cathy has served as mentor with accelerators, judge on pitch panels, & led angel investment workshops. She advises CEOs in scaling challenges, team alignment, business model & strategy, and leads groups of CEOs and CxOs in peer advising.

Alysha Malik

Alysha is the Co-founder and Editor of RADICHE, a digital publication, and startup community featuring consumer-facing companies such as Care/of, Brooklinen, Burrow, The Farmer’s Dog, Thinx, Bulletin, Hilma, Felix Gray and more. RADICHE was created to inspire the next generation that anything is possible. We connect brands for partnerships and make angel investments.
Alysha also consults with consumer-facing startups and previously launched a startup studio, backed by a family office, Rhizome Ventures with a focus on health, wellness and beauty companies.

Max Shapiro

Max Shapiro is a serial entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of PeopleConnect a 19 year old executive search firm which helps early-stage high-tech companies find the talent they need to succeed. The company’s clients are in technology, cannabis, cbd, hemp, biotech, clean tech, apps, services, medical devices, and consumer products.

He has been an Angel investor for 15 years. His investment portfolio includes 9thGear, Boston Heart Labs, Appvance and Trident Labs and others.

William Paiva

William D. Paiva, PhD, is General Partner of the Oklahoma Life Science Fund. The fund has invested in 15 Oklahoma health care companies. Those companies have collectively raised over $375 million in venture capital investment to Oklahoma and have realized over $1.5 billion in exits. In addition to the Oklahoma Life Science Fund, Dr. Paiva was a partner with Sevin Rosen Funds, a venture fund based in Dallas, TX and Palo Alto, CA with over $2 billion under management and Chisholm Private Capital, based in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK and Dallas, TX. Before that, Dr. Paiva served as a management consultant at Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath, which was acquired by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and he was investment banking associate at JP Morgan in New York. Dr. Paiva holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Oklahoma and an MBA from Dartmouth College’s Amos Tuck School of Business.

Charles Curtis

My angel investing focuses on cleantech/climatetech startups. I have an MBA with and environmental specialty that built off my early work on environment and haz-mat remediation. Through my work with E8 I have made @ 20 startup investments and am an LP in a number of funds specializing in investing in this field. Over my 6 years of engaging in this sector I learned that a having a nimble core leadership team is as important as a killer product or app. The path to success may well require pivots/reboots and it is the people not the tech that will be able to seize the opportunities and guide the evolution of the company.

Maximilian von Poelnitz

Maximilian is an entrepreneur, investor, and start up advisor. He has spent 10 years in Asia and following a business school degree at INSEAD launched his first start up in 2011. By 2015, Max’s 3rd venture, NOSH, was funded by Alibaba Entrepreneur Fund and ultimately Delivery Hero, a German publicly traded institutional investor. Maximilian now spends his time as the Managing Partner of New Territory Ventures, a firm he founded focused on early stage food tech investments in the B2B and supply chain space.

Max is passionate about food tech and B2B innovation. He has been featured on CNN, CNBC and Forbes and was named to Tatler’s Generation T in 2019.

Carolena Enayati

Carolena is an angel investor and entrepreneur. She served as director of operations for claims processing company, and various management roles, supervisory roles in customer service, client management, and operations. Her professional skills are in customer service, strategic implementation methods & operations strategies, as well as client relations. Her Passions are in advancing education and empowering innovative new technologies. The essential element in everything she is involved in is that each project or cause must be sustainable for the earth, community, employees, and economics.

Hilton Augustine

Angel Investor and Serial Entrepreneur with over 30 years creating value in Science & Technology companies. Entrepreneurial activities include startups, mergers, acquisitions, investments and management buyouts.

Benton Moore

Benton Moore is a cleantech entrepreneur turned angel investor, climate ambassador, and startup raconteur. He currently serves as Fund Manager of the San Diego Angel Conference, Strategy Consultant and Startup Instructor to the 800+ entrepreneurs at the Brink Innovation Center at University of San Diego, and CEO of Sea Dragon Capital, a fund for early-stage, scalable technologies. Benton embraces the chaos of startups and the rebels and renegades who innovate to forge positive change. Benton’s most recent cleantech startup was acquired by private equity firm Oaktree Capital.

Benton earned his JD and MBA (New Venture Management) from University of San Diego as well as specialties in International Law from Trinity College, Dublin and Strategic Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Benton is active in the startup ecosystem via Tech Coast Angels, San Diego Venture Group (Connect), United Nations Global Compact, San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange, Angel Capital Association, TiE Global, Association of Corporate Counsel, MIT Sustainability Initiative, and Southern California Energy Innovation Network.

In an adventurous change-making career approaching $1B in deals, Benton’s proudest accomplishment is coaching his daughter’s undefeated soccer team. Outside the office, Benton is usually hiking, mountain biking, or downhill skiing.

Jay Kunin

Jay Kunin is a long-term member of Tech Coast Angels San Diego, where he has served on the Board of Directors and as head of Life Sciences. He is currently an active Director and consultant for companies in pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting systems, remote care management and edtech, as well as an advisor for several accelerators/incubators including EvoNexus, Launch Factory and Nex Cubed Digital Health. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering at University of San Diego, where he teaches entrepreneurship and computer science.
He has co-founded and served on the executive team of multiple startup companies, three of which were acquired by public companies, and one IPO. He was CIO of a public biotech company, a venture-funded biotech and two CROs. He has also served on the Boards of multiple early-stage companies in life sciences and software industries. Jay holds a PhD (computer science) from MIT.

Michele Bang

Michele Bang has been investing in diverse early stage startups directly and through Hub Angels, one of the oldest angel funds in Boston and Learn Launch, an edtech accelerator. She currently advises and mentors enterprise software, edtech and health tech start-ups.
Most recently, Michele was an executive member at Prudential Plc‘s digital team which designed and brought to market Prudential’s first ever digital health and wellness app available across Asia and Africa. Key partnerships include telehealth, fintechs, e-commerce and ride hailing companies in Asia.
Michele held C-Suite roles in global insurance and asset management firms throughout her 30 year career. She was named as Top 25 Influential Women in Asset Management in Asia. Michele is passionate about innovations that deliver efficiency, sustainability and quality of life for citizens. Ideas that bring about smart and clean environment excite her.
Michele studied at Cornell University and London School of Economics.

Julie Lerner

Julie Lerner is an Angel Investor with 37 Angels and is the Founder of The Failure Report, a blog dedicated to discovering what not to do through interviews with successful entrepreneurs and investors. She is a Board Member at The Lower Eastside Girls Club and is committed to helping girls achieve their dreams. Julie is a graduate of the Kedge Business School in France with an MBA in the wine industry and Northwestern University with a BS in Radio, Television, Film. She also has certificates from the International Culinary Center in culinary arts and wine. She resides in NYC but always has her passport in hand in her quest to travel to every country in the world. Investments include Ovenly, Growsquares, So Ripe, Kango, Wheeli, Ash & Erie, and Mogul.

Jack Greenfield

Angel. Advisor. GOOG, EBAY, PYPL, MSFT, IBM, AAPL. 4 Startups. Founder/CTO, VP Eng, Sr Dir, Dist Eng, Chief Arch. 2 books. UCLA MBA. GMU BS Physics.

Drew Tulchin

Consulting has taken him across the US to 40+ countries. That generated over $300 million in investment and 10,000s of jobs.

Previous experience includes a Bluetooth wireless firm, lending, and Program Officer for Grameen Foundation. He is a Member of SVC and Lifetime Member of Net Impact.

Drew completed his MBA from the University of Washington. He finished his BA, Cum Laude, from Washington University in St. Louis.

Andres Guevara

Andres is an analyst at Marion Street Capital, a management consulting firm with helping exciting startups reach their potential through creative solutions. Andres is also an analyst for Addvia Ventures, identifying investment opportunities across a wide variety of industries.

Sean Heberling

Sean is the Founder, CEO and CFO of Marion Street Capital helping innovative growth companies solve their most pressing challenges. Sean serves as CFO for a variety of companies such as a niche healthcare consulting firm, a healthcare clinic, among others.

Sean is a General Partner at Addvia Ventures, which makes early-stage investments into innovative high growth companies addressing large end markets. At Addvia, Sean partnered with a SaaS sales executive who has several successful exits, including a $30B public company.

Steven Larky

Angel investor since 2016.

Specialties: program management, operations, problem solving, engineering management, P&L management, asking good questions!

Thomas Richter

Prior to Expert Dojo, Thomas worked as Venture Partner at OneTraction based in Palo Alto. Prior to that he founded myNexio and C3ntric as founder or Co-founder.

Before, Thomas spent 13 years with Skyworks, most recently as senior director with responsibilities for business & product strategy, operations, customer support and M&A.

Thomas earned an engineering degree from University of Ulm (Dipl. Ing.), and received his business education at the Anderson School of business at UCLA.

To relax, Thomas enjoys sailing, heading out to the Golf courses or hit the slopes on his snowboard in winter.

Manel Hernandez

Manel is from Barcelona but based in San Francisco.

A serial entrepreneur and investor since he was young. Currently, he’s the Founder and CEO of KiKi APP: a social marketplace that connects like-minded real people to enjoy nearby experiences.

Has Patel

Patel holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and MS in Production Engineering. His research interests include the development of Science & Technology Innovation Management models. He has developed Innovation Management methodologies published at several Aerospace & Defense and Corporate R & R&D Management conferences. These include: (a) Innovation Management Model (iModel), (b) R&D and Technology Due Diligence (TechIP), and (c) Open Innovation, Technology Scan & Evaluation (InnovaTE).

He is also an Innovation Advisor at the UCI Beall Applied Innovation Center. Also, Patel is a member of the Executive Committee of USC-managed AMP SoCal, which supports the A&D Sector of Southern California.

Martin Tobias

I am a serial entrepreneur who has also invested in over 100 deals as an angel, half a dozen as a venture partner at a major VC firm, and I am a limited in over a dozen VC funds. I am also the Founder of a leading Angel network, Element8. For my own companies as a 3x CEO, I have raised over $500M (including two IPOs) and bring all that experience and relationships.

Incisive Ventures is a high conviction, low volume, thematic syndicate. Many of the founders I am betting on are prior relationships building their second, third, or fourth companies. I am personally invested in every deal and I will only present opportunities in which I have the utmost conviction. Join us and get access to our network of ideas, investors, entrepreneurs, and opportunities.

Gyan Parida

Incisive Ventures is a high conviction, low volume, thematic syndicate. Many of the founders I am betting on are prior relationships building their second, third, or fourth companies. I am personally invested in every deal and I will only present opportunities in which I have the utmost conviction. Join us and get access to our network of ideas, investors, entrepreneurs, and opportunities.

John Ricci

John is Managing Director of US Angels, an angel investor group based in Silicon Valley and Director, Portfolio management at Kytotech Technology and Life Science. He is also a member at Keiretsu Forum and HBS Alumni Angels, a mentor at Runway, Alchemist, and Plug and Play and an advisor to a number of technology companies including 1WorldOnline, and Evoshare. Earlier in his career, John was COO and co-founder at JMC Telecom, a prepaid telephone card company and COO at Trader Media a roll-up in classified media that went public, He was also VP Marketing and Sales at Zenith/Bull Computers in Europe, a VP Marketing and Director of Strategy at GE and a manager at Boston Consulting Group. John holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was an Arthur Sachs Fellow, and a Master in Engineering from Mines ParisTech in France.

Daniel Rohaley

CEO Heartland Title services
Crypto Millionaire
Business Mogul

Matthew Wilson

Currently, Matthew is the Founder and Managing Director at Allied Venture Partners, Western Canada’s largest angel syndicate, investing in early-stage startups across Canada and the US. With a focus on software & technology, AlliedVP invests in Seed and Series A companies with a check size of $100k-$250k.

Founders can learn more about AlliedVP by visiting www.allied.vc and by connecting with Matthew on LinkedIn.

Roger Warren

Mr. Roger F. Warren, Jr. has served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Bolder Technologies Corp. since October 1999. Warren served as President of International and Contract Micropower of Spectrum Brands, Inc., President of the International Micropower Division, and Director of Rayovac Corporation, a battery manufacturer, from 1985 to September 1999. From 1977 to 1984, Warren served as Vice President and General Manager of the International and U.S. Grocery Divisions of Swift & Co., a multibillion-dollar manufacturer and distributor of food products. Warren has served as the Chairman and Director of Bolder Technologies Corp since July 1998. Warren received a B.S. from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom.

Denise Saltojanes

Denise Saltojanes is an active angel investor through Golden Seeds and Beacon Angels, where she focuses on due diligence, deal-sourcing, and advising early entrepreneurs.

With a broad background in medical and technology development and financial analysis, Denise Saltojanes holds a multifaceted skill set from her 25+ year engineering-based finance career. During her time with the US Air Force, she successfully modeled and defended $6B of Congressionally approved appropriations and was responsible for numerous financial agreements regarding technology and materiel transactions with America’s foreign allies. Denise served as Vice President of Investment Banking at Medical Capital Advisors where she was an integral part of the firm’s merger and acquisition team and led the valuation process. As a Senior Executive at Cambridge Polymer Group, a biopolymer research and development company in Boston, she supervised daily operations as well as coordinating marketing, financial strategy, and new business development and licensing agreements. She has been involved in private financings for orthopedic device and other medical technology companies. Additionally, Denise has held financial positions at the Orthopedic Biomechanics and Biomaterials Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and started her career as a process engineer at General Electric.

Denise is also an active philanthropist for the promotion of women and diversity in leadership roles, animal welfare, and expanding access to the arts. She is an active board member for the Advisory Board for the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at University of New Hampshire (“UNH”) and the Corporate Board of Advisors member for Chemical Engineering Dept at UNH. Denise actively promotes interdisciplinary learning and career goal-setting as well as STEM education for first generation college students.

She received an B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from University of New Hampshire and her MBA from Babson College.

Josh Shaub

Seasoned entrepreneur turned advisor and seed investor. Now mentoring founders and completing a due diligence tool for investors.

Elliot Levy

Elliot is responsible for assisting operations of the Healthtech vertical and works alongside the Program Manager and Managing Director to improve outcomes for the program. As a Healthtech Associate, Elliot sources companies and new investment opportunities as well as aids marketing efforts to promote Dreamit’s Healthtech vertical. Prior to Dreamit, Elliot was the co-founder of a brain stimulation venture and worked in eCommerce at Virtina and private equity fintech at Hamilton Lane. He graduated cum laude from Drexel University’s Close School of Entrepreneurship with a degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Gary Gershony

Dr. Gershony graduated from University of Toronto Medical School where he also completed his training in general cardiology. He subsequently completed a fellowship in interventional cardiology at Emory University under Andreas Grüntzig, the inventor of angioplasty. From 1993-1997 he was Director of the Cardiac Cath Lab and Interventional Cardiology at UC Davis. Since 1999 he has practiced interventional cardiology at John Muir Cardiovascular Institute in the Bay Area where he is currently Director of Cardiovascular Research, Education and Technology, and has established a successful TAVR program. Dr. Gershony is board certified in general and interventional cardiology and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. He has authored over 100 manuscripts and abstracts in the field of cardiology and is a regularly invited faculty lecturer to the preeminent U.S. and international interventional cardiology conferences.

Dr. Gershony was the Founder of Vascular Solutions (VASC), which had a successful IPO in 2000, and for which he served as CMO and a member of the BOD from 1996-2002. He was the principal inventor of the Duett™ Vascular Sealing Device manufactured by Vascular Solutions.

Dr. Gershony was also the Co-Founder and CMO of AngioScore, which has developed unique scoring balloon catheters for coronary and peripheral angioplasty procedures. He was a member of the senior management team from 2003 until AngioScore’s successful acquisition by Spectranetics (SPNC) in 2014.

Dr. Gershony has served on the adjunct faculty of the Stanford Biodesign Innovation Program. He is the author of 11 issued medical device patents. He has been a member of the scientific advisory board or a consultant to numerous medical device companies and venture capitalists in the Bay Area and elsewhere.

Paul DeRidder

He was a charter member of the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Healthcare Executive MBA program, and completed his MBA in November, 1997. He has been a member of the Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel investor group in the US, with a focus on early stage companies. He served on the Executive Committee and led the Healthcare Task Force for the Tech Coast Angel Orange County network (1999-2017).

Julie Kim

Julie Kim is an Investor at FemHealth Ventures, a VC firm supporting groundbreaking innovators in women’s health. At FemHealth Ventures, she invests in drugs, devices, diagnostics and digital applications that address conditions that only, mostly, or differently affect women.

Previously, she worked as a consultant at Clarion Healthcare, a Boston-based life sciences strategy consultancy. She partnered closely with biopharmaceutical clients to assess new opportunities and develop strategic plans on assets ranging from small molecules to cell therapies. She has engaged with companies in the immunology, rare diseases, neurology, and oncology spaces. Julie graduated from Amherst College with a B.A. in Neuroscience.

Charla Triplett

Education
M.S. Bioengineering, Oregon State University
B.S. Microbiology, Washington State University

Thea Pham

Thea is a Ph.D. Candidate in Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology at UCLA and holds a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University (summa cum laude). Thea is originally from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Robert Kramarz

Mr. Kramarz is author of Born to Star, LinkedIn influencer, inventor of Story Pitching, partner in Shepherd Ventures III, founder of Intelliversity and the Jericho Center of Medical Diplomacy, and Chairman of the Brain-Body Research Institute and Licensing Corp. As an Organization Development expert and serial entrpreneur, his investment style centers on assessing a company’s founding team as more predictive of success than the details of the product or market.

John Grant

I founded Lemnos Advisory, LLC and currently serve as CEO. Lemnos Advisory provides strategy, business development and corporate development services to a global customer base including financial / investment firms and operating companies. I invest as an angel through TCA-LA, MEDA, Gopher Angels and Chemical Angels Network. My corporate career consisted of 30+ years of progressive management experience at 3M, including significant Corporate Development and M/A integration experience.

Garrett Gilbertson

Garrett is the founder and Managing Partner of SUM Ventures and Chairman of the Band of Angels Los Angeles. He is an entrepreneur, investor, decorated Afghan War veteran, and former USAF Captain. Before SUM Ventures he led investments for family offices, angel groups, and corporate venture funds. Garrett has served on the Board of Directors for UNest, DressX (observer), Brius, and ClearClub. He has served as an investor and advisor for Brius, DressX, UNest, Irrigreen, Automotus, Wave On, Purlin, Clear Club, and Champions Round. Garrett is passionate about helping startups succeed through SUM Ventures.

Hani Elshahawi

Thought Leader, Innovator, and Game Changer…I partner with innovators, academics, startups, entrepreneurs, investors, and customers to create impact and drive growth through integration, collaboration, digitalization, and education.

Binod Shrestha

Physician and business leader with 15+ years of clinical practice, medical research, and healthcare technology commercialization experience. Innovator with a passion for unmet patient needs and therapies that improve clinical outcomes and patient care. Co-founder of a digital health startup and an ecosystem mentor.

Sima Ghafari

Sima Ghafari is a technology leader, business executive, enterpreneur and angel investor with more than 28 years experience designing and bringing complex systems to market. She is passionate about innovation and emerging technologies. She prides in building successful organizations through shared vision, strategic alignment, innovation and collaboration. She is the CEO of Allera and former CEO of Qualpro consulting where she provided business and technology services to her clients.
As CTO and VP of Engineering, she has led multi-million-dollar product development projects from concept to full commercialization in various industries including Enterprise Software, Automotive, Semiconductor, Aerospace and Medical Devices.
Sima has been actively involved in the Southern California startup ecosystem as a mentor, coach, consultant and investor since 2014 and has led several startups to profitable exists.

Kevin Scanlon

Dr. Kevin Scanlon’s career spans roles in academic medicine, senior management in the pharmaceutical industry and biotech companies, an author*, as well as an individual investor. My book, The Hybrid Entrepreneur, addresses key business issues faced by new ventures.
He served as the Chairman of Pasadena Angels Investment Group (Pasadena, CA), with ~100 investors. He has been CEO of four biotechnology companies, including Melanoma Diagnostics, which was sold to Myriad Genetics. At Schering AG (Germany)/Berlex (US), he was responsible for the genomic and cancer programs in the US, Europe, and Japan.
Dr. Scanlon’s notable academic achievements include a Leukemia Society Scholar, awarded the Paul Martini Medical Research Prize (Germany), Co-Founder of the Nature Journal “Cancer Gene Therapy”, President of the International Society of Cell and Gene Therapy, co-authoring 139 peer-reviewed scientific articles and nine medical books. Dr. Scanlon also holds seven issued US Patents.
(www.linkedin.com/in/kjscanlon)

Harris Rose

Harris Rose is a Harvard and Wharton trained physician entrepreneur who focuses on the use of technology to improve healthcare and the world. Harris began his career as a nuclear engineer and department head aboard the US Navy submarine, USS PINTADO. Following his service in the Navy, Harris went on to become an orthopedic surgeon and founded Precision Bone & Joint, an Austin, TX orthopedic surgery practice. Dr. Rose now provides technical, financial and fundraising advice to healthcare startups and is Managing Director and Chief Medical Officer at CerraCap Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in healthcare, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity startups.

Harris currently divides his time between Austin, TX and Park City, UT, where he enjoys his time with his wife of 25 years and his three children.

Brenda McCabe

Her firm, Next Act Advisors, serves entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs with disruptive technology including Healthcare Technology, Medical Devices, Cleantech, and Enterprise SaaS.

The focus of her work is growth strategy, capital allocation, operational levers, compliance, leadership / CEO coaching, and team build-outs.

With extensive global experience, she is at ease in Cleantech, Healthtech, Life Sciences and enterprise SaaS as an independent thinker who enacts strategic thinking to scale new business models with operational excellence and state of the art governance practices.

She is passionate about bringing good governance practices to the founders she works with and is the producer and host of The Founder’s Sandbox, a monthly podcast available on all mainstream platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Hitesh Patel

My mission is to provide professional services and guidance that successfully bring buyers and sellers together, whether they want to sell, buy, or grow their business or franchise. I also offer fractional CFO services to help clients optimize their financial strategy and performance. With my unique combination of healthcare industry, and finance expertise, I can understand and address the needs and challenges of various businesses and industries. Your success is my strategy.

José Navarro-Betancourt

As a physician and molecular biologist, José has performed and published basic and clinical research on several processes involved in aging, including insulin resistance, stem cell differentiation, protein quality control, and cellular energy production.

He holds an MD from Universidad Panamericana and a PhD from McGill University.

Elizabeth Cho-Fertikh

Elizabeth has 30 years cross-functional experience in drug development, regulatory affairs and clinical trials for startups, biotech & academia. She has been an active angel investor for the past decade. She is the Cofounder of MEDA Angels and a General Partner of its affiliated fund, MEDA Angels Fund
I. She currently serves as a Scientific & Commercialization Advisor to the NIH’s National Cancer Institute’s Technology Transfer Office, as a reviewer of its SBIR/STTR grants and was formerly on the Investment Committee of the Health Innovation Consortium, providing investment recommendations to the VA Commonwealth Health System. Elizabeth also serves on the advisory board of healthcare startups including Playbl, Oxiwear & NuvOx Pharma and as a regulatory affairs consultant to numerous biotech & medical device companies. She received her BA from Johns Hopkins, her MS from Georgetown University, her PhD from Thomas Jefferson School of Medicine and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School & NIH.

Martin Alexander Gershon

He has been honored by Standard and Poor’s as a designated Top 100 “Healthcare Industry Leader”, recognized by Linkedin as a “Top Voice” in Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship, is an award winning Google Scholar in Entrepreneurship, and has been featured on CNBC and in numerous conferences and publications as one of the leading healthcare investors, strategists, futurists and entrepreneurs in drug discovery, biotechnology and AI and digital healthcare.

Over the past 23 years he founded 6 startups, lead Endeavor Venture Funds to over 100 investments, has served as Senior Strategic Advisor for Fortune 500 Companies including McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital, BlackRock, American Express, Tiger Global, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Novartis, and has developed Endeavor into a thriving ecosystem of partnerships with BioPharma, Digital Health, and Big Tech companies, world class CEO entrepreneurs, start-up accelerators, and prominent Ivy League universities, medical centers, and business schools like Harvard, Columbia, MIT, NYU, Oxford, McGill and Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Gershon is the former Aspen Institute Business of Health Chair and Senior Fellow, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Mayday Fellow, Harvard, McGill and Columbia trained neuroscientist, oncologist and immunologist, Senior Lecturer of Healthcare Economics and Entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins, Professor of Healthcare Policy and Finance at Columbia, Professor of Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship at McGill, Guest Lecturer of Drug Development and Drug Discovery at Harvard and MIT, Guest Lecturer of Healthcare AI and Digital Innovation and Commercialization at NYU and Johns Hopkins, Executive-in-Residence at Matter Health, Chief Innovation and Investment Officer of Life Sciences at McGill CLIP, Special Advisor to the Dean of the McGill University School of Medicine for licensing and commercialization, and former FDA attorney specializing in clinical trials and drug and device approvals.

Jordan Bell

Prior to joining Skysong Innovations, Jordan worked as a research manager at Global Patent Solutions where he managed a team of research analysts on IP issues relating to patentability, freedom to operate, invalidity, and landscape-based searches in a wide range of technical fields including biotechnology, medical devices, and chemistry.

Jordan, a registered patent agent, has a B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from University of Texas Health Science Center. He completed a post-doctoral position at the Barrow Neurological Institute at the St. Joseph’s Hospital, focusing on gene and protein expression in the EAE Mouse model of Multiple Sclerosis. Additionally, he has multiple technical publications in the areas of gene expression, regulation, and visualization.

June W Choi

June is an investor, master mentor, startup advisor, entrepreneurship teacher, systems innovation strategist, experienced executive, speaker, and aggregate complex systems 4D thinker.

Before launching Serval, June was a very young executive, then ran a strategy consulting firm for many years working on issues such as strategic planning, board development, financial and operational systems and processes, cultural/diversity/inclusion issues, succession planning, fundraising and investment planning, trainings, and facilitation. June also has broad understanding of nonprofit and philanthropy, extensive speaking experience, and served on numerous panels, committees, and boards.

Paul Tran

Paul is also an angel investor and a manager of his family investment fund, The PTP Family Fund, LLC.

David Crean

In parallel, he is a Managing Partner for Coast Bioventures LLC, an emerging first-time fund dedicated to life sciences investments in southern California. His other venture investment activities include serving as a venture partner for Lemvega Biotech fund

Dr. Crean holds a Ph.D. in Biophysics and an MBA with a finance concentration from Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Management. His qualifications include FINRA investment banking Series 79 and Series 63 licenses.

Paul Gianneschi

Paul has spent the past 30+ years as an executive in the healthcare industry. Prior to founding Hatch Medical in 2000, Paul served over seven years in a series of senior level marketing and sales management roles with medical device industry leader, C. R. Bard, Inc.’s Peripheral Vascular Division (Becton Dickinson). Prior to joining Bard, Paul worked in similar capacities with Bausch & Lomb and NDC Health (McKesson).
Paul earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Florida and an Executive M.B.A. in International Management from Mercer University, where he currently serves as a board member of both the Mercer Innovation Center and Stetson-Hatcher School of Business.

Paul is a past-president and current board member of the Southeast Life Sciences Association, an angel investor with Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic/SE, a mentor to Georgia Tech’s VentureLab program and an external review committee member of the Georgia Research Alliance.

Paul is also a past board member of Piedmont Healthcare and Mercer University’s Center for Health and Learning, as well as having served on the board of Mermaid Medical A/S, a privately-held Danish medical device company.

Navya Chitimireddy

Navya works in the Strategy and Operations at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), driving innovation as part of the Cloud Platform team. With a focus to optimize cloud initiatives, Navya works on ensuring HPE stays at the forefront of technology solutions. As a key member of the HPE Tech Advance team, she contributes towards shaping overarching strategies and identifying market gaps in the product portfolio.

Beyond her corporate role, she is an enthusiastic angel investor, passionate about supporting startups poised for impact. As a dedicated mentor, she shares insights gained from navigating the dynamic tech industry. With a knack for blending strategic foresight and operational acumen, she is committed to shaping the future of technology. She serves as the co-chair of events at Berkeley Angel Network.

Doug Sylvester

In his nearly three decades in law, Doug has represented dozens of startup companies in various sectors, has launched the nation’s first Innovation Law Program (to support new ventures), taught at business schools around the country, and has been engaged as counsel, advisor, or founder of numerous startups. He brings his years of legal, educational, and entrepreneurial experience to the general partnership of Xcellerant Ventures and works hard to ensure our portfolio companies succeed.

Elsa Abruzzo

Elsa Chi Abruzzo, RAC, FRAPS, is the CEO and President of Anuncia Medical (Scottsdale, AZ) and an angel investor. She is a medical device executive, entrepreneur, and a founding member of Anuncia Medical, Alcyone LifeSciences, Arthromeda, Inc. and Cygnus Regulatory with a 35+ year successful product development, manufacturing, regulatory, quality, and clinical record of accomplishment in medical devices. Cygnus Regulatory, her consulting firm, specializes in regulatory and clinical strategy, execution, and due diligence.

Elsa successfully lead teams at a variety of start-ups bringing many disruptive medical solutions to market. She authored or contributed to 4 granted US FDA Breakthrough Devices Designations. Ms. Abruzzo held leadership roles at Cordis JNJ, CryoLife, Percutaneous Valve Technologies (acquired by Edwards LifeSciences), AtriCure (IPO), Sapheon (acquired by Covidien/Medtronic), and PTS Diagnostics (acquired by Sinocare). Ms. Abruzzo has a B.S. in engineering, is regulatory affairs certified and a Fellow of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society.

Michael Harpen

He has prosecuted, protected and commercialized a wide array of technologies, including batteries, renewables, materials, medical devices, computer hardware and software, and industrial production equipment.

Prior to joining the George Washington University in 2021, Michael was employed at the University of California Irvine and Washington State University as a licensing officer and technology licensing associate, respectively. Before that, he worked at a Cargill corn processing factory in Nebraska and taught English in Japan.

He has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of South Alabama and a juris doctor degree from Louisiana State University.

Germaine Moody

He has also produced business events in more than 40 major cities across four countries, and is recognized by BIZBASH Magazine as one of the top event producers in the world.

Germaine recently joined billionaires Craig Newmark (Craiglist), Naveen Jain (Moon Space), Brian Chesky (Airbnb) and more as a contributor to the upcoming book “Doers & Dreamers”, scheduled for release December 6, 2023.

Fred Gumbinner

Mr. Gumbinner is a serial investor/executive/advisor/capital raiser. He has been in Micro-Cap Private Equity and Angel Investing for over thirty years and formally for over fifteen years. He has worked in various capacities with hundreds of start-ups and early-stage companies. He has extensive experience in capital-raising matters, involving all levels of the capital stack, having participated in over US$30 billion of successful financings and corporate transactions, ranging from 4Fs, Angel and Seed funding to IPOs, Dispositions or other exits.

In addition to his numerous private investment activities, Mr. Gumbinner has been a consultant and advisor to several early-stage technology, alternative energy, waste to energy, life science, SaaS and real estate ventures, and has served in an executive capacity or as a board member or advisor to over 75 companies. He currently is a Managing Director of several special situation investment firms and is President of the DC Metro Chapter of Keiretsu Forum. A couple highlights of his achievements are serving as President and CEO of an early-stage magnetics company where he increased the value of the company by over 1000-fold in four years; and serving as VP & GC of an electricity generation development company that yielded a $400 million return on $110 million total investment, with an IRR well in excess of 100%.

Mr. Gumbinner received his BA (magna cum laude) from Colgate University and his JD. degree (magna cum laude and Contributing Editor of the Michigan Law Review) from The University of Michigan Law School.

Mashfia Rahman

Mash is with Alexander Hunt, a boutique investment bank that focuses on growth equity projects in the SAAS, Cyber Security, IoT, eCommerce, and B2B software industries, assisting them with Seed, Series A, Series B, and venture capital solutions.

At the firm, Mash oversees Venture Solutions, the company’s consulting arm, which specializes in helping founders raise $2 million to $20 million (seed to Series A).

Jill Mavro

Jill is also principal and founder of Spoondrift Advisory, LLC which provides advice and guidance to asset managers, private equity firms and broker dealers.

Jill currently serves on several for profit and not for profit boards and was previously, a senior managing director at State Street Global Advisors, where she was a member of the senior leadership team and the SPDR ETF Executive Committee. Jill worked at State Street corporation for over 23 years in Boston and London across various business units.

Jill has an MBA from Suffolk University and a BS in Business Management from Westfield State College and holds her FINRA series 6, 7, 24 and 63 licensees.

John Derrick

Three exits as CEO, six for companies advised / led on an interim basis. Active in material science and deep tech investing including battery recycle and AI/ML.

Two decades of rapid positive results in private and public companies including a rapid transformation of a public company from negative cash flow to GAAP profit (1 year), 3 profitable exits as CEO, an additional 6 exits based on interim CEO / interim / advisor services, and 10’s of Millions USD in funding rounds and strategic deals.

Proven leadership approach has been used, applied, and proven from early-stage startup, startup growth phase, restart, and public company turn-around. Key strengths are an ability to identify and communicate the core value of a companies’ offering, create a strategy and operational plan to deliver that value, and lastly, align and lead the existing team(s) to excel in growing revenues rapidly by delivering that value effectively.