Adam Archer
Vitrue
MENTORS
Our companies receive mentorship from successful entrepreneurs, experienced investors, industry experts, and connectors who help them strategize, prioritize, and expand their networks. Our mentors have a wealth of experience and large networks that they’re ready to share to help our startups succeed. They represent a wide range of industry experience and many have built successful companies and are thought leaders in creating sustainable impact. The Hub Ventures founders also provide entrepreneurs with guidance during weekly office hours.
Adam Archer
Vitrue
CEO and Co-Founder of GamesThatGive (acquired by Vitrue), Adam is now General Manager of Vitrue Games.
Adam previously served as a senior software engineer at Apple and as a software engineer for Microsoft MSN. Adam is a former apprentice for Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm, and he has backpacked extensively around the world.
Adam holds a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering from Arizona State University and has been quoted or covered in Techcrunch, Inside Facebook, Fast Company, WSJ.com, Huffington Post, Inc., Forbes.com, and NYTimes.
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Mitra Ardon
Natural Innovation
Mitra has been working for many years on commercializing and scaling green innovations. He brings skills in assessing innovations for viability and finding routes to completing the technology and deploying it into a market. His organization, Natural Innovation.org, mentors and supports innovations with a potential for high impact in developing countries, working with innovators, volunteers, and partners both here and in developing countries. He has advised investors and a myriad of startups. He’s passionate about scale, reaching high impact quickly and, for example, ran Australia’s fastest growing solar photovoltaic supplier.
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Murat Armbruster
Carbon War Room
Murat Armbruster
Carbon War Room
Murat serves as a Senior Advisor to the Carbon War Room and as the Operation Lead for the Green Capital Global Challenge. He conceived of and played a key role in launching the Challenge during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Prior to joining the War Room, Murat was a founding partner of the clean technology hedge fund, Atlas Capital Investments, LP. Murat’s prior work showcases his entrepreneurial spirit, both with the creation of GlobaLearn in 1993, the first K-12 e-learning website to help prepare our nation’s children for global citizenship which was later acquired by Houghton Mifflin in 2001, as well as the development of Adina For Life, Inc., a fair-trade organic beverage company where Murat was both founding partner and Chief Operating Officer.
Murat has represented the education sector as a member of the U.S. delegation led by Vice President Gore to the G-7 Information Society Summit. During the 2004 presidential campaign, he served as Deputy Executive Officer to General Wesley K. Clark during his bid to become the Democratic Party’s nominee. Murat is a member of the Social Venture Network, the Threshold Foundation, The Explorers Club, and is a Fellow with The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. He also serves as a member of The Republic of Palau’s United Nations climate change delegation. Murat graduated with highest honors from the University of Michigan, has a black belt in karate, and speaks French and Mandarin.
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Jon Axtell
SOCAP
Jon Axtell
SOCAP
Jon Axtell works as Operations Lead with SOCAP and assists in coordinating sponsor relations, partnership, online marketing, and volunteer efforts. Previous to joining SOCAP, Jon completed his MBA in Business Development for Social Enterprises at the Monterey Institute of International Studies while starting up a social enterprise project in Zambia, Africa. Jon speaks Mandarin Chinese and has assisted numerous social enterprise startups.
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Lucas Barrowman
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Lucas Barrowman
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Lucas is a finance and operations executive in the natural foods industry most recently working with companies in the packaged foods and sustainable agriculture space. He has broad experience managing day-to-day operations and finances with young, fast-growing companies, including accounting, sales forecasting and budgeting, financial reporting and analysis, production scheduling and fulfillment, global supply chain management, and human resources. Lucas has several years experience advising and raising capital for early-stage companies, and he is actively advising one of the fastest growing restaurant companies in the U.S.
Lucas is currently an advisor to Chipotle Mexican Grill, where he is driving strategy and development of the company’s industry-leading responsible sourcing, traceability, and impact-measurement program. He is also an executive advisor to Goat Goodness, Inc., a venture-backed natural food company that is marketing a portfolio of healthy goat’s milk products, including Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream.
Prior to Goat Goodness, Lucas was the Director of Business Development, Financial Planning and Supply Chain for CleanFish, Inc., a venture-backed sustainable seafood brokerage and marketing company. During his time at CleanFish, Lucas established supplier relationships and worked on the ground in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Oceania. He also began advising other young food and agriculture companies on growth strategy and fundraising. Lucas began his career in corporate management consulting and strategic planning.
Lucas is a student of the food movement and an adamant believer in the power of social entrepreneurs to build healthier food systems. He has spoken about social ventures, responsible investing, and sustainable food companies at several conferences, and most recently at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. You can often find him seeking outdoor and culinary adventures with his wife in San Francisco.
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Priss Benbow
Benbow International PR
Priss Benbow
Benbow International PR
During her career, Ms. Benbow has worked with journalists in 16 countries whose stories have reached an audience of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. As a result of her efforts, her clients have had articles published in Business Week, Forbes, International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International, Reuters, Time, and The Wall Street Journal.
Before founding Benbow International PR, she worked in The White House press office where she briefed the White House press corps daily. Ms. Benbow worked also as a consultant at Bain & Company.
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Doug Bend
Law Office of Doug Bend
Doug Bend
Law Office of Doug Bend
Doug is the founder of The Law Office of Doug Bend, a law firm focused on startups and small businesses. He is also the General Counsel for Modify Industries, Inc. and tIFc LLC and a Legal Mentor for the Young Entrepreneur Council, a non-profit dedicated to helping young entrepreneurs start successful businesses. In addition, Doug is on the Board of Directors of the South Beach / Mission Bay Business Association, is a member of The Corporations Law Committee of The State Bar of California, and is a member of the Bar in California, Nebraska, New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
He is very much looking forward to once again serving as a Legal Mentor for the Hub Ventures program and to helping social entrepreneurs build business solutions for a better world.
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Armen Berjikly
Kanjoya
Armen Berjikly is founder and President of Kanjoya, a company dedicated to applying emotion to technology with the aim of understanding, engaging, and helping audiences. Their flagship property, Experience Project, is the largest social media property dedicated to connecting people who share life experiences, and their emotional intelligence platform, Kanjoya El, helps people, products, and brands understand and connect with their customers emotionally.
Armen holds a B.S. in Computer Science and a M.S. in Management Science and Engineering, both from Stanford, where he was also a Mayfield Fellow. His passions include building technology products – and the teams behind them – that fundamentally improve user’s lives and helping guide new entrepreneurs through the life-changes they encounter when they set off to change the world. He actively mentors the Technology Entrepreneurship course in Stanford’s Engineering school (E145) and is regularly quoted in newspapers, television, radio, and conferences as an expert in the humanistic aspects of the Internet.
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Michael Berolzheimer
Bee Partners
Michael Berolzheimer is an angel investor and entrepreneur. In 2008, Michael formed Bee Partners, a genesis-stage venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs in their earliest stages of venture creation. In addition to financing, Bee Partners offers customer development, strategy, hiring and marketing support to technologists working on building lasting companies. Michael informally advises several companies at a time and is keen on building early and long relationships with founders. He’s been investing in and advising entrepreneurs since 2004, after he took a shot on a young team selling “Bear Naked” granola out of their van. Since then, he invested with: TubeMogul, Evol Foods, Earbits, Columbia Green Technologies, Magoosh, Tagstand, and others. Previous investments include: Duraflame, Bear Naked Granola, illumobile, and Pubget.
Previously, Michael dabbled in addressable television advertising, home office document management solutions, and digital out-of-home media technologies. He began his career in New York with Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette / Credit Suisse, raising capital for private equity and venture capital funds, and with Harvest Partners, a middle-market private equity fund managing over $2 billion in assets. He earned his MBA from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and completed his undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University in Computer Science & Economics. Michael resides in San Francisco with his wife and young family and enjoys spending time in the mountains.
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Josh Breinlinger
Sigma Partners
Josh Breinlinger
Sigma Partners
Josh is a Senior Associate with Sigma Partners, an early stage VC firm in Menlo Park. He focuses on marketplace businesses and crowdsourcing companies since he sees massive opportunity in changing the way people work.
Prior to joining Sigma, Josh spent 5 years at oDesk in several roles including Director of Sales, Marketing, Product, and Business Development. As the 4th employee, he contributed to the company’s growth from almost nothing to 10 million in monthly services. He also led product and marketing at AdRoll, an online advertising company, where he helped grow revenue 4x in the company’s core retargeting product. Early in his career, he was a mechanical engineering consultant with Arthur D. Little.
Josh holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Sarah Brooks
Hot Studio
Sarah Brooks is a design strategist and Director of Social Innovation at Hot Studio in San Francisco. Hot works to successfully uncover opportunity spaces and create solutions that move beyond the commonplace, helping partners to navigate within complex adaptive systems. Sarah’s focus is on working with change makers to support social-ecological resilience.
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Shelby Clark
RelayRides
Shelby Clark
RelayRides
Shelby first tried carsharing when his car died after a cross-country move to California. He loved living a car-free life but thought carsharing would work better and grow faster if it was “for the people, by the people”, a neighbor-to-neighbor experience. So he founded RelayRides.
Shelby obtained his MBA from Harvard, where he cultivated his passion for entrepreneurship and social impact. Before Harvard, Shelby helped launch three socially focused startups. He was an early employee at Kiva.org, one of the fastest-growing non-profits in history, where Shelby provided strategic direction while building internal systems to scale the organization.
Previously, Shelby worked at Oliver Wyman as a management consultant, advising Fortune 500 companies on strategy and operations. Prior to Harvard, Shelby graduated with a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern.
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Lina Constantinovici
GrowVC
Lina Constantinovici
GrowVC
Lina Constantinovici is Head of US Operations at GrowVC US, the first global peer-to-peer micro-funding service for startups. Lina is also a Founder of the Biomimicry Incubator Startup Nectar, the first business incubator focused on increasing the number of viable biomimetic products, services, and organizations. For over 20 years, Lina has been engaged in innovation in the public, private, and NGO sectors as an entrepreneur, strategist, and educator. Lina has been driven by the insights of the dotboom and dotbust experience gained as a consultant in the high tech sector in the 1990s and early 2000s, to contribute to innovating towards more sustainable systems. Her consulting practice has been focused on enabling organizations to meet and exceed integrated bottom line/long term resilience goals with clarity and alignment through innovation. Lina works directly with integrated bottom line entrepreneurs and is a mentor to several incubator and accelerator programs, as well as a founding team member of WomenImpactProject, an accelerator focused on increasing the number of women entrepreneurs launching integrated bottom line ventures. As Vice-President of Silicon Valley Environmental Partnership, and President of the Advisory Board of Presidio Graduate School’s Alumni Association, Lina is invested in building capacity for increasing both the tangible and intangible assets of the communities she is part of. Lina has earned an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School.
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Arvind Deogirikar
Advisor
Arvind Deogirikar
Advisor
Arvind has more than 25 years of experience in industry and academia, specializing in product management, international sales and business development, marketing, and manufacturing – most recently, as a Senior Product Manager at Cisco Systems Inc., in their Global Service Supply Chain and Services Product Management groups. Previously, Arvind spent 11 years at Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle). At Sun, he was a founding team member of Sun’s East European operations headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and he was Sales and Business Development Manager for Asia-Pacific region. Prior to industry, Arvind was a tenured Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator Computer Information Systems at the College of St. Rose in Albany, NY. Over the past years, Arvind has been an investor in early stage companies and a mentor to entrepreneurs in social benefit programs.
Arvind holds a Masters Degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Kiev Polytechnic Institute, and a MBA from Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. Several of Arvind’s press interviews and technical articles are published internationally. With fluency in five languages, he has lived in India, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S.
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Penelope Douglas
Hub Bay Area
Penelope Douglas
Hub Bay Area
Penelope Douglas is Board President for Hub Bay Area and SOCAP. She is also Co-Founder of Pacific Community Ventures (PCV), a hybrid organization that stimulates economic development in California’s low-income communities. Pacific Community Ventures manages three socially-responsible investment funds and provides innovative resources to emerging businesses and their low-income workers. In addition, Penelope Douglas is also a Partner in Pacific Community Ventures, LLC. Douglas has significant experience in business, as well as a track record of leadership in community-based organizations. Douglas has a strong reputation for leadership that is focused on creativity and human resources in conjunction with bottom line results. As co-founder of the first west coast community venture fund, Douglas is a pioneer and thought leader in the area of community development investment. She has served on the board of directors of the Community Development Venture Capital Association (CDVCA) and is a frequent presenter at industry conferences. Currently, Douglas serves on the boards of New Mexico Community Capital (NMCC), New Vine Logistics, and Evergreen Lodge.
Before founding PCV, Douglas was Senior Vice President at Odwalla, Inc., Chief Administrative Officer at Morrison and Foerster, and chair of the Morrison and Foerster Foundation. Douglas has also held senior management positions at Ernst and Young and Wells Fargo Bank. Douglas has been involved with community-based non-profit organizations throughout her career, serving as chair of Larkin Street Youth Center, chair of the Children’s Television Education and Resource Center, chair of San Francisco Friends of the Urban Forest and founding chair of Juma Ventures. Douglas is a California native and her education includes a B.A. from Smith College. She is also an artist and an athlete who has competed in four Ironman distance triathlons and numerous long distance races.
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Nick Ellis
Job Rooster
Nick Ellis
Job Rooster
Nick’s experience in recruiting and his passion for social enterprise is the driving force behind Job Rooster. Nick draws upon experience as the founding partner of Bright Green Talent, a green job placement firm. He previously advised California cities on the issuance of over $400 million in municipal bonds as a public finance investment banker. He was a New Leaders Council Fellow and a West Coast Venture Capital Fellow (2010) and is a graduate of the London School of Economics (MSc) and also holds a B.A. from Stanford. As Captain, he led the Stanford men’s water polo team to consecutive NCAA Division I championships.
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Rob Emrich
PaeDae
Rob Emrich
PaeDae
Rob Emrich is a serial entrepreneur, currently involved in his latest venture as the Founder & CEO of PaeDae. He has founded and served as chief executive of six startups and social ventures, including Road of Life (distributed $70M+ curriculum), BULX (acquired by DealYard.com 2011), Boundaryless Brands (acquired 2011), and SpeakerSite. Rob has spoken about his work at Startup Weekend, Ohio State University, Kenyon College, The John Glenn School of Public Affairs, and others. He is a mentor at the startup accelerators Hub Ventures & Founders Factory and sits on a number of non-profit boards. Rob and his work have been featured on NPR, Inc.com, PBS, American City Business Journals, major dailies, countless blogs, and the book 21 Questions for 21 Millionaires. He lives in Santa Monica with his fiancée, the fashion stylist Kara Kaufman.
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Janine Firpo
Sevak Solutions
Janine Firpo
Sevak Solutions
Janine Firpo is President of Sevak Solutions, a non-profit company established to support economic development in emerging markets. Spun out of her work as Director at the Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Sevak Solutions has been involved in both technology prototyping and consulting services. For the past several years, Janine’s specialty has been financial services. She has been providing strategic and implementation support to mobile operators, financial institutions, and technology companies that are delivering innovative financial solutions.
Janine is a pioneer in the implementation of technology for social change and has worked on issues related to health care, education, and supply chain in more than 40 countries around the world. Janine has held executive positions in both private and public organizations and brings over 30 years experience in business, technology, and international development to her efforts. On a pro-bono basis, she also serves as the Executive Director of XS Project, a non-profit based in Indonesia that creates and sell consumer products made from trash.
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Scott Flood
Lakeland Ventures Development
Scott Flood
Lakeland Ventures Development
Scott is a Co-founder of Lakeland Ventures Development, a Hub Ventures partner, and Founder & President of Ovid Water LLC, a development stage for-profit social purpose enterprise creating personal, portable water filtration products.
Previously, Scott held various executive director positions at WPP Group companies where he was responsible for development of brand platforms and marketing and communications strategies for a diverse group consumer, financial, and industrial client companies.
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Tim Freundlich
ImpactAssets
Tim Freundlich
ImpactAssets
Tim is a long-time innovator in new financial instruments in the social enterprise sector, which he now applies as the head of ImpactAssets. He has served in a number of capacities at Calvert Foundation over the last fourteen years, including his current role as special consultant. While there, he conceived of and launched the Giving Fund-the impact investment-based donor advised fund. He was also instrumental in building the $225 million Calvert Community Investment Note with more than $750 million invested into 300-plus nonprofits and for profits globally. He also helped to launch Community Investment Partners, an analysis and asset administration business for community development and social enterprise investment.
He co-founded and serves as managing partner for Good Capital that, in addition to its flagship Social Enterprise Expansion Fund LP, has two operating spin outs. These include the 2,000 person annual Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) conferences in San Francisco and Europe; and Hub Bay Area, a co-working, meeting and community space serving approximately 1000 social innovators. Additionally, he serves on the steering committee of Hub North America. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of San Francisco. Tim and his wife Julie live in San Francisco with their sons Milo and Gus.
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Mike Gabriel
RSF Social Finance
Mike Gabriel
RSF Social Finance
Mike is an impact investor with over ten years in the social enterprise space both in investing and operating roles. He is currently a Lending Manager at RSF Social Finance focused on providing senior debt financing to high impact social enterprises in Food & Agriculture, Ecological Stewardship and Education & the Arts.
Prior to RSF, Mike spent five years with Grameen Foundation’s Capital Markets Group (based in Washington, DC and later Manila, Philippines) where he led deployment of debt financing, guarantees, and financial advisory services for microfinance institutions and other base-of-the-pyramid businesses across Asia and Latin America. Earlier in his career, Mike worked in the Philippines providing strategic and business development support to a network of microfranchises involved in producing and exporting products made from agricultural waste as well as several years in the U.S. as an analyst with Bank of America’s investment banking division. Mike received his MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and his BA from Vanderbilt University.
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Taryn Goodman
RSF Social Finance
Taryn Goodman
RSF Social Finance
Taryn Goodman is the Senior Manager of Impact Investing at RSF Social Finance, a nonprofit financial institution offering investing, lending, and giving services that support social and spiritual renewal. Inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner, RSF has made over $200 million in loans and over $90 million in grants since 1984 to social enterprises in the areas of Food Agriculture, Education & the Arts, and Ecological Stewardship. At RSF, Taryn manages $40 million Donor Advised Fund Impact Investing Portfolios as well as the newly launched Program Related Investing Fund focused in food and agriculture. She also serves as a moderator for the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders’ Finance & Investing for Social Change Group and on the conference planning committee for SRI in the Rockies and the PRI Makers network. Taryn first became involved with impact investing as a MBA candidate at the Johnson School at Cornell University where she helped launch BR MicroCapital, the first MBA student managed microfinance fund providing business and financial support to Tompkins County, NY. Taryn was a recipient of a Park Fellowship for leadership and service. She has traveled extensively and lived abroad in both Europe and Africa.
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Rosa Lee Harden
SOCAP
Rosa Lee Harden
SOCAP
Rosa Lee is the Executive Producer of SOCAP. Co-Producer with Heidi Kleinmaus of SOCAP09 and 08, Rosa Lee was previously COO of a highly profitable $18 million events company she sold at the peak of the dot com era.
As one of the original founders of the SOCAP conference, Rosa Lee was the architect of SOCAP08′s wildly successful open space third day last year. She is a successful serial entrepreneur and for 25 years was an owner and publisher of newspapers, magazines, and trade journals, accomplishing turnarounds and launching successful startups that became the top publications in their markets.
Two large and thriving non-profits, both with significant earned income revenue, altered their standard practices to invite Rosa Lee to remain as president of their boards beyond the standard two-year term. She led one of those non-profits, the Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Jackson, MS, to become the largest per capita in the U.S., building more than 300 houses and transforming entire neighborhoods. She was also involved in the creation of a revolving no interest loan fund for Habitat homes using local banks CRA monies. That method of funding was adopted by many affiliates across the country. The Jackson affiliate was also one of the first in the nation to begin turning excess donated doors and windows into the basis of a thriving line of business.
A community builder in all of her activities, Rosa Lee is also an Episcopal priest who for ten years was the parish priest leading a thriving and welcoming congregation in San Francisco. During her years at Holy Innocents, it doubled its membership and budget, most significantly expanding from three children under 10 when she arrived to more than 50 in 2009 when she left to manage SOCAP full-time.
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Arno Harris
Recurrent Energy
Arno Harris
Recurrent Energy
Arno Harris is the CEO of Recurrent Energy, a leading developer of solar power projects for utilities and large energy users. Recurrent Energy is reinventing the business of distributed generation—using proven solar technology to meet rising energy demand with clean power plants located right where they’re needed most. Prior to Recurrent Energy, Arno was general manager of EI Solutions, serving large-scale commercial and government solar customers. EI Solutions was formed when Arno sold his pioneering solar business, Prevalent Power, to Energy Innovations in 2005. Arno’s previous experience includes founder and leadership roles for high tech startups. His background combines marketing, business development, and consulting with experience serving such clients as Berlex, Toyota Motor Sales USA, GlaxoWellcome, MCI, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Nikon Precision, IKEA International and NBC Digital Publishing. Arno writes about solar and renewable energy on his blog Clean Energy Future.
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Sam Hartwell
KickStart
Sam Hartwell
KickStart
Sam is CFO and Treasurer of KickStart International which helps lift millions of people out of poverty and promote sustainable economic growth by promoting technologies, such as MoneyMaker irrigation pump, for entrepreneurs to run profitable enterprises. Before joining KickStart, Sam held positions with Aid to Artisans and Natural Resources Defense Council. Sam holds degrees from Yale School of Management and Dartmouth College.
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Pamela Hawley
UniversalGiving
Pamela Hawley is the founder and CEO of UniversalGiving. UniversalGiving is an award-winning website allowing people to donate and volunteer with the top performing projects in over 100 countries. Unique to UniversalGiving, 100% of your donation goes directly to the cause. UniversalGiving Corporate (UGC) is a customized service, helping Fortune 500 companies scale Corporate Social Responsibility programs worldwide. Some clients include Cisco, Symantec, Fluor, MTV. UniversalGiving has been profiled on CBS, FOX Business Network, BusinessWeek, WomenEntrepreneur, Oprah.com, NBC News, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and CNNMoney.com.
Pamela is a winner of the Jefferson Award, a Finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and was selected as one of 50 leaders to the White House’s Next Generation Leadership and Social Innovation event. She is a Fast Company Expert Blogger on Corporate Social Responsibility. Pamela has a political science degree cum laude from Duke University and a Masters on scholarship from the Annenberg School of Communications, USC, in International Communications.
Pamela is an actress and improviser trained by The Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, and The Second City Los Angeles. She also enjoys performing fully improvised musicals. In her free time, she loves spending time with her family, her #1 priority. Her parents are two of her best friends, and one of her greatest joys is taking care of her nephews and niece.
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Sam Hayes
SharesPost
Sam Hayes is co-founder, executive vice president and general manager, marketplace for SharesPost, the leading online marketplace for private investments. Sam has worked for emerging growth companies, three of which were funded by Kleiner Perkins, at key stages in the entrepreneurial lifecycle, from pre-launch to dynamic expansion to exit through acquisition.
Sam most recently led corporate development, including M&A and investment, for Java-related businesses at Sun Microsystems and has led business development for startups that were acquired by Akamai and Wine.com. Sam was also part of the launch team at America Online’s ClassifiedsPlus service, a pioneering marketplace. Sam received his MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and A.B. with honors & distinction from Occidental College.
Sam has been interviewed by leading publications, including BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, and he has spoken at industry events including the Montgomery & Company Growth Conference, Founder’s Institute, Tuck-Dartmouth Private Equity Forum, and Plug & Play Tech Center Forum.
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Nate Heller
Impact Energies
Nate Heller is West Africa Director at Impact Energies which provides clean energy supply chain services to microfinance banks. Previously, he was Director of Product Development at Ayllu, where he created the first global director of BOP social enterprises. Nate has over 13 years experience working for international development organizations all over the world, including the United Nations and U.S. Peace Corps and consulting with a variety of social enterprises. Nate has an MBA from Yale School of Management and a MA in International Relations and Economics from Johns Hopkins SAIS.
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Chris Hornor
Better Energy Systems
Chris Hornor
Better Energy Systems
Christopher Hornor is an entrepreneur and a recognized pioneer in consumer renewable energy products and services. After holding senior posts at several technology start-ups in the 1990s, where he helped companies in the U.S., U.K., and Japan find new revenue streams through emerging Internet applications, Christopher founded Better Energy Systems in 2001.
With the launch of its flagship product, Solio, Better Energy enjoyed exponential growth and was recognized for creating a new category of small-scale solar energy solutions. With its award-winning design and usability, Solio has made solar power accessible to hundred of thousands of people around the world. In late 2008, he led the expansion of Better Energy into East Africa where he and his team launched Club Solio, the first pre-paid renewable energy service for remote off grid populations.
Christopher spearheaded strategic partnerships with Apple, REI, Vodafone, Quicksilver, Google, and others, establishing Solio as the most visible brand in portable solar power.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Christopher lives in Berkeley, California with his wife and two children.
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Johnny Hwin
Advisor
Johnny Hwin
Advisor
Johnny Hwin is an entrepreneur and electronic music artist. He was most recently co-founder and CEO of damntheradio, a Facebook marketing platform that has powered promotional campaigns for artists such as Lady Gaga and The Black Keys and brands such as Wrangler Jeans and Gatorade. damntheradio was acquired in January 2011 by e-mail marketing startup FanBridge (investors include SoftTech VC, Lowercase Capital, 500 Startups, First Round Capital, Founder Collective, et al) – 6 months after launch.
Prior to damntheradio, he studied social psychology and technology entrepreneurship at Stanford University, where he launched his first company from the Stanford Facebook App Class (recently profiled in the New York Times), a viral quiz platform that grew to 15 million users (sold in 2009). A former course instructor in Stanford’s communications program, he has lectured at UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School and the University of Montana’s School of Entertainment Management. He currently spends his energy advising startups, working with startup incubators and community spaces such as IO Ventures and The Happiness Institute, and building a community of creators in his San Francisco Mission District-based underground warehouse space called The SUB.
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Kevin Jones
SOCAP
Kevin Jones
SOCAP
The convener of SOCAP, Kevin Jones creates information businesses inside emerging markets. Besides SOCAP, Kevin is founder of Good Capital and a special advisor to Hub Bay Area. He also also successfully built and sold six different enterprises. As a journalist, he has been a columnist for Forbes and Business 2.0 magazines. Kevin also led a malaria project in Swaziland and Mozambique, working with Jeff Sachs of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. Finally, during his 20 year business career in Mississippi he was heavily involved in public school advocacy.
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Leslie Keil
Hanson Bridgett LLP
Leslie Keil
Hanson Bridgett LLP
Leslie’s practice focuses on counseling emerging ventures, sustainable businesses, and other private companies with respect to corporate law and business transactions. She works with emerging and private companies in connection with corporate formation, private equity and debt financing, strategic contracts, technology licensing, and mergers and acquisitions. Leslie assists venture capital, private equity and real estate funds, and angel investors with respect to fund formation, investment activities, corporate governance, and fund restructuring. Leslie also reviews and negotiates primary and secondary investments in private equity, real estate, mezzanine debt, and a variety of other investment funds on behalf of some of the largest institutional investors in California. She is experienced in commercial real estate acquisitions, sales, financing, and leasing transactions.
Leslie has a special affinity for, and expertise in, assisting social entrepreneurs and investors in forming and funding sustainable businesses. She has assisted some of the leading investors in this space, including Good Capital / Social Enterprise Expansion Fund. On a more personal level, Leslie volunteers as Co-Chair of the Global Economic Opportunity Circle at Full Circle Fund, which works closely with non-profits doing innovative work on global economic issues. She regularly provides assistance to low-income entrepreneurs at a monthly Legal Office Hours clinic co-hosted by Hanson Bridgett LLP, Urban Solutions, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights’ Legal Services for Entrepreneurs program. Leslie also assists La Cocina, a low-income food entrepreneur incubator, on a pro-bono basis.
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Patrick Kelly
Advisor
Patrick Kelly
Advisor
Patrick Kelly has a history of helping brands solve business problems with creativity. Prior to launching his own start up experiment in 2011, Patrick was the Director of Brand Publicity, a department that he founded in 2007 at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners (GS&P) in San Francisco. During his four years at GS&P, he worked across almost all of GS&P brands, developing campaigns in tandem with the creative, strategy and media departments for clients including Sprint, HP, Adobe, Pepsico, Yahoo! and Chevrolet. Prior to joining GS&P, Patrick worked on the launch of Virgin America at Anomaly Communications in New York City. He specializes in creating brand traction in the world of unpaid media through forming unique partnerships and identifying non-traditional ideas for activation.
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Mark Kingdon
Angel investor
Mark Kingdon
Angel investor
Mark Kingdon was recently President and CEO of Linden Lab, developer of Second Life.
Prior to that, he was CEO of Organic, Inc., a leading Interactive Agency with offices throughout North America (New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Toronto). He also had a short stint as Entrepreneur in Residence at Idealab! an internet incubator.
Mark started his career at Coopers & Lybrand and later became a Partner focused on strategy, emerging media, ebusiness, retail and consumer goods. He led the pre-merger planning and post-merger integration for the consulting division when PW and C&L merged to form PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Mark is an angel investor in consumer internet companies (Twitter, Say Media, Kidzui, 140 Proof, Fab.com, skyrockit, AppStores.com, NiftyThrifty.com).
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Eric Klein
Nokia
Eric Klein
Nokia
Eric’s passion is imagining, building, and marketing amazing consumer technology products. His experience includes founding startups, managing large teams in highly successful corporations, and angel investing. Eric is currently Nokia’s Vice President of Advanced Development and Technology and previously enjoyed product roles at Sun, Dash Navigation, Real Networks, Palm, and Apple. He founded or played an early role in a number of successful startups including Bungie, the creators of Halo, and is also an active angel investor. He has three children and spends winters at the HP Pavilion cheering on his San Jose Sharks.
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David Lehr
Advisor
David Lehr
Advisor
David Lehr has over fifteen years of experience in international business and development focused primarily on information technologies. He is currently a consultant to organizations leveraging market-forces to achieve scale and sustainability and is a committed proponent of microfranchising. David has written about his work for the Stanford Social Innovation Review and other publications and taught on market-based approaches to addressing poverty at UC Berkeley and the University of North Carolina. He works with both for and non-profits, and his clients include the Gates Foundation, Mercy Corps, Save the Children, Ideo.org, Vital Wave Consulting, and Reuters.
Previously David was the Senior Advisor to Mercy Corps’ Social Innovation team and held senior management roles at Adobe Systems where he ran their business development and strategic partnering in the areas of digital content delivery. He also led Adobe’s entry into China and established and managed their first office there. In addition, David co-founded Project Market Light, a for-profit organization under the auspices of Reuters, to deliver market data via mobile phones to farmers in the developing world.
David mentors several early stage social enterprises and is currently on the Advisory Boards of two previous Hub Ventures companies – NextDrop and Rise Solar. In his spare time, he is an avid mountain biker and a devoted guitar player and builder.
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Howie Liu
Salesforce
Howie Liu
Salesforce
Howie founded Etacts, a disruptive CRM startup that was acquired by Salesforce.com and now leads social products for their flagship sales CRM product. Previously, he was an early team member of Crowdflower, now the world’s largest enterprise crowdsourcing platform and worked with Freestyle Capital, an early stage investment fund.
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Stephanie Marrus
Portfolio Strategies
Stephanie Marrus
Portfolio Strategies
Stephanie Marrus is actively involved in the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial world as a management consultant, executive-for-hire, and international entrepreneurship educator. As Founder and CEO of the consultancy Portfolio Strategies, she works with companies at all stages — from startup through public — to optimize value for investors and shareholders. Clients are located throughout the U.S. and internationally. Portfolio Strategies provides clients with innovative and flexible approaches to situations based on deep industry knowledge, a strong network of connections and the ability to take an objective view. She has taught Entrepreneurship and/or BioEntrepreneurship at UC Berkeley, in Europe, the Middle East, and in international programs held at the University of California.
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mod4
mod4
mod4 has experience with companies of all sizes, from sole props to multi-nationals and everything in between. We provide legal services for counseling, contract negotiation and drafting, equity structures, debt counseling, employment counseling, software and content licensing, including open source licensing, trademark and copyright advice, local, state, municipal, professional, and federal compliance and advice on the issues that face your business every day. You can read about the three attorneys that constitute mod4 on their website (link above).
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Mike Moss
Hub Bay Area
Mike Moss
Hub Bay Area
Mike Moss is a business development strategist. Mike is Head of Business Development for Hub Bay Area and SOCAP. He has a track record of helping CEOs and senior management teams create revenue growth, predictable cashflows, and high returns for founders and investors. Mike is experienced in closing large revenue contracts with Fortune 100 clients, developing strategic partnerships, and building sales teams. Mike is also a social entrepreneur, LEED AP, and Black Belt martial artist.
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Sara Olsen
SVT Group
Sara Olsen
SVT Group
Sara Olsen founded SVT Group, an impact accounting firm, in 2001, with the vision of making impact accounting a standard practice worldwide. Analogous to a financial accounting firm, SVT works with clients to measure, manage, and communicate their social and environmental value.
SVT’s recent work includes collaboration with: OneCalifornia Bank and Foundation, to support its merger with Shorebank Pacific specifically in the measurement, management, and communication of the new bank’s mission; Nemours, one of the largest pediatric health providers in the U.S., to pilot a system for measuring and managing the net social and economic benefits of its multi-million dollar childhood obesity prevention efforts; Park Tree Investments, which buys distressed mortgages, to design a way to measure both the social and financial benefits of its work to help homeowners establish new affordable payment terms and package this value for sale to Park Tree’s bank partners; and the Environmental Investment Advisor to CalPERS, Environmental Capital Group, to design and pilot the system used to track the net environmental benefits of some 200 cleantech ventures in CalPERS’ portfolio that have received nearly $9 billion in total investment.
Sara blogs at www.socialedge.org and has written many publications on impact measurement for private equity and philanthropy. She teaches impact accounting workshops internationally and has co-founded several projects designed to increase the flow of money to good, including the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC). Sara holds a MBA from UC Berkeley, a MASW from the University of Chicago, and a BA from Dartmouth College. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Landon Pollack
Ignite Venture Partners
Landon Pollack
Ignite Venture Partners
Landon Pollack is an entrepreneur of 25 years. Landon has been, at different times, an athlete, an entrepreneur, a herpetologist, inventor, investor, and sports manager, as well as animal and environmental advocate. His foundation for success was established during his time training to play professional baseball. Landon has been a founder of, or founding investor in, more than two dozen companies, with exits ranging from IPOs to being acquired by Fortune 50 companies to private sales. Before reaching 20, Landon had started four businesses, earning his first million dollars at 13 selling sports memorabilia by mail order. In the ensuing 15 years, some of his ventures have included a beverage company (Juice Bowl – acquired by Dole/Pepsi), a multi-media company (ClubCom – acquired by Amer Group Fitness Equipment business, Precor Inc.), a robotically-controlled exercise system (Intelligent Health), a coaching and lifestyle company (Personalized Lifestyle Programs – private sale), health clubs (Firm Fitness), a cable company (Cable Satisfaction – IPO), a non-alcoholic beverage conglomerate (Liboza Holdings, Inc.), a chain of yoga studios (Vitalize Studios), a telecom company (Uniconnexions), a social networking company (WeMeUs), and a digital music company (MySongToYou). He is Managing Partner of Ignite Venture Partners, a company that brings together consulting and capital under one organization. In addition to his experience as an entrepreneur and investor, he has served as a consultant to some of the most recognizable brands in the world and some of the most innovative of startups.
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Kendall Riding
KKM Capital
Kendall Riding
KKM Capital
Kendall has broad experience working with young and growing companies as both an investor and consultant in a number of diverse industries including real estate, consumer products, Internet, and food and beverage. As the Investment Manager for KKM Capital, a family investment fund, she has increasingly focused on impact investments and social ventures in these areas as well.
Prior to KKM Capital, Kendall worked in real estate development, honing her problem solving skills through the management of large entitlement projects around the Bay Area. Her initial introduction to the world of private equity investing and startups came during her time as a writer for the Red Herring magazine in the late 1990s covering technology investing and IPOs.
She has a MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BA from University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Steven Roth
Roth Consulting
Steven Roth
Roth Consulting
Steven has had significant expertise in managing complex organizations, seed and start-up companies, raising equity capital and bank financing and building first class management teams. His investing and corporate experience crosses many industries but has been focused on building long-term brand equity. Industries include Food & Beverages, Sporting Goods, Retailing of all kinds, Professional Services, Restaurants and Product Driven Technology and Medical companies. Steven’s primary role has been that of Chairman and CEO with responsibility for all General Management and Corporate Finance functions with operational departments either reporting directly to me or through a COO or President. Steven holds a BA in Mathematics from the State University of New York and an MBA from Harvard University.
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Robert Schwentker
American Express
Robert Schwentker
American Express
Robert Schwentker works as a Developer Evangelist at American Express in the Enterprise Growth Group. He is a software engineer with a passion for working with developers & developer communities. As one of the key community leaders instrumental for fostering the Silicon Valley Developer Communities of Google, Facebook, Pinterest, & Twitter, he organizes hackathons & meetups groups. For over a decade he has volunteered for the MA Math NGO, Kerala, India, working on numerous projects including developing their Hospital Information System, as well as teaching programming & mentoring PhD candidates at Amrita University. Recently he has been running the Creative Currency project at The Hub. Robert graduated from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.
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Rand Selig
Selig Capital Group
Rand Selig
Selig Capital Group
Mr. Selig is president of The Selig Capital Group, an investment banking firm which he founded in 1987. The firm focuses on the two central issues that company owners face: development of the strategy as well as the capital for desired growth and the achievement of liquidity.
In the past three decades, Rand has completed hundreds of corporate finance transactions for a wide range of international and domestic companies involving mergers and acquisitions, private placements, leveraged buyouts, debt and equity underwritings, and long-term swaps. He is one of the original architects of the currency swap market and also created a number of other innovative financial structures.
Rand has served on a variety of for-profit and non-profit boards and has a special interest in conservation and sustainability. He earned his MBA in general management and public policy from the Stanford Business School.
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Premal Shah
Kiva
Premal Shah
Kiva
Premal first began dreaming of “Internet microfinance” while working at PayPal, the online payments company. In late 2004, Premal took a 3 month leave from PayPal to develop and test the Internet microfinance concept in India. When he returned to Silicon Valley, he met other like-minded dreamers and quit his job at PayPal to help bring the Kiva concept to life and eventually to scale. Kiva today raises over $1 million each week for the working poor in 50+ countries and was named a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine in 2009. For his work as a social entrepreneur, Premal was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40″ list in 2009. Premal began his career as a management consultant and graduated from Stanford University.
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Rupesh Shah
Intuit
Rupesh Shah
Intuit
Rupesh D. Shah is the Director of Corporate Sustainability at Intuit. As Director of Sustainability, Rupesh created Intuit’s Sustainability program from scratch. Specifically, he drove waste reduction efforts that helped save the company millions of dollars, built a global employee engagement program through Green Teams, created leading-edge efforts such as Intuit’s Small Business Supplier Responsibility portal, launched innovative software apps that leveraged Intuit’s software competency along with Sustainability, including Intuit Green Snapshot and Freecycle@Work, and, finally, Rupesh helped to created Intuit’s Social Innovation program by building simple solutions for NGOs through Intuit’s SMS app platform. Prior to that, Rupesh was Director of Product Management for TurboTax Business products, and, previously, he helped to create and launch new industry-specific versions of QuickBooks. Rupesh has also served as Manager of Learning and Development at Odwalla and Training Manager at Earth Train, an environmental nonprofit organization dedicated to providing youth leaders the skills, resources, and network to make a difference in their local communities. Rupesh has also consulted for AmeriCorps, the Presidio Leadership Center, the Corporation for National Service, Gorbachev Foundation, the United Nations and various other leading social organizations around the world. Rupesh has a MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University and a BA from the University of California, San Diego.
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Nicole Shore
Zero to Sixty Communications
Nicole Shore is a strategic communications professional with a more than 15-year career and track record spanning public relations, grassroots political organizing, and guerrilla marketing. She has developed and executed communications strategy for a range of organizations, from large to small, Fortune 500 to startup. Prior to founding Zero to Sixty Communications, Nicole worked at Edelman in the Corporate Social Responsibility and Issues practice where her clients included NGO’s such as Environmental Defense Fund and The Kauffman Foundation, Fortune 100 Companies including Starbucks and HP, and game-changing entities focusing on climate change such as the Coalition for Rainforest Nations and the Health and Happiness Project.
Nicole has worked every job on the way up – from the proverbial dishwasher to restaurant manager, or perhaps more familiar, community organizer to principal. And for as long as she can remember, strangers have opened-up and shared their stories with her. Her interest in understanding and ability to relate to other people and their life experience continues to translate to her work – whether it’s meeting the right person for collaboration, being able to help her clients target and resonate with the right demographics, or helping convince a diverse range of media to take on a particular topic.
Some of her most significant accomplishments to date include using her guerilla marketing know how to build support and accomplish major campaign tasks for Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign. At the time popular opinion was that marketing and political organizing were separate concepts, but Dean’s campaign proved otherwise and forever-changed politics. Results included a major campaign rally with 10,000 people in attendance before Dean was on the nation’s radar, a statewide petitioning effort that increased New York State’s best record of signatures from 25,000 to 127,000, and using street marketing tactics to seek out and sway undecided voters.
The EPA’s decision to close its national network of public libraries sparked a controversy among the environmental community. Nicole’s persistence in building a case around the concern and convincing press to cover the issue, resulted in the EPA backing down and asking her client to work with them on digitizing their content in a way that would resolve their concerns, as long as they “just stop{ped} getting press coverage about it.”
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Peter Sisson
Toktumi
Peter Sisson
Toktumi
Peter Sisson is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications and Internet industries. He started his career at Bell Labs in 1985 and started his first company, WineShopper.com, in 1998. WineShopper, funded by Kleiner Perkins and Amazon.com, was acquired by Wine.com in 2000. Since then, he has launched two successful companies, Mixonic and Teleo (acquired by Microsoft), and is now working on another, called Toktumi, that offers an app called Line2 that lets you add a second line to your iPhone or Android device. Peter serves on the MBA Advisory Board of the Tuck School at Dartmouth College and is an advisor to the Blue World Alliance, StartOut, and several start-up companies.
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Cory Smith
Hub Bay Area
Cory Smith
Hub Bay Area
Cory enjoys working with entrepreneurial teams that align their values with their actions and build organizations that are financially viable, can be replicated and enrich our world. Previously, Cory was the co-founder and CEO of Webcast Solutions, an international webcast company that helped organizations use audio, video, photos and web-based tools to communicate online. StarMedia Networks acquired Webcast Solutions and Cory headed up the broadband division of StarMedia, managing teams and implementing digital media studios in the US and throughout Latin America. Prior to Webcast, he co-founded Planetary Dialogues and traveled worldwide in conjunction with UNESCO, producing media about people, music, art and culture at World Heritage sites. Cory co-founded Media Cast, a webcast company that produced many of the first ever live webcasts featuring bands, CEO’s and world leaders. Other companies Cory co-founded include DAT On site, a company that digitally recorded hundreds of live music concerts and Media Synergy, which helped produce many nationally televised programs about music and culture.
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Kevin Starr
Mulago Foundation
Kevin Starr
Mulago Foundation
Kevin directs the Foundation and the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program for the Mulago Foundation. He had a perfectly good career in medicine when he stumbled into philanthropy in 1994. His friend and mentor Rainer Arnhold died suddenly when they were working together in Bolivia, and the Arnhold family asked Kevin to help carry on Rainer’s work through the Mulago Foundation. He spent the next decade working with projects from Afghanistan to Zambia, trying to figure out what makes for real impact at big scale. At the behest of the board, he established the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program in 2003 to apply Mulago’s principles and tools to help social entrepreneurs turn good ideas into lasting change at scale.
Kevin went through medical school and residency at UC San Francisco and has lived in SF ever since. He teaches and mentors fellows in other programs for social entrepreneurs and still practices medicine (very) part time.
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Keely Stevenson
Bamboo Finance
Keely Stevenson
Bamboo Finance
As a founding member of Bamboo Finance, Keely Stevenson is developing the portfolio strategy for Bamboo Finance’s clients. She has worked in the field of social entrepreneurship for over a decade with experience on five continents. Keely joined Bamboo after living in East Africa and serving as a fellow with the Acumen Fund, a global social venture investment fund. She supported the establishment of Acumen’s Nairobi office and provided management support to AtoZ, a producer of anti-malaria mosquito nets, focusing on distribution and pricing strategies in Tanzania.
Earlier in her career, she was the first employee hired by the CEO of the Skoll Foundation where she designed grant programs for social entrepreneurs and led the team who created the world’s first online community for social entrepreneurs, Social Edge. She has also served as the Interim Executive Director of a social enterprise in Peru (ProPeru Fund) and a start-up professional development program for social entrepreneurs in India (Social-Impact International). She was a consultant on the viability of a UK based risk capital fund for Triodos Bank and economic development strategies for the Royal Bafokeng Nation, one of Africa’s wealthiest kingdoms. She studied politics at UC Berkeley and her passion for social business led her to pursue an MBA degree at Oxford University. She co-authored a publication on risk capital for social enterprises published by Oxford.
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Lloyd Taylor
ngmoco
Lloyd Taylor
ngmoco
Lloyd is an independent adviser, consultant, and investor who specializes in helping companies scale successfully. His professional work has included scaling LinkedIn’s infrastructure to support it’s rapid growth; developing, implementing, and operating an infinitely scalable global physical infrastructure for Google’s server farms; building out a worldwide performance measurement infrastructure for Keynote Systems; and developing one of the first managed hosting architectures while at Digex. His pro bono work includes funding and advising a select group of non-profits working on zero-dependency methods for ending poverty throughout the world.
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Sylvia Ventura
One Block Off the Grid
Sylvia Ventura
One Block Off the Grid
Sylvia is a business executive and social entrepreneur with a strong record of creating, launching, and marketing products and companies. Her career has focused on go-to-market strategy for life sciences and, more recently, sustainability / clean-tech and social enterprise. Sylvia is both an accomplished advertising agency executive and entrepreneur having founded two agencies and a clean-tech venture.
Since 2007, Sylvia has worked on promoting sustainability and for-profit social enterprise. In 2008, she founded One Block Off the Grid (1BOG), the nation’s first and largest consumer-based group purchasing for residential solar energy. To date, the company has raised $5 million with New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and operates nationwide with over 50 employees. For the past two years, Sylvia has been a HUB SoMa fellow exploring peer-to-peer and crowdsourced platforms, collaborative consumption, micro-funding, and their uses in advancing social and environmental sustainability.
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Tabreez Verjee
Angel investor
Tabreez Verjee
Angel investor
Tabreez Verjee is a three time entrepreneur and recovering venture capitalist who is now pursuing his passion of investing in and supporting mission driven technology entrepreneurs who are seeking to affect systemic positive change by aligning purpose and profit. Some of his angel investments and advisory roles in this area include ClassDojo, Purpose.com, Novica, Blissmo, Ecomom, StayClassy, Women2.0, FounderLabs, and Priya Living. Tabreez is an early seed funder and member of the board of directors at Kiva.org, the world’s first peer-to-peer lending platform dedicated to connecting people for the purpose of alleviating poverty. Kiva has provided over $300 million in capital from the internet community to over 600,000 borrowers in more than 60 countries with a 98.9% repayment rate.
Tabreez started his first entrepreneurial venture at 21 years old, ,where he co-founded and served as Managing Director of Global Entertainment Capital, which raised $150 million for innovative media financings and completed deals like the first ever stand alone investment grade bond securitization of music royalties for heavy metal band from Maiden. He then moved over to the technology and internet space where he co-headed Sonique, maker of some of the first and most popular Internet music software that became the 5th most downloaded application on the Internet in 1999 and was sold for over $70 million. After Sonique, Tabreez co-founded Global Asset Capital, which started as an angel investment fund and grew into a venture capital firm where he directed more than $500 million in committed assets across multiple venture capital funds and over 40 portfolio companies in the U.S. and Europe.
Tabreez began his career at Bain & Company and received a bachelor of science in Environmental Engineering with honors from University of California at Berkeley. He is also a charter member of TiE, a global, non-profit network dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship.
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Tracy Weatherby
Active Ingredient
Tracy Weatherby
Active Ingredient
Tracy Weatherby is the founder of Active Ingredient, a consulting firm dedicated to solving product and customer marketing challenges through strategy, research, and analysis. Tracy has 20 years of experience in the technology and healthcare markets. Active Ingredient helps clients build solid, profitable businesses with strong growth prospects. Active Ingredient’s clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Cisco Systems, Oracle, and Adobe Systems as well as early stage companies such as Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Placeware, and Nextance. Active Ingredient’s industry experience spans technology (enterprise, education, and consumer markets) and healthcare (biotech, medical devices, and pharmaceutical).
Prior to founding Active Ingredient, Tracy was the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Vicarious, Inc., publisher of the CNN Time Capsule and NFL’s Greatest Plays. Tracy has held management positions in marketing at Momenta Corporation (one of the original pen-based computer companies) and Apple Computer. Her career began in corporate strategy consulting with Strategic Planning Associates (now Mercer Management).
Tracy holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Dartmouth College.
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Edward West
Mission Motors
Edward West
Mission Motors
Edward West is an entrepreneur and educator. In 2006, while a student at Presidio Graduate School, Edward started Mission Motors, manufacturer of advanced electric powertrains for vehicle manufacturers and high performance electric motorcycles. In addition to his work with Mission, he teaches entrepreneurship at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. He has a passion for applying the principles of evolution and complexity to culture and commerce to create a more conscious, loving, just, and sustainable world.
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Nathaniel Whittemore
LearnCapital
Nathaniel Whittemore
LearnCapital
Nathaniel Whittemore is a Principal with LearnCapital. Nathaniel was previously the founder of the Center for Global Engagement, a multi-disciplinary center at Northwestern University that designs programs for students interested in global development, philanthropy, and social entrepreneurship. The CGE currently runs programs in Uganda, India, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and South Africa, and it’s approach to experiential global education has been held up as a model by institutions such as the Clinton Global Initiative University program.
Nathaniel writes regularly about education, business, and social innovation for publications including GOOD, Inc. and Fast Company. He was the founding editor of the Social Entrepreneurship portal on Change.org, which he grew from launch to the most read website about the topic. He serves as an advisor and evangelist for a number of non-profits and startups, including Assetmap – a platform for accelerating professional serendipity – which he co-founded. He graduated Cum Laude with honors in History from Northwestern University.
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