Name: Startup Summit 2021
Start: 2021-02-22T06:40:00-08:00
End: 2021-02-22T13:30:00-08:00

Geoff Ralston

Y Combinator

Geoff Ralston is the President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail, which became Yahoo Mail in 1997. While at Yahoo, Geoff worked in engineering and ran a business unit before becoming Chief Product Officer. After Yahoo, he was the CEO of Lala, which was acquired in 2009 by Apple. In 2011, he cofounded Imagine K12, the first Ed Tech accelerator, which funded companies like ClassDojo and Remind, and merged with YC in 2016. He has an AB in Computer Science from Dartmouth, an MS in Computer Science from Stanford, and an MBA from INSEAD.

Rebecca Kaden

Union Square Ventures

Rebecca Kaden is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. She began her career as a journalist and prior to USV was a General Partner at Maveron, a consumer-focused early stage fund. Rebecca was born in New York City. She studied English and American Literature at Harvard and received her MBA from Stanford.

Vlad Magdalin

Webflow

Vlad Magdalin is a designer and front-end developer who is passionate about creating tools that push web design forward. He is the founder and CEO of Webflow, the all-in-one web design platform that helps designers of all kinds create professional responsive websites.

Russ Heddleston

DocSend

Russ Heddleston is the CEO and co-founder of DocSend, which he started in 2013 with Tony Cassanego and Dave Koslow. Previously, Russ was a co-founder of Pursuit, a social referral company that helped source referral candidates and a product manager at Facebook. Russ received his B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Stanford University and his Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Kyle Lui

DCM

Kyle is a Partner at DCM, an early-stage global venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo. At DCM, Kyle focuses on consumer internet, SaaS and financial technology. Kyle’s investments include Lime, Eaze, hims & hers, DocSend, Tempo, Shift (Nasdaq: SFT), Grin Scooters (Grow Mobility), TravelBank, Mendel Health, Wrike (Acquired by Vista Equity Partners) and Tapingo (Acquired by Grubhub). Kyle also served as a board member for BitTorrent (Acquired by Tron) and SavingStar (Acquired by Quotient/Coupons.com), and is actively involved with SoFi, SigFig and Matterport.

Karen Page

B Capital Group

Karen Appleton Page is an investor, advisor, entrepreneur, and board member. A respected operator, Karen worked at Apple on the enterprise team, leading the commercial channel, strategic partners, the Mobility Partner Program and the industry team. She was a founding executive at Box, leading GTM activities, defining Box’s approach to partnerships and business development, cultivating C-level relationships, strategic initiatives, and founder of Box.org. She is experienced in building businesses from zero to high growth, evaluating and deploying double-digit expansion efforts, defining and implementing net-new initiatives, passionate about executing strategic partnerships and business development plans through data driven analysis, strategic prioritization, and relentless execution. Adept at public speaking, building teams and managing people to do their best work, Karen is described by peers and leaders as an athlete, broad-based in skillsets, creative, instinctive, driven, and with a vast network of relationships that impact business outcomes.She is on the board of Deputy, Plastiq and Pickit, and a trustee at the Computer History Museum and Thorn. She is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council at The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Karen has built a portfolio of high impact angel investments that include Werk, Elliot, Ever Loved, RDMD, HarperWilde, The Riveter, Mutiny, DogSpot and Ohana.Karen focuses on enterprise, fintech, and consumer marketplaces as a General Partner at B Capital Group.

Darren Murph

GitLab

Named an “oracle of remote work” by CNBC, Darren serves as GitLab’s Head of Remote. A visionary in organizational design, he works at the intersection of culture, operations, people, talent branding, marketing, and communication. He’s spent his career leading remote teams and charting remote transformations. He holds a Guinness World Record in publishing, and authored GitLab’s Remote Playbook and “Living the Remote Dream: A Guide To Seeing the World, Setting Records, and Advancing Your Career."Darren has pioneered the Head of Remote role, interviewed by CNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Fortune, Business Insider, and more.

Jason Williamson

Oracle for Startups & Oracle for Research

Jason Williamson is Vice President of Oracle for Startups and Oracle for Research reporting into the Office of the Founder. Oracle for Startups serves startups worldwide by enabling next-generation growth, business development, and driving cloud-based innovation for startups, our customers, and Oracle. Oracle for Research provides scientists, researchers, and university innovators with open communities; access to high-value, cost-effective, robust Oracle Cloud technologies; and startup and industry collaborations to find solutions to complex problems.Prior to joining Oracle, Williamson created and led several key initiatives within the investment and startup community at Amazon Web Services (AWS). There he launched AWS’ Private Equity Program and Alliances with Bain, McKinsey, BCG, PwC and Deloitte. He has a background in both Fortune 500 firms (Capital One, GE, Amazon, and Oracle) and the startup world. Among his startup efforts, he cofounded the construction industry’s first CRM SaaS offering and an international NGO for entrepreneurial development. Jason was an assistant professor for five years at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and has authored three books. He is currently is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. Jason serves on the Board of Visitors as North Carolina Central University’s School of Business, an HBCU in Durham, N.C. He has also proudly served his country as a United States Marine. Jason holds a B.S. in Management Information Systems from Virginia Commonwealth University and Masters in Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia. Jason lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, Susan of 24 years, and four kids.

Mckeever "Mac" Conwell

RareBreed Ventures

McKeever “Mac” Conwell II is a software engineer by trade and was a former DOD contractor with a top-secret clearance. He was a two-time founder with an exit and a failure. Next Mac moved on to the venture capital world via the Maryland Technology Development Corporation as part of their Seed Investment Team. During his four years there, Mac amassed experience leading an initiative to create the Minority Business Pre-seed Fund, the first and only, at the time, state-backed pre-seed fund for women and minorities in the country. In September 2020, Mac founded RareBreed Ventures, a pre-seed fund.

Amber Beebe

Snowflake

Snowflake Sales Engineer working side-by-side with small to medium size businesses as they tackle data challenges of all sizes.

Andrew Lee

Initialized Capital

Andrew is a former founder/executive dedicated to solving the world’s inefficiencies with technology. He has invested in various startups, incl. SandboxVR and CaseText. Andrew started Esper, a startup that uses machine learning to automate the work of an assistant, and social music-gaming startup JamLegend (acquired in 2011). He has served in product and advising roles at Facebook, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and FarmVille (played by 1 in 10 Americans at its peak). Andrew holds a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Claremont McKenna College, where he was a Truman Scholar, Udall Scholar, a USA Today All-Academic Team member. Andrew also created the game Fantasy Congress.

Jordan Kong

Atomic

I am an early-stage startup builder and technology investor at Atomic. Atomic is the startup studio that created high-growth companies like hims & hers, bungalow, terminal, homebound, replicant, and dozens more.

Lars Vestergaard

Oracle for Startups EMEA

Lars Vestergaard is an IT industry, mobile and cloud veteran. He has well-accomplished achievements as a key consultant, enterprise sales and recognized thought leadership to world-leading companies, operators, vendors, services companies as well as management consultants, investment banks, hedge funds, startups, and venture capitalists.He has worked across the entire ICT value chain linking technology up with topics of digitalization and innovation for vendors and customers. Has authored more than 40 white papers and performed as an inspiring and entertaining keynote presenter for a long list of companies.

Carly Coleman

Toptal

Carly Colemen is Director of Talent Success at Toptal, where she is responsible for the end-to-end journey of every talent that joins the Toptal network, developing new programs that increase value and improve retention for talent. Previously, she was a management consultant at Bain & Company and General Manager of Direct-to-Consumer at NatureBox.

Sergey Gonchar

Locals.org

Co-Founder Locals.org & Loóna. Co-Founder & CTO MSQRD (acquired by Facebook now Instagram Face-Filters)

Rajiv Nathan

Startup Hypeman

"Known as the Heavyweight Champion of Story, Rajiv 'RajNATION' Nathan is Founder of Startup Hypeman, helping growing companies not suck at telling their story so they stand out to their audience, stand apart from competitors, and break through in their category. He was named an ""Agent of Change"" by Huffington Post, has given a TED Talk, and been featured in Inc, Forbes, and more. He's also a hip hop artist, yoga instructor, and host of the popular show Startup Hypeman: The Podcast. Talk to him about Hamilton, WWE, or Seinfeld and you'll have a friend for life."

Hubert Palan

Productboard

Hubert Palan is Founder and CEO of Productboard. Driven by a passion for building excellent products, he started the company quietly and built a small team in Prague before launching at TechCrunch Disrupt. Before Productboard, Hubert was VP of Product Management at GoodData and a management consultant at Accenture. Hubert mentors and advises startups and frequently speaks at his alma maters – UC Berkeley (MBA) and the Czech Technical University (MSc. in Computer Science).

Tim Jackson

Walking Ventures

Tim Jackson is one of Europe’s top CEO coaches, and has worked with dozens of startup founders and CEOs who have raised between $2m and $50m from tier-one VCs.Tim’s fund, Walking Ventures, has delivered an 8x return from a portfolio of over 50 seed-stage startups. He also served as MD of the Carlyle Group’s $700m European tech fund, and was founder-CEO of QXL (NASDQ:QXLC), which was sold in 2007 for $1.9 billion.Tim wrote three business books, and a weekly technology column for the Financial Times for seven years. He was on the staff of The Economist and bureau chief for The Independent in Tokyo and Brussels.

Alex Wheldon

Rho

Alex Wheldon the Co-Founder of Rho Business Banking Alex is a 3x time entrepreneur and was the founder and CEO of Kanary, Europe’s first DMP/DSP, which was acquired in 2014. Alex was previously CPO at Lyst, a fashion marketplace with over 65 million customers, and CPO at Smarkets, a betting platform that he helped grow to over $2 billion in transactions per year in less than 12 months. Alex’s ventures have raised over $100m in venture capital from firms like Draper Esprit, LVMH, Accel, Oxford Capital and Deutsche Telekom. Alex is also an early stage investor through Wheldon Bros. Investments.

Tyler Norwood

Antler

Tyler, Partner at Antler US, is a business development specialist and entrepreneur with a strong focus on the growth and geographic expansion of early stage companies. With close to a decade of experience under his belt, Tyler prominently led the rollout of a comprehensive marketplace business model across over 10 countries in Southeast Asia for both Zalora and Global Fashion Group (GFG). The former Head of Business Development at GFG also spearheaded one of the largest private e-commerce acquisitions to-date involving India’s e-commerce fashion site, Jabong. Tyler has also co-founded Sirona Life, an agriculture-tech company based in the US which builds and operates vertical farms for schools and companies to help teach and promote hyper-local food supply chains.

Randall LaVeau

BOSS Capital Partners/ BOSS Startup Science

Randall is the CRO and founder of BOSS Capital Partners and CEO of BOSS Startup Science.Randall has over 15 years of experience developing scalable growth programs that range from Exit Strategy Development to scalable Go-to-Market Development. Randall was the CMO of Magento Commerce and helped position a $1.7B acquisition to Adobe. In addition, he started and managed a management consulting practice advising Private Equity portfolio companies on growth transformation. He has created, coordinated and executed startup growth strategies, programs and campaigns for new customer acquisition and existing customer retention. Additionally, Randall developed and managed advanced startup development programs, translating innovative concepts into actionable strategy to enhance brand and product positioning and drive revenue. Randall’s skills include Sales, Marketing and Service Delivery and Support.

Heather Delaney

Gallium Ventures

Born in Silicon Valley and living in London, Heather has won international awards and accolades within the technology and PR industries, having built successful agencies in both the US and UK. Over the years she has helped develop and launch some of the products you know and love and is commended for heer open and honest approach. Brands approach her to build and fix whether that might be through PR, marketing, creative, product development as she helps brands create long term company strategies which have deliverables in mind.

JD Weinstein

Oracle for Startups

JD Weinstein leads Oracle for Startups VC Connect helping venture-backed startups scale through Oracle’s rich enterprise ecosystem, cloud solutions, & global customer network. He previously served as Principal of WPP Ventures, the strategic venture capital fund for WPP, the world’s largest marketing communications company. He focused on venture investments in tech-enabled companies in MarTech, big data & market intelligence, RetailTech, AdTech, and content. Prior to WPP, JD worked with Capital Factory as a Venture Associate, where he was responsible for deal sourcing & due diligence for the CF Accelerator & venture fund. Prior to Capital Factory, JD worked with the UT Horizon Fund, the strategic market-driven venture fund for the University of Texas System. JD received his BS in Political Communication and Spanish from The University of Texas at Austin. Outside of the startup ecosystem, JD is a certified paddleboard yoga instructor and diehard Texas Longhorn Basketball fan.

Sonny Mayugba

Swimply

I’ve been a founder for nearly all my life. Most recently, I founded a food tech mobile app called Requested that became a food delivery app called Waitr, where I was the founding Chief Marketing Officer. Waitr became a highly successful mobile on-demand restaurant ordering and delivery company. In this role, I was instrumental in positioning Waitr, which became a public company in late 2018, for the national stage, and led integration efforts surrounding Waitr’s acquisition of Bite Squad, a Minneapolis-based online restaurant food delivery service. Stewarding user acquisition, activation, retention, and company revenue growth, I helped Waitr Holdings grow to serve cities in 700 cities across the U.S. with millions of customers, garnering annual net revenues of $150M. Prior to Waitr, I worked at Facebook in Global Business Marketing.

Robert Ravanshenas

Maven Ventures

Robert Ravanshenas is a Senior Associate at Maven Ventures, a Silicon Valley based consumer software focused Seed fund. Robert joined Maven in 2015, supporting the investment team’s work backing many of Maven’s exceptional entrepreneurs. After three years in the role, he transitioned full time to a Maven portfolio company in the transportation sector, Skip. At Skip, Robert worked in roles across operations and finance. He helped launch Skip’s scooter sharing service in Portland and San Francisco and worked on strategic finance. Robert has since returned to Maven to join Jim and Sara on the investment team.

Madhu Shalini Iyer

Rocketship.vc

Madhu Shalini was the Chief Data Officer of Gojek and helped grow the business into a $1 billion unicorn. She was on the board and started the Singapore office. Prior to Gojek, Madhu was an operating partner at a 150M private equity fund building startups across South East Asia. She was part of the founding team of Intuit’s Quickbooks Lending Platform where she helped grow the platform to $300 million and holds 3 patents in the areas of user data augmented algorithms for financial inclusion.

Dov Moran

Grove Ventures

Dov Moran is one of the most prominent Israeli hi-tech leaders in the world, and the Managing Partner of Grove Ventures. He is an investor, inventor and entrepreneur, who is best known as the inventor of the USB flash drive.Moran founded M-Systems, acquired by SanDisk for $US 1.6 billion in 2006.He also served as the chairman of Tower Semiconductors, a developer and manufacturer of semiconductors and integrated circuits, in which he led a massive overhaul. Under Moran’s guidance, the company achieved a notable turnaround and became an enormous success.Mr. Moran was awarded with multiple prizes, including Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, the prestigious Edward Rheine award, the Johnson Information Storage Systems Award and the Netexplo Talent of the Year award. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Israel's Academic Center of Law & Science, the Moscow State Technical University and the Technion - the Israeli Institute of Technology.He lectures extensively in universities and schools, and servs as a mentor to many Israeli entrepreneurs, to which he assists in converting research and innovation into viable businesses. His book 100 Doors - An Introduction to Entrepreneurship was published in 2016 and included insights from his untraditional path. Moran also established few other companies and invested in many others prior to establishing Grove Ventures.

Ty Findley

Ironspring Ventures

Ty is a Managing Partner at Ironspring Ventures, a sector-focused venture capital fund investing in digital industrial innovation. As both an operator and investor, he brings a decade of digital industrial experience to Ironspring. Previously, he was a Vice President at Pritzker Group Venture Capital where he was responsible for early stage enterprise investments with a particular focus on digital industrial applications. Prior to joining Pritzker Group, he worked for two years at GE Ventures, General Electric’s venture capital investment team. He was responsible for investment sourcing, execution and board responsibilities for companies focused on Industry4.0. Ty also spent a year as a Venture Fellow analyst with Austin-based early stage investment fund G51 Capital. Previously, he worked as a product development engineer for Boeing developing new airplane studies. Ty graduated from Baylor University with a B.S. in mechanical engineering, where he was also a letterman member of the football team and a senior captain. He earned his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management.

Eric Glyman

Ramp

Co Founder, Eric Glyman, at Ramp – Ramp is the only corporate card that ultimately strengthens financial performance. It provides a built-in expense software, which helps companies automate expense management, the receipt collection process, and accounting & categorization.

Karthik Suryanarayanan

Dell Technologies

Karthik is a strategist in the Experience Innovation Group at Dell where he is responsible for architecting and streamlining sustainability incubations. Prior to this role Karthik ran digital transformation initiatives at Dell. As an engineer in the past, Karthik developed and launched medical device and computing products. Karthik has an MBA from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Materials Science Engineering from University of Cincinnati. He lives in Austin, TX with his family.

Ben Gotfredson

Snowflake

I've worked @ Snowflake since 2015 - focused on helping innovative startups build the next generation of software leaders.

Ha Nguyen

Swimply

Hi, I'm Ha. I'm currently the Chief Experience Officer at Swimply where my role is to maximize the success of Swimply’s hosts and guests, and build out the company’s internal operations to maximize the company's success.Formerly, I was a Founding Partner at Spero Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm investing in the things that make life worth living: our well-being, work & purpose and human connection.I previously was a product executive at several early and mid-stage startups. I started my product career at eBay during a period of hyper-growth. I received my MBA from Harvard and BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rakesh Apte

Dell Technologies

Rakesh works on new product development and innovation strategy at Dell. Prior to joining Dell, Rakesh was a Senior Director at the Global Innovation Fund, a U.S. and U.K. based venture capital/innovation fund where he led investments in early-stage startups around the world from the U.S. to Southeast Asia. He has worked across several areas of business in the tech sector including entrepreneurship, product management, and corporate strategy. Earlier on his career, Rakesh spent several years at Microsoft in their Cloud & Enterprise group and Windows group. Rakesh earned his MBA from Berkeley and holds undergraduate degrees from UT Austin.

Alex Gordon-Furse

Startup Grind

Building the partner, startup and investor communities for Startup Grind globally.

Derek Andersen

Bevy / Startup Grind

For the past 15 years Derek has been building communities. He is the Co-founder/CEO of Bevy, a SaaS product that helps companies like Salesforce, Atlassian, Google, Snowflake, and Adobe build virtual and in-person communities. He co-founded Startup Grind, a community of 600 Chapters in 125 countries educating, inspiring, and connecting startup people. Since 2012, Startup Grind has hosted 15,000 events for more than 500,000 people. In 2010, he co-founded Commonred which was acquired by Income.com. Derek also previously worked as a product manager at Electronic Arts. He currently lives in Palo Alto, CA with his wife and four children.

Startup Summit 2021

Startup Membership - Education Pillar Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:40 AM (PST)

About this event

Speakers

Geoff Ralston

Rebecca Kaden

Vlad Magdalin

Russ Heddleston

Kyle Lui

Karen Page

Darren Murph

Jason Williamson

Mckeever "Mac" Conwell

Amber Beebe

Andrew Lee

Jordan Kong

Lars Vestergaard

Carly Coleman

Sergey Gonchar

Rajiv Nathan

Hubert Palan

Tim Jackson

Alex Wheldon

Tyler Norwood

Randall LaVeau

Heather Delaney

JD Weinstein

Sonny Mayugba

Robert Ravanshenas

Madhu Shalini Iyer

Dov Moran

Ty Findley

Eric Glyman

Karthik Suryanarayanan

Ben Gotfredson

Ha Nguyen

Rakesh Apte

Alex Gordon-Furse

Derek Andersen

Geoff Ralston

Y Combinator

Rebecca Kaden

Union Square Ventures

Vlad Magdalin

Webflow

Russ Heddleston

DocSend

Kyle Lui

DCM

Karen Page

B Capital Group

Darren Murph

GitLab

Jason Williamson

Oracle for Startups & Oracle for Research

Mckeever "Mac" Conwell

RareBreed Ventures

Amber Beebe

Snowflake

Andrew Lee

Initialized Capital

Jordan Kong

Atomic

Lars Vestergaard

Oracle for Startups EMEA

Carly Coleman

Toptal

Sergey Gonchar

Locals.org

Rajiv Nathan

Startup Hypeman

Hubert Palan

Productboard

Tim Jackson

Walking Ventures

Alex Wheldon

Rho

Tyler Norwood

Antler

Randall LaVeau

Startup Membership - Education Pillar
Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:40 AM (PST)