Polsky Council

Baber has been leading viaPhoton, a leading AI Infrastructure provider committed to being technology-led, customer-first, since 2020. He has helped drive viaPhoton mission to change the norm for hyperscale customers as they build the next generation data centers to fuel the need for compute and inference.

He spent 16 years at CommScope leading large businesses before founding viaPhoton alongside industry veterans.

Baber holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from GIKI, Pakistan and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Eric has been leading Numerator, a data and technology company committed to reinventing the market research industry, since 2019. He has helped drive Numerator’s mission to blend proprietary data with advanced technology to deliver original and actionable insights for brands and retailers.

In addition, Eric is focused on ensuring that his colleagues have the best professional experience of their career at Numerator. Before his tenure at Numerator, Eric served for ten years as the CEO of InnerWorkings, a global marketing execution firm.

Eric holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Bucknell University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He serves on several boards, including Tempus AI, Blueprint, and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. Additionally, Eric is an investor and adviser at Lightbank, an early-stage technology venture fund.

As founder and CEO of Zayo Group, Caruso led the company to an $8.5 billion exit, delivering exceptional returns for investors. His career highlights include co-founding executive roles at Level 3 Communications and leadership positions at Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS), both achieving multi-billion-dollar enterprise values. Caruso also spearheaded the 2004 take-private of ICG Communications, achieving a remarkable 25x return.

In 2020, he founded Caruso Ventures, a prominent investment firm focusing on quantum technology and space tech. A three-time “Decacorn” entrepreneur, his expertise is shared with aspiring innovators through numerous organizations, including Endeavor Global, Colorado Thrives, Elevate Quantum, and the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Caruso holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois. His numerous accolades include the Chicago Booth Distinguished Alumni Award for Entrepreneurship, the Colorado Technology Association’s Bob Newman Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Colorado Governor’s Corporate Citizenship Medal. Caruso has also inspired future generations as a commencement speaker for both the University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering and the University of Colorado Boulder MBA program.

Keith Crandell is a co-founder and a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. Mr. Crandell focuses on life science therapeutics, tools, devices and diagnostics, specialty materials, electronics, instrumentation, and photonics businesses.

Mr. Crandell played a key role in the formation and initial funding round of 908 Devices (MASS), Adesto Technologies (IOTS – acquired by Renesas Electronics Corp.), DA32 Life Science Tech Acquisition Corp. (DALS), Arbor Biotechnologies, ALIS Corp. (acquired by Carl Zeiss SMT), Cytrellis Biosystems, Eichrom Industries (acquired by Gary Comer, Inc.), Illinois Superconductor (ISCO), Nanophase Technologies (NANX), Quanterix (QTRX), Scale Biosciences, Twist Bioscience (TWST), Ultivue, and Vizgen.

He was also responsible for ARCH’s investment in Ahura Scientific (acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific-TMO), Apropos Technology (APRS – acquired by Syntellect-ESL), Boreal Genomics, CelebrateExpress (BDAY – acquired by Liberty Media-LINTA), Crystal IS (acquired by Asahi Kasei-AHKSY), New Era of Networks (NEON – acquired by Sybase-SY), and Teach.com (acquired by Intellinex), among others.

Mr. Crandell is a director of MASS, TWST, Arbor Biotechnologies, Cytrellis Biosystems, Lightcast Discovery, Scale Biosciences, Ultivue, UltraDx, Vizgen, and is an observer of AIRNA, Quantum Circuits and Slingshot Biosciences. He previously served as a director of MicroOptical Devices (acquired by EMCORE-EMKR), Nanosys, and was an early director of Engineering Animation (EAII – acquired by Unigraphics).

Mr. Crandell has served on the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship, ChicagoBooth since 2005 and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Advisory Council since 2017. Mr. Crandell also serves on the investment advisory board for the Mass General Brigham Innovation Fund, a venture capital fund affiliated with Harvard Medical School Hospitals. He has been active with the Illinois Venture Capital Association since its inception, previously serving as Chairman. He previously served as a Director of the National Venture Capital Association and its Governmental Affairs Committee.

Prior to the founding of ARCH, Mr. Crandell was with the specialty chemical and polymer company, Hercules, Inc.

Mr. Crandell holds an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago, an M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from St. Lawrence University.

Jai is President, Partner and Co-Founder at Sapphire Ventures. He invests in startups that he believes are developing ground-breaking products and are on their way to becoming Companies of Consequence. He has more than 15 years of investment experience and has helped multiple companies innovate their product and marketing strategies in order to become market leaders. Fourteen of his investments have IPO’ed, including MuleSoft, Jfrog, Five9, Nutanix, Alteryx, Square, ExactTarget, Apigee, Box, and SumoLogic, while 17 have been acquired.

He is often sought out by media including publications such as Insider, Bloomberg and TechCrunch for his expert commentary around enterprise tech trends, the burgeoning crypto and blockchain ecosystem, navigating shifting market conditions and more. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, having most recently spoken on the topic of crypto at SuperVenture in Europe.

Prior to joining Sapphire Ventures in 2006, Jai worked at Oracle, Intel Capital, Agilent Ventures, and MVC Capital. He has a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Brown University and an MBA from University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Mr. Dresner founded Dresner Partners in 1991 to provide Wall Street investment banking services to middle market businesses. His distinguished corporate finance career spans nearly 30 years, including mergers, acquisitions, debt and equity financing, restructuring and turnarounds, recapitalizations and international transactions. In addition to his transactional experience, Mr. Dresner has led numerous valuation, fairness opinion and strategic financial consulting engagements. He has worked extensively in several industries including healthcare, business services, building products, textiles, industrial manufacturing, retail and media. Prior to founding Dresner Partners, Mr. Dresner held management positions with First Chicago Corporation (JP Morgan Chase), Arthur Andersen (corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions practices), Heller Financial and GE Capital Corporation.
A community leader, Mr. Dresner serves on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Association for Corporate Growth, the Michael Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago, RTC Corporate Board, and The Entrepreneurship Institute. He has also served on the Ravinia annual fund committee and is a member of The Economic Club of Chicago.

Education
M.B.A. Finance, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
B.S. Economics, with Honors, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Thomas Elnick is a partner at Bancroft Capital Partners (BCP), a private investment company focused on building incredible products and businesses with exceptional people. BCP manages solely the partners’ money and has a patient and long-term investment horizon. Prior to BCP, he was the co-founder and co-CEO of Tegus, a leading research platform serving more than 30,000 public and private market institutional investors, investment bankers, consultants, and corporations. In 2024, Tegus was acquired by AlphaSense for $930m. Elnick received his BA in economics from Brown University. He lives with his wife and two children in Chicago.

JP Gan is a Founding Partner of INCE Capital. With over 23 years of experience in venture capital, Mr. Gan has been ranked a top venture capitalist worldwide by the Forbes Midas List for seven consecutive years and was No.5 on the global list in 2019. He has been named a top venture capitalist in Asia and China by multiple media and institutions including CB Insights / New York Times, Fortune Magazine, AVCJ, Zero2IPO, ChinaVenture, and 36Kr.

Focusing on Internet, consumer and intelligent technologies sectors, Mr. Gan’s successful investments include Trip.com Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: TCOM, HKEX: 9961, a director since 2002), Bilibili Inc. (NASDAQ: BILI, HKEX: 9626, a director since 2015), Dianping.com (merged with Meituan, HKEX: 3690), Musical.ly (acquired by ByteDance and became TikTok), Meitu Inc. (HKEX: 1357), Jiayuan.com, PPS Inc and ATL.

Prior to founding INCE Capital, Mr. Gan had been a Managing Partner and member of the investment committee of Qiming Venture Partners for 13 years. He started his venture capital career at the Carlyle Group in 2000 and was a Director and founding member of its Asian venture fund. He also worked at KongZhong Corporation, Merrill Lynch, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Mr. Gan holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BBA from the University of Iowa. He is a member of the Chicago Booth Council and Polsky Center Council.

Roopa Gandhi is the president and founder of GEP. She founded GEP to build a beautiful company that positively and sustainably impacts employees, clients and communities.

Roopa is passionate about supporting women, from ensuring access to education and healthcare to creating an organization that attracts, supports and advances women in the workplace. She actively supports multiple not-for-profit organizations working to promote women's education, upliftment and guidance.

She advocates a sustainable employee culture and is actively involved in daily employee management of GEP. She spearheads many initiatives within the company that foster holistic employee growth and advancement.

As an extension of GEP’s CSR efforts, Roopa serves on the board of directors for the Akshaya Patra USA, a nonprofit organization with a vision that no child in India is deprived of education because of hunger.

Roopa's journey has taken her to global platforms such as the World Economic Forum where she has participated in panel discussion on “Reinventing Globalization.” She has been an invited speaker at numerous events including Booth Women Connect Conference, Deshpande Development Dialogue and the Dale Carnegie for Executives panel. Roopa's achievements include being recognized as one of the 50 Fastest Growing Women-Owned/Led Companies by the Women Presidents Organization, being a finalist for E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, and winning both the NJBiz Best 50 Women in Business and SDCE Women in Supply Chain Award. Furthermore, Roopa is a council member of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Roopa holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, an MS with highest honors in industrial pharmacy from Long Island University and a BS in pharmacy from Mumbai University.

Shruti Gandhi is the general partner and founding engineer of Array Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund that focuses on solving pressing problems in large industries using data, AI, and ML.

Scott Griffith is CEO and board member of Motiv, where he brings 30 years experience of founding, leading, scaling and advising leading technology-based companies that have often been market disruptors operating at the intersection of technology and mobility.

Prior to joining Motiv, Griffith served as CEO of Ford Motor Company’s Autonomous Vehicles and Mobility Businesses, where he oversaw the development of Level 4 autonomous vehicles as well as overseeing Ford’s portfolio of strategic investments in future mobility businesses.

As CEO of Zipcar for over 10-years, he led the nascent car sharing company from its seed stage. During his tenure at Zipcar, Scott has also been credited with shepherding the development and popularity of the entire car sharing category as he turned a small niche idea into a profitable, mainstream form of urban transportation and lifestyle brand. This led to Zipcar being referred to as “The Best New Idea in Business,” in a cover story by Fortune Magazine. During his extended tenure, Griffith raised several rounds of venture capital from top-tier investment firms, grew the business organically and through acquisitions in the US and Europe and eventually took the company public in one of the strongest IPOs of the year.

Scott also serves on the board of EVgo {NASDAQ: EVGO}, a pioneer in the development of large-scale fast-charging networks for electric vehicles. His EVgo board role puts him at the forefront of an industry that is critical to the success of both passenger and commercial vehicle electrification.

Scott earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

ROSS HIKIDA is a Managing Member at ThirdStream Partners, a private investment entity founded by former BlackRock executives (previously Barclays Global Investors before its acquisition). ThirdStream specializes in multistage investments in FinTech, asset management, and other financial services companies.

Ross previously held leadership roles as President of BlackRock Japan Co., Ltd. and CEO/CIO of Barclays Global Investors Japan Ltd. Earlier in his career, he worked at Leland O’Brien Rubinstein Associates, an early pioneer in financial engineering and the application of option-pricing strategies in global financial markets.

Ross currently serves on the Digital Asset Advisory Group for Wilshire Indexes. He has also served as a Director of the Japan Securities Investment Advisors Association, Board Member of the CFA Society of Japan, and an Advisory Panel Member for the International Finance Corporation’s Emerging Markets Database. He holds an MBA in Analytic Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago and is a CFA charterholder.

Brent joined Origin Ventures in January 2013, and leads the firm’s office in Salt Lake City.

Prior to joining Origin Ventures, Brent created and led the Central region sales organization for Twitter. Before Twitter, he led a sale organization for Google (Chicago). Brent joined Google after his previous company, FeedBurner, was acquired by Google in 2007.

Brent received a BS in Finance from Bradley University, where he was captain of the golf team. He received his MBA from Chicago Booth, where he serves as a judge for the annual New Venture Challenge.

An avid runner and cyclist, Brent has completed 20 marathons – including three of the World Marathon Majors (Chicago, Boston, NY). He was a 2013 Team USA qualifier for the World Duathlon Championships.

Rattan L. Khosa, ’79, came to the United States from India in 1969 with $3.75 in his pocket. Thanks to his unflinching resolve and knack for taking calculated risks, Khosa is now the CEO and founder of AMSYSCO Inc., a company that has turned a profit every year since it opened.

“To win the Distinguished Alumni Award, especially in the entrepreneurial field, confirms what I have been doing,” Khosa said. “Not only growing the business, but leveraging it to make a difference in the lives of so many people.”

Despite graduating first in his class with his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Rajasthan, Khosa was unable to secure a job due to discrimination. He came to the United States to begin a research fellowship at the University of Maryland while getting his master’s degree in structural engineering. Things didn’t go as planned then either—before graduation, he was offered a job with the State of Maryland, but the offer was later rescinded due to the waning economy. Left with only $60 and two weeks before he had to vacate student housing, Khosa found a job in the post-tensioning industry—with no prior experience or knowledge in the field.

He began the job in 1971 at Atlas Prestressing Corporation as a design engineer and then moved on to become division engineer. He joined INRYCO Inc. in 1973, where he worked in sales, management, and consulting positions. Inspired by his colleagues, he applied to the Evening MBA Program, determined—due to the advice of a coworker who had graduated from Booth—to only attend the best business school he could.

“I felt that if I had to make myself better, and I had to have the best education, Booth is the place when you talk about an MBA,” Khosa said.

Two weeks before graduation, he found himself at a crossroads yet again. By then he was working at a different firm, and he resigned from his job, correctly predicting the company wasn’t a viable business. He was left with three options: find a job in the United States, go back to India, or start his own company. His father urged him to start his own venture, and out of desperation, Khosa set out to found AMSYSCO.

Time and again, Khosa has turned challenges into new opportunities. For example, in his Booth years, Khosa once received a low grade on a marketing paper after the professor didn’t grade two pages that had been stuck together. The instructor offered him the opportunity to write a new paper on marketing challenges and solutions for his employer. Khosa later drew on ideas from that paper when building AMSYSCO. While most post-tensioning companies focused on the lowest prices and limited technical support, he wanted his business to be grounded in customer service and high product quality.

With only $44,000 and no outside financing, Khosa started AMSYSCO in 1981 out of the basement of the home he shared with wife, Bharati, and son, Neel Khosa, ’07. Today, AMSYSCO is a midsize company based in Romeoville, Illinois, providing unbonded post-tensioning systems on commercial structures, including Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois; the Minnesota Twins baseball stadium and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis; and Millennium Park and the Midway Airport parking garage in Chicago. More than 100 of its high-rise towers are listed in the skyscraper database of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat—AMSYSCO’s largest market being downtown Chicago.

Now in its 38th year, AMSYSCO has continuously turned a profit—even during the financial crisis. Khosa attributes the company’s consistent success to client relationships and product quality, the pillars on which he built his business.

His own early hurdles have inspired Khosa to share that success by giving tremendous support to future generations of students. His generous gifts have established the Rattan L. Khosa Student Entrepreneurs Program at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. He endowed the Rattan L. Khosa Scholarship, which provides support to Full-Time MBA students, giving preferential consideration to qualified Kashmiri Hindu Pandit students.

“Having been at Booth, and graduated from Booth, you have an education that not many people have,” Khosa said. “It gives a pleasurable feeling to belong to such a community of successful people spread around the world.”

Dan is passionate about leading investments in transformative companies at their earliest stages, and sits on the board of many Deciens portfolio companies including Chipper, GlacierGrid, and Treasury Prime.

Prior to founding Deciens, Dan co-founded Standard Treasury and served as its CEO until its acquisition by Silicon Valley Bank. Standard Treasury built leading API solutions for the global financial services community and was backed by YCombinator, Andreessen Horowitz, and Index Ventures. Standard Treasury was named one of the "Ten Technology Companies to Watch” by American Banker and "Global Innovator of the Year" by SWIFT. After its acquisition, Dan became responsible for API Banking, Open Platform, and Global Research at SVB. Earlier in his career, he was an analyst at TechCrunch where he helped launch their conference business.

Dan graduated from the University of Chicago with an A.B. and A.M. (both with honors) and studied mathematical (analytic) finance at the Booth School of Business for a year as a Booth Scholar. While at the University of Chicago, he won numerous awards, including the Howell Murray Alumni Association Award and Margaret C. Annan Undergraduate Award in Writing.

Dan was named to Forbes’ "30 under 30," is a Kauffman Fellow, was recently named to the Milken Institute’s Young Leader Circle, is a member of the University of Chicago's Polsky Council, and is active in the Young Presidents’ Organization.

He lives with his wife and their dogs in Chicago and Albuquerque, where he enjoys reading, cooking, biking, and skiing.

Venetia Kontogouris is the managing director of Venkon Group LLC, a company that invests in real estate and early stage ventures, with an emphasis on technology and cloud-based services. Current investments include Zumigo, Ruby Seven Studios, Flow Inc., Be Health, Energy Savvy, and Simple Mills. Prior to her employment with Venkon Group, Kontogouris was the senior managing director for Trident Capital, where she oversaw venture capital investing. She was one of the original members and co-managing partner for Funds IV, V, and VI with over $1.5 billion of venture investments under management. During her time at Trident Capital, she was responsible for many successful investments and exits including, Odyssey Logistics, Outsource Partners International, Microland, Advantec, Infotrieve, Sphere, Viant, Daou Systems, Vality, PBN/Taleo, IPro, Invention Machine, and CrossMedia.

Jacqueline is the founder, advisor, and former managing general partner of Munich Re Ventures, a multi-fund venture capital investing platform for Munich Re Group, the world’s largest reinsurance company. Under her leadership, committed capital grew from $50m in 2014 to more than $1B at the end of 2025.

Jacqueline and the Munich Re Ventures team led and participated in investment rounds for companies in insurtech, IoT, digital health, cyber, climate tech, space, mobility and other areas, across stages from Seed to Series D, and across the globe including the US, UK, Europe, Israel, Latin America, and India.

She served on the board of directors of Augury, HDVI, and Orange Charger, and was previously a board observer at Nova Labs (formerly Helium) and Forge Global. She previously led the Series B round of relayr, served on the board, and facilitated the acquisition of the company in 2018 by Hartford Steam Boiler, a subsidiary of Munich Re. Jacqueline recently joined the advisory council for the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. She is a longtime member of the Leadership Society Advisory Board of Global Corporate Venturing, the membership organization for professional corporate venture capital groups, and was Chairman for 2022-2023.

Among the earliest investors and operators in what has become the insurtech space, Jacqueline has a unique perspective on the future of risk transfer. In 2008, she founded and led Hartford Ventures, one of the first direct corporate venture capital vehicles for an insurance company, along with an innovation studio that launched new products and offerings for The Hartford. She is an inventor on a number of patents related to new technologies and business models in insurance and is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Jacqueline has 20+ years of experience creating the future in companies large and small, as a start-up founder, venture capital investor, corporate innovation leader, and management consultant. She has a particular interest in innovation at the intersection of technology, risk transfer, and infrastructure stemming from work early in her career in transportation and project finance in the US and China. She lives in San Francisco and holds an MBA from Chicago Booth and a BS Economics from The Wharton School.

Prior to co-founding PMV Pharma with biologists Arnold Levine and Thomas Shenk, Dr. Mack was a general partner at Alta Partners from 2002 to 2013. His first investment was Angiosyn (acquired by Pfizer in 2005) where he was a director and CEO. 
Prior to Alta, Dr. Mack co-founded and served as Vice President of Genomics Research at Eos Biotechnology (acquired by Protein Design Labs in 2003). From 1994 to 1997, he served at Affymetrix as Head of Cancer Biology where he oversaw the development and application of DNA array technology in the areas of oncology and inflammation. Dr. Mack was also a pivotal member of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Invention Group at Cetus (now Novartis) in the mid 1980s. Dr. Mack has co-authored more than 30 scientific articles and reviews, including papers published in Cell, Science, and Nature, and is an inventor on 26 issued US patents. Dr. Mack was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he was a Howard Hughes Fellow in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, and he received a B.A. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Mack has served on the Board of Directors of numerous biotechnology companies including Angiosyn, Aerie Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AERI), Ceregene, Proacta Therapeutics, aTyr Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:LIFE), Pathwork Diagnostics, Silence Therapeutics (LON:SLN), Aduro Biotech (NASDAQ:ADRO), and Sutro Biopharma (NASDAQ:STRO).

Karthee is the Founding Managing Partner at MFV Partners, a Silicon Valley based, early-stage deep tech venture fund targeting technology startups disrupting traditional industries like Logistics, Automotive, Manufacturing, and others. Karthee invests in frontier-tech startups in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Energy, Quantum Computing, and data platforms. He represents MFV Partners’ investments in PsiQuantum (Quantum Computing Hardware), Agility Robotics (Humanoid Robotics for Manufacturing), and Sun Mobility (EV Tech platform), among others.

Before MFV, Karthee spent 11 years as a Corporate Vice President and Managing Director at Qualcomm Ventures, where he invested across the US, Israel, and India. He started Qualcomm Ventures' investment activities in both Israel and India. Some of his notable investments include Waze (acquired by Google), MapMyIndia (NSE: MAPMYINDIA), Validity Sensors (acquired by Synaptics), and BORQS (NASDAQ IPO), among others. He continues as an independent director at MapMyIndia.

Before Qualcomm Ventures, Karthee led technical and product marketing roles in three semiconductor and wireless startups in Silicon Valley, specializing in 3G, WiFi, and Bluetooth.

Karthee has a bachelor’s in electronics and communication engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy in Chennai, India, and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. Karthee also holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Karthee is also a Kauffman Fellow.

Matt Maloney is founder and CEO of Grubhub. Under Matt’s leadership, Grubhub has grown its active diner network to 30 million users who can order from more than 300,000 takeout restaurants in over 4,000 cities. He led the company through five rounds of investment funding, a 2013 merger with Seamless and a 2014 initial public offering. Matt currently serves as an advisory board member for The University of Chicago Booth School of Business Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and a member of ChicagoNEXT, an organization dedicated to driving growth and opportunity in the Chicago business community. He also serves on the board of directors of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Matt was named one of America’s most powerful CEOs 40 and under in Forbes Magazine in 2016 and one of the top 50 business people of 2014 by Fortune Magazine. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and two master’s degrees, including an MBA, from the University of Chicago.

Doug Monieson is CEO of UICO, a Chicago-based manufacturer of rugged industrial touch screens and Beringea portfolio company. Doug has extensive board experience in governance, nominating and strategy for profit and non-profit organizations. He is Chairman Emeritus of Hyde Park Angels, one of the country’s largest and most active angel groups where he has invested in 60+ Midwest startups. He serves as a Trustee for Illinois Institute of Technology in Bronzeville and is a Board Member and Treasurer of the non-profit Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s (RTC) and is redeveloping the old Kenwood L Line on the southside into a bike and walking trail. Doug is an avid cyclist, commuting between his home and office. He lives in Chicago with his wife Leslie and has two grown children, Aaron and Sarie.

Prior to establishing Tellus BioVentures Lonnie cofounded TESARO (a fully-integrated Boston based oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company) and served as CEO and Director until its acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline in January 2019. Lonnie previously served as President and CEO of Abraxis BioScience, acquired by Celgene Corporation in 2010. Prior to Abraxis he served as Vice Chairman of Eisai Corporation of North America following Eisai’s acquisition of MGI PHARMA, where he served as President and CEO. This followed him serving as a member of the founding management team of a venture-stage biotech company. Lonnie began his career as a clinical pharmacist followed by a 17-year career at predecessor companies of Sanofi, beginning with Marion Laboratories.

Lonnie is a Temple University Trustee and Chair of the Trustee Committee for Research. He is a Council Member for both the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Lonnie is the Founder, CEO and Chairman of Zenas BioPharma and serves on the Board of Directors for Zai Lab, Helsinn Group and Trevena, and for the Tellus BioVentures portfolio companies: Aegle Therapeutics, Dianthus Therapeutics, Interius BioTherapeutics, Navrogen, Praeventix, TamuroBio and viTToria Biotherapeutics. Lonnie previously served as a Venture Advisor to New Enterprise Associates (NEA). He received a Pharmacy degree from Temple University and an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Koichiro “Koh” Nakamura is a Founder and General Partner of Sozo Ventures. He made the 2021 Forbes Midas List for investments in Coinbase and Palantir (2020 IPO), and for leading Sozo’s investment in Square. Prior to co-founding Sozo, he spent over 20 years building technology companies and was a member of the founding team of Yahoo Japan. At Mitsubishi Corporation, he created relationships with large Japanese conglomerates, providing the credibility needed for portfolio start-ups to find alpha and beta customers. While there, he created Japan’s first Application Service Provider (ASP), and Datastations (acquired by ValueCommerce). Koh also launched the Innovation Kitchen, which incubated seed-stage ventures in Japan. At Innovation Kitchen, he invested in university technology and served on the board of Scigineer, Japan’s leading discovery engine company, which went public in 2014 (TSE).

He graduated from Waseda University, then received an MBA from the University of Chicago. He was a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and received the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the program.

Koh, who says, “iconic companies go global, and global markets go through Japan,” has shepherded hundreds of companies through international expansion, and has shared his expertise in Nikkei, MarketWatch, Forbes Japan, Venture Capital Journal, Newspicks, and many other publications.

Mr. Noon has been involved in the development of more than 800 acres of land for suburban office and industrial parks, over 3,000,000 square feet of office buildings and over 1,700,000 square feet of industrial buildings. After 5 years as a construction lender and 10 years working for other national development companies, Chris started Quadrangle in 1988. He has an undergraduate degree with Honors in Civil Engineering from Purdue University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Chris currently serves as a Trustee of Ravinia Festival, an internationally renowned, not-for-profit music venue, and is a previous board member of Lake County Habitat for Humanity. Chris resides in Winnetka with his spouse, Barbara, and is the proud parent of two adult children.

Chase Packard is a founding partner at Marathon Management Partners, a venture firm backing founders intent on creating and defining new market categories, with a focus on enterprise AI & fintech. A former varsity baseball player at the University of Chicago, he brings the same competitiveness and preparation to venture, working closely with founders from first check through scale. Previously a partner at Coatue Management, where he led investments in Revolut, Lead Bank, Mercury, Ramp, Melio, Rootline, and Silverflow, Chase has deep expertise in fintech infrastructure and credit economics — an edge in helping financial technology companies navigate complex, regulated markets.

Before Coatue, Chase was a venture investor at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and an investment banking analyst at Qatalyst Partners. He earned a BA in Economics with General Honors and a minor in Statistics from the University of Chicago, where he was a Dougan Scholar at Chicago Booth.
His active investments at Marathon include Niural, Clark, Wafer, Cloudwalk, and Atlas.

In his last operating role, James spent ten years at Microsoft where he led a product development organization with over 15,000 team members spanning the globe, delivering over $20 billion in revenue annually. His teams built and operated a large portion of the Microsoft Cloud including the Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Azure AI Platform, Azure Data Platform, Azure IoT Platform, and the Microsoft Cloud for <industry> product families.

During his decade at Microsoft, James drove the creation of many of the company's most successful new products including Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and the broader Power Platform, creating billions of dollars of net new organic annual revenue. In addition to new product innovation, James led the turnaround of Microsoft's business applications franchise, transforming a flat-lined, 4% growth, largely on-premises software business into the Dynamics 365 SaaS family, creating a multi-billion dollar, 30% annual revenue growth engine for the company.

Prior to Microsoft, James was co-founder and CEO of Akimbi Systems (acquired by VMware) and Couchbase (IPO: BASE); held engineering, product management, corporate development and marketing leadership roles at Intel, VMware and Synopsys; and spent two years as a technology investment banker with UBS.

He began his career as a self-taught software developer and co-founded Fifth Generation Systems (acquired by Symantec) at age 17 where he built Fastback – the first DMA-based hard disk backup utility for the IBM PC.

He holds a BS in Mathematics and earned his MBA, with honors, from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Michael Polsky is a visionary entrepreneur, business leader, and energy industry pioneer whose work has defined the global energy landscape. He is the founder and executive chairman of Invenergy, North America’s largest independent power producer and energy infrastructure innovator. Under Polsky’s leadership, Invenergy developed over 220 projects, with a combined capacity of more than 38 gigawatts over the last 25 years. Driven by Polsky’s pragmatic and results-focused vision, Invenergy has become synonymous with growth and innovation.

An engineer by training, Polsky’s career spans over 45 years and almost every form of energy. Beginning with coal, he worked in oil, nuclear, and natural gas power generation before founding and building two successful independent power companies, which developed cogeneration and gas plants. In 2001, Polsky founded his third company, Invenergy, playing a critical role in the global expansion of power generation at scale.

Focused on technology, economics, and opportunity, Polsky pursues innovations that make practical sense, and his companies have developed some of the largest natural gas, solar, land-based wind, and storage projects in the world. Polsky-led Invenergy also explored cutting-edge advancements across emerging sources and technologies such as geothermal.

Known for its execution capabilities, Invenergy develops, builds, and operates some of the most complex energy projects. These include long-distance transmission projects, such as Grain Belt Express, which will be the largest single transmission investment in U.S. history; American manufacturing at scale, with one of the most advanced domestic solar factories; and the first liquefied natural gas (LNG)-to-power generator for El Salvador, Energía del Pacífico, which meets 30% of the country’s energy demand.

Polsky’s passion for entrepreneurship and energy innovation is also reflected in his philanthropy. With a groundbreaking gift in 2025, Polsky established the World Resources Institute Polsky Center for the Global Energy Transition and the Polsky Energy Transition Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago, both of which are developing practical solutions to address the world’s most urgent and critical energy challenges. He also endowed the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago, where he serves as a Trustee Emeritus.

Polsky has received widespread recognition for his humanitarian and professional contributions, including the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

Polsky holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Chicago Booth. 

Shyam Rao is seasoned entrepreneur, executive, investor and advisor for several startups in Silicon Valley. He is currently founder & CEO of Tote, a venture-backed startup headquartered in Redwood City, CA. Prior to Tote, he was the founder & CEO of Punchh, a market leading CRM platform focused on delivering one-to-one customer engagement through artificial intelligence, mobile-first expertise, and omnichannel communications for restaurants and retailers. Punchh was acquired for $500M in April 2021 by PAR Technologies (nyse:PAR).

Shyam holds a bachelor of science in computer engineering from the University of Toronto and a MBA from Chicago Booth. He lives with his wife and two boys in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ms. Rudnick currently serves as Sr. Advisor, New Venture Programming, at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center. Previously she served as the Executive Director of The Polsky Center and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship.
Prior to joining Chicago Booth, Ms. Rudnick spent 25 years in business management and entrepreneurial activities, primarily in the health care and health information services industries. She served as president and CEO of Healthcare Knowledge Resources, president of HCIA, chairman of Pacific Biometrics, and corporate vice president of Baxter Healthcare Corporation.
She serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards including Liberty Mutual and Old National Bank (ONB), Matter, and the Kaplan Institute at Illinois Tech. She previously served on the boards of Patterson Companies (PDCO), HMS Holdings, Oxford Health Plans, Northshore University Healthsystem, 1871, Hyde Park Angels and Autism Home Support Services (AHSS). She is an advisor to many start-ups that emerge from Chicago Booth’s entrepreneurship programs.
She has been the recipient of many honors including the Illinois Venture Capital Association’s (IVCA) Richard M Daley Award; 1871’s Entrepreneurial Champion Award; Today’s Chicago Woman 20th Anniversary Hall of Fame and the YWCA Leadership Award. Rudnick received her B.A. from Vassar College and her MBA from Chicago Booth.

David Sacks is co-founder and partner at Craft. He has been a successful founder and investor for over two decades, building and investing in some of the most iconic companies in tech. David has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, AirBnB, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish.

David first got involved in the technology industry in 1999 when he joined early-stage startup Confinity, later renamed PayPal. Serving as the company’s first product leader and then as COO, David built and ran many of the company’s key teams, including product management and design, sales and marketing, business development, international, customer service, fraud operations, and HR. He pivoted the product from beaming money on Palm Pilots to emailing money on the web, and introduced the business model. When the company IPO’d on the Nasdaq in 2002, David was 29 — the median age of the “PayPal Mafia” executives listed on the S-1. PayPal was later acquired by eBay and eventually spun back out into a publicly traded company (under ticker symbol PYPL).

In 2008, David founded enterprise collaboration company Yammer, which was one of the first SaaS startups to apply consumer growth tactics to enterprise software. Yammer’s viral approach made it one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups in history, exceeding eight million enterprise users in just four years. As Founder/CEO of Yammer, David grew the company to roughly $60 million in sales and 500 employees. In July 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion. It remains one of the fastest unicorn exits in SaaS.

Since Yammer, David has continued to be involved in the SaaS world, with an emphasis on “Bottom Up SaaS,” the strategy he pioneered at Yammer by combining product-led growth with B2B sales. Bottom-up SaaS companies combine the growth potential of B2C with the enterprise budgets of B2B, leading to explosive outcomes when ARR goes viral.

David is co-host of the All In podcast, alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg. Started in 2020, the "Besties" discuss a wide range of topics including technology, economy, politics and social issues. All In is routinely the #1 pod in tech and top 15 overall.

David is well known in Silicon Valley for his product acumen. AngelList’s Naval Ravikant has called David “the world’s best product strategist.” David likes to begin pitch meetings by seeing a product demo.

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Notable Investments
Addepar, Affirm, Airbnb, CloudKitchens, Eventbrite, Facebook, Getaround, Gusto, Houzz, Intercom, Lyft, Opendoor, Palantir, PlanGrid, Postmates, Quora, Reddit, Scribd, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, Vanta, Wish, and Xoom
Board Member or Observer
CloudTrucks, ClickUp, Knock, OpenPhone, Roboflow, Rumble, Scratchpad, SentiLink, Sourcegraph, Vendr

Focus
SaaS

Lee Shapiro is co-founder and managing partner at 7WireVentures, a leading healthcare venture fund. He also served as chief financial officer of Livongo Health [NASDAQ:LVGO] until November 2020. Previously he was president of Allscripts [NASDAQ:MDRX] from 2001 until the end of 2012.

Prior to stepping in as CFO of Livongo and leading its 2019 IPO, Lee served on the board of the company since its launch, chaired the audit committee and as a member of its compensation committee. During his tenure as CFO, Livongo also had a successful secondary offering, raised $550M in convertible debt and entered into an agreement to merge at the highest valuation, $18.5B, of any healthcare technology company, based on revenue multiples. The price of $159 per share was over six times the price of Livongo’s shares at the time of its IPO, just 12 months earlier.

Lee served on the boards of Clover Health [NASDAQ:CLOV], Senior Connect, a special purpose acquisition company [NASDAQ:SNRH], Medidata Solutions [NASDAQ:MDSO] until its sale in 2019 to Dassault Systemes, Tivity Health [NASDAQ:TVTY] until May, 2020 and Click Therapeutics. He also serves on the board and committees of various 7wireVentures portfolio companies.

Lee is a co-founder and board member of The World Innovation Network, the advisory committee of the University of Chicago Innovation Fund Advisory Committee and has served on the Samsung Digital Health Advisory Board and Qualcomm Life Advisory Board. Based on his industry experience, Lee is a frequent speaker at widely attended industry conferences and is a published contributor to the Forbes Business Council.

Lee practiced commercial law at Barack, Ferrazzano, Kirschbaum, Perlman and Nagelberg, a prominent Chicago law firm. He holds a JD degree from The University of Chicago Law School and a BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois.

Jon is a Partner and Co-President of Valor and the Fund Manager for Valor Siren Ventures (VSV). He serves as a member of all Valor Investment Committees. Jon has over 20 years of experience in private equity investing. Jon’s responsibilities include fund management for VSV I and II, as well as investment prospect generation, due diligence of potential investments, investment structuring and execution, and capital raising for Valor’s growth funds and VSV. Jon oversees Valor’s Scale Group, Finance, and People Teams.

Over the years, Jon has focused on investment opportunities in the food and retail technology sectors. Jon began this focus with Valor’s 2006 acquisition of Sizzling Platter. Currently, Jon is a Director of several Valor growth fund and VSV portfolio companies, including Gopuff, Misfits Market, Fooda, Wow Bao, and Atmosphere.

Prior to Valor, Jon was part of MG Capital’s Investment and Portfolio Team. During his tenure at MG Capital, Jon worked on acquisition teams focused on executing transactions in the electronic connector industry. Jon served in operational roles at MG Capital’s portfolio companies, including Chief Operating Officer of Connector Service Corporation’s Plating Division, where he managed the business through 100% growth over a 12-month period. Jon also served as President of Electronic Plating Service and Chief Operating Officer for Amax Plating, Electronic Plating Service, and Associated Plating Company. Prior to joining MG Capital, Jon worked with Bain & Company as an Associate Consultant. At Bain, he worked on assignments for various Fortune 500 clients in Texas and Australia.

Jon has served on the Boards of Directors of several charitable organizations, including the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, the Chicago Children’s Museum, and he most recently co-founded Prosper Chicago. He is the former Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Lycée Français de Chicago.

Jon holds a B.B.A. in Accounting (with honors) from the University of Texas at Austin.

Michael Small is a chairman and co-founder of K4 Mobility. He is a wireless industry veteran, most recently serving from 2010 to 2018 as President and CEO of Gogo Inc, an inflight wireless company that went public in 2013 at a valuation of $1.4 billion.

Prior to that, Michael served as CEO of Centennial Communication Corp from 1999 until it was sold to AT&T for $3 billion in 2009. He has twice received the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2005 and 2012, and the Illinois Technology Association CEO of the year award in 2013.

He has a BA in history from Colgate University and an MBA in finance from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

William has 30 years of private equity experience and has been a leading financial services growth investor since 2001. A significant part of his experience has been in building and growing insurance companies in both the U.S. and the U.K. He has, through his work in private equity, been a founding investor and/or board member of many successful insurance companies including Catlin Group, Clear Blue Insurance Group, Essent Group, Fidelis Insurance, Global Atlantic Financial Group, Lancashire Group, Montpelier Re, Narraganset Bay Insurance and Third Point Reinsurance.

Prior to co-founding Pine Brook, he was with The Cypress Group from its inception in 1994 until 2006, leading its financial services and healthcare investing activities. Prior to Cypress he worked in the Merchant Banking Group at Lehman Brothers. He has served on the board of directors of 20 companies, including seven publicly traded corporations. William is currently a member of The Polsky Council of The University of Chicago Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and its Private Equity Council.

In addition to his extensive financial services experience and recognised leadership, William holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics, an M.A. in Economics from the University of Western Ontario and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

After many years of judging and mentoring in Booth’s New Venture Challenge (NVC), Mark Tebbe brings a wealth of successful entrepreneurial experience into the classroom by leveraging his founding of two NASDAQ-listed corporations as well as direct involvement in numerous start-up and high-growth companies over the past thirty years. As both an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Chicago Polsky Center, Tebbe aids students in their entrepreneurial efforts and helps other professors enhance their classes. Outside of the classroom, in addition to being a prolific angel investor, Tebbe serves as the Chairman of ChicagoNEXT, a dedicated public-private effort to improve Chicago’s competitiveness in science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

In 1984, Mark founded Lante Corporation, (NASDAQ: LNTE) a Chicago-based technology-consulting firm in which he served as CEO and Chairman. Using a $10,000 credit line on his credit card, Tebbe launched the technology advisory firm that helped to create over 250 new businesses as well as building backend infrastructure and websites for established companies including Microsoft, Dell, American Airlines, American Express and Charles Schwab. After going public in February 2000, Lante was taken private with SBI Group in September 2002 and sold (as Razorfish) to aQuantive in July 2004.

In September 2004, Tebbe was Co-Founder, Vice-Chairman of the Board and Lead Director of Answers Corporation, (NASDAQ: ANSW). Building on his inspiration to create a productive website to aid his son on a school essay, Tebbe co-conceived the answers.com website which became one of the Web’s leading QA publishers and was sold to Announce Media in July 2011.

Tebbe also served as an Operating Executive at Lake Capital where he was involved in guiding and aiding numerous portfolio companies with strategy development, operational refinement, and execution monitoring, as well as investment evaluation, structuring and negotiation. Over the years, Tebbe has been a consultant to executive management of many leading companies including American Express, Dell, and Microsoft, as well as nonprofit organizations such as National Park Service, United Nations, and World Economic Forum. Tebbe currently serves as a board member for Enova (NYSE:ENVA) and HAVI while formerly serving on the boards of SBI Group, Accent Software (NASDAQ: ACNTF), Divine Interventures (NASDAQ: DVIN), Elexos, OCTuS Software (NASDAQ: OCTS) with renowned Atari founder, Nolan Bushnell, Raise, Selective Search, and ZixIt (NASDAQ: ZIXI).

Tebbe is a recognized and published industry expert on emerging technologies whose insights have appeared in leading national publications including BusinessWeek, Fortune and the Wall Street Journal. In light of his service to the University of Illinois, where he earned his B.S. in Computer Science – Engineering degree, Tebbe was honored with the Chicago Illini of the Year Award, as well as the national Alumni Honor Award for Distinguished Service. He has received numerous awards and honors including University of Illinois College of Engineering’s “Alumni Award for Distinguished Service”, Ernst and Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” Finalist, University of Illinois “Chicago Illini of the Year”, Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame Inductee, Crain's Chicago Business's "40 under 40", Crain's Chicago Business's "Tech 50", Microsoft’s “Solution Provider Partner of the Year", and Sm@rt Reseller's "Smart 25" Executive.

Tebbe also serves on the boards of many civic organizations including 1871 (Executive Committee Member), Big Shoulders Fund (Board Member), Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (Executive Committee Member), ChicagoNEXT (Chairman), Economic Club of Chicago (Technology Committee, Program Committee), Field Museum of Chicago (Trustee, Executive Committee Member and Technology Committee Chair), mHub (Executive Committee Member), World Business Chicago (Executive Committee Member). Mark and his wife also support numerous children-oriented, educational, and environmental causes.

Mr. Thangaraj has 20 years of experience as a seasoned investor in operations, venture capital and growth equity opportunities. He began his career at ARCH Venture Partners (“AVP”), a venture capital firm which makes early stage technology and healthcare investments. During his tenure at AVP, he managed one of its portfolio companies, HealthQual, a medical information company, until its sale to Nellcor, a large hospital supplies company. He left AVP in 1995 to run a start-up telecommunications services company called Integrated Telemanagement, which was later sold to Cam-Net Communications.

Mr. Thangaraj serves on the Board of Directors for Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACUR) and Serene. In addition to the portfolio company boards on which he serves, Immanuel was also responsible for EW’s investment in Microport Scientific Corporation (HK:853); China Cord Blood Services Corporation (NYSE: CO); VenturePharm; CBR Systems (acquired by GTCR); iKnowMed Systems (acquired by NYSE: MCK); and Novacept (acquired by NASDAQ: HOLX).

He previously served as the Co-Chair of the Council of the Booth School of Business and the Visiting Committee of the College, both at the University of Chicago. He is also the former Chairman of MAP International.

Mr. Thangaraj holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago.

Cack Wilhelm is a general partner at IVP, focusing her investing energy on high-growth companies helmed by technical founders with a precise vision. A former professional runner, she brings the same discipline and ambition to venture, coaching founders and companies to reach their full potential. With a background in enterprise sales at Cloudera and Oracle, Cack appreciates the nuances of complex technology and the importance of customer relationships, giving her an edge in helping infrastructure companies supercharge their growth.

Cack was included on Fortune’s 40 under 40 in 2022 and the Forbes Midas Brink List in 2024. Cack earned a BA in History from Princeton University, where she was an All-American runner, and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Cack’s active investments include ClickHouse, Cribl, Perplexity, CircleCI, Cortex, Monte Carlo, Papaya Global, and Sublime Security.

Jill Wyant is the CEO of Madison Air (NYSE: MAIR), a publicly traded company dedicated to creating a safer, healthier, and more productive world through the power of better air. Jill joined Madison Air in 2021 following 12 years at Ecolab, the world leader in water, energy and hygiene technology and services. As executive vice president and president of global regions and global healthcare from 2018 to 2021, she had ownership of a $5 billion P&L with 25,000 employees and was responsible for the vision, strategy, and general management to shape the next phase of growth for the company internationally. Prior to Ecolab, she held multiple leadership positions at General Electric.

Jill's career reflects a track record of driving innovative strategies to capture new growth and profitability, spearheading innovation, driving manufacturing excellence, and leading breakthrough M&A. She also brings a broad perspective on international business and experience driving enterprise-wide digital transformations. At Madison Air, Jill built an air quality solutions powerhouse – driving a sixfold increase in revenues to $3 billion in under two years and taking the company public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Jill has a passion for building innovative, mission-driven teams and under her leadership, Madison Air has invested significantly in safety, benefits, and pathways to career growth for frontline team members.
Jill is an independent board member of Dow (NYSE: DOW). She was named to the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2023, currently serving as vice chair of the board. In 2024, she was named to the National Association of Manufacturers' board of directors. She is a board member of the Brain Tumor Network and volunteers as a mentor with McKinsey & Company's Advancing Women Executives program.

Jill earned an MBA with highest honors from Chicago Booth and serves on the advisory council of the school's Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of St. Thomas.

Kat’s journey into venture capital began with a front-row seat to the 2008 financial crisis when her family experienced firsthand how fragile and far-reaching the failures of the financial system could be. “It gave me a visceral understanding of just how embedded financial services are in people’s everyday lives,” she says. The experience sparked a conviction that these systems shouldn’t just function better; they should serve people more fairly and transparently.

That belief now fuels her work at Lightspeed, where she partners with early-stage fintech founders reimagining the financial services stack.

Kat began her career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she led annual stress tests and analyzed systemic risk across major financial institutions. But over time, she came to believe that the most transformative change wouldn’t come from inside the system, but from the innovators building outside of it. That realization set her on a path into fintech and venture, where she could back the founders pushing the industry forward.

Before joining Lightspeed, Kat was an investor at Upfront Ventures, where she spent four years investing in early-stage companies across fintech and vertical AI. Drawn to Lightspeed’s thesis-driven approach and commitment to long-term partnerships, she quickly found alignment with the firm’s fintech vision and founder-first culture.

Kat brings an analytical edge and operational empathy to her work, grounded in her time at the Fed and honed through years of high-velocity early-stage investing. “I’m always trying to be three steps ahead,” she says. “Risk is inevitable, but if you’re thinking deeply and iterating quickly, you can see around corners.”

Her approach is defined by hustle, empathy, and shared ambition. “I believe investors should reflect the same grit and resilience they expect from the founders they back.”

The daughter of immigrants who rebuilt their lives while pursuing graduate degrees in North America, Kat moved frequently as a child before landing in the Bay Area — experiences that taught her to adapt quickly, embrace discomfort, and find common ground in unfamiliar environments. “Moving around felt hard at the time,” she reflects. “But I had a firsthand look at how innovation can create opportunity and how powerful it is when people are willing to do the hard thing.”

In her free time, you’ll find Kat rediscovering old hobbies and leaning into new ones, from skiing to clay wheel throwing. “Learning a new craft is a constant reminder: everyone starts at zero. The only way through is to stay disciplined and get comfortable being uncomfortable.”