Alumni New Venture Challenge (ANVC)

Sid Bala is an experienced technology industry executive with a proven record of helping scale businesses. For over 30 years, he has built thriving organizations with a team-first, innovative culture. He currently serves as President of Calcium. From its founding in 2018, Calcium has been focused on providing individuals with access to meaningful health data right at their fingertips, by employing easy, fun-to-use tools and personalized guidance that make healthier decisions easier. The company is purpose-built to improve health outcomes and patient satisfaction with an intuitive platform that provides real-time insights and trend analyses to give a more complete picture of an individual’s health. Calcium is dedicated to helping individuals “think healthier.”

He previously served as President & CEO of alligatortek. The enterprise services firm focused on building bespoke software applications. Their extensive portfolio met the needs of its global clients and their employees, partners and customers. With a strong focus on identifying bottlenecks in business processes, the company brought deep industry knowledge and expertise to every project, enabling its team members to quickly identify and design solutions for unique business challenges. A Microsoft Managed Partner, alligatortek was the winner of the 2015 Innovative Technology for Good Citizenship Partner of the Year Award. alligatortek has also been recognized for a 2016 Chicago Innovation Award and as the People’s Choice Award winner at the 2014 Chicago Innovation Award, a 2014 Chicago’s Best of the Best Small Business and One of the Top 50 Employers for Gen Y Emerging Talent in 2013. The company was sold to a strategic buyer in 2020.

Sid currently serves on the boards of several private companies in marketing, virtual reality, beverage, govtech and healthtech. His philanthropic board activity includes Silver Cross Hospital, The Economic Club of Chicago and Chicago Innovation. He is an active member in The Commercial Club of Chicago, The Chicago Club and Hyde Park Angels.

He holds a BA from The University of Chicago and a MS from MIT and State University of New York. He and his wife live in Chicago.

Jon moved to Chicago from the UK in 1998 to establish and lead the North American presence of Mintel, a global market intelligence agency. Today, with more than 350 employees across the Americas, Mintel provides consumer and market insights to hundreds of brands, agencies and academic institutions.

Jon also serves as president of the British American Business Council in Chicago (BABC). The BABC is a dynamic member-driven non-profit organization that fosters business relationships between the UK and the United States. Through its network, programs and events, the BABC helps entrepreneurs, companies, and organizations connect and succeed in the United States.

A keen biker and runner, Jon is also a passionate musician. He frequents the classes at the great Chicago music institution, Old Town School.  Two teenage sons keep Jon abreast of video game culture.

Chris is the founder of Lofty Ventures, which builds long-term relationships with Chicago’s next generation of passionate and brilliant founders. Investments range from five to six-figures in pre-seed to seed stage startups. Lofty’s portfolio includes Turbo Appeal (acquired), teaBOT (Y Combinator), Popular Pays (Y Combinator), Tovala (Y Combinator), Cubii (acquired, #180 on Inc500), L Street Collaborative, Blitsy (acquired), 4Degrees (Techstars), Paladin (Techstars), Gather Voices and (LAUNCH). Over two-thirds of Lofty’s 50+ portfolio companies are led by at least one female and/or underrepresented founder. Chris spent four years as VP of business development with Loft Development Corporation, his family’s Chicago-based commercial real estate business, which brought the concept of lofts from New York to Chicago in the 1960s. Loft sold its portfolio of six office buildings and two self/wine storage facilities in 2016.

In addition, Chris is the founder of the nonprofit-focused home-sharing platform WeCasa, an LP in social venture fund Impact Engine (IV), and a member or board director of the following civic and/or nonprofit organizations: the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Emerge curatorial group, Chicago Ideas’ Radical Creators, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s MakeWork council, Social Venture Partners Chicago, and Outreach With Lacrosse & Schools. He has been a mentor, judge or speaker at Kellogg School of Management, Pritzker Law School, University of Chicago, Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, Impact Engine, Techstars, Women Tech Founders, National Association of Realtors, U.S.-Japan Council, Cradles To Crayons, Embarc Chicago, Future Founders, DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago, and NASA iTech.

Chris earned his BA in economics from Vassar College, where he played varsity lacrosse, basketball, and rugby. He previously coached Chaparral High School’s lacrosse team (Scottsdale, AZ) for six years and helped lead them to five championship appearances and three state titles in 1999, 2002, and 2004.

Waverly Deutsch created WyseHeart Advisory to continue her work with entrepreneurs and venture capital firms which includes serving on the advisory boards of several startup companies, as an Operating Partner for OCA Ventures, and as a Senior Advisor for PACE Healthcare Capital. Prior to WyseHeart, Waverly spent 22 years as a professor at Chicago Booth where she most recently taught the Global New Venture Challenge and Building the New Venture for Booth’s Executive MBA program. From 2001 to 2021, she was a full-time coach for the New Venture Challenge, a top-ranked academic accelerator program that has launched over 600 successful companies. In 2005, she received the US Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s Innovative Teaching Pedagogy award for the YourCo simulation that parallels the Building the New Venture class and allows students to develop and run a mock startup through the launch process. In 2015, Deutsch was honored with the Phoenix Faculty award for her contributions to the Booth student community beyond the classroom. Her quarterly articles appeared in the Chicago Booth Review magazine from 2016 thru 2021. Before joining Chicago Booth, Waverly was managing director of NetFuel Ventures, an internet incubator. Waverly spent seven years with Forrester Research in Cambridge Massachusetts, a leading technology market research firm. Waverly holds a BS in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD in theater history from Tufts University

Allison is a Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners and has been with the firm since 2019. 

Prior to HPVP Allison ran business operations for Civis Analytics, a Chicago-based data science software startup. She also co-founded Flag Analytics, a predictive analytics company focused on public safety, and spent her early career in healthcare consulting at Accenture. She is a 2017 MBA/MPP from the University of Chicago. 

Mr. Lefever joined Silver Capital Advisors as a partner in 2017 to focus on the industrials, consumer, and retail industries. Previously, Mr. Lefever was the managing partner and cofounder in 2001 of Axiom Financial Advisors, LLC, an investment banking firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions, strategic reviews, and corporate finance advisory. From 1998 to 2001, Mr. Lefever was a managing director at CIBC World Markets (formerly Oppenheimer) in New York, where he headed the Transportation Equipment & Services Investment Banking Group. His principal responsibilities included M&A and corporate finance. Prior to joining CIBC, Mr. Lefever was a managing director in corporate finance at UBS Securities in New York, where he worked as an investment banker for ten years serving companies in a broad range of industries. 

Mr. Lefever has represented numerous domestic and international clients in a variety of advisory and financing transactions with deal values totaling over $10 billion. He has completed deals on four continents. These M&A and strategic review assignments were exclusive mandates on which Mr. Lefever was the senior banker. Clients include Fortune 200 companies, smaller corporations, private equity firms, hedge funds, and not-for-profit entities. 

Before joining UBS, Mr. Lefever was an attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York, where he specialized in negotiated acquisitions. Prior to graduate school, he worked in the Banking Section of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC. Mr. Lefever has published in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, American Economist and University of Chicago Literary Review. Mr. Lefever earned an honors degree in economics from Bucknell University and a MBA and JD from the University of Chicago, where he was the student government representative for both the law and business schools, as well as the recipient of a merit fellowship awarded by accounting firm Peat, Marwick & Mitchell. Mr. Lefever is married with three children. He is an avid SCUBA diver and a KCBS certified BBQ judge. Mr. Lefever is a director of the Art Deco Society of Washington and a member of the New York Bar.

Kevin founded r40ai to help growth businesses leverage AI to increase their Rule of 40 performance through proprietary data, consulting and AI solutions.

Kevin was CEO and co-founder of IntegriChain from 2006 to 2023 when he became Executive Chairman. IntegriChain is a SaaS and data company that helps over 400 biopharma companies successfully commercialize emerging therapies.  IntegriChain was backed by Accel-KKR and ultimately sold to Nordic Capital.

Prior to IntegriChain, he spent 20 years building and launching software and services companies in the financial services, petroleum, and pharmaceutical industries, including two initial public offerings (IPOs). He has authored six books on Unix, the Internet and Java and has spoken at conferences and seminars around the world. He is also a member of the Iowa State University Physics Advisory Council.

Kevin earned a Bachelor of Science in physics from Iowa State University and a Master of Business Administration in international business and finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He currently sits on the boards of several companies focused on cybersecurity and biotechnology and is an active investor.

Amelia Morris serves as director of investments, analyst, and team leader on the consumer products research team. She is also a member of the international large-cap investment committee. Amelia joined Brandes Investment Partners in 1998, and is a limited partner of the firm’s parent company. She has served as a member of the Brandes Institute advisory board, the investment oversight committee, and the emerging markets investment committee with Brandes Investment Partners. She has vast investment experience. Amelia is a CFA charter holder. She received a bachelor’s in economics from the University of California, Davis, and her MBA from Chicago Booth.

Jean is an Operating Partner at Impact Venture based in Menlo Park, California. She works closely with seed-stage companies in the enterprise software and consumer sectors. Her investments including Spera Security (acquired by Okta), Arnica, GoSchoolBox, Uplift.ai, Tatcha (acquired by Unilever), Antelope Pets, Bubble Beauty, Cuzen Matcha, etc.

Jean has held various operating roles for more than thirteen years. She started her career at GE Healthcare, first in the technical leadership program, then as a product manager for Computer Tomography. Jean joined the Technology Group at Goldman Sachs in 1997 upon receiving her MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. She relocated to the bay area in 1999, and co-founded ePlanetCare, a digital platform for patients self-managing chronic diseases like diabetes. Later, Jean ran strategic investments at NetApp, focusing on investments (series B+) in the enterprise software and networking sectors.

From 2010 to present, Jean has been an active angel investor. She joined Impact Venture in 2020 focusing on the enterprise software sector.

Jean grew up in Shanghai, China. She holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She is a member of the Council on Chicago Booth, and an advisory board member of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

Shyam Rao is seasoned entrepreneur, executive, investor and advisor for several startups in Silicon Valley. He is Founder & CEO of Tote.ai, a new stealth seed-funded startup headquartered in Redwood City, CA. Prior to Tote.ai, he was the Founder and 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).

Prior to founding Punchh, Shyam was the Vice President of Business Development at Prime Focus Limited, and on the Principal Investments Team at Merrill Lynch. Shyam started his career at Motorola in its CDMA and WiMAX divisions as a software engineer. Mr. Rao holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto and a MBA from the University of Chicago. He lives with his wife and two boys in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ellen Rudnick is a senior advisor and adjunct professor for entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth and previously served as the initial executive director of the Polsky Center. She is a successful startup executive, having served as chairman of Pacific Biometrics and CEO of Health Care Knowledge Resources. She has held positions as corporate vice president at Baxter Healthcare and president of Baxter Management Services Division, which she founded. She also has an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Michael Small is the cofounder and CEO at K4 Mobility, a digital technology and internet services provider for the maritime industry. He previously served as the CEO and president at Gogo Inc. from 2010 to 2018. Michael also served as the CEO of Centennial Communications Corp from 1999-2009, and previously held many other leading roles at telecommunications companies, most of which were publicly traded. Michael also serves since 2010 as the director of First Midwest BanCorp Inc., a Chicago-based regional bank with $15+ billion in assets. Michael has a bachelor’s degree in history from Colgate University, and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

After many years of judging and mentoring Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge (NVC), 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 startup and high-growth companies over the past thirty-five years. For over ten years, as both an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship and an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Polsky Center, Tebbe aids students in their entrepreneurial efforts and helps other professors enhance their classes. Outside of the classroom, Tebbe serves as chairman of World Business Chicago’s Innovation and Venture Strategy Council, a dedicated public-private effort to improve Chicago’s economic development as well as national and world competitiveness in science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Quan Zhang is managing director at Pin Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. Prior to founding Pin Capital, Quan was an investor at Guild Capital. As the head of e-commerce investments at Guild, he led a series of early-stage deals, such as Home Chef (acquired by Kroger) and MessageControl (acquired by Mimecast). Prior to venture capital, Quan was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, focusing on M&A and private equity projects in technology, retail, and healthcare sectors. Quan earned Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago and B.S. from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC).