Transform

Mark is the Managing Director of Math Venture Partners, an early to mid-stage technology venture capital fund, and an Adjunct Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business.

He is a serial entrepreneur who started four companies, managed three venture funds, and was head of Innovation for Redbox as well as an early employee of Apple. He is the co-author of Exit Right – how to sell your startup, and has a popular podcast on the Noteworthy network: The Real Work with Mark Achler.

Mark is a frequent speaker, resource and ardent champion for the entrepreneurial community; where he is a mentor for TechStars, and several other entrepreneurial organizations.

Alex Castrounis is the founder and CEO of Why of AI, a book author on AI, and a professor of AI for Northwestern University’s Kellogg & McCormick MBAi program. He has over two decades of experience advising startups to Fortune 100 companies on using data, analytics, and AI models to drive business growth and customer success.

Alex is also a former INDYCAR engineer, race strategist, and data scientist who drove winning results for teams such as Andretti Autosport in world-renowned races, including the Indy 500. His experience applying analytics to make smarter, data-driven decisions in racing now helps businesses gain and maintain a competitive advantage in their industry.

Hemant Elhence is a seasoned tech entrepreneur, investor, and advisor to tech companies. His core expertise is helping tech companies achieve their Product x Market Fit (PMF) and then to scale their sales.

Hemant was the co-founder and CEO of Synerzip, a leading Agile product engineering company which merged with Prime Technology Group in December 2020, to become Excellarate, a global saas platform engineering services company. At Synerzip, Hemant put in place a sales and marketing process, on-going sales training, and a kick-ass sales team to drive consistent, over its 16 year history, new logo acquisition and current client growth.

Hemant led the successful exit of Synerzip to a private equity (Frontenac) backed strategic acquirer (Prime Technology Group) and then stayed on to ensure successful post-merger integration of the companies and rebranding to Excellarate. Hemant served as the President of Excellarate, leading all sales, marketing, and account management functions. With new leadership team solidly in place, Hemant moved on from Excellarate in July 2022.

Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Hemant was VP Products at i2 Technologies. Prior to i2, Hemant was with McKinsey & Company where he served numerous blue-chip clients on operations and business strategy issues. Hemant started his career as a software developer with Digital Equipment Corporation in Massachusetts.

Hemant holds an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, MSEE from the University of Massachusetts, and BSEE from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, in India.

Anush Mohandass is the COO and co-founder of Asato Corporation, an enterprise copilot platform powered by AI designed for CIOs. He is responsible for driving the company’s product development, operations and execution strategy. Most recently, he was Vice President and Co-General Manager of Incubation and Disruptive Innovation Group at Intel Corporation leading a 750-person multidisciplinary team responsible for organically sourcing, incubating, and accelerating the next multi-B$ growth businesses for Intel.Previously at Intel, Anush was the vice president and general manager of the System, Infrastructure IP and Solutions Group (SISG) leading the development of fabric, system, and infrastructure IP for the company’s server, networking, artificial intelligence, and client segment products.

Prior to rejoining Intel in 2018, Mohandass was the chief operating officer at NetSpeed Systems, where he led the product management, business strategy and operations functions of the company. Mohandass guided the successful launch of seven precedent- setting products during his time at NetSpeed. A technical expert with a breadth of experience across industries, Mohandass started his career at Intel in 2001 as a design engineer for Intel® Pentium® processors. He went on to hold various technical and leadership roles in component and design methodology for microprocessors and graphics processors until leaving Intel in 2008. He subsequently spent several years working in the renewable energy industry — first, as a lead product manager at Skyline Solar LLC overseeing the development of concentrated photovoltaic cells, and then as a business development manager at Power-One Renewable Energy Solutions LLC prior to its acquisition by ABB Group.

Mohandass holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy, at Anna University in Chennai, India. He went on to earn a master’s degree in computer engineering from The Ohio State University and an MBA degree from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

Anurag Wadehra is a growth coach to technology companies, leveraging over 30 years of experience in operating roles at renowned organizations such as Google and P&G. He has played a pivotal role in coaching and mentoring over 100 tech founders and operators. His blog, “Growth Matters,” reflects his extensive experience in scaling companies from their inception stages to IPOs and achieving valuations up to $500 Million. Anurag is known for teaching online cohort-based courses focusing on Product Market Fit, Go-To-Market strategies, and U.S. market entry, along with offering self-guided video-based courses.

In his career, Anurag has been a tech founder or operator at six startups, specializing in data, cloud, and AI technologies, and has served as the Chief Marketing Officer at two public technology companies. He is also actively involved in mentoring CEOs and founders through several accelerators, including Stanford’s StartX, Alchemist, the Polsky Center for Innovation at the University of Chicago, and SaaSBOOMi, which is India’s largest SaaS founder community.

Outside of professional commitments, Anurag engages in diverse creative pursuits. He has authored a play and produced a documentary, showcasing his flair for storytelling and filmmaking. Additionally, he has contributed to the literary world by translating Punjabi poetry into English, bridging cultural and linguistic gaps. Anurag also hosts a monthly South Asian podcast named “Baithak,” where he explores and discusses various aspects of South Asian culture and issues.

Dr. Kate Wolin is a behavioral epidemiologist who left academic medicine to launch and lead a digital health start-up, which she bootstrapped to profitability before selling to Anthem. She has since been a C-suite leader and advisor to digital health start-ups and enterprise organizations on bridging clinical and behavioral science with product strategy and execution. She is a partner at PACE Healthcare Capital and teaches entrepreneurship at Kellogg.