Our incredible Speakers
Mohammad Barkeshli
Mohammad Barkeshli is an investor at Hall Capital Partners, where he focuses on fund investments across private markets, oversees the firm's climate-related and impact investing efforts across asset classes, and is a member of the Investment Review Committee. Prior to rejoining Hall Capital in 2021, Mohammad was a private credit investor at Community Investment Management, an infrastructure private equity investor at Queensland Investment Corporation in London, and worked on sustainability-related investments at a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund. Mohammad was also a co-founder of an education-focused social enterprise in southern Tanzania, and has served on the boards of the Foundation for Sustainable Development as well as Global Glimpse. Currently, he is a board member at Ilmhona, a workforce re-training NGO based in Tajikistan, and an advisor to the Stanford GSB Impact Fund as well as Stanford Emergence, an initiative aimed at educating and supporting engineering students to tackle global systemic challenges. He holds a BA from New York University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
View profileHall Capital Partners
Mohammad Barkeshli
investor
Anna-Marie Wascher
Anna-Marie founded Flat World Partners in 2015 after working at Accenture and Cantor Fitzgerald where she saw an unmet need for impact advisory services in the financial market. Flat Wolrd Partners serves as an investment advisor and investment partner to institutional investors building impactful portfolios across asset classes. Anna-Marie founded impact reporting and analytics platform, YvesBlue, a sister company of FWP. She has worked as a member of investment teams for several family offices and investment firms in the US and Europe with over ten years’ experience evaluating investment opportunities in venture and hedge funds. She serves as an investment committee member to her family office. She has served as a venture partner to Aera, an advisor for NYU Summer Launchpad , Cornell Technion and an advisor to TechStars Food to Fork Incubator. In 2009 Anna-Marie left Accenture to co-found Malaika For Life, a non-profit based in Tanzania focused on women’s development and malaria.
View profileFlat World Partners and Yvesblue
Anna-Marie Wascher
Founder
Youngrok Kim
Youngrok Kim is a Partner at GREE LP Fund, a Fund of Funds operating in the US and Japan. Previously, he held the position of SVP at Recruit Strategic Partner, the strategic investment arm of Recruit Holdings, a major internet company in Japan. Youngrok began his career as an engineer at Goldman Sachs before transitioning to a VC career at ARCH Venture Partners in Chicago. He earned an MBA from the University of Chicago and received his degrees in Information Technology from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo.
View profileGREE LP Fund
Youngrok Kim
Partner
Esther Tricoche
Esther is the Managing Director of Private Investments for MALIAM, a new multi-generational single family office focused on the future of human flourishing. Uniquely, she represents one of the only Latinas to lead a US-centric family office. Previously, Esther led VC fund investing for a Silicon Valley based family office whose portfolio spanned ~40 years. Prior to this, she focused on direct investing and portfolio support for early stage ventures in fintech, healthcare, and edtech. Esther started her career as a founding team member of Arnold Ventures and holds a degree in Cognitive Neuroscience.
View profileMALIAM
Esther Tricoche
Managing Director of Private Investments
Sophie Forest
Sophie Forest from The Bush Foundation: As investment officer at the Bush Foundation, Sophie Forest works alongside the finance team to ensure the Foundation's resources are thoughtfully and effectively managed. Sophie joined the Bush Foundation in 2023 and has a passion for impact investing — helping investors connect their mission and values to their investments. Sophie most recently served as assistant director of investments at Upstart Co-Lab, where she helped connect impact investing to the vibrant creative economy. Prior to that role, she was at Cambridge Associates on the Sustainable and Impact Investing team. She's also held roles at high-net-worth wealth management firms and with an impact-focused nonprofit. Sophie graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance from McGill University and has passed all three levels of the CFA® exams. Sophie is a Canadian who grew up and spent most of her adult life in New England. In her free time, she is busy exploring everything the Twin Cities has to offer, spending time with her dog and listening to podcasts.
View profileBush Foundation
Sophie Forest
investment officer
Alex Edelson
Alex Edelson from Slipstream Investors: Alex is the Founder and General Partner at Slipstream Investors, a VC fund of funds that invests in pre-seed and seed funds, many of which are emerging managers, and in their breakout portfolio companies. Before starting Slipstream, Alex was the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at QED Investors and Nigel Morris's Chief of Staff. He holds a BA and JD from the University of Michigan.
View profileSlipstream Investors
Alex Edelson
Founder and General Partner
Kyle Thorpe
Kyle Thorpe from Pattern Ventures: Kyle Thorpe is a General Partner at Pattern Ventures, a specialist venture capital fund of funds exclusively focused on exceptional small funds sized $50m and below. Kyle has more than a decade's worth of experience as a direct investor across public and private market strategies. Collectively, the Pattern Ventures team has deployed over a billion dollars into emerging fund managers and alternative investments over the last two decades.
View profilePattern Ventures
Kyle Thorpe
General Partner
Aparna Bagade
Aparna Bagade from Upstart Co-Lab: Aparna Bagade joined Upstart Co-Lab in 2023 bringing seven years of experience as an impact and finance professional. During her time in business school, she led the Impact Measurement team at Microlumbia Impact Fund, where she developed a new impact framework for the fund to capture quantitative and qualitative KPIs. She engaged closely with portfolio companies to assess their ongoing impact, both during the due-diligence process and post-investment. Previously she worked as a management consultant at Deloitte in London, specializing in financial crime compliance, change management, and strategic transformation. Aparna holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she was a Three Cairns Climate Fellow and focused on social impact. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of Warwick.
View profileUpstart Co-Lab
Aparna Bagade
Senior Associate
Luis-Henrique Amaral
Luis-Henrique Amaral from Babson College: Luis-Henrique Amaral is the Investment Associate for the Babson College Endowment. He has been at the Endowment since June of 2022 focused on the private equity portfolio. Prior to joining Babson College, he worked in corporate finance. Luis holds a BS in Business Analytics from St. John's University, where he graduated top of his class.
View profileBabson College
Luis-Henrique Amaral
Investment Associate
Justin Dyer
Justin Dyer at AWM Capital is a Partner with AWM Capital and serves as the firm’s Chief Investment Officer (CIO). AWM Capital is a multi-family office dedicated to serving professional athletes with a human-centered approach. AWM clients span MLB, NFL and the PGA Tour, and consist of World Series Champions, Cy Young winners, Olympic Gold Medalists, and Super Bowl Champions. As the firm’s CIO, Justin leads the investment committee and oversees investment operations and research teams. A significant area of his focus is the firm’s venture capital platform.
View profileAWM Capital
Justin Dyer
CIO and Partner
Doug McBean
Doug serves as Senior MD/Deputy CIO at the Caltech Investment Office, which manages the institute’s USD $4.0 billion of endowment, trust, and other assets including campus real estate. Doug joined Caltech in 2014 and was elevated to his new role in 2022, today leading the investment team in risk management, asset allocation, and portfolio management overseeing all asset classes and direct investments. Prior to joining Caltech, Doug served as Associate Director of Investments at Nazarian Enterprises, a single-family office in Los Angeles. He previously spent five years at Stanford Management Company (SMC) where he was responsible for the endowment’s domestic and global long-only and long/short strategies. Doug began his career in sell-side research at Robertson Stephens and Jefferies & Company. Doug earned an A.B. in government, magna cum laude, from Harvard College, and an M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
View profileCaltech Investment Office
Doug McBean
Senior Managing Director / Deputy CIO
Ben Gallacher
Ben Gallacher is a Founding Partner at Blue Deer Capital Partners, an Exempt Market Dealer headquartered in Toronto that provides advisory services to mission-driven entrepreneurs. He is also co-founder and Executive Chairman at Voxel AI. Ben is the Venture Capital and Private Equity Advisor, at Cannonball Capital, a Canadian Family Office. He serves as a Director at Orthogonal and Panaxium and is a Board Observer at Butler Hospitality.
View profileCannonball Capital
Ben Gallacher
Venture Capital and Private Equity Advisor
Katherine Rice
Katherine Rice at GingerBread Capital Katherine believes the time is now to make a difference and she works passionately to leverage her vast operating and investing background to identify female led early-stage companies and support entrepreneurs in realizing their full potential. Prior to GingerBread, Katherine was an Operating Partner at Altamont Capital Partners. She is the founder and CEO of RCP, a strategic advisory firm helping consumer businesses to scale. Previously, as a senior executive at Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Katherine ran business development spanning multiple brands and launched new global multi-channel businesses. She was also a manager at Bain & Company and began her career in investment banking in New York. Katherine has served as a board director of numerous private companies and non-profit organizations. She holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University.
View profileGingerBread Capital
Katherine Rice
Partner
John Seeds
John Seeds serves as the Functional Head of SouthState Bank's Fund Banking practice, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. With a focus on funds ranging from $50 million to $1 billion nationwide, John oversees a comprehensive suite of banking services tailored to meet the credit and treasury needs of these funds. His career in banking spans nearly four decades, beginning in 1985 at Wachovia Bank in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Over the years, he progressed through various Corporate & Investment Banking divisions within Wachovia, culminating in his specialization in International Corporate Finance. In 2006, John joined forces with seasoned banking executives to establish Atlantic Capital Bank, a dynamic middle-market banking institution headquartered in Atlanta. The bank was later acquired by SouthState Bank in March of 2022. John's involvement in fund finance dates back to 2008, reflecting his deep expertise and commitment to the industry.
View profileSouthState Bank
John Seeds
Director
Jamie Rhode
Jamie Rhode is Partner at Screendoor, an investment platform that supports new and developing managers raising early stage institutional venture funds and building enduring firms. Previously she spent 8.5 years at Verdis Investment Management, a single family office, focusing on emerging venture managers, private equity and hedge fund investment, sourcing and due diligence. She joined Verdis from Bloomberg, where she held roles in both equity research and credit analysis. There, she created, managed and leveraged an extensive library of statutory and financial and market data for buy and sell-side clients that use Bloomberg to make investment decisions.
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Jamie Rhode
Partner
Tracy Fong
Tracy Fong at Albourne Partners is a Partner and Private Markets Investment Due Diligence Analyst, a leading investment consulting firm that advises on over $700bn of alternative assets to over 330 institutional clients. She leads the Firm’s global Venture Capital coverage (including crypto/blockchain) and previously served as the co-chair of the Private Markets Investment Committee. Ms. Fong was previously a Managing Director at SVB Capital’s $4bn+ VC fund-of-funds and direct VC fund. Ms. Fong also spent four years at the Harvard University endowment, Harvard Management Company, where she was Vice President of Alternative Assets and worked on HMC’s $20bn+ alternatives portfolio construction, investment manager selection, and direct natural resources transactions (including timber and agriculture). Her Venture Capital experience included allocations to prominent access-constrained firms and strategic transactions resulting from the IPOs of numerous portfolio companies.
View profileAlbourne Partners
Tracy Fong
Partner and Private Markets Investment Due Diligence Analyst
Meera Patel
Meera Patel is a Partner at Accolade. Before joining Accolade in 2022, Meera was a Director at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Prior to that, Meera was a Partner at Brown Advisory and Investment Manager at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. She holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Duke University.
View profileAccolade
Meera Patel
Partner
Kelli Fontaine
Kelli Fontaine joined Cendana as the Chief of Staff in 2018 and in 2020. Ms. Fontaine was promoted to Partner. She is on the investment team and leads the firm’s efforts around data, corporate relationships, and strategic initiatives. Ms. Fontaine joined from Trinity Capital Investment where she was the director for the Bay Area and deployed $75MM of loans to growth-stage companies in 2017. Prior to Trinity, she was on the operating side of fintech businesses.
View profileCendana Capital
Kelli Fontaine
Chief of Staff
Adam Kiki-Charles
Adam Kiki-Charles at The Equity Alliance is a Partner at The Equity Alliance Fund, a fund that invests in diverse, emerging venture capital fund managers, with a focus on managers of color and women. Prior to The Equity Alliance, Adam built experience in the venture space as a Scout for VamosVamos Ventures, Fellow for Alumni Ventures Group, and Venture Architect Intern at BCG Digital Ventures, the corporate investment and incubation arm of the Boston Consulting Group. He started his career at Epic Systems, the electronic medical records software company. After leaving Epic, he worked as a field organizer on the 2012 Obama campaign and then as an assistant to Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, during her 2013 run for New York City Public Advocate. He then returned to the healthcare industry and worked as a Senior Healthcare IT Consultant, specializing in the implementation and optimization of revenue cycle applications for major healthcare systems across the US.
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