Josh Abramowitz is the co-founder and CEO of the venture-backed consumer finance company Bread, which is backed by Colle, along with Bessemer, Menlo, RRE and others. He has been involved in the startup world in NY for many years, and has a particular interest in the impact of technology on the financial services industry. He was previously on the investment staff of two large hedge funds. Josh holds a B.A. from Colgate University and a J.D from Yale Law School.

Wassim Arabi is a seasoned retail and hospitality executive who most recently served as CEO of Alshaya Group (2007-2019), one of the world’s leading international franchise operators. During his tenure at Alshaya, Mr. Arabi expanded the company’s reach to 19 new markets across the Middle East, North Africa, Russia and Europe and across multiple sectors including fashion and footwear. In addition, he played a key role in developing , growing and diversifying their business portfolio to more than 90 of the worlds most recognized brands, many of which had never entertained the idea of franchising their business. Notable examples include H&M, Victoria’s Secret, Boots and Starbucks among many others.

Wassim has served on the boards of Mabani Real Estate Co. in Kuwait and Shumool Real Estate Co. in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Arabi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas.

Amos is a technology executive with diverse startup experience across engineering, product, investing, and advising. Amos was one of the first engineering hires at Uber, where he built the Marketplace team from the ground up. As the Director of Marketplace, Amos was responsible for Uber’s realtime systems, including the trip experience, the dispatching algorithms, the dynamic pricing engine, and the core logistics of supply management. In addition to his work with Marketplace, Amos developed solutions for scaling distributed systems, data center disaster recovery, payment fraud prevention, promotional rider engagement, and global analytics.

Amos is committed to identifying the next wave of high-caliber companies and helping them achieve rocket ship growth. Amos invests in early-stage startups that have a clear value proposition, a viable scaling strategy, and visionary founders. Amos has backed over a dozen companies alongside notable angels & VCs including Marc Benioff, Jason Calacanis, Eric Ries, Jack Selby, Initialized Capital, Village Global, Social Capital, Google Ventures, and Maveron.

Karson Humiston is the Founder & CEO of Vangst, the cannabis industry’s leading recruiting platform, which is backed by Colle, along with Lerer Hippeau and others.  Karson was featured on the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list. Prior to founding Vangst, Karson founded On Track Adventures, a student travel organization based out of St. Lawrence University, her alma mater. Outside of work, Karson enjoys skiing, hiking, tennis, kitesurfing, triathlons, and recently ran the NYC marathon.

Misha is CEO of ZeptoLab, one of top mobile game developers in the world, best known for Cut the Rope series and its star Om Nom. Before ZeptoLab he built a number of businesses in Russia and abroad: a biggest coalition loyalty & payment program in Russia; Zagruzka.com – leading content and b2b telecommunication services provider and others. In early 2000’s Misha founded and lead Reaxion – mobile game developer and publisher for feature phones. He also invests in start ups and is active member of entrepreneurial community.

About Justin Newton.

Bob is currently the co-founder and managing director of Sternhill Associates, a venture capital and consulting firm located in the Greater Boston area. His background is in technology, marketing, planning, and venture capital, with deep experience in computing, communications, medical and scientific devices, the Internet, and enterprise software, and has been involved in over seventy start-up companies, as either an employee, investor, and/or board member.

He is currently a member of the MIT Venture Mentoring Service, a mentor at Greentown Labs, an “expert” member of MassChallenge, an advisor to the Harvard Medical/BIDMC Health Technology Exploration Center, and serves on the Advisory Boards at SparkCognition and Statum Systems..

Bob joined Compaq Computer Corporation in 1993 as Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, responsible for directing all of the Company’s strategic planning and business development activities, including a $400M venture portfolio. Stearns joined Compaq from McKinsey & Company, where he served as a consultant to domestic and international high technology clients. Prior to joining McKinsey, he held senior management positions at a number of technology companies, including Codex, Motorola, and with Management Technologies Inc., which he co-founded. After Compaq, Bob co-founded Sternhill Partners, a Houston-based high tech venture capital firm that he helped manage with two other partners for almost 15 years. While a Managing Partner at Sternhill, Bob served on the boards of pcOrder.com, Boingo Wireless, PentaSafe, RLX Technologies, Surgient Networks, Detto Inc., Kurion, iVita; TimesN Systems, IMSafer, and, Clearcube Technologies.

Bob holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Brown University, and a Master of Science degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sophie is the founding partner of The SEA Fund, LLC (“SEA Fund”) with a focus on early stage deals in health, environment and education sectors.

Sophie also co-founded Imperative, a company focused on bringing purpose to work environment for millennial generation.  Earlier in her career, she worked in media sector at Bloomberg and Metro International.

Sophie received a B.A. in English and American Literature from New York University. She studied entrepreneurial finance at UCLA Andersson’s School.

In addition to her professional carrier, Sophie is a significant philanthropist through the Sophie Stenbeck Family Foundation, focusing on child rights, education, and fighting trafficking.  She also serves on several foundation boards. She is a co-founding board member of Queen Silvia’s World Childhood Foundation and the Chairman of the Stenbeck Stiftelse. Sophie is a co-founder of WISE, women in social and enterprise and she is a true believer in social entrepreneurship.

Hope S. Taitz is currently the Managing Partner of ELY Capital. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Taitz began her investment banking career first as a M&A analyst and then as an associate at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Ms. Taitz continued as a Vice President at The Argosy Group (now part of CIBC) and a Managing Director at Crystal Asset Management before founding her own money management firm, Catalyst Partners.

Now acting as an advisor focused on analyzing and investing in the consumer and technology in both early and late stage (including Flatiron School, ATTN: and LiquidTalent), Ms. Taitz bridges innovative enterprises with established corporations.

Ms. Taitz is also an advocate of women in the boardroom and understands the need for cyber security sitting on the boards of Apollo Residential Mortgage, Inc., Athene Holding Ltd. and its subsidiaries, Diamond International Resorts, Inc., Lumenis Ltd., as well as MidCap Finco Holdings Limited.

On the not for profit side, Ms. Taitz focuses on education and the importance of technology and is a founding executive member of Youth Renewal Fund, a current executive board member of Pencils of Promise, and a board of the Future Project. Emphasizing the importance of STEM, Ms. Taitz was a board member of Girls Who Code for 3 years and is now as a board member of Fred Wilson’s The New York City Foundation for Computer Science.

Christopher Wright is Chairman and a co-founder of EMAlternatives LLC in Washington DC and of its former affiliate in China, Yimei Capital Ltd, and is also a director of Merifin Capital Group, a private European investment firm. Until mid-2003 he served as Head of Global Private Equity for Dresdner Kleinwort Capital and was a Group Board Member of Dresdner Kleinwort. He has acted as Chairman of various investment funds prior to and following the latter’s integration with Allianz Private Equity. He joined Kleinwort Benson Limited in London in 1978 and in 1981 co-founded Kleinwort’s first office in California. In 1986 he relocated to New York to manage the Kleinwort Benson Limited portfolio of North American private equity, high-yield and mezzanine investments. He is a co-founding director of ROPER Technologies Inc. (NYSE); and was a director of IDOX PLC (AIM) until 2013 and non-executive Chairman of Maxcess International Corporation until 2014. He has chaired the investment committees of and/or serves on several advisory boards of third party managed LBO and venture capital funds in North America and Europe and has advised several other financial institutions, including Hansa Capital, CdB Webtech, Standard Bank, Artio Global Investors, Surya Capital, GP Investimentos, ILFS India and De Agostini Alternative Investments on their investments in private equity and other alternative assets around the world, including real assets.

Mr. Wright was educated at Oxford University (M.A.) and holds a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance (from ACCA). He is Foundation Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Andrei currently leads Doctor.com, the first marketing automation platform purpose-built for healthcare. Doctor.com counts more than 200 of the country’s leading hospitals and health systems as our clients as well as thousands of private and group practices. The company prides itself on killing the multi-vendor status quo that’s had healthcare organizations ineffectively daisy-chaining point solutions together for years. For the first time, one platform can deliver intelligent solutions for Provider Directories, Listings Management, Reputation Management, Transparency, and Online Scheduling, all connected to Doctor.com’s partner network which includes Google, Yelp, Bing, Healthgrades, Vitals, and 20+ other  leading consumer health destinations.  Doctor.com is backed by fantastic investors like Spring Mountain Capital, Colle Capital, and StartUp Health and powered by an amazing team that spans NYC, Silicon Valley, Atlanta, and Argentina.

Prior to Doctor.com, Andrei was a founding team member of KN Dimestore, an advertising research platform acquired by Knowledge Networks (now part of GfK [FWB: GFK]) in 2009, and an early employee of Game Trust, which was acquired by Real Networks (NASDAQ: RNWK) in 2007.

Andrei begin his career focusing on design and product development, creating web-based user experiences for organizations like Accenture, Cisco, Microsoft, The National Education Association, and the US Government.

When he’s not working, he enjoys training in mixed martial arts, traveling, and relaxing with his wife and daughter.