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Meet Our Team
Mariette Wharton
Founder & CEO
An exited tech founder, angel investor in 100+ startups and a global speaker. She founded Change Agent Partners in 2014 and Vidtel in 2008 with an exit in 2013 to a Fortune 50 company. She was a tech executive for 15+ years at innovators before becoming an entrepreneur. Mariette holds an M.B.A. with honors from Columbia Business School, studied at the London School of Economics and holds a B.A. from Middlebury College.
Bethel Endawoke
VP of Development
Bethel grew up in Ethiopia and attended the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. She studied entrepreneurial leadership and launched Fura Innovations to teach design thinking. She co-led NIMBLE Female Empowerment and Entrepreneurship workshops in Ethiopia and Morocco. She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and is a MS candidate at Carnegie Mellon University.
Julia Yu
CFO
Julia has over 20 years of experience as a CFO and executive management consultant for public companies. Currently, SVP of Finance for AppTech Payments Corp (NASDAQ: APCX). She is a member of the Forbes Business Council. Previously, she has held positions as a Board of Trustee and Treasurer for the Brooklyn Music School and for the Dwight-Englewood School. She is a CPA, a CIA (certified internal auditor), with MBA from Webster University.
Colin McGrath
CTO
With expertise in network, machine learning and blockchain technologies, Colin is founder of generative AI company Brightband and has been a senior software engineer at Netskope for several years. He has engineering experience at Ring, Nubeva, Lamden and Vidtel. He studied Computer Science at UC Irvine.
Iris Sagi
Strategic Advisor
Iris is currently a Director of Philanthropy at FINCA International and a Chief Executive Officer at Truhoma. She has also held positions as Director for various nonprofit organizations such as There With Care of the Bay Area, Jewish National Fund, and Juma Ventures. She received her degree from Queens College.
Valerie Duncker
Board Member
Valerie is a NIMBLE Board Member active in NIMBLE marketing and accounting functions. Previously, she drove marketing, communications and HR projects in a cross-functional, global context for a multi-billion dollar aerospace company, a VC-backed technology startup and has held various management & engineering services companies.
Panel Experts & Mentors
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Robin Abrams
Prior CEO of Palm Computing and VeriFone with 30+ years of experience in high-tech, including as prior Managing Director Apple Asia.
Michele Boal
Michele is the Founder and CEO of Kadima, a company that empowers women to move forward with confidence and self-expression. She is also a Strategic Advisor for Change and was a Chief Philanthropy Officer and Co-founder for Quotient Technology Inc. She holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Shayna Modarresi
Shayna is a Senior Vice President for Bridge Bank, a Founder and General Partner for Lodestar Ventures, manages Deal Flow and Digital Disruption SiG for Band of Angels, and an Investment Advisory Member for Correlation Ventures. She holds a B.A. and a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Clarence Chui
CEO & Co-Founder of Outward Inc., acquired in 2017 by Williams-Sonoma Inc. He was a Qualcomm SVP and is named on over 140 issued US utility patents. Clarence holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT.
Joanna Strober
Founder and CEO of Midi Health, a venture-backed digital women's healthcare company. Previously, she founded early digital health pioneer Kurbo Health and has 2 decades of experience in direct private equity and venture capital investing. She holds a J.D. from UCLA and a B.A. from UPenn.
David Gilmour
CTO of Allermi, former Managing Director of Blyth Capital Partners LLC, SVP at Oracle, numerous issued patents in machine learning, natural language processing, privacy and security. From Harvard, B.S. in Engineering and Applied Physics, a M.S. in Engineering and a M.B.A. with distinction.
Julie Arnheim
Currently serving as the Director of Growth and Strategy for Pink Ribbon Good, Julie has significant expertise driving expansion for non-profits. She is also a Board Member for the JCC and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.
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David Hale
Director at TechnoServe Labs and prior CEO at Gigwalk, Entrepreneur in Residence at Lightspeed Venture Partners, B.S. in Engineering, Stanford University, M.A. in Education Administration and Policy Analysis and M.B.A. from Stanford University.
LinkedIn
Norman Happ
CEO of aviation company ATP, formerly CEO of EZ Texting, former SVP at Evernote, senior executive in Intuit’s Small Business Group, founder of two technology companies. He holds a B.S. from George Mason University.
Marika Holmgren
Founder and prior CEO of Do Good Events, serving the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and the Goldman Environmental Prize. She served on the Board of ForestEthics for a decade. Marika now owns Home Town Mercantile in Half Moon Bay. She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College.
Piyush Mangalick
VP, Partner Engineering at Facebook. Previously Director, Developer Platform & Partnerships at Instagram and Lead Sales Engineer and executive at Google. Co-founded multiple companies, B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Santa Clara University and M.B.A. from The Wharton School at UPenn.
Jen Paulson
Entrepreneurial thinker for decades (she created Fremont Hills Country Club summer camp as a teenager ran operations for 10 years), she was in project management at Komo Construction, and is currently in real estate at Christie's.
Laureen Hildalgo
Laureen is currently a Senior Director for Salesforce, previously a Practice Director for Professional Services. She was also a Senior Manager for Deloitte and a Director for CA Technologies. She holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Scott Wharton
GM/VP of B2B at Logitech, previously CEO of the first cloud video cloud firm, Vidtel and on executive management team of several other disruptive tech companies, pioneering VoIP and softswitch tech at VocalTec and BroadSoft. He holds an M.B.A from Yale University.
Jody Shapiro
Founder and CEO of Productiv, Jody was formerly the founder and CEO of GrowthDynamix and the Global Head of Google Analytics Premium. He holds an M.B.A. from Wharton and an M.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University.
Jonathan Norris
Director at HSBC Innovation focused on tech healthcare. Managing Director of sales origination for SVB for 17 years in life science and healthcare venture capital firms. Jon holds a B.A. in business administration from the University of California, Riverside and a J.D. from Santa Clara University.
Sheira Ariel, Ph.D
Sheira has held roles at Sun Microsystems and IBM and most recently, SVB. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a M.A. in Business Research and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford Business School.
Igor Pistelak
COO and co-founder of Profit Circles, 12-year tenure at Cisco as Director of Worldwide Business Operations and Sales Operations in Europe and Emerging Markets, M.B.A. from Nottingham Trent University.
David Ratner
CEO of innovative cyber security firm HYAS. As CEO of Realm, he pivoted from open source to enterprise focus and sold to MongoDB. Prior CEO of Openwave Messaging, and COO of SEVEN, among other roles. He holds a B.A. in Math and Computer Science from Cornell University, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA.
Kristin Russel
CMO of healthcare company symplr, formerly SVP of Marketing for Carrot. She was VP of Marketing at Humana’s subsidiary, Transcend Insights and CEO & co-founder of Anachron, sold to ING Bank. She holds an M.A. in public administration from Carleton University in Canada and M.B.A. in international finance from École Supérieure de Commerce de Rennes, France.
Eran Sandhaus
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, J-Impact Fund. Former Managing Director, Copia Growth Partners. Senior executive for over 20+ years in Fortune 500 companies including Qualcomm and Marvell, leading global businesses, operations and M&A focused on server communications, storage, mobile handsets and Internet-of-Things (IoT).
James Schonzeit
Design and Research Manager for Square for Restaurants. Formerly Design Director at IDEO in San Francisco, previously Design Strategist at fuseproject and a Senior Design Researcher at IA Collaborative. James holds a B.A. in Economics, Film & Media Culture from Middlebury College.
Lauren Berman
Lauren is a former NIMBLE Board Member. She delivers improv and presentation training for NIMBLE. She co-founded the Hagigah Theatre Program, co-founded the Berman Skin Institute and is a Communication Coach for Kaiser Permanente. She served on the Board of TheatreWorks, and as preschool director of the Palo Alto JCC. She holds a degree in Theatre from Sacramento State University.
Laura Torres
Laura is a former Board Member of NIMBLE and is a Mentor.
She has over 20 years of experience in product marketing, product management, strategy and communications in both B2B and B2C. Laura is a positioning consultant with Firebrick Consulting. Laura was VP and Director of Product Marketing for Eyefi, CMO Strategy Group and Peoplesoft and holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
Seymour Duncker
Expert in AI, he is the co-founder and CEO of Mindscale Labs and a Fellow at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Policy for the World Project. He is a Machine Learning Advisor for Kinders and a Board Member at MVLA Foundation. He holds an M.B.A. from University of Passau and an undergrad degree from Technical University of Munich.
Daniil Andreev
Production Engineering Manager at Verdant Robotics, former COO of General Symbol, Automation Engineer at Yubico, a founder and CTO for Microbiota Labs and Charged Inc., Hardware Engineer at Cisco and Kindred.ai. Studied at Washington University in St. Louis and Knox College.
Annick Mohageg
Annick is a Group Product Marketing Manager for Adobe Firefly, the new family of creative generative AI models coming to Adobe products. She was also a Product Marketing Consultant for various clients. She holds an M.B.A. from Virginia Tech and a Masters Degree from the Université De Sciences Economiques de Nice.
Sameer Nadkarni
Sameer is currently a Managing Director for Atlas Technology Group LLC. He was previously a Managing Director for Bindi Capital Group and WR Hambrecht + Co. He was also a Senior Analyst and Growth Equity Investor for Wexford Capital. He holds an M.B.A. from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a B.S. from the University of California, San Diego.
Andrew Devlin
Andrew is the CEO and Co-Founder of PitchHub, involving Video Production in the Cloud. He is also the Commissioner of Aptos Little League and was Major Account Managers for companies including Mitel and Polycom. He studied at Castleknock College, Dublin Ireland.
Mike Mohageg
Mike is a VP of User Experience and Design for Globality, Inc., which leverages Generative AI to transform sourcing and procurement for business users. He was also a VP of User Experience and Design for both Medallia and Oracle. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from Virginia Tech and a B.A. from the California State University, Northridge.
Steven Nelemans
Steven is the Founder and CEO of Luna, a company that uses AI technology to create personalized emails for their users. He is also a Venture Advisor for LUMO Labs and is the Founder of Amber and and tactic. He studied electrical engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology.
Eulalia Moles, Ph.D
Eulalia is involved in NIMBLE's Diversity & Inclusion efforts. Previously, she was an educator in Spanish at UCLA and in race and gender at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned a Ph.D in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
Yoeri Dassen
Yoeri is currently an Investor and Advisor for Fathom Radiant and AlphaSys Brain Technologies. He is also a Venture Partner for 7percent Ventures. He was the Head of Business Development and Advisor for Fathom Computing and the CEO/Co-Founder of Psylaris, a company that automates EMDR therapy using VR.
Kristin Link
Kristin is the Founder and Public Speaking Coach for Link Coaching, services customized through medical medthodical assessment as she listens to the goals of clients. She is also a Speaker Coach for TEDxSonomaCounty and TEDxSaintFrancis. She holds a B.O.S. from Fitchburg State University.