Our Professional Advisors
Central to our commitment to fostering innovation is our capacity to provide an extensive array of invaluable resources to support every student and Fellow. Among these crucial resources, our team of Professional Advisors bring a wealth of insights that enable our fellows to navigate the intricate landscape of entrepreneurship and innovation effectively. Their unwavering dedication and readiness to share their wisdom, lessons, and experiences provide invaluable guidance, further enhancing the dynamic nature of our programs.
In this collaborative environment, our fellows have the opportunity to engage in insightful discussions, seek advice on complex challenges, and receive mentorship that transcends the boundaries of academia. The collective wisdom of our Professional Advisors serves as a cornerstone in shaping the path for our students and Fellows, ensuring that they are well-equipped to address the multifaceted issues of our evolving world and emerge as impactful leaders in their respective fields.
ALI RAD
Director, Strategy & Operations ServiceNow
Ali Rad is a former Legatum Fellow and an MIT Sloan graduate from the class of 2013. His concentration at Sloan was Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management. He also holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, which might explain his interest in technology! Currently based in the San Francisco Bay area, Ali enjoys hiking, reading, watching movies, and archery in his free time.
For over a decade, Ali has worked in business strategy and operations roles in tech companies, both start-ups and large corporations such as Meta and ServiceNow. In these roles, he has helped create, accelerate, and grow businesses. Ali has had the opportunity to lead initiatives and be involved in virtually every function of business, which has been a tremendous journey of learning and growth. He would love to share some of that experience with current and future Legatum Fellows.
ANDREA KATES
Partner of Get To NEXT
Andrea Kates is a Silicon Valley-based innovation advisor, former tech CEO, and author of the award-winning book, Find Your Next, a complete guide for transforming ideas into concrete actions. She is also the creator of the end-to-end leadership training program on strategic impact called Get to Next.
She advises large enterprises (Ford, Shimizu, Cisco), innovative organizations (Mayo Clinic, Stanford Center for Responsible Digital Leadership), governments (National Science Foundation, Copenhagen Fintech), and nonprofits (NextMedHealth, Arthritis Society Canada) to drive impact for their stakeholders, customers, investors, partners, and communities. For the past 20 years, Andrea has spearheaded significant transformation across multiple industries, including the future of finance, future of work, mobility, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, education, and technology across 5 continents.
Previously, she was the CEO of the Silicon Valley SaaS company that pioneered the application of the lean startup process with more than 13,000 corporate teams and R&D labs funded by the US Government I-Corps. Andrea’s original research has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Research and Technology Journal and Tid and Tendenser. A dynamic thought leader, Andrea is in high demand globally as a speaker and has delivered keynotes at some of the world’s most prestigious conferences, including the TED main stage, Business Ecosystem Alliance, Aspen Ideas Festival, Dubai2020, the Edison Awards, SoCap (social capital), Rueda de Innovación (Colombia), Nordic Fintech, OpenFinance Mexico, Innov8rs, and the CXO Forum in Tokyo. Andrea is Senior Fellow with The Conference Board.
Andrea’s university teaching includes the eLab at Princeton University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, USC, Notre Dame, Copenhagen Business School, Hitotsubashi University, and Singapore Polytechnic. She is an advisor to Copenhagen Fintech.
In the field of social impact and Ecosystems of Purpose, Andrea has been a pioneer in driving what she terms Ecosystems of Purpose—a structure that transcends profit + platform interoperability. She has served on the board of Embrace Global—frugal technology that saves the lives of infants and currently works with Virtual Reality pioneer Tom Furness to bring equity and access to education. Andrea co hosts a weekly panel show called What’s Your Idea For Change?
CHANNING NESBITT
Portfolio Development Senior Analyst of Salesforce Ventures
Channing Nesbitt was born and raised in Oakland CA. He joined Salesforce Ventures in 2022 and currently works as a portfolio development manager where he supports the growth for the firm’s portfolio companies by helping build strategic partnerships and new customer engagements. His focus as a portfolio & business development professional is rooted in creating value by helping to foster the adoption of emerging technology and software for the Fortune 500 partners that he serves.
Prior to joining Salesforce Ventures, Channing was a project & program manager at Tableau Software. Here I worked across the social impact arms of Tableau and Tableau Foundation, leading the $18M+ Racial Justice Data Initiative, providing funding, software and expertise for organizations across the US. He also co-lead the development of the Data Equity Hub, a platform built to support a community of data users that are focused on democratizing data & data analysis to enable everyone to be more equipped to leverage the power of public data.
Channing attended University of Washington for both undergraduate & graduate school, where he received a BA in economics/political science & an MPA from the Evans School, focused on Public Finance & management. Channing also played 4 years of NCAA D1 Baseball for the Washington Huskies during his time as an undergraduate student.
G. NAGESH RAO
Deputy Director & Acting Director of the manufacturing Extension Praetorship (SES) National Institute of Standards and Technology
G. Nagesh Rao is a technology, policy, operations, process and systems expert with more than 20+ years of experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors. He is an ethically driven seasoned cross-sector senior executive whom has developed numerous national and global programming ventures as well provided policy guidance on legislation related to innovation, technology, intellectual property law, venture capital and entrepreneurship.
He also has deep experience in project management, budget formulation, service forecasting, software development, hardware systems operations and overall IT management support as a former national security and international trade bureau CIO. Currently he serves as the Deputy Director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership at the National Institute of Standards and Technology within the U.S. Department of Commerce (Career Senior Executive Service Appointment).
Furthermore Nagesh has a wealth of experience working on IP-Portfolios, Global Strategies, Consumer Products and R&D, for a variety of leading SMEs and MNCs. Where in his current personal capacity he serves on the board of EnChroma, an optical solutions and materials science company and an investor in Ruvna, an emerging Safety-EdTech company.
A prolific writer in industry publications and frequent speaker on topics around law, policy, technology and innovation issues; Nagesh is a Mirzayan Fellow, an Eisenhower Fellow and a Marshall Memorial Fellow. His credentials include a BSc from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a MSc from Albany Law School-Union University, a MBA from University of Maryland-College Park and a Patent Bar license from the US Patent and Trademark Office.
GENEVIEVE ONI
Co-Founder and CFO of MDaaS Global
Genevieve is the co-founder and CFO of MDaaS Global, a health-tech company aimed at providing convenient, affordable, and high-quality diagnostics for Africa’s next billion. Since its launch in 2017, MDaaS has delivered critical healthcare services to over 350,000 patients across Nigeria through its fast-growing network of technology-enabled clinics. She brings over a decade of experience in finance, operations, and public health to her role as CFO, along with a passion for increasing access to quality healthcare. Genevieve is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management (MBA), where she was a Legatum Fellow, and the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA), where she was a Cheng Fellow. Additionally, she holds an undergraduate degree in Public Health and African Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
HEATHER HENYON
Founding Partner of Mindshift Capital
Heather Henyon is Founding Partner of Mindshift Capital, a global venture fund that invests exclusively in early stage women-led technology companies. Mindshift Capital has backed 17 companies led by 23 female founders in 5 countries. Heather has almost 20 years of experience in venture finance, entrepreneurship, emerging markets, angel investing, technology, credit and impact investment. With over 100 direct and fund investments, she is an active venture investor with a passion for women’s health and sports. In 2014, Heather started the Women’s Angel Investor Network (WAIN), the first and largest women’s angel investment group in the Middle East, and served as Interim CFO for Little Thinking Minds, WAIN’s first investment. She is a Founding Partner of Athena CFO, now known as Growth Partners, an outsourced CFO and finance advisory firm. Previously, she was Investment Director with Eureeca, a regulated global equity crowdinvesting fintech start-up, where she was responsible for curation, products, and investments. Heather founded Balthazar Capital, a social enterprise investment advisory firm for the Arab region in 2010. As the founding CEO of Grameen-Jameel Microfinance Ltd, a social business jointly owned by Grameen Foundation and Abdul Latif Jameel Group, she originated, structured and closed $44 million in leveraged commercial debt financing for microfinance institutions in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. Heather started her career on Wall Street where she worked for Standard & Poor’s as a corporate bond ratings analyst in the capital goods and auto supplier sector. Past roles include project finance, 3G wireless analyst for Middle East & Africa and Vint Cerf’s internet architecture group at WorldCom.
Heather is on the Investment Committee of US-based Next Wave Impact Fund; founding member and former Board and Investment Committee member of Dubai Angel Investors and Cairo Angels Investment Fund; and advisor to CoFund, a Dutch microfinance private equity fund. Heather serves on the Boards of Shiok Meats (Singapore), Wellbees (Turkey), QiDZ (UAE) and Little Thinking Minds (Jordan) and served on the Boards of NeedsList and Localized in the US. She is a mentor for start-up companies at Techstars, in5 Tech, Sheraa, Flat6Labs and the Dubai Technology Entrepreneurship Center (DTEC). She served on the Advisory Council of BR Microcapital, Cornell University’s microfinance fund, was Co-Chair of the Johnson Middle East Alumni Club; served as the Middle East Advisor to Cornell’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative; and is founder and past Chair of the Dubai Microfinance Club. Heather serves on the Board of Directors and is former Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee of the Sekem Holding Group in Egypt. She was a member of the Cartier Women’s Initiative MENA Jury in 2020. Heather has been nominated as “Investor of the Year” by Arabian Business in 2016 and 2017. Heather has lived and worked in the UAE, Egypt and Lebanon for 16 years, and speaks Arabic and French.
Heather holds an MBA in Finance & Entrepreneurship from the Johnson School at Cornell University, where she was a full-merit Park Leadership Fellow scholarship recipient, and a BA in Economics & Political Science from Oberlin College. Heather studied at The American University in Cairo (AUC), where she was a Presidential Fellow.
IRINA ANGHEL-ENESCU
Founding Member of Druid Collective
Blending a unique trifold experience from the business, non-profit, and governmental sectors, Irina’s expertise spans a diverse range of sectors, with a keen focus on innovation-driven entrepreneurship and sustainable development.
With a strong legal background (as a former Law Professor at both Law School and B School in Bucharest) Irina was one of the pioneers of legal advice for private equity and VC funds supporting entrepreneurial initiatives in the emerging South Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
After a year spent at Harvard Kennedy School, where she focused on academic exploration of VC’s role in spurring global entrepreneurship and innovation, Irina returned to Europe, where she managed the South Eastern European Private Equity and VC Association, and sat on the Representative Committee of the European VC Association (InvestEurope) for more than a decade. She was appointed as the President of the Romanian Innovation Ecosystem Commission, and she founded an NGO committed to championing projects centered around entrepreneurship, education, and leadership in the region.
Irina was selected in 2012 among the top 100 women in tech in Europe by Girls in Tech London. Forbes Magazine recognized her over the years as one of the most influential 50 women in Romania and she was included in top 100 Foreign Policy Romania.
At global level, Irina was recognized as an Eisenhower Fellow in 2008, became a Mason Fellow at Harvard in 2009 and was honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2014. In 2023 she received the Distinguished Fellow Award from Eisenhower Fellowship, being the first Eastern European and the first European Woman to receive this distinction.
When she is not traveling to support entrepreneurial projects around the world, Irina is living in Brookline, MA, with her husband (who is a serial entrepreneur) and her son (who dreams about his own donuts and lemonade stand).
JAY KOTHARI
Head of Product Management of Google
Jay Kothari is a seasoned product management professional with extensive experience in the tech industry. Currently serving as the Head of Product Management for the Google Design Platform since May 2020, Kothari has previously held prominent roles, including General Manager for Glass at X, the moonshot factory, and Head of Product Management for Project Aura and Wearables at Google. Additionally, Kothari's background includes roles as Senior Product Manager at Amazon Web Services and Program Manager at Microsoft, where contributions spanned Office 365 and Windows platforms. With a foundational education in Computer Science and Political Science from Carnegie Mellon University, Kothari is also recognized as an Eisenhower Fellow since January 2018.
JO AGGARWAL
Founder and CEO of Wysa
Jo Aggarwal is the founder and CEO of Wysa, which is solving global mental health using AI. Wysa has helped improve mental health for over 6 million individuals through 500 million conversations across 65 countries, and has the most proven outcomes and published evidence of any mental health app. In a world worried about the ethics of AI, Wysa has been for being the best of privacy by Mozilla Foundation and the best of safety by ORCHA.
Jo has been recognized by World Economic Forum as one of the Uplink Top Innovators and as one of the Business Insider’s Top 100 People in Artificial Intelligence in 2023. In 2022, Jo was listed as one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in Consumer Health Tech by The Healthcare Technology Report.
Previously, Jo was the founding director for Technology & Innovation for an UN-backed foundation and has been the managing director of Pearson Learning Solutions in the U.K. Her work on mobile employability helped connect over a million young people to skills and jobs, and won Silver at the Stevie Awards, as well as the Global Telecom Business Innovation award in 2013.
Khaled Ben Jilani
Senior Partner of the Executive Committee of AfricInvest
Khaled Ben Jilani is a Senior Partner and a member of the Executive Committee of AfricInvest, where he oversees Venture Capital and financial services investments. Since joining AfricInvest in 2001, Khaled has been involved in the structuring, fundraising and management of 4 PE and VC investment funds and has overseen 30+ investments across Africa in early and growth stage startups and in banks, insurance companies and microfinance institutions. Khaled was one of the architects of the Startup Act and the Anava regional fund of funds. He has advocated for simpler regulations and laws for startups and has helped governments draft startup and VC friendly laws and regulations. Before joining AfricInvest, Khaled was successively an analyst at Barclays Bank working on European payment systems, a lead consultant in software startup where he designed real time gross settlement system and net payment systems now running in 18 African countries, and a senior tech strategy consultant at Proxicom, a technology consulting firm in the Reston, VA, USA.
NADIA SHALABY
Founder and CEO of Pakira, Inc
Dr. Shalaby is a Legatum Fellow alumna, a serial technology entrepreneur, investor, and board director, passionate about bringing on societal, economic, and environmental impact via technological innovation. She is currently Founder & CEO of Pakira – an AI-based digitization platform for physical commodity supply chains worldwide, to reduce waste and combat illegal logging and mining, by tracking the goods from harvest to retail.
Nadia has worked on AI since 1990s, and spent 20+ years founding, growing, and advising companies. Her previous MIT spinoff Arctic Sand, a revolutionary energy-saving semiconductor company was acquired by Murata Electronics and its products are designed into 100% of the display sockets of Dell, Microsoft, and other OEMs. Nadia was VP Marketing and Sales for Cooper Perkins; and held various positions at Princeton University and BBN/Raytheon (where she oversaw AMP, the largest supply chain in the world for the US TRANSCOM, which reports to the Joint Chiefs of Staff).
Dr. Shalaby is an investor at TBD Angels, Board Director at the Boston Hub Society, and a speaker on AI in business and entrepreneurship. Nadia holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University and an MBA from MIT Sloan. She is the recipient of multiple national grants and awards from NASA, NSF, US Department of Energy, DARPA, the Clean Tech Open, MIT Legatum Fellowship, and the National Renewable Energy Lab. Dr. Shalaby has 5 issued US patents and more than a dozen academic publications.
OLUWASOGA ONI
Co-Founder and CEO of MDaaS
Oluwasoga Oni is the CEO and Co-founder of MDaaS Global. Born and raised in Nigeria in a family of healthcare professionals, Oluwasoga deeply understands the challenges that healthcare providers and patients face in accessing quality care in Nigeria and across Africa. As CEO of MDaaS, Oluwasoga oversees company operations in both the US and Nigeria, with a focus on building strategic partnerships with equipment suppliers, funders, hospitals and clinics, employers, and health insurance providers. Prior to co-founding MDaaS, Oluwasoga worked as a software engineer at DELL-EMC for several years. He holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering from Covenant University, as well as a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Masters Degree in System Design and Management from MIT.
RAMAKANT VEMPATI
Founder and President of Wysa
Ramakant is president and co-founder of Wysa, the world’s leading AI conversational agent for mental health.
Previously, Ramakant worked at Goldman Sachs in London with the COO team supporting the bank’s EMEA capital markets business, and at Barclays Capital in their global strategy team. He has also served as a Senior Advisor to a UN and World Bank-backed entity building a $100m+ impact investment portfolio, where his work has twice won the Thomson-Reuters Ethical Finance award and includes building the world’s first shariah-compliant crowdfunding platform, Somalia’s first bank, and the Arab region’s first youth microfinance fund.
Earlier, Ramakant was a management consultant with Booz & Co in London, where he won professional excellence awards for his public sector transformation work. Prior to this, he was with the leadership cadre of the $100B Tata Group (TAS) in India, where he held roles at the group’s venture incubator and in starting up India’s largest internet services firm.
Ramakant holds an MBA from the London Business School, where he was a merit scholar. He has a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), in Kanpur, India.
RILWAN MEERAN
Head of Impact Investing, ASA
Rilwan is the Head of ASA’s Impact program, which focuses on investing in funds and private companies. The Impact program was built to deepen ASA’s impact within the education and career readiness ecosystem by fostering innovation that provides millions of students with learning experiences aimed at changing the way young people learn.
Previously, Rilwan was the Head of Impact investing at MassMutual, having created multiple new programs within the firm that focused on impact allocations to both funds and direct investments as well as diverse managers and entrepreneurs. Prior to his time at MassMutual, he was a Managing Director for Flat World Partners, where he analyzed and invested in global impact opportunities. Prior to Flat World Partners, Rilwan was the Chief Investment Officer of Leopard Capital. Rilwan started the first private equity fund for Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Previously, Rilwan was a Director for Swicorp – an Emerging markets focused private equity firm – having opened the Dubai office for the fund in 2006. At Swicorp, he sourced, structured, and added value to investments in consumer driven sectors in Asia, Middle East and Turkey. Rilwan has spent 18 years in venture capital and private equity. During this span he has transacted deals across Latin America, Turkey, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States.
SAYURI SHARPER
President, KSF Impact
Sayuri Sharper is a retired high-tech executive and business litigator. Sayuri was Of Counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a global litigation firm. Prior to practicing law, Sayuri held numerous executive positions in the high-tech industry. She was a co-founder and CEO of Telesend Inc., a telecom equipment company that was subsequently acquired by Cisco Systems.
Sayuri is an active impact investor and mentor to social entrepreneurs. She is on the board of MCE Social capital, a nonprofit that provides debt capital in more than 35 developing countries, and Shona Capital, a Ugandan company that provides working capital loan to small businesses. She is also on the advisory board of Miller Center, a leading social entrepreneurship accelerator and is a Senior Partner at Acumen, a global catalytic impact investor.
She has a JD from Santa Clara University School of Law, and a Bachelor and Master degrees in electrical engineering from MIT.
SEBASTIAN BARRIGA
Co-Founder, Managing Partner of milemark•capital
Sebastian has 23+ years of PE and IB experience, most recently as a PE investor for The Carlyle Group in the LatAm fund; he started his career in Salomon Brothers (now Citigroup) as an investment banker in NY in the Telecom industry. He also has operational experience as Interim-CFO of a large industrial publicly-traded company in the south of Brazil. As a PE investor, Sebastian served on 6 boards where he helped management teams design and execute the company’s strategy, by providing these teams with the resources and network required to succeed. Currently, along with MIT classmates and a professor, he’s co-founded (before it became a trend/obvious) a VC Firm to invest in Applied-AI startups, where he is helping talented founders –of diverse background– in their transition from academic hubs into the business world. In addition, he currently serves as a Board Member to one of the largest Nike-distributor and retailer chain in South America and on various advisory boards of mission oriented startups in Boston and India.
Sebastian has a Sloan Fellows MBA Degree from MIT and a BBA from The University of Texas at Austin. He’s also completed two semesters as a Visiting Fellow at MIT Sloan and currently serves on its Advisory Board.
SONALI MEHTA-RAO
Founder of Ahaana Ventures
Sonali Mehta-Rao, Founder of Ahaana Ventures, is an early-stage impact investor, start-up advisor, and leadership coach, working at the intersection of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental sustainability. She has over a decade of global entrepreneurial and leadership experience in social business innovation, building enterprises that expand access to finance for the underbanked and unlock global markets for marginalized artisan communities. In 2012, she Co-founded her first venture, Mela Artisans, a social enterprise working to provide a sustainable global market for Indian artisans. As President, she set up offices in New York and Mumbai, and led the company to significant revenue growth and a $3M Series A financing, and is currently on the Board of Directors.
Sonali also served as Co-founder, Chief Growth Officer (CGO) and Director at Awaaz.De, a B2B fintech social enterprise expanding access to finance for India’s underbanked through its SaaS platform for local vernacular (10+ languages) mobile communication to engage and acquire last-mile Microfinance customers. During her tenure with the company, Awaaz.De’s financial inclusion business launched and grew to reach ~10 Million monthly users, primarily low-income, rural women, through partnerships with leading financial institutions, including Axis Bank, Ujjivan, and LTFS. Awaaz.De is funded by the Aavishkaar-Intellecap angel network and IIM-A CIIE.CO.
Prior to Awaaz.De, she served as India Director for leading global fintech company Tala, which provides instant, personalized credit to underserved customers in emerging markets through their smartphone app and is backed by leading venture and impact investors including PayPal, Revolution, IVP, Ribbit Capital, Data Collective, and Lowercase Capital.
Sonali is an Acumen Fellow, Unreasonable Mentor, and serves on the Alumni Advisory Council for the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University. She has also served on the Investment Committee of Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI) and Beneficial Returns global fund for women entrepreneurs, and has been featured in YourStory Media’s 100 Emerging Women Leaders list. She is a Leadership Coach with training from leading ICF-certified coach training institute Leadership that Works.
WALID BAKR
Managing Partner of Ripples Impact
Walid is an investment veteran with over 25 years of experience in investment, finance, management and operational roles across the Middle East, Europe, and the USA. His expertise and responsibilities span investments, business development and value creation. His operational and entrepreneurial background enrich his strategic insights and management support he can extend to companies he supports, invests in, and leads. Walid structured and developed successful investment strategies and platforms that were instrumental in raising several funds, including the very successful USD 400 mln North Africa Fund II with participation of global high-profile investors.
Walid is Managing Partner of Ripples Impact – a newly established boutique investment and financial advisory firm with a focus on growth strategies, restructuring and reorganization. His latest accomplishment was leading the successful acquisition of Egypt’s Five Stars Milling Group by Camel Flour Mills. Upon the successful completion of the landmark transaction in 2022, Walid took the helm at Five Stars as Chief Executive Officer and helped restructure its operations, hire the senior team, and revamp the facilities of Egypt’s largest milling group.
Walid has been a Managing Director with the Abraaj Group ($14 Bln AUM), where he led Abraaj’s Egyptian operations and was a senior member of the MENA investment team. During his tenure he led one of the most successful investment portfolios in Egypt with over USD 1+ Bln of NAV, and two of his investments ranked among the top Egyptian stock exchange performers. He was instrumental in establishing Abraaj’s $400m North Africa Fund, with a focus on healthcare, education, food & non-banking financial services.
Prior to joining Abraaj, Walid was a director with Riyada Ventures (A boutique regional investment bank), and previously Managing Director of Technology Development Fund (TDF, Egypt’s 1st VC fund). He started his career with AT&T in Kuwait and moved on to manage and establish several technology companies in France and the US.
Walid served, and continues to serve, as a director on the boards of local and regional companies across Egypt, UAE and Jordan. He also served as a Director on several public companies including ANMC (AMES.EGX), Egypt’s largest healthcare group CHG (CLHO.EGX) as well as Egypt’s largest education group CIRA (CIRA.EGX.
Walid is actively engaged with education and entrepreneurship initiatives in Egypt and served on the boards of several non-profit organizations and associations. He’s an active angel investor and startup mentor.
Walid has been selected as an Eisenhower Fellow in 2017 and a Kauffman Fellow in 2013. He holds a BSc in Engineering with top honors from Alexandria University.
WINSTON CHANG
Global Public Sector CTO of Snowflake
Winston Chang serves as Snowflakes’ Global Public Sector CTO. He supports client’s strategic ideation in areas covering data, business value, and mission. His primary focus is helping government and educational institutions leverage the data cloud for maximum business impact.
For over two decades, Winston worked with multiple public sector agencies and commercial sector clients. Federal sector work revolved around technology strategy to amplify business impact, along with various IT/data enterprise modernization efforts. Specific projects include developing a national security IT strategy, designing tech optimized business processes, building a predictive neural network, launching a holistic risk management platform of applications, prototyping government business on blockchain, and more. Commercial sector projects include technology adoption advice, brand strategy, and financial modeling. His entrepreneurial history consists of founding two companies, a management consulting firm and a celebrity favorite couture fashion brand, Stevie Boi®. Before entering management consulting, Winston worked at a structured finance hedge fund, modeling various portfolios and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
Winston volunteers his time with the Committee of 100 and Eisenhower Fellowships, sitting on various boards and as a chapter leader. His engagement in both organizations maintains an international network and supports global bridge building, with a focus on US-Sino relations. Winston is a graduate of the United State Military Academy. When he’s not enjoying time with his wife and young kids, he plays kendo and designs accessories.
YASER MOUSTAFA
CEO of NBK Capital Partners
Yaser Moustafa is the Chief Executive Officer of NBK Capital Partners and member of its Investment Committee. Prior to joining the firm in 2015, Yaser was the Managing Director of Alvarez & Marsal, responsible for private equity and corporate advisory in the MENA region. Prior to A&M, Yaser was an Executive Director and Head of Saudi Arabia Investment Banking for Nomura International. Prior to Nomura, Yaser acted as interim CEO for a leading support services company and for the largest restaurant operator in Qatar, amongst other roles. Yaser started his career at Lehman Brothers in investment banking in the U.S.