Joy is an experienced founder, investment evaluator, and advisor to high growth innovative companies across sectors seeking to scale sustainably. She advises on partnerships, business modeling, go to market strategy, operations, and financial modeling. Joy has advised dozens of companies across geographies from M&A and strategic planning to process improvement and supply chain management.

Joy is an active advisor across accelerators and university startup communities including VentureOut, Techstars, I2F CyberNYC, Cal Hacks, and Columbia University’s Entrepreneurship Design Studio.  Joy is an alumna of Columbia Business School, The London School of Economics, and UC Berkeley.

Sam is the Director of Business Development at VentureOut. As a seasoned business operator in and out of the startup ecosystem, Sam brings over 10 years of experience and legal background to the team. In his role at VentureOut, Sam is responsible for developing the pipeline of upcoming programs, sponsor and partner outreach, and overseeing the entire startup application, interview, and selection process. Prior to VentureOut, Sam has counseled founders and various companies on a wide range of issues including strategy, investor relations, incorporation, and intellectual property rights. He also ran Operations for several years at a regional automotive parts distributor with a wide range of responsibilities from sales, developing an eCommerce platform, and logistics. Sam received his BA from Colgate University and his JD from the GGU School of Law.

Fay-Louise is the Program Director at VentureOut, overseeing strategy and operations for all accelerator programs. A veteran startup advisor, Fay joined VentureOut after eight years working with investors and startups on cross-border and global market strategy across Latin America, Asia & North America. In her role at Venture Out, Fay manages all programming, supporting the startups, mentors, and clients related to those programs, and is a key member of the executive team.

Prior to VentureOut, Fay worked for several years in Private Equity where she managed a portfolio of alternative assets with Acquisition Group Inc and she played a key role in leadership and operations while working as a strategy analyst at Global Impact. Fay has also traveled to over 52 countries and is passionate about working with international startups.

Fay-Louise studied Economics & Political Science at University of Sydney.

As a business lawyer, Joe represents startup to publicly-held technology, life science and consumer companies, venture capital and private equity funds and investment banks in a wide range of seed and venture financings, mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and other public offerings. Joe regularly advises a broad range of startups, venture-backed companies and VC funds, and have led hundreds of venture and strategic financing transactions. He has helped companies and private equity firms handle scores of merger, acquisition and disposition transactions. Additionally, he has represented issuers and underwriters in dozens of IPOs and follow-on public offerings involving companies in the technology, life sciences and consumer sectors, including leading investment banks such as Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Oppenheimer.

Joe also serves as outside general counsel for numerous companies, assisting them with everything from day-to-day business transactions to multinational strategic alliance transactions ranging from technology and distribution partnerships to joint ventures. He focuses on representing clients involved in high-growth sectors, and have experience with a broad range of industries, including adtech, AI, biotech, blockchain, cleantech, consumer, cryptocurrency, digital media, ecommerce, energy, IoT, fintech/financial services, life sciences, mobile, semiconductor, software, UAVs and telecommunications. He frequently speaks at events addressing a wide range of topics critical for fast growth companies, including Fintech Connect, Founder Institute, Fundingpost, Health 2.0, Quake Capital Accelerator and TiE.

Specialties: IPOs & other Public Securities Offerings (including equity and debt), Venture Capital & Strategic Financings and other Financing Transactions, Private Equity, Mergers and Acquisitions, Joint Ventures and Strategic Partnerships, Recapitalizations, General Corporate, International Transactions, Public Company Corporate Governance and Compliance

Sam Newbold has been supporting VentureOut companies to secure US visas since 2013. He is experienced in a wide range of employment based, family based, and investment based immigration issues, working closely with the global startup and tech communities, representing cutting edge companies and talented individuals who comprise New York’s rapidly growing Silicon Alley.

Mr. Newbold also works closely with foreign investors seeking nonimmigrant or immigrant status through EB5 or E-2 investments, and he is also experienced in helping foreign business owners receive L visa status through establishing New Offices in the United States.

Founder Coach specializing in Seed to product-market-fit.
Serial Entrepreneur with mobile ecommerce focus - UX/UI visionary.

Andy is the Director of Operations for NY Tech Alliance (formerly NY Tech Meetup), a non-profit organization that runs the largest Meetup group in the world with over 55000 members and a mission to build a more sustainable and diverse technology industry for all New Yorkers.

Overall, justice and diversity is a huge passion for him and he is a clear advocates for the importance of diversity in the tech community and business culture.

Mary MacPherson is an executive with background in corporate and nonprofit organizations, expertise in the role of entrepreneurship and early stage company formation and growth and in nonprofit organizational capacity building and governance. During her business career, Mary worked in senior management roles at Apple Computer, MCI Telecommunications Corp. and Blackboard, Inc. and several startups in the Washington area.

She currently serves as President/CEO of the Slovak-American Foundation and her prior nonprofit experience includes leadership of Netpreneur, an initiative of the Morino Institute in Greater Washington to support the region's community of early stage entrepreneurs and their stakeholders. During this period she was a member of Women Angels, an early stage investment group, and served on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association.

In 2004, Mary formed M2Works LLC, an independent consultancy and her practice includes engagements in the areas of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial networks, non-profit capacity building, sustainability, governance and community building.

Mary’s non-profit service includes Mary’s Center for Child and Maternal Care (two terms as Board Chair), Honorary Board Member of College Summit of the National Capital Region and the DC Region Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE); member of the Organizing Board of MindShare; she currently co-chairs the advisory board of the University of Mary Washington's College of Arts and Sciences.

Mary has been recognized by Women in Technology and the March of Dimes as a Heroine of Technology and named by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington. She holds a BA in American Studies from Mary Washington College and was honored to receive the 2011 University of Mary Washington Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Formerly CEO of a French advertising agency for 17 years, Emmanuel has been a fine observer of the relations between media and advertisers. He now is the CEO of Adwanted, the first multi-channel advertising platform.

Paul Wigdor currently serves as Managing Partner at Ascendant Advisors, a Registered Investment Advisor based in Houston, Texas. Paul was a Founding Shareholder in Ascendant when the Company was formed in 2009 and joined the Firm as a Partner in 2011 to launch the Firm’s Mutual Fund Business. Under Paul’s direction, Ascendant has launched four mutual funds and will be launching a fifth in May, 2015. Prior to his work with Ascendant, Paul spent 15 years on the buy side and the sell side in a variety of capacities including legal and compliance, equity trading, wealth management and asset management. In addition to his financial services work experience, Paul is a seasoned entrepreneur and has been an active angel investor, advisor and board member to many young companies in a variety of industries including financial services, technology, restaurants, real estate, and luxury goods.

David Segura is an accomplished executive and investor. He's capable of scaling organizations and managing growth in a number of industry categories ranging from AdTech to FinTech to Consumer.

He also has invested in over forty companies. Investments include Eaze, Grove Collaborative, Hawthorne, Mogul, StyleSage, Origin Protocol and more.

Uri Zilberman is Managing Partner at Real-Life Innovations (RLI).

An investor and a founder in Real-Life Innovations (RLI), an early stage Fund, that is focusing on Pre-Seed investments. RLI offers a unique business model that serves a need in the early stage arena:
They lead pre-seed to seed investments and help the Founders with strategy, creating a crisp product and business offerings, G2M, draft marketing plans and support the Company with its early customer engagements and its various Funding activities, to reduce risks and accelerate success!

Etienne Fretault is an entrepreneur and angel investor.

Etienne is the CEO & Founder at AKITUA, an investment company active since 2005. 

He has more than 30 years of experience in the Sports industry. Back in 2000, he founded SPARTNER, an agency supporting sports stakeholders in the management of their travel and event projects in France and abroad. Today, Spartner operates on 5 continents and manages more than 200 events yearly through their offices in Lyon, Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo, with a focus on 5 areas of expertise: Motorsport, Professional teams, Sporting events, Training camps, Media sport travel.

Experienced Chief Investment Officer and builder of large and successful asset management businesses. Demonstrated record of thought leadership, innovation, and forging teams to serve high net-worth, retail, and large institutional clients. Angel Investor, Advisor and Mentor for early stage companies which apply Artificial Intelligence, Machine/Deep Learning, Big Data, and other enabling technologies to solve real problems. Passionate about engineering better outcomes for investors by combining a strategic vision about what’s possible with a pragmatic understanding of what’s feasible.

Eva Šimeková has 10+ years of experience in the creation and oversight of budgets in a range of international projects in the area of specific EU related issues and support of SMEs. She has been a business start-up consultant for several companies, overseeing the clarification of legal, business and organizational structures in line with shareholders intentions. Eva has experience as an investment advisor to a range of companies with oversight of legal and financial matters. She has also been active in the non-profit sector, working on a variety of projects and high-level events.

Ms. Brocková was born in 1963. She holds a Doctorate in Economics from the Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, which she obtained in 1991. In 1999 she obtained a Masters in International Public Policy from the SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C. From 1989 to 1991, Ms. Brocková was a Financial Officer in ZSNP a.s. In 1993, she entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving as Deputy Director of the Department of International Economic Cooperation. Then, in 1996, she was posted to the Embassy of the Slovak Republic to the United States where she served as Economic Officer. In 2000, she returned to Bratislava and was appointed Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, later in 2001 she became Director of the Department. From 2001 to 2008, she served as Country Manager at the World Bank office in Bratislava. Prior to her nomination as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Slovak Republic to the OECD, Ambassador Brocková served as Director General for Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic from September 2, 2015 – November 1, 2017. From October 18, 2011 – August 31, 2015 she served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Slovak Republic to the OECD.

David was the co-founder and CEO of Twistage, which he led from inception to a profitable multimillion dollar business to an exit by a Fortune 1000 company. Over the course of his career, he has spent time in sales, software development, product management, and hodgepodge of things unrelated to technology.

David became the GM of Rich Media and Cloud Products at Lexmark Enterprise Software after Twistage's sale to Lexmark International. During his tenure there, he became an active angel investor and adviser to startups. Upon his departure from Lexmark, David fully rejoined the startup world as the co-founder/CEO of a new venture.

A graduate of Brown University, he lives in NYC with his wife and two children.

Alla is an experienced entrepreneur with a heavy background in marketing and communications. She has a passion for innovation and building strong game-changing teams. Alla is a co-founder of Black Friday, Russia’s first e-commerce platform for aggregation of event-based discounts with over 15 million active users.
Her love for the startup ecosystem led her to the role of Head of Program at Starta Accelerator, a NYC based program that empowers startups from Europe through an exclusive mentorship program. Alla and her team built successful global companies, contribute funds and other resources to foreign entrepreneurs at seed and pre-seed stages. Starta Accelerator is part of Starta Ventures, a venture capital global brand, the mission of which is to break through traditional venture capital barriers to empower the next generation of tech entrepreneurs.
Now Alla is a head of business development at a startup company Media Machines Lab.

Rachel joined BDMI from Credit Suisse where she was involved in equity research, with a specific focus on analyzing and mapping trends within the software and cybersecurity space. Her previous work experience includes business development at The Gothm, valuation at FMV Opinions, and venture capital at Anthemis Group as well as iAngels. Rachel holds a bachelor’s degree in Business and Political Economy from NYU’s Stern School of Business. She grew up speaking Russian, and when away from the office, she frequents the boxing gym, followed by a relaxing schvitz at the Russian spa. She is also an avid foodie, hunting down the best vegan and kosher eats in the city.