Susan Lindner believes that incredible connections change the world. As the CEO and Founder of Emerging Media, an award-winning PR • Marketing • Branding • Social Media agency, she develops breakthrough strategies that connect our clients to the right media, communities, influencers, and prospects. Susan gives back to the entrepreneurial community as a mentor to young domestic and international startups at VentureOut, and as a judge at premier competitions like NY Tech Week, The Mashies and many more.

Matt Listro brings extensive experience in business development and sales. Prior to founding Harbinger, he helped build the business development and strategy team at Crowdtap, a venture-backed brand content platform that’s consistently recognized by Inc., Fortune, and others as one of the fastest growing firms in America. Matt brought on and managed partnerships with 50+ top brands including GE, J&J, P&G, Sony Pictures, and Kraft.
Prior to Crowdtap, he managed business development initiatives for MAXIMUS, a publicly-traded program management and consulting firm, helping MAXIMUS expand into Europe. Matt also teaches at General Assembly. He graduated from Brown University and Columbia Business School with Dean’s Honors.

Brock joined Scout Ventures in 2017. As an Associate he focuses on early-stage investments in frontier technologies and software companies.
Prior to joining Scout, he worked in PricewaterhouseCoopers' Corporate Finance division advising startups pursing growth stage investments within the consumer, fintech and digital sectors.
Brock graduated from Boston College in 2015 prior to joining Lazard as an investment banking analyst where he worked on mergers and acquisitions in the consumer space.

Charles Smith has been an active NY angel investor since the mid2000s who has invested in more than a dozen companies, and has worked for and sat on the boards of ten more. He founded Extension Entertainment, a social music discovery platform. He is the owner of The Ineo Group LLC. Charles spent three years as the Vice President of Etsy Inc., was Vice President of Sales at Tacoda and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Planning at RealMedia.

As the director of product management at Sailthru, David assists in the management of 20+ person development team, oversees QA and Implementation groups, plans and maintains product roadmap, specifically core product enhancements, and engages in numerous other activities.

Ivy is the Founder and CEO of IvyTL, with a goal to: identify, build, and set-up key tracking analytics and KPIs for publically-traded companies in Hong Kong; draft, refined and finalized public park experiences with New York City Housing Authority and partners; design branding, digital and traditional assets, including website and newspaper ads, for Brooklyn’s largest tutoring center; and establish brand guidelines, advertisements, and value proposition for Bay Ridge’s first dual-language preschool.

After graduating from Pace University, Ivy has a lot of experience, working at IPG, Gap, and Ladder.io. Ivy also takes part in a lot of service work.

Paul founded Graphite Financial, as an internal service for (nearly 50%) of Venture Capital’s ("ffVC") portfolio of early-stage technology companies since 2008. In 2016, while continuing to serve ffVC's portfolio, Paul oversaw Graphite Financial's transition to operating as an independent company to serve the broader startup community.

He is an expert in helping startups and other young ventures with strategy, financial modeling, fully outsourced or augmented bookkeeping & accounting, tax, compliance and interim CFO work.

January 2002, Dave formed DG InteractiveLLC, an interactive marketing agency. His goal was to start a company centered on digital marketing that would integrate the most common aspects of customer’s digital needs: Website design and development with a focus on search engine optimization and online marketing. Dave feels that the key to unlocking value for clients is in building a client’s brand by designing user-friendly sites that potential customers are able to find when they search online. Dave has a strong commitment to customer service and always makes sure the client’s needs are met.

Prior to starting DG Interactive, Dave was a Senior Producer and Search Engine Strategist at ICE Integrated Communications and Entertainment in New York where he managed and consulted on projects for a diverse selection of clients including ForbesFidelity Investments, Canadian Tire, Price, waterhouse, Coopers, and Canon U.S.A.

Joseph is the PartnerChief Investment Officer at Studio VC, which is a venture fund that provides capital and operational guidance to growing companies with breakout potential. They take an active role in supporting entrepreneurs with strategic and product planning, business development, and marketing to influence positive outcomes.

Joseph received his MBA from the Harvard Business School and his BBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Alexander C. Opaschowski is an EY Assurance Partner with a focus on the national and international retail and consumer product industry for more than 23 years. He knows very well about the disrupting environment we are operating in and supports clients in understanding current developments, assessing the impact on their businesses, identifying promising opportunities and laying the foundation for sustainable growth. Alexander is currently based in New York and Leader of the German Business Network for North America and Mexico. He is a German Certified Public Accountant and Certified Tax Advisor.

Brian is a Principal with CoVenture. Previously he held product leadership positions at several early-stage companies in New York.

CoVenture operates three businesses that bridge technology and finance. We invest in pre-seed venture capital and build software for the companies we invest in. We manage direct private credit funds that provide private credit capital to alternative private credit platforms, enabling them to finance the loans they originate. We create crypto funds for individuals, IRAs, and institutions to get simple and easy access to cryptocurrencies.

Joel is a leading technology attorney working with fortune 500, emerging growth and venture-backed companies, universities, and entrepreneurs. He assists companies with technology transactions, patent litigation, and patent prosecution. Mr. Bock also assists life sciences companies with licensing and development agreements and patent prosecution. He also assists clients with Intellectual Property strategy, including open source issues, trademark prosecution and copyright protection and enforcement issues.

Jens is the Senior Manager for the Legal Department and Business Development at the German American Chamber of Commerce (GACC). The GACC New York offers a wide range of services to the Northeastern and Western states. Benefiting from being close to Silicon Valley the California branch mainly supports trendsetting industry sectors such as IT, biotechnology, renewable energies, semiconductors, and nanotechnology.

Jens received his Master's of Law from Fordham University before gaining a lot of experience as an Associate and Partner at Wendling & Coll. and Jung & Coll.

automotiveMastermind revolutionizes the way dealerships and manufacturers find, engage, and win customers by successfully leveraging Big Data Behavioral Analytics. Our proprietary technology analyzes years of customer, service, and market data to help understand and predict exactly which customers are ready to buy, the reasons why, and the key messages most likely to close the sale. automotiveMastermind is proven to grow your business, increase customer satisfaction, and retention.

automotiveMastermind currently works with hundreds of dealerships from various automotive manufacturers, including Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Honda, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and MINI with plans to further expand its OEM partnerships in 2017. automotiveMastermind is headquartered in New York City and San Francisco and has more than doubled its employee count in the last year.

Dietmar Rieg is the President & CEO of the German American Chamber of Commerce New York since 2013. From 1993 to 2005, he represented Bayern LB in various positions in New York City. From 2006 to 2008, he shifted to the bank’s headquarters in Munich, where he was responsible for the corporate banking business in multiple industries, including energy and telecommunications. He returned to New York in 2008 to take the position of CEO of Bayern LB’s subsidiary office. Since then he has been at the helm of the GACCNY. Mr. Rieg is an economist with a degree from the University of Tuebingen, Germany and also holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Anne Augusta Blum is a Program Manager at the German Accelerator in New York. She is also a mentor at the Founder Institute. She attended Fordham University and Cornell University graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Economics. Prior to working at the German Accelerator, she was a Mobile Developer Partnerships Associate at Facebook in San Francisco.

Anne received a B.S. in Economics from Fordham University and a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.

Eric Erli is a Marketing and Operations Associate at the German Accelerator. The German Accelerator Tech is a government-backed accelerator program that empowers high-potential German startups and emerging companies to successfully enter the U.S. market and scale their business globally. He graduated from Purdue University with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Political Science.

Erik Hess is the VP Business Operations at Automotive Mastermind Inc. He believes that the best decisions are informed decisions, and that trust is earned through transparency, alignment, and accountability. Prior to his current position, he founded his own company, Go Cashless Inc. which was an Angel Funded FinTech Startup. Along the way, he has founded other startups and consulted at Aviation Leasing Group.

Christopher is a Senior Manager for the German American Chamber of Commerce. At 120 locations in 80 countries around the world, the German Chamber Network (AHK) offers experience, connections, and services to German and foreign companies. The service portfolio of the AHKs was unified worldwide under the brand name DEinternational. DEinternational simplifies the international comparison of the different AHK services, especially for medium-sized companies.

Before working with the GACC, Christopher worked with the French-American Chamber of Commerce in New York. He also graduated from St. Joseph's with an M.B.A.

Susan is a senior operations professional who guides financial, operations and technology executives through complex issues from strategy to execution with a close eye on financial and operational efficiencies. Projects range from general business advisory and audit to crisis management and resolution across various industries including, consumer services, industrial products, technology, entertainment & media and financial services. She has highly developed engagement leadership skills, including managing and motivating high-performing teams across the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Arthur is a Software Developer, Security/Privacy Champion and Project Manager with 18 years of software experience at Microsoft in gaming, networking, security, privacy, and API design. He is equally adept at learning new technology as well as international global issues and foreign languages. He is active in the Silicon Alley Startup community helping build startups.

He is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of AB Dev Labs. Founded in New York in 2011, AB Dev Labs provides complete startup development solutions for Startup Founders and Entrepreneurs. From product development, customer development and co­shoring, they make sure your startup is built on a proper foundation.

Barbara is the BCG Secondee at SAPio, working in SAP's Corporate Strategy Group. She is currently developing SAP's strategy and vision for various emerging technologies and partnering with startup accelerators and women in tech organizations in the New York area.

Barbara graduated from M.I.T. with a B.S. in Aerospace and Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering.