Chestnut Street Ventures Team

Bio: Yuval is a leading expert in decision-making in the context of risk and the founder of the Pillars of Wealth financial literacy initiative for medical professionals. He is a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School, where he primarily teaches investments, corporate finance, wealth management, and risk and leadership courses. In 2015 he was awarded the school’s Excellence in Teaching Award and he’s received a Dean’s Award for Faculty Excellence each year from 2015 to 2018. Yuval is also the founder and president of the Light Brigade, LLC (a management consulting company) and the author of seven books, including the Pillars of Wealth book series for doctors and Leveraging People for a Corporate Turnaround (also available in Chinese). Prior to launching The Light Brigade, Yuval held senior strategy and operations roles with some of the world’s leading risk management firms, notably KMV and Algorithmics. His roles have included managerial responsibilities in New York, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Singapore, and Sydney. His risk management expertise has assisted global financial institutions in management of over a trillion dollars in assets. Yuval has lectured extensively in academic, government, and corporate settings on the subjects of risk management and financial literacy. He’s been a contributor on Forbes.com and has been quoted in various media, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Reuters, USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, TheStreet.com, WTOP radio, American Public Media, FoxBusiness.com, Bankrate.com, Washingtonian, Investopedia.com, AdvisorOne.com, InvestmentNews.com, The Arizona Republic, Consumers Digest, US News & World Report, Treasury; Risk, Morningstar.com, RIABiz.com, WalletHub.com, Sweet Fish Media, Progressive Dentist Magazine, the Journal of Medical Practice Management, Cureus, and The Journal of Risk Management in Financial Institutions. Yuval holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an engineering degree (B.Eng.) and two economics degrees (B.A. summa cum laude, M.A.) from Canada’s McMaster University. As a college student he was a member of the varsity wrestling and rugby teams, and prior to that a provincially ranked gymnast.

Bio: Nidhi is a highly-experienced early – stage generalist investor as well as a consultant and strategic advisor to numerous founders and start-ups. She is a member of the Investment Committee of Wharton Alumni Angels as well as the sector lead for cybersecurity and co-sector lead for retail / e-commerce at Harvard Alumni Angels Association of Greater New York. Nidhi has over a decade of experience in investing in public equities as a generalist, with a focus on US small and mid-cap growth equities. Most recently, Nidhi was a generalist portfolio manager at RBC Global Asset Management, covering the small, SMID and mid-cap growth strategies. Prior to joining RBC, Nidhi was a research analyst primarily focused on small cap strategies as a generalist at Fred Alger Management. She began her career in the investment industry as a global consumer analyst at Sursum Capital and OppenheimerFunds. Her prior experience includes working within investment banking in both mergers and acquisitions and restructuring advisory, at Greenhill & Co and Goldman Sachs, and in corporate finance at McKinsey & Co. She earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Bio: Martha Cummings is a global leader with extensive financial services expertise including investment banking, regulatory supervision, risk management, and business transformation. She established and built out an enterprise Compliance function at Wells Fargo, leading a major transformation for the firm. While at the Federal Reserve, Martha was the senior supervisor for several large global banks and represented the US on the Basel Supervision Implementation Group. She was Chief Risk Officer for Banco Santander NY and Santander Investment Securities, and later led financial sponsor client coverage. Earlier in her career, Martha led groundbreaking capital markets transactions for public and private Latin American clients and advised global companies on M&A and financing strategies. Martha is an Executive Leadership Fellow for the Carlson School of Business at the University of Minnesota. Martha holds an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies, and earned a BA in Economics with a minor in Spanish from the University of Minnesota. She speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese.

Bio: David is currently an MBA candidate at the Wharton School. Prior to Wharton, David worked for Geolo Capital, the private equity arm of John Prtizker’s family office, where he focused on early stage / VC investments and real estate equity / debt investments in hospitality and multifamily. At Geolo, he invested in Fra’Mani, OriLiving, Livly and WhyHotel. He has also angel invested in several companies primarily in the CPG and hospitality space. David received a BS in Hotel Administration from Cornell University and during his time on campus co-founded a Mexican food truck, Dos Amigos.

Bio: Steven Finn was cofounder of LocalStove (Acquired Summer 2018 by HUNGRY Marketplace Inc), a marketplace connecting the best local, independent chefs with corporate catering customers. He launched LocalStove during the final semester of his Wharton MBA (WG ’16 – Entrepreneurial Management). He cofounded his first company (RentMine.com) as an undergrad at Wharton (W ’08 – Operations and Information Management). He holds a third Penn degree, a Masters in Engineering (GEng ’10 – Computer and information Technology). Earlier, he was at Bloomberg LP for four years as a full stack software engineer in their Internal Systems/CRM group. He lives in NJ with his wife and three children.Steven Finn was cofounder of LocalStove (Acquired Summer 2018 by HUNGRY Marketplace Inc), a marketplace connecting the best local, independent chefs with corporate catering customers. He launched LocalStove during the final semester of his Wharton MBA (WG ’16 – Entrepreneurial Management). He cofounded his first company (RentMine.com) as an undergrad at Wharton (W ’08 – Operations and Information Management). He holds a third Penn degree, a Masters in Engineering (GEng ’10 – Computer and information Technology). Earlier, he was at Bloomberg LP for four years as a full stack software engineer in their Internal Systems/CRM group. He lives in NJ with his wife and three children.

Bio: Brian is a former audit partner and operational leader at KPMG LLP, where he was National Private Markets Group Leader and National Co-Leader Venture Capital in addition to a full client portfolio. He has nearly 40 years of diversified experience in public accounting, with a unique specialization as a lead client services partner serving venture capital and private equity–backed portfolio companies as well as public companies. Client work included supporting entrepreneurs with high-growth companies from the development stage, through subsequent rounds of financings and other capital formation transactions, on to an IPO or acquisition by a larger market participant. Brian has heavily invested in the leadership training and development of entrepreneurs to fuel the growth and success of their companies. He earned his BS in Economics and his MBA from Wharton.

Bio: Richard Goozh is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building, professionalizing and financing technology companies. His career spans founding companies, investment banking and Fortune 500 leadership roles. Richard’s recent C-level roles were with private biotech companies focused on biological media and molecular diagnostics, including leading the highly successful sale to a leading Private Equity buyer. Richard has led dozens of financing and M&A initiatives.

Bio: Alka is a fortune 500 executive and tech entrepreneur with deep experience in digital transformations, fintech, marketplaces, identity, growth, and globalization. She has been at the beginning of some of the most significant disruptions and platforms including search, ecommerce, mobile, payments, and blockchain at both early stage and public companies. She has done so working globally across US, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Alka is a Co-Founder and Board Director at globaliD, a venture backed, portable, and interoperable identity platform leveraging the blockchain. Prior, she was head of Strategy at eBay Marketplaces at eBay/PayPal. Earlier on, she was at Lycos, the first search engine to go public, where she served as head of Strategy and Corporate Development and earlier on as General Manager of a global suite of products. Alka received an MBA from The Wharton School and B.S. (cum laude) from Case Western Reserve University. She is a Board Director at globaliD, Digital Frontiers, and Fintel AI. She has served as a guest lecturer at both The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and The University of Michigan on the topics of Digital Transformations, How to Manage in Hyper Growth Environments, and Blockchain Use Cases and Payments. She serves on the Finance and Audit Board Committee, MPCSD; How Women Lead World Executive Committee; World Economic Forum Digital Advisory Council; a Distinguished Wharton Women in Business Alumna Award Nominee.

Bio: Vijay has over 25 years of experience in investing, operations, technology entrepreneurship and strategic consulting. Vijay was formerly Head of Strategy and M&A for Broadridge Financial Solutions, where he invested over $800M across 14 acquisitions and minority investments, developed the firm’s growth strategy and incubated a number of innovative ventures. Vijay helped increase Broadridge’s market cap by over 5x from $2.5B to $15B. Prior to Broadridge, Vijay worked at BCG in New York, at private equity firm Invus Opportunities and co-founded and sold an AdTech data and analytics company, in addition to being a successful angel investor. Vijay started his career working as a software engineer on fixed income trading platforms at SBC Warburg and Accenture, Vijay received an MBA from Wharton where he received the Sol Snyder Award for Entrepreneurship and a BA and MA in Physics form Oxford University. Vijay currently has P&L responsibility running one of Broadridge’s largest SaaS franchises and driving technology innovation in distributed ledger technology, artificial intelligence and pre- and post-trade execution platforms.

Bio: Deana has 20 years of experience in executive leadership, corporate development and investment banking. She is the former President and CEO of Torn Ranch, a luxury CPG company based in Sonoma, California. Prior to Torn Ranch, she led M&A and due diligence efforts for BAE Systems and was a technology investment banker with Credit Suisse. Deana earned her BS in Economics from The Wharton School, BA in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania, MSc in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College, London, and Executive MBA from Georgetown University.

Bio: Chris has over 30 years of investment management and finance experience, including multiple C-Suite roles at Assurant, a Fortune 500 multi-national insurance company. During his 23-year career with the Company, he held a variety of leadership roles, including Chief Investment Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Risk Officer. Chris has a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Bio: Eric is a Director of Speyside Equity, a PE firm, where he oversees sourcing, analysis, financial modeling, transaction structuring, and operational optimization. Previously, he was President & CEO of Kelix Heat Transfer Systems, a manufacturer focused on the geothermal HVAC space. Eric also held progressive roles at Eaton Corporation and Hilti Corporation, where he completed mergers and acquisitions, opened an automotive plant in Mexico, ran the marketing department, and led the salesforce. He has degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Wharton.