Fission Ventures Team

Bio: Rob is the Managing Partner of Fission Ventures and an experienced investor, whose personal and professional investments include: Lyft, one of the world’s largest ride-hailing apps, Compass, one of America’s largest real estate technology platforms, Coursera, one of the world’s largest online learning platforms and MobilEye, an autonomous driving company that was acquired by Intel for $15 billion. Before joining Fission Ventures, Rob was a Managing Director and Partner, as well as a member of both the Investment Committee and the Risk Committee, with Sailing Capital, a $1.2 billion late-stage venture capital and private equity fund based in Hong Kong. Prior to that, Rob advised a number of ultra-high net worth individuals on venture capital and private equity investments, including one of the first investors in Skype, one of the largest initial investors in Mail.RU and one of the founders of the business which ultimately became a key part of Virgin Media. Before that, Rob was Partner and Head of Direct Co-Investments with Atlantic-Pacific Capital in London. Rob began his career as an investment banker with: BAML, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS in Europe, the US and Asia. Rob received his MBA from Columbia Business School, his BA from Trinity College, and speaks four languages.
Notable Deals: Lyft, Compass, Coursera, Mobileye

Bio: Prior to joining Fission Ventures, Zachary was the Director of Investments at Alpha Square Group, a New York based multi-family office investment fund. Zach was in charge of leading private investments in mid and late-stage US technology and healthcare companies. Prior to Alpha Square, Zach helped launch a venture investment platform for a large private Chinese asset manager in Silicon Valley. He has also worked at a tech-focused growth and buyout private equity fund in New York. Zach comes from a background in M&A with experiences in investment banking, management consulting and corporate development. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelors in Finance from Ohio State University.

Bio: Tomi is a Partner at Innovestor Group, a leading Northern-European VC investor and fund manager, where he builds companies as a venture capital and angel investor. Before joining Innovestor, Tomi was the Country Director of a listed real estate investment company backed by the Blackstone Group, where he managed a $500M investment and development property portfolio. Before joining the finance industry, Tomi was a Senior Associate at White & Case where he focused on business and securities law in New York and Helsinki. Prior to that he held legal positions with Holland & Knight, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland and the United Nations. Tomi received his LLM from Columbia Law School in 2004, and holds degrees and has studied at: Hult Business School (MBA), the University of Turku (Master of Laws), Stockholm University (Nordplus Scholar), University of Louisville (Research Scholar) and Université de Fribourg (Erasmus Scholar). Tomi speaks six languages, resides in Cyprus and commutes weekly between the Innovestor offices in Stockholm, Helsinki, Moscow and Tel Aviv.

Bio: Bob is Senior Vice President for Growth at Elbit America, a global aerospace and defense provider for the defense, homeland security, commercial aviation, and medical instrumentation markets. He leads the integration and alignment of business development, strategy, corporate development, and strategic communications. He also leads the International / FMS business and manages the early-stage business of commercial unmanned aerial systems digital agricultural. Bob served in the US Air Force, retiring with the rank of Brigadier General, and also served in multiple senior operations and policy positions in the Pentagon. In addition, he worked as a White House Fellow and as the lead for Air Force congressional affairs for both the House and the Senate. Bob graduated from the Air Force Academy with a BSCE, then earned a MSCE as a Guggenheim Fellow from Columbia University. He also received a Masters in National Security Strategy from National War College, and completed an executive education program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Bob is a Falcon Foundation Trustee and a past president and board member of the White House Fellows Foundation and Association.

Bio: Eva is the founder and CEO of Eva Garland Consulting, LLC, which specializes in helping early stage technology companies tap into over $100 billion of federal, state, and private grant funding sources. Eva is also Director of the LiftOff Program at First Flight Venture Center, which assists North Carolina’s scientific entrepreneurs in obtaining early funding for their companies. She has published a book on winning grants through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, and serves on several scientific grant review panels. Eva was Vice President of Research & Development for Agile Sciences, where she oversaw the development of a new class of molecules for treating drug-resistant bacterial infections. Eva holds a BA in Chemistry from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech. She previously served on the faculty at North Carolina State University.

Bio: MZ is recognized for launching high-touch products for world-class consumer brands. She has over 15 years of experience in building consumer-facing digital businesses for both high-growth companies and organizations in transition. She led the digital product team at The New York Times when that company was becoming a continuous news, digital-first, paid product, overhauling its operations, introducing new products and expanding on to new platforms. From there MZ joined Ralph Lauren with the mandate of insourcing technical operations at scale and upgrading the product experience to attract a flagship, upmarket customer. MZ was recruited to join the leadership team at goop on the heels of that company’s Series A raise to lead Product, Design and User Experience with the goal of building a cross-platform consumer products business. After goop, MZ joined Glossier as VP Digital and Business Insights to build a data-driven Product practice, drive topline growth while scaling operations and infrastructure and to streamline analytics and performance reporting. Company revenues grew by 400% during her tenure at that company. MZ presently oversees consumer and subscriber revenue at charity: water, an innovative non-profit. MZ’s team is comprised of marketing, product, product design and customer experience and is accountable for a generating a significant share of the organization’s programs funding. MZ is the lay leader of the Disabilities Committee at UJA-Federation and also sits on that organization’s National Board. She is also an advisory member at the JCC Manhattan’s Jack and Shirley Silver Center for Special Needs. MZ has a degree in journalism from Boston University and attended Columbia Business School.

Bio: Most recently, Alice served as the Chief Strategy and Digital Officer for ASCAP, a 100-year old music performing rights organization, which serves as $1B+ global settlement network for over 700,000 members. Previously, Alice served as Senior Vice President, Digital Distribution and Partnerships for Viacom. Prior to this, Alice was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy for a mobile multicast television start-up division of Qualcomm, a $70B wireless technology company where she led strategic partnership conversations and special internal projects, resulting in a $2B sale to AT&T. Before this, Alice led the adoption and monetization efforts for two digital start-ups, Enpocket, a mobile marketing platform, and PreCache, a distributed computing technology, both of which were successfully acquired by Fortune 500 companies. Alice started her career in Venture Capital at CIBC Capital Partners and Dolphin Equity and Investment Banking at Dean Witter. Alice serves or has served on a number of boards for start-ups, including: Qwire, Modalyst and Edtwist, as well as industry organizations, such as DDEX (digital supply chain management standards body), CISAC (global performing rights organization), FastTrack (product development organization for industry solutions). She has been an advisor to Techstars and a member of New York Angels. Alice has been named Billboard “Digital Power Player” for three years running, one of the “Top Women in Wireless” by Fierce Wireless and “Top 50 Women in Mobile Content” by Mobile Entertainment. Alice received her MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS from Stern School of Business, New York University.

Bio: Marco has 20+ years experience in accelerating value creation through private equity investment and management consulting for small to mid-market companies across sectors (technology, manufacturing, consumer, and luxury goods), with a particular focus on local players ready to exploit untapped global opportunities. Marco is known for helping high-potential local companies navigate internationalization, business optimization, and capital raising challenges by leveraging deep private equity and management consulting expertise that transforms companies and unlocks value. Marco is an active investor through Mercurio Capital Partners, a firm specializing in private equity club deals, which he co-founded in 2006. Marco also provides strategic management and operations support, including administrative and financial administration, as a Board Member and through my companies MCP Advisors and Gallant Corporate Solutions.

Bio: Jafar is a Partner at Harding Loevner LP, a global investment firm with over $57 billion under management, where he manages the Global and International Small Cap Funds. Jafar has over 20 years of experience in investing, with a focus on the Technology, Media and Telecom industries. Prior to joining his current firm, Jafar has worked at NDB Capital/Deutsche Bank, and Franklin Templeton. He has an MPA in Economic Policy and Management from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia; an MBA in Computer Information Systems from Baruch College, CUNY; and under-graduate and Masters’ degrees in Economics from Aligarh University and JNU in India.

Bio: Jinfeng Tang is currently Chief Operating Officer at Loan Transactions & Technology (LT&T). Before joining LT&T, Jinfeng had about twenty years experience in managing bank balance sheet or advising institutional clients on hedging their financial risks at some of the Wall Street’s leading firms. As Head of Asset Liability Management at Deutsche Bank, Jinfeng led the Asset Liability Committee (ALCO) and was responsible for managing funding, liquidity and market risks for the bank. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Mr. Tang worked at BlackRock, where he provided risk analytics and hedging advisory services to major financial institutions, including Citibank and HSBC, and pioneered BlackRock Solutions’ business development in Asia. Jingfeng started his career at JP Morgan Chase. He received his MS in Financial Engineering from Columbia University in 2001, an MBA from the University of Georgia in 2000. Prior to this, Jinfeng received a BS in Chemical Engineering, a BS in International Business and an MS in Economics from East China University of Science & Technology. Jinfeng serves on the board of Judo bank, a challenger bank in Australia, and is also a board director of the Asian Financial Society, a prominent non-profit organization for Asian financial professionals on Wall Street. He is both a CFA charterholder and a certified FRM (Financial Risk Manager).

Bio: Joris is a lecturer in Entrepreneurship at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies. Joris’s career began at the United Nations Development Program, where he was part of a three-person fund management team that raised over $100 million to support local development initiatives such as agricultural, vocational and entrepreneurial training programs. More recently, he has founded three companies – in both tech and hospitality – and advises startups on digital strategy. He brings a wealth of operational experience building and assisting early stage start-ups, refining products, forming teams and fundraising. Notably, he invested in and consulted for RedCrow, an equity crowdfunding platform based in San Francisco, specialized in mobilizing funds for health tech companies. Joris is also an Expert Evaluator for the European Commission H2020 Innovation Fund, vetting startup, and growth investments. Joris holds a BA in Economics from the University of Barcelona and an MBA from Oxford University in the UK. He is French and grew up in Barcelona, and speaks four languages.

Alvi Abuaf is currently a Partner at Motive Partners, a $500MM Private Equity and Venture Capital fund company with offices in NYC and London, focused on investing and nurturing technology, data and service companies that power the Financial Industry.
Previously Mr. Abuaf was the head of Financial Services Consulting at Capgemini NA, a global consulting and services power house with 180,000 employees worldwide; the CEO of Capco NA, a Financial Services consultancy with 5 offices and 1,300 employees in North America. Prior to Capco, Mr. Abuaf was the President and CEO of CPM Braxis USA. Previously, he was the Managing Director of Global Strategy and Program Management at Citigroup and a Partner and the leader of the Financial Services Industry practice for the Americas at Capgemini Ernst & Young. He was also the founder of the E&Y Capgemini incubator.
He has deep Financial Services industry experience and is a recognized thought leader. He has successfully completed numerous projects with leading investment banks, brokerages, fund companies, asset managers and other financial institutions globally. He is a passionate people leader and a proven innovator.
Mr. Abuaf’s functional areas of expertise include business and operations strategy, operations planning and business control, technology implementation and outsourcing. He has led several large-scale transformation projects, divestitures and implementations.
He holds an MS from Columbia University and a BS from SUNY Buffalo as well as certificates from Harvard Business School and MIT School of Management. He has been a member of the Museum of American Finance Board of Trustees since 2013. He also serves on the board of several FinTech start-ups.

Bio: Chance is an MBA candidate at Columbia Business School. He started his career in government, partnering with Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurs to expand economic development opportunities for the City of New York. After working in public policy, Chance transitioned to impact investing at Nonprofit Finance Fund where he supported the deployment of over $9MM in grant and debt capital to social enterprises throughout the country, working to address access to high-quality health, education, and housing in underserved communities. Currently, Chance serves as Assistant Vice President of Investments for Microlumbia, a student-led, independent nonprofit that invests in promising tech-enabled companies throughout the world.

Bio: Yangliu is currently a partner of China Future Capital Group, a leading hedge fund in China, overseeing the global financing team and offshore investments. Previously, she worked as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, covering technology, media & telecommunications (TMT). An entrepreneur-at-heart, she co-founded an online translation company that provided the translation services for the 2012 Asian Beach Games hosted by Olympic Council of Asia. Yangliu received her MBA from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business with significant coursework at Columbia University.

Bio: Barry is currently a capital markets analyst on derivatives trading desk at Fannie Mae, where he helps to manage and hedge interest rate risks associated with the portfolio. Prior to Fannie Mae, Barry was a product analyst at Plymouth Rock Assurance, where he worked on pricing and underwriting of insurance products. Barry holds a Master’s degree in Actuarial Science from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Bio: Frank is currently an MBA candidate at Columbia Business School studying Finance and is Deputy Director of Investments for the IBEW Pension Benefit Fund. In this role, he assists fund trustees oversee $3B in pension fund assets. Frank also served as Senior Research Analyst, in the Research and Corporate Governance Department of the IBEW. Prior to the IBEW, Frank was Manager of Investment Relations in the Corporate Affairs Department of LIUNA where he had oversight of investment relations for $35B in pension fund assets. Prior to the IBEW and LIUNA, Frank served as a Corporate Campaign Strategist and Research and Healthcare Policy Analyst. Frank holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Economy and History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Bio: Nancy (CBS’18) is the co-founder of beautylink, a media and entertainment platform for hair salon clients. Previously, she worked in intellectual property and international trade policy for the federal government of Canada in which she negotiated and implemented agreements such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Treaties and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In addition to her MBA, Nancy also holds a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School and a BA in Psychology from York University.

Bio: Kai is an attorney currently practicing in New York. His practice focuses on FinTech, emerging companies and finance, with a particular emphasis on empowering clients to thrive at the intersection of law and tech-driven disruption. He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2017 and his B.A. from UC Davis in 2012.