Fission Ventures Team

Bio: Rob is the Managing Partner of Fission Ventures. His personal and professional investments include: Lyft ($25 billion IPO), Accolade ($1.2 billion IPO), Mobileye ($15 billion acquisition by Intel), Qihoo 360 ($62 billion IPO), Rong360 ($3.5 billion IPO), and Casper ($575 million IPO). Prior to joining Fission Ventures, Rob was a partner with Sailing Capital, a $1.2 billion VC fund. Before that, he was a partner and CEO of a number of private investment offices in London, which include: the first investor in Skype, the largest initial investor in Mail.RU and the founder of the business which is now Virgin Media. Earlier, he was Partner and Head of Co-investments with Atlantic-Pacific Capital in London. Rob began his career as an investment banker with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and UBS in China, Europe, and the U.S. Rob holds a BA from Trinity College and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Notable Deals: Lyft, Accolade, Casper, Compass, Mobileye

Bio: Stephanie spent more than 15 years in higher education advancement as a fundraiser and alumni relations professional, getting her start at Tufts University. She also worked at Northeastern University, where she led the programming and engagement for 200,000+ alumni worldwide. Earlier in her career, she had her own consulting practice, which focused on fundraising, board development, and communications strategies in the non-profit sector. A strong advocate for mentorship and networking, she brings those passions to investor engagement at AVG. She holds a BA from the University of New Hampshire, where she was a member of the women’s soccer team, and a MA from Emerson College.

Bio: Prior to joining AVG, Jenna was an Investor Service Representative at Putnam Investments, where she provided customer support to both clients and brokers. Jenna is a graduate of Merrimack College, Girard School of Business, where she studied Business Administration with a dual major in Management and Marketing.

Bio: John is a founder, entrepreneurial advisor, and product developer with over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience. He has founded and led two companies and managed economic development programs for the State Department in Afghanistan and Iraq. His background straddles Deep Tech that includes robotics, software, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and energy. He is passionate about exploring new technologies and interested in everything from Machine Learning to clean energy. John has a BS in Physics from George Washington University, an MS in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University, and an MBA from Stern NYU Business School. John is a partner at FedTech, a venture builder at the intersection of US entrepreneurship, breakthrough technologies, and mission-driven organizations.

Bio: Kevin is passionate about building up companies and the people that work there. Kevin is currently a Co-Founder and Partner at Halogen Partners – a venture studio that ideates and incubates startup companies. Kevin has worked with over a dozen startups as a founding entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and board member. As the Co-Founder and COO of Velocityshares, Kevin helped build the company from pre-revenue idea stage to several billion dollars of assets under management before its acquisition by Janus. Prior to becoming a serial entrepreneur, Kevin worked in investment banking at JPMorgan and Bear Stearns, and served as the Head of Venture Capital for The Investment Office of the Crown Prince of Dubai. While working full-time as an undergraduate at Columbia University, Kevin helped develop a thesis on financial services company stocks which was profiled in Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal.

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: Edward Forman serves as Duff & Phelps’ executive vice president, general counsel and secretary. As general counsel, Edward provides Leadership Team and the Board of Directors with advice on company strategies and their implementation, manages the legal, compliance and risk management functions, and oversees the work of outside counsel. Edward also plays a critical role in our corporate development activities, participating in over 20 transactions to date. As Duff & Phelps continues to execute on its growth strategy, Edward leads a global team of lawyers, compliance professionals and external counsel in supporting the company’s business objectives and managing risk. From 1998 to 2006, Edward was employed by The BISYS Group, Inc., a publicly traded financial outsourcing company, most recently as its senior vice president, acting general counsel and secretary. Edward received his B.A. in economics from Yeshiva University and his J.D. and M.B.A. from Columbia 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: Tyler Marciniak is Senior Strategy Director at Astellas, working to improve the health of people around the world through innovative and reliable healthcare solutions. Based at the company’s global headquarters in Tokyo, he leads strategic planning and manages daily operations for the $15 million Patient Centricity division, increasing the value of Astellas’ innovative health solutions through a deep understanding of the patient experience, medical need and behavioral drivers of care. Previously, he was the global head of employee relations, leading a team responsible for engaging nearly 16,000 Astellas employees worldwide in a value-driven culture. Over a 20-year career in healthcare, Tyler has worked in the United States, Japan and Europe holding positions of increasing responsibility in corporate communications, investor relations, patient advocacy and marketing. He is currently a member of the Finance Committee of the Tokyo-American Club. Previously he served as a member of the advisory board of healthcare start-up CancerAid, of Page Up, a subsidiary of the Arthur W. Page Society, and of the National Alumni Board for Drake University where he was also an adviser to its School of Journalism. An award-winning healthcare leader, in 2016 Tyler was honored by PRWeek as one of the industry’s most influential communicators under the age of 40. Tyler holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, an MSc from Columbia University and a BA from Drake 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: Vesko Pehlivanov leads Solution Architecture & Strategy at Sterling National Bank. Sterling National Bank specializes in the delivery of financial services and solutions to business owners, their families and consumers within the communities it serves through teams of dedicated and experienced relationship managers. In this role, Vesko is responsible for providing technical solutions designed to offer effectiveness, efficiency, evolvability, reliability, security, scalability, and resiliency across all security and infrastructure services. Prior to that, Vesko worked at Credit Suisse for 10 years in various leadership roles in Infrastructure Architecture and Cyber Security across a global footprint of production, non-production and test environments. In his time at CS he introduced emerging technologies and innovative products in software defined networking, network virtualization, data center and cloud networking and security, threat management and incident response, security automation and orchestration, and others. In addition to working closely with Credit Suisse’s engineering and operations teams, Vesko also served as technical advisor to the Technology Investment Banking, Equity Research, and Prime Investments business units. Vesko has an MS in Computer Science from Columbia University with concentration in Network Systems and Network Security. He is currently based in New York City.

Bio: At Nex Plc, Ken was CEO of the Optimization business, a portfolio of fintech and trade processing companies, as well as Group COO. Nex Plc was acquired by CME Group in November, 2018. Post-acquisition he continued as the CEO of the Optimization business until December 2019, with a leadership position on the Group’s integration committee. He has over thirty years of investment banking and operating experience in New York and London at Salomon Brothers, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Nex plc. He has also held leadership positions in deal origination, trading, emerging markets and e-commerce, as well as corporate pre-merger separation and post-merger integration. Leveraging his experience in fintech and technology, Ken is currently an angel investor with two groups, helping founders grow and manage their organizations. He received a BA from Rutgers University and an MS/MBA from Columbia University, graduating in 1982.

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: 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.

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: Preethi has over 12 years experience in the pharmaceutical / biotech industry. Her most recent experience is in enterprise strategy, digital health, market access and strategy consulting.

Bio: Ting has a background working in large financial/insurance services as well as in startups. Currently at Cheche Tech, he heads strategies, research and analytics functions of the organization. In addition, he serves as a part-time advisor to a couple of startups and research organizations in Asia. Previously he worked at BlackRock and Bank of America Merrill Lynch covering residential mortgages, CRE, consumer financial products acting as strategic advisors for external clients and internal groups. Ting started his career at GEICO working as senior modeling and underwriting associate. He has a masters from Columbia and dual degrees in Applied Mathematics and Finance from University of Maryland-College Park.

Bio: Dalicia Ramey is the CEO and Co-Founder of SkinnyMs., a highly successful online business platform focused on healthy recipes, exercise and educating and inspiring women interested in health and fitness. Prior to her entrepreneurial ventures, Dalicia delivered marketing and PR solutions for Fortune 500 clients through consulting as well as her executive roles with Moet Hennessy and MGM Mirage. Dalicia is a 2021 Executive MBA Candidate at Columbia Business School.

Bio: After software development with a number of health-tech and fin-tech startups and medium-sized firms for about a decade, Arpan Soparkar is working on a career-pivot to early-stage investments, with a focus on areas of social and environmental impact such as healthy food, sustainable agriculture, clean-tech and health-tech. The passion and vision of early-stage founders inspires him, while he employs his quantitative skills for data-driven diligence process. He has interned with a wide range of investment firms ranging from an impact-focused angel syndicate to a fund of funds and even a corporate VC firm. In his free time, he enjoys going to a beach with his son in San Francisco.

Bio: Ishan is currently working with the Product and Growth team at Wayfair, where he focuses on developing the analytics capabilities for growth strategies. Before joining Wayfair, he graduated from Columbia University with an M.S. in Business Analytics, where he was a Research Assistant at Columbia Business School. While pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, he also co-founded a startup that was incubated by the Atal Incubation Centre, set up by the Govt. of India.

Bio: Taewan Shim is a recent graduate of Columbia College, where he double-majored in Information Science and Comparative Literature. While at Columbia, he worked in product and growth functions at multiple startups ranging from VC-backed seed stage startup Catch to a real estate unicorn Knotel. While at Columbia, Taewan founded Columbia Build Lab, an incubator at Columbia University that connects MBA student-founders with technical undergraduates to build startups from the ground up.