Triphammer Ventures Team

Bio: Steve has over 20 years of operating and investing experience, having closed 30+ equity, debt, and M&A transactions totaling ~$5 billion. Previously, he was Founder and Managing Partner of Fox Meadow Capital Partners, a PE and infrastructure investment and advisory firm. Prior to that, he was a General Partner and top performer at Clarity Partners, an $800M PE fund, and a Vice President and top performer at Clarity’s predecessor, Rader Reinfrank & Co., a $100M TMT venture capital fund. While at Clarity, Steve founded ImpreMedia, which he built into the largest Spanish language newspaper company in the US as CFO/EVP of Corporate Development. Steve has also worked in investment banking and as a developer and investor in energy and utilities. He has a JD from Stanford, an MBA from Cornell, and a BS with distinction from Cornell’s College of Engineering. Steve teaches Advanced Private Equity at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and serves on the advisory council of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy (CPIP).
Notable Deals: Trillium Digital Systems, Multex, PrimeCo, ImpreMedia, Verity Studios, Veem

Bio: Wesley has a background in both technology and investing. Previously, he served as a product manager at BlackRock Solutions. While at BlackRock, he helped grow and scale their enterprise risk analytics platform, including facilitating the on-boarding of a $300 bn AUM client. He later transitioned to a traditional investment role where he worked as an investment strategist for the fixed income division of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which manages over $400 bn in AUM across macro and credit strategies. He is also the author of the blog The Unofficial VC. Wesley received his BS from the College of Engineering at Cornell University.
Notable Deals: npm, Better Mortgage, Tempo Automation

Bio: Taylor graduated from Southern New Hampshire University with a B.S. in Finance/Economics. Prior to joining Alumni Ventures Group, Taylor spent the early part of his career at Fidelity Investments as a licensed Financial Advisor, providing existing 401k clients with financial planning advice.

Bio: Nidhi Aggarwal is founder of cloud configuration management startup qwikLABS. qwikLABS was recently acquired by Google and still remains the exclusive platform used by AWS customers and partners worldwide to create and deploy on-demand lab environments on the cloud.  Nidhi most recently helped set up the data science and ML team at Wellington Management and led the development of their NLP tools. Prior to that, she led Product, Strategy, Marketing and Finance at machine learning and human expertise based data management startup Tamr founded by Turing award winner Mike Stonebraker. In addition, Nidhi is an advisor/investor in cybersecurity, AI and MEMS startups. Before founding qwikLABS, Nidhi worked at McKinsey & Company, advising Fortune 150 companies on Big Data and Cloud Strategy. Nidhi holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She holds 7 US patents.

Bio: Ian Bednowitz is currently Senior Director of Asia-Pacific Business Development for eBay, where he is primarily responsible for growing eBay’s presence in Greater China and in India. Previously he led the Corporate Development team for eBay Marketplaces (before the spin-off of PayPal) for five years. His team deployed over $1B in capital across over 20 global M&A and investment transactions during that time. Before joining eBay, Ian spent almost seven years at Bain & Company where he worked with executive teams of Fortune 500 companies and private equity firms across a variety of mostly consumer-oriented sectors to address critical issues in strategy, operations and execution. Ian has also created multiple online courses on Udemy, an online learning platform, to help entrepreneurs raise capital, grow their business and sell their companies. Ian graduated from Cornell with a B.A. in Economics and earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

Bio: Kaushik Bhaumik is an accomplished executive with a demonstrated history of growing successful businesses in the information technology and services industry. He was a key member of executive management team that led Cognizant (CTSH) from a $1B to $40B market cap leader over 16 years. His career at Cognizant started with building and growing the consulting, BPO practices from inception. This involved establishing service lines, recruiting a leadership team and securing initial clients. Kaushik then was given the responsibility for leadership of the Communications-Hi Tech practices. Kaushik introduced many of today’s digital leaders, as clients to Cognizant and grew the practice to over a billion dollars in revenues. Most recently, Kaushik led Cognizant’s largest and most widely recognized business: Healthcare, a $3B Industry leader (with over 40,000 employees) comprised of IT services, Trizetto Software, Bolder healthcare (RCM), provider SaaS offerings, cloud hosting and BPO. He oversaw several large acquisitions to support the growth of healthcare during this time. During his leadership of the healthcare practice, it was recognized as the top player in the Healthcare IT and services space by several industry research firms and associates (e.g., HFS, Healthcare Informatics). Prior to Cognizant, Kaushik was an associate principal at McKinsey & Company, for 8 years. He holds BS and MS degrees from the University of Virginia, and a PhD from Cornell University, all in electrical engineering.

Bio: David Braunstein has a distinguished career spanning two decades in entrepreneurial business development. He is known for breaking new ground using “connected” analytics solutions driven by emerging technologies, including adtech, blockchain and the Internet of Things. Braunstein has been an Industry Innovation Lead at IBM where his work spanned five continents. He also held senior roles in strategy, analytics, and innovation within eBay’s marketing services organization. His ability to quarterback complex, cross-functional collaboration to drive business value has helped him succeed across many global industries. He has mentored many startups throughout his career and is an expert in Design Thinking, product-market fit and go- to-market strategy. Braunstein is currently serving as President of Together for Safer Roads. His leadership is helping scale and sustain the global coalition’s efforts to improve road safety and save lives. He is responsible for overseeing the organization’s strategic direction on behalf of Together for Safer Roads’ Governing Board and membership, implementing Together for Safer Roads-supported local demonstration projects, advancing TSR’s thought leadership, building key partnerships, and increasing the coalition’s connections to the international road safety community.

Bio: Peter is a co-founding partner of Canvass Capital, an opportunistic real estate private equity firm focused on real estate and technology-enabled operating businesses. Previously, he worked for Lone Star Funds, BlackRock, Wells Fargo, and Merrill Lynch in capital markets and structured finance. Across multiple disciplines, he has structured financing and investment transactions in excess of $20 billion. Peter is a graduate of Cornell University in Applied Economics and Management.

Bio: Gautam Chandra is a private investor and entrepreneur through his company, CHANDRA VENTURES, LLC, investing and working with emerging growth companies focused on disrupting traditional industries through the application of leading edge technologies. Gautam brings skills in Strategy, Operations, and Strategic Finance acquired through 30 years of experience both as a senior executive in large publicly traded companies and as an entrepreneur taking companies from inception to successful exits. He has been the principal deal maker in over 50 buy or sell transactions valued over $9 billion in aggregate. Prior to his current position Gautam was responsible for all of WGL Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: WGL) competitive businesses with annual revenue approaching $2 billion and also all strategy and business development activities for WGL. He led the $6.4 billion merger of WGL into AltaGas. He was founder and CEO of SmartEnergy, Inc., an energy technology company, until its sale to Alliant Energy (NYSE: LNT) in 2001. Gautam holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech and a Master’s in Business Administration from the Johnson School at Cornell University.

Bio: Tony Chen is Managing Director of Kinyungu Ventures, an investment/advisory group focused on early-stage ventures in emerging markets. He is also Chairman/Owner of FDAzilla, a high-profit, high-growth SaaS business Tony served as Founding CEO for seven years. Tony’s first media start-up, Hospital Impact, was acquired by FierceMarkets in 2009. Tony earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Northwestern Kellogg School of Management.

Bio: Dr. Philip Farese serves as the Chief of Staff to Matthew Granade, the Head of Market Intelligence at Point72 Asset Management. Phil served as the Chief Strategy Officer at Enphase Energy, a leader in the Solar market, and as CTO for Advantix Systems, a global leader in energy efficient humidity and climate control. Dr. Farese began his corporate career at McKinsey & Company where he served high-tech, non-profit, and energy sector clients. Dr. Farese coauthored the McKinsey report Unlocking Efficiency in the U.S. Economy before joining the National Renewable Energy Laboratory where he continued his study and support of energy efficiency by developing a tool to prioritize energy efficiency investments with findings published by the journal Nature. He was fellow at Princeton University for three years. Dr. Farese holds his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara where he studied Cosmology and made observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Bio: Daniel M. (“Dan”) Friedberg is Managing Partner at Hampstead Park Capital Management, which he founded in 2016. Previously Dan founded and was Managing Partner and CEO of Sagard Capital Partners, which invested in more than 30 companies in the U.S and Canada. Prior to Sagard, Dan was a partner at Bain and Company, where he was a leader in the private equity business. Dan received his MBA in 1987 from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell and a Bachelor of Science honors degree in 1984 from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, in England. He is on the Advisory Council at the Cornell Johnson College of Business and has served on a number public company boards, including X-Rite Corporation (XRIT), GP Strategies Inc. (GPX), and InnerWorkings Inc. (INWK).

Bio: Mr. Hubbard has over 25 years of experience in the wireless and communications sectors. He founded RTO Wireless with Rob Reagan. RTO Wireless is a Microsoft Airband partner and is building out fixed wireless networks to deliver broadband to rural markets. Prior to co-founding RTO Wireless, he serves as the Director, CFO and EVP of Corporate Development and was responsible for all financial, tax, audit and financing matters. Additionally, Mr. Hubbard directly negotiated all roaming and spectrum contracts with AT&T and is the primary contact for AT&T for all non-engineering activities. In July 2018, AT&T agreed to acquire the Northeast Wireless network. Prior to joining Northeast Wireless in July 2012, Mr. Hubbard was a partner at Daniels & Associates, a premier investment bank in the wireless and cable sectors. Daniels was acquired by Royal Bank of Canada in January 2007, after which he became a Director at RBC. Mr. Hubbard advised on more than $1 billion of wireless transactions during his time at Daniels and RBC. Prior to Daniels, he was responsible for managing a $500 million portfolio of equity investments in the Communications and Technology sectors for Bethlehem Steel Pension Trust. Mr. Hubbard was a financial analyst for AT&T in Bedminster, NJ and Basking Ridge, NJ. Mr. Hubbard earned an MBA at Cornell University’s Johnson School and a B.A. in Economics at Hobart College.

Bio: Deepesh Jain is the Head of Capital Markets and Treasury at Kabbage, a technology and data platform providing cash flow management solutions to small businesses across the United States.  In his current role, he is responsible for raising and managing debt capital for the company and running all Treasury functions. Deepesh has over 17 years of specialized experience in debt capital markets, structuring and managing different types of funding programs.  He has raised over $25B in debt capital through issuance of unsecured and secured debt from banks as well as institutional investors. Before joining Kabbage, Deepesh spent nearly 10 years at Capital One. He began in their Debt Capital Markets group, where he managed their credit card securitization programs. Later, he served as Senior Compliance Manger, managing operational risk and regulatory compliance. Most recently, Deepesh was the Head of U.S. Capital Markets Execution at Barclays for six years. There, he oversaw Treasury-related capital market activities in the U.S. and was an active participant in industry advocacy efforts in the U.S. and Europe. Deepesh holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an MBA in Finance from Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Bio: Shaz Kahng is a seasoned CEO and Board Director. She’s a leader with an exceptional track record of achieving goals previously thought impossible. She stepped in as CEO of the $1B children’s apparel retailer Gymboree after a failed turnaround attempt by company leaders. As the company filed for bankruptcy just six weeks into her tenure, she led a strategic effort to preserve the brands which culminated in a successful sales process of all the Gymboree brands: Janie and Jack, Gymboree, and Crazy 8. As CEO/President of Lucy Activewear Shaz led a major turnaround of the business and achieved profitability for the first time in the company’s 12-year history; this was accomplished in 13 months, nearly 2 years ahead of VF Corporation’s expectations. She also introduced innovative new products and grew sales, margin, and brand popularity. As Global GM of Nike Cycling she overhauled all aspects of the product, brand, marketing, sponsorships, merchandising, and distribution strategy bringing the business to profitability for the first time in its 7-year history. Shaz grew revenues by over 300% and renegotiated Nike’s licensing contract saving the company $5MM. At retail consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates Shaz was one of the youngest and the first female minority Partner in the firm’s 70-year history. She achieved record sales (triple the target) and won multiple client awards for outstanding work. She holds an MBA in Finance & Marketing from The Wharton School and a B.S. in Food Science & Chemistry from Cornell University, all earned on full scholarships. She began her career as a Research Scientist inventing new products for Kraft GF but pursued an MBA in order to fulfill her goal of running a company.

Bio: Kamal Mehta has over thirty years of experience in global capital markets. As a private investor he invests in multiple asset classes with a view to analysis and integration of the macro environment, portfolio construction and trade design. He also allocates capital to specialized managers in in longer lead time investments like Private Equity, Real Estate and Venture Capital. As the founding partner of Acies Capital Management, he formulated and implemented the investment strategies for the firm’s credit arbitrage and relative value funds and successfully raised funds from the US institutional investors. He served as the firm’s chief investment officer and was responsible for the portfolio construction and risk management of portfolios entailing debt, equity, structured credit portfolio instruments and related derivative products. Prior to Acies Capital, Mr. Mehta worked at Natixis (formerly CDC IXIS) as Head of Interest Rate Derivatives and also Managing Director of Credit Markets where he structured and originated investments for the firm’s asset-backed special purpose vehicles. Previously Mr. Mehta was Executive Director at Union Bank of Switzerland, in New York and London, where he was responsible for market making and proprietary trading of the bank’s fixed income derivative products. Before joining UBS, Mr. Mehta worked at Lehman Brothers as Vice President of Interest Rates where he was responsible for developing mathematical models for market making and risk management of fixed income derivative and exotic products. He pioneered Lehman’s efforts in synthetic mortgage swaps, Bermuda and US treasury index linked options. Prior to that assignment, he advised the firm’s institutional clients on portfolio strategies designed to replicate the Lehman Bond Indices. Mr. Mehta received a Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia University and received a Masters of Science degree from the School of Operations and Research at Cornell University. He is the co-owner of a U.S. patent for a semiconductor technology design that he developed during his tenure at National Semiconductor Corporation.

Bio: Rob is the President and Chief Technology Officer of Arc Aspicio, improving mission performance through strategy, innovation, business process and technology. Rob is a leader in Data Analytics and Visualization, Technology Futures, Customer Experience, Design Thinking, and Digital Transformation. Rob has been a management and technology consultant driving organizational change and performance for 30 years. Rob applies ingenuity and innovation to solve challenging business problems by applying new technologies. Rob is expert in aligning technology with business to create solutions that drive change and improve financial and operational performance. Rob is active in Bitcoin and its related ecosystem. Rob is a member of an Angel Investment group and is an individual investor in and advisor to multiple start ups. Rob graduated from Cornell University (’89) with a degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Rob is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Owner and President Management (OPM) program.

Bio: Cornell B.A. in Economics, Cornell MPA, Ernst & Young Senior Consultant, HI Asset Management, Blackcrane Capital, Partner, ex-head of Korea, Tyrus Holdings Chairman of the Board, PacificBridge Asset Management, Managing Director

Bio: Tony is part of the Financial Markets practice at PwC, based in New York City, where he services private equity and venture capital firms in regards to portfolio company valuation, governance, and technology. Prior to joining PwC, Tony was at Ronin Capital, where he specialized in identifying undervalued companies who could create shareholder value through special situations. Tony has an M.B.A. from Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management, a Private Equity & Venture Capital program from Harvard Business School, a Graduate Diploma in Finance from McGill University, and a B.A. degree in Economics from Concordia University.

Bio: A maverick, systems thinker, and champion for growth. Adam Simons is a Bay Area based investor, adviser, and business operator. Adam regularly works with emerging companies at all phases of growth. Adam sits on several advisory boards and regularly counsels founding teams on a variety of business issues. Throughout his career, Adam has had a number of interesting “day jobs” as well – currently he’s the Head of Emerging Brands at Clorox. He has responsibility for leading the strategy, operations, and P&L of a high growth part of the company’s portfolio. Adam has an MBA from NYU-Stern and an undergrad degree from Cornell University. He lives in Oakland, CA with his wife (an M&A partner at Goodwin), two precocious kids, and a giant St. Bernard.

Bio: Jordan is a founding partner of South Ave Capital, a boutique investment firm based out of New York. He focuses on asset-backed lending and opportunistic equity investments across numerous industries and asset classes. Prior to founding South Ave Capital, he was an investment professional at Aristeia Capital, a multi-billion dollar multi-strategy investment fund. While there, he focused on credit and special situation investments, between $10 and $200M in size, across a wide range of industries. Before that, Jordan worked as a research analyst on the Special Situations Desk at the Royal Bank of Scotland. He graduated cum laude from Cornell University with a BS in Finance, and from Columbia Business School with an MBA. He currently is a member of the Advisory Council for Entrepreneurship at Cornell.

Bio: Andres spent the last decade on the non-clinical, entrepreneurship side of healthcare and is author of the book Healthcare IT Entrepreneurship. His first company leveraged both his background as a physician and educator to develop a data-driven personalized training platform used by physicians in over 1,000 hospitals and clinics throughout North America, including the largest health system in Canada and fifth largest nonprofit health system in the US. Today, Andres is focused on tackling challenging healthcare issues that rely on physician engagement to generate value. He graduated from the Dartmouth/Brown combined medical program, completed two years of general surgery at Emory University, and an educational leadership fellowship at USC School of Medicine. He has a Master’s in education from Capella University, and is currently in the EMBA/MS in Healthcare leadership program at Cornell, Class of 2019.

Bio: Joshua Jahani is an investment banker, author, and teacher. He specializes in maximizing M&A and capital raising value through the development and identification of intangible assets for healthcare, advertising, insurance, and technology companies. He holds numerous advisory roles for startups and Fortune 500 companies through Jahani and Associates (J&A), Cornell Tech, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, NYU Entrepreneurial Lab, and other global organizations. Jahani and Associates (J&A) is an investment bank advisory firm headquartered in New York City. The firm has advised on billions of M&A and capital markets deal flow for startups and Fortune 500 clients. The firm specializes in applying FASB and IAS rules to maximize corporate value associated with intangible assets and business combinations. J&A’s proprietary frameworks are built on three criteria for maximizing corporate value: separability, measurability, and predictability. J&A’s success is predicated on bringing deep technology expertise to the M&A and capital raising markets. In 2017, the firm started providing blockchain advisory services for enterprise clients. Bringing together traditional banking principles with blockchain and tokenomics allows the firm to maintain its rapidly expanding global reach.

Bio: Chris leads product strategy at Purro, an EdTech SaaS startup founded by classmates from the Cornell MBA program. He has eleven years of experience in financial services and technology, with expertise in investment portfolio management, payments technology, and operations automation. Chris holds a BA in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA With Distinction from Cornell University.

Bio: Jessica (AEM ’15) has over 4 years of experience in management consulting at ZS Associates, where she has focused on strategic planning for healthcare clients. She brings Life Sciences knowledge as well as experience helping clients launch and grow new products (specifically in immunology and oncology). Prior to ZS, she graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Applied Economics & Management, where she led marketing & sales for an e-commerce startup.

Bio: Josh is a UX / UI designer at DealCloud. He has experience applying different research techniques to uncover opportunities that drive product and business growth, with a history of translating research insights into tangible prototypes and designs. Josh graduated in 2017 and holds a B.S. in Design & Environmental Analysis (User Experience Design focus) and a minor in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Bio: Hitesh is an innovator with 14+ years experience in various industries including semiconductor, additive manufacturing, clean-tech and data storage. He has a PhD in engineering from Cornell and a bachelors degree from IIT-Bombay. He is an expert in technology development, manufacturing and scale-up. He has 14+ patents in diverse areas and 10+ peer reviewed articles in reputed journals. He is interested in breakthrough technologies, venture funding, due diligence and technical feasibility.

Bio: Iyore N. Olaye (BS ChE ‘16) creates product and technology solutions at top consumer technology startups, spanning from personal care, e-commerce, to transportation. Currently at Bird Rides, Inc. Iyore is a software product manager working on the reliability of its IoT ecosystem. Prior to joining Bird, Iyore headed up Research & Development at Walker & Co. Brands (acq. Procter & Gamble). As a product leader, Iyore’s engineering talent, business acumen, and a strong sense for metric-driven product strategy allow her to quickly determine product feasibility, evaluate the opportunity, and solve complex problems. Iyore holds a BS ‘16 in chemical engineering from Cornell University and is a 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list maker.