ACHiEVE

Akshay Gupta was born in Chandigarh, India and raised in New Delhi. From the age of nine he developed a passion for art which became a life-long part of his identity. He studied Commerce and joined the management consulting firm Mercer in India. He migrated to Canada where he spent a number of years at Scotia Bank and earned an MBA. In 2018 he fused his business acumen with his love of art and launched ArtProven, a blockchain-based art platform leveraging the mental health benefits of art, that combats counterfeiting and protects artists' intellectual property.

Rohan Verma was born in India but migrated to Canada with his family when young, ultimately re-locating to California right after eighth grade. He has been influenced as an entrepreneur from an early age, participating in the management of his family's business while still in high school. He attended UC Berkeley where he graduated with a 4.0. He spent several years at LinkedIn forging partnerships, including on the content publishing side. Foregoing earlier plans to attend law school, he had a brief stint at Dropbox before returning to LinkedIn. He recently left to launch Arbor Advisory, an Executive and Leadership Coaching practice.

Kristina Bingham Jones moved to Los Angeles at the age of five. When she was seven, she faced tragedy when her father passed away because of cancer. This became an important life mission later for her as she published a book to help kids cope with the loss of a parent or loved one when young. In the interim, she earned her college degree in Florida and lived in Miami for a number of years involved in marketing as an advertising art director and as a cheerleader for the Miami Heat, following a passion for dance that developed when she was a toddler. She has also been a highly successful entrepreneur, being a founder of a company called Court Buddy, becoming only the 14th African American female to raise more than $1 million in investment capital for a tech startup. She sold her interest in the Company in 2019. In addition to her book, she is the founder of Guardian Lane, a video sharing and telecounseling platform focused on children's grief counseling.

Ish Verduzco was born and raised in Los Angeles. He spent a portion of his career in the Bay Area working for LinkedIn for a number of years, before returning to Los Angeles and taking a role with Snap Inc., providers of the messaging app Snapchat. Ish has been passionate about DJing since young and launched startups in that arena. He has also been a fan of marketing and helping people achieve their objectives. In support of those ideals, he released a book entitled, "How Successful People Get Ish Done". Most recently he has become Director of Growth & Marketing at Crave It, a social app for food lovers.

Mona Shaikh was born in Karachi, Pakistan and migrated to the US while in high school. She opted not to pursue a traditional path and instead embraced a childhood love of humor and launched a career in comedy. She has strong appeal with South Asian and Western audiences alike. She has done several stand-up shows and hosts a handful of podcasts leveraging her comedy. She is based in Los Angeles.

Jeff Baietto was born and raised in Wisconsin. From his early teens, Jeff became really interested in biographies and self-help books. He developed a reputation as being the most positive high schooler in his community. Jeff opted for a small college setting in Minnesota, but had developed a passion for Southern CA even before matriculating. After college he lived in Mexico for a few years. From there he moved to France to head up sales for a US-based company. He left France to move to Austin, TX where he teamed up with friends working in the gaming space. After five years, he finally heeded the call of Southern CA and made the move to join a Master's program in Spiritual Psychology. He became a coach helping people find balance in their lives, becoming really keen in altering daily micro-habits that can impact lasting change. He co-founded InJoy Global as his platform to bring that to the world.

Neil Rajpal was born in Hong Kong and grew up in New Delhi, India. He gravitated towards sports at a young age and devoted the bulk of his time toward tennis. He did a portion of his high school in Barcelona, in order to attend a leading tennis academy. He attended university in San Diego where an injury precluded him from continuing his sports career. He launched his first company before graduating focusing on a mobile app. He morphed that into co-founding a mobile app development company which was eventually acquired. He recently launched Heal Ventures, which focuses on initiatives in the mental wellness space.

Mitchel Schwindt was born and raised in the MidWest and studied in North Dakota. He developed a passion for medicine while young and opted to attend medical school. He did his residency in emergency medicine. He has been a fan of being very active, doing martial arts and sports for years, and then began running triathlons. He opted for a fellowship in functional and sports medicine at the American Academy of Antiaging Medicine. Mitchel opted to have a CT scan to augment his training and in so doing, found out he had an aneurysm that required immediate surgery. This impacted many of his lifestyle choices, including choosing to adopt a plant-based diet. He is also an entrepreneur having founded several businesses, including leading online courses and launching a few podcast titles.

Violet Lange grew up in the MidWest, an avid reader and lover of the sciences. She earned an engineering degree during her undergrad years and made a determination before graduating that she would attend business school. She worked for General Mills for five years and then attended Harvard Business School. She worked briefly in consulting before joining a non-profit called RIght to Play. After an injury from running a marathon brought her closer to yoga, she explored the operators in the space and eventually joined YogaWorks, initially running their retail operation and then heading up programming. She left to launch her own business coaching and consulting firm called Executive Sutra, expanding it to now assist her clients in creating healthy, lasting love in their lives.

Rohit Batra was born in Zambia and spent the early part of his life in Nigeria. His family then migrated to the East Coast of the US and he grew up in both Carolinas. He studied computer science and business as an undergrad and began work at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. After a short period of time he left to pursue his passion for film and moved to LA. He launched his own production company and worked on a number of projects. He directed and produced LINE OF DESCENT in 2019, starring Brendan Fraser, Abhay Deol, Prem Chopra and Neeraj Kabi.