Gratitude Through Hard Times

Dan’s passion for closing deals and building businesses has led to growing teams on three continents, #61 on the INC500 as VP Sales at Brafton, and taken several companies from zero to multi-million dollar revenue. Dan currently leads Mindracer’s sales consulting practice, providing the go-to-market strategy for SaaS, Consulting and Agency businesses. Clients include SPARK Neuro, Bodhala, New Haircut, and Salience. Mindracer has helped clients win business with enterprise brands such as State Farm, Blackrock, Mastercard and more.

Peter Hurley is the premier headshot photographer in New York City. He teaches his technique at his Headshot Intensive Workshops and online at Headshot Crew—his educational website dedicated to cultivating the largest network of portrait photographers in the world.

He is the author of the book The Headshot: Secrets to creating Amazing Headshot Portraits and has released several critically acclaimed tutorials with Fstoppers, Creative Live, and Kelby One.

Radek started as an analyst, became a sales person and then worked for 8 years as a portfolio manager. Radek has unique first-hand knowledge of how things work in the industry. Radek’s direct experience with the pain of Corporate Access both on the sell side and buy side as well as a desire to fix a problem that affected him directly for so many years is what spurred the idea behind WeConvene.

WorkGenius is a digital workforce solution connecting companies with freelancers. Founded in 2012 by Marlon Litz-Rosenzweig and Daniel Barke as "Mylittlejob", the company has expanded internationally. With offices in Hamburg, Germany, and New York City, WorkGenius works with over 300,000 freelancers and more than 5,000 companies worldwide.

In November 2018, WorkGenius officially announced its Series A funding of 8.5 million Euros. WorkGenius plans to use this funding to continue its rapid expansion into the US market. According to Litz-Rosenzweig, "We are proud to announce that our existing investors continue to back this company and its management. We have ambitious plans for our expansion in the US, and we see tremendous momentum in the freelance space with Upwork’s IPO, record low unemployment and changed work preferences of younger generations."

With over 60 full time employees worldwide, some of WorkGenius' services include graphic design, content creation, and translation. Some of WorkGenius' customers include eBay, LinkedIn, and Amazon.

Stephen is a Partner of Cornell Capital. He has over 25 years of private investing experience across a broad array of sectors. Prior to joining the firm in 2018, Stephen worked as a Portfolio Manager at Avenue Capital, focused on public and private equity investing. Previously, he served as a member of the Management Committee and Global Co-Head of Morgan Stanley’s Merchant Banking Division and Private Equity Group. Stephen began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he worked in the Investment Banking Division’s Energy and Power Group in New York and Corporate Finance Group in Hong Kong before moving to the Merchant Banking Division in Hong Kong and London where he Co-Headed the Industrials investing effort and was a member of the Investment and Operating Committees. Stephen formerly served on the board of various Goldman Sachs portfolio companies, including Berry Plastics, Capmark Financial, Cobalt, Cognis, Deutsche Kabel, Messer Griesheim and Wincor Nixdorf, among others.

Stephen is a Director of Knowlton Development Corporation.

Stephen was a member of the United States Olympic Fencing Teams in 1984 and 1988. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Columbia College and Storm King Art Center.

Hoyt David Morgan, Co-Founder & President of Nito: A successful entrepreneur and business leader with multiple positive exits to his credit. While experience and skills are broad, special focus has been in the Internet and entertainment verticals, and on strategy, finance, marketing and operations skills. Hoyt has a proven track record growing businesses, acquiring customers and increasing revenues/profits. One example: as the first marketing employee and VP Marketing at College Loan Corporation, he lead all customer acquisition efforts for the consumer business. During his tenure the company secured more than 800,000 customers, grew from zero to be the 6th largest student loan company in the country and had the most cost-effective and efficient direct marketing program in the entire industry. Hoyt has been on the leadership teams for two entertainment tech companies with significant exits (in addition to his other experience and exits).

Born and raised in NY, Horwitz studied of economics and finance at Columbia University. Horwitz joined the investment team for Columbia University’s endowment in 2013 and then spent a year at Harvard Law School, where he secured an internship with Bridgewater Associates and met his future business partner, Benjamin Cogan. Together Horwitz and Cogan founded Hubble, a direct-to-consumer, subscription contact lens company, where Horwitz focuses his efforts on fundraising, business development and regulation compliance.

Michael Beber is the President and CEO of Exiger. A seasoned business leader with decades of experience in the C-Suite of leading multinational corporations, Michael co-founded Exiger with Executive Chairman Michael Cherkasky and serves on its Board of Directors.

Prior to co-founding Exiger, Michael served as President and CEO of Altegrity Risk International (ARI), a leading compliance due diligence firm and as the Executive Vice President, Strategic and Business Development for ARI’s parent, Altegrity, one of the largest background screening and corporate investigations firms. Michael joined Altegrity from MidOcean Partners, a leading middle market private equity firm, where he focused on evaluating opportunities in the business and professional and business services sector. Before joining MidOcean, Michael was Chief Strategic Development Officer for Marsh & McLennan Companies where he was responsible for developing the long-term corporate strategy, divesting over $5 billion of non-core assets and working with each of the company’s six operating businesses to develop and implement key strategic growth initiatives.

From 1998 to 2004, Michael served in a series of executive-level positions of increasing responsibility with Kroll, Inc., including Executive Vice President for strategic development and President of its background screening group which included pre-employment screening, drug-testing and mortgage screening. At Kroll, Michael spearheaded several major acquisitions that significantly diversified Kroll's services and expanded its revenues and profitability principally in technology-enabled information services businesses to the financial and corporate markets. Michael was part of the executive team that led the efforts resulting in the successful sale of Kroll to Marsh & McLennan Companies in May 2004. Prior to 1998, Michael cofounded and was a Managing Director and forensic accountant at Lindquist Avey, a leading forensic and investigative accounting firm, was the Partner in charge of the Litigation Support and Forensic Accounting group at BDO Canada, and served as a Senior Manager at KPMG in Toronto.

Dennis Mortensen is the CEO and co-founder of x.ai.

Dennis is an expert in leveraging data to solve enterprise use cases and a serial entrepreneur who’s successfully exited several companies on that theme.

His long-term vision of killing the inbox led to the formation of x.ai and the creation of Amy + Andrew, artificially intelligent assistants who schedule meetings. He speaks frequently to anyone who’ll listen, from the crowds of Web Summit to his building’s doorman, about an optimistic future for AI, productivity, and the future of work.

Dennis was also an accredited Associate Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia and the author of Data Driven Insights, on collecting and analyzing digital data.

Originally from Denmark (and keeping his accent), Dennis is now a New Yorker for life.

Mr. Phillip Rosen, also known as Phill, is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Even Financial, Inc. Mr. Rosen served as President and Chief Technology Officer of Even Financial, Inc. Mr. Rosen served as technical Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering at Orchard Platform. He helps as an advisor to early stage tech startups. He has been working in startups in NYC for a decade.