Venture with Grace

Aparna Chennapragada is the Chief Product Officer at Microsoft AI for Work, where she leads the development of AI-powered productivity experiences across Microsoft 365, including Copilot and Designer. With over 25 years of experience in tech, Aparna previously served as CPO at Robinhood and spent more than a decade at Google, where she led groundbreaking efforts in visual and voice computing—including launching Google Lens and working on Google Assistant. A product visionary with deep technical roots, she holds degrees from IIT Madras, the University of Texas at Austin, and MIT. Aparna also serves on the board of eBay and was named one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Rising Executives. Her work sits at the intersection of AI, product design, and reimagining how people interact with technology to work smarter and more creatively.Topics:

• The Next Interface Shift: How AI Agents Are Reshaping Work
• Scaling Product at Every Stage: Lessons from Microsoft, Google, and Robinhood
• From Zero to Impact: Building Iconic Products That Define New Behaviors

#AIProductLeadership#FutureOfWork#GenerativeAI#StartupStrategy#WomenInTech

Adil Ajmal is the Chief Technology Officer at Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform in entertainment and gaming. With over two decades of leadership across high-growth startups and tech giants, he has led engineering, product, and data teams through multiple successful exits. Before Fandom, he served as CTO of LendingHome (now Kiavi), where he scaled its fintech infrastructure to support billions in mortgage volume. Earlier, Ajmal was Vice President of Engineering at Amazon following its acquisition of TenMarks, where he helped expand Amazon's edtech initiatives. He also held senior engineering leadership roles at Intuit (post-Homestead acquisition) and was VP of Engineering at Posterous, acquired by Twitter. Throughout his career, Ajmal has built and scaled engineering organizations from early-stage to post-acquisition, bringing a product- and people-first philosophy to every company he’s led.Topics:

• Building high-performing engineering teams from startup to scale

• How fan engagement is evolving in the gaming and media ecosystems

• Lessons on leadership and product strategy from Amazon, Intuit, and Fandom

#MediaTech #GamingIndustry #EngineeringLeadership #ProductStrategy #StartupToScale

Alan Du is a Partner at PayPal Ventures, where he leads investments in AI‑driven fintech, enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity, and e‑commerce infrastructure. Prior to that, he was a key investor at Revolution, a Washington‑based growth equity firm focused on scaling enterprise software and technology‑enabled services. With a global operating and investing mindset honed across markets, Du combines deep domain expertise in finance‑tech innovation and Go‑to‑Market strategy.Topics:

• Evaluating AI-first fintech startups: metrics, market fit & risk factors
• Navigating security, compliance & trust in enterprise SaaS deals
• Scaling AI-powered commerce & Web3 infrastructure from pilot to adoption

#VentureCapital #FinTech #AI #SaaS #Cybersecurity #ScalingStartups

Maria Zhang is the CEO and Co-Founder of Palona AI, a startup building emotionally intelligent AI agents to help consumer brands scale personalized customer experiences. She previously served as VP of Engineering at Google and Instagram, and led applied AI initiatives at Meta. Earlier in her career, she was CTO of Tinder, VP of Engineering at LinkedIn, and VP at Yahoo following the acquisition of her startup, Alike. With experience leading teams of over 1,000 engineers and building products used by hundreds of millions globally, Maria brings deep expertise in AI, product engineering, and team building. She also served as a Venture Partner at IDG Capital and was named one of the “Top 100 Women in Tech to Watch.”Topics:

• Building emotionally intelligent AI agents for modern brands

• Lessons from scaling engineering teams and consumer products

• Applying practical AI to solve real customer experience problems

#AI #RetailTech #CustomerExperience #SaaS #WomenInTech #StartupLeadership #EngineeringManagement #VentureCapital

Max Marchione is the co-founder of Superpower, a digital health startup pioneering a proactive, personalized approach to longevity and preventive care. Backed by leading investors including Forerunner Ventures, Day One, and Susa, along with high-profile supporters like Vanessa Hudgens, Steve Aoki, and Logan Paul, Superpower raised $30M within two years of launch. The platform combines biomarker testing, wearable data, and AI-driven insights to give users a 360º view of their health and actionable plans to live longer, healthier lives. Before Superpower, Max founded Ultraviolet Ventures, an early-stage investment syndicate backing overlooked but high-potential startups, and Next Chapter, a global private community for top young founders and creators. Across all his ventures, Max is focused on building systems that empower people to reach their full potential — in health, work, and life.Topics:

• Building a Personalized Longevity Platform for the Masses
• Spotting and Supporting the Next Generation of Breakout Founders
• Designing Human Systems for Health, Performance, and Purpose

#LongevityTech#HealthInnovation#StartupLeadership#FutureOfWellness#MissionDrivenTech

Dylan Itzikowitz is a Principal at South Park Commons (SPC) in New York City, where he focuses on early-stage investments across sectors such as cloud, fintech, biotech, and consumer products (CPG). He previously spent three years as a Principal at Expa in NYC, backing startups like KnockApp and Northflank and cultivating the local startup community through meet-ups and events reaching thousands of people. Earlier in his career, he was an investor at Founders Factory in London and co-founded The Forward Movement, a social innovation initiative that earned a national leadership award for improving accessibility. He holds a Master’s from the London School of Economics and even calls himself a “habitual dot connector,” reflecting his commitment to supporting exceptional early-stage founders globally. Dylan’s investment lens spans technologies from AI and cybersecurity to fintech and consumer products, always with an eye toward innovative, founder-driven ventures.Topics:

• The Two-Way Street of Early-Stage Investing: How VCs and founders vet each other and build partnerships
• Building Startup Communities: The power of networking, mentorship and “dot connecting” in founder success
• AI, Fintech, and the Next Big Thing: Investing across emerging tech sectors and championing diverse, global innovators

#VentureCapital #Startups #EarlyStage #StartupCommunity #AI

Evan Stites-Clayton is a General Partner at HF0, a venture fund and residency program built for repeat technical founders launching AI-native startups. He was previously the co-founder and CTO of Teespring, where he helped scale the platform to over $1B in sales, empowering millions of creators and raising $65M from top-tier firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures. Recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30, Evan brings a rare blend of deep technical expertise and operator experience. Now as an investor, he focuses on helping technical builders navigate product, growth, and fundraising from day zero.Topics:

• From Zero to $1B: Lessons in Scaling Teams, Product, and Infrastructure

• Finding Product-Market Fit: Tactics That Actually Work in the Early Days

• From Technical Founder to VC: How to Spot and Support High-Conviction Builders

#Startups #Hypergrowth #ProductMarketFit #VentureCapital #AI

Rashida Hodge is Corporate Vice President of Azure Data & AI Customer Success at Microsoft, leading global efforts to scale AI-driven enterprise transformation and customer value. A 20-year veteran of IBM, she served as Global VP in Watson AI, launching commercial partnerships with firms like Salesforce and Workday. Today she brings that expertise to the board room as a director at Sonatype and Regal Rexnord, and supports deep‑tech startups as a Limited Partner at Neotribe and Operator Collective—all backed by an Industrial Engineering degree (BS/MS, NC State) and an MBA from Duke Fuqua School of Business.Topics:

• Enterprise AI rollouts: from pilot to global scale
• Strategic AI partnerships: startups & tech giants
• AI-executives shaping enterprise board strategy

#EnterpriseAI#CustomerSuccess#AILeadership#TechBoards#AIStartups

Conrad Shang is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Ensemble VC. ~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Verivend. If you’re a GP or LP looking to simplify the capital raising and deployment process, Verivend is here to help. Trusted by over 800 funds and managing more than $2 billion in transactions, Verivend offers a secure, streamlined payments platform designed specifically for private capital markets. Say goodbye to manual reconciliation and repeated follow-ups - raise and deploy capital faster and with greater transparency. Ready to make your fund operations smoother? Visit Verivend.com and see how easy it can be.~~~~~Ensemble VC is an early-stage firm pioneering a data-driven, product-first approach to venture investing. Backed by top LPs and born from scrappy, technical roots in Austin, Ensemble’s team—half of whom are data scientists—built Unity, a proprietary AI platform that helps source, select, and scale startups with precision. Conrad’s career spans product roles at Yammer (acquired by Microsoft for $1B), investing at Bain Capital Ventures, and managing a $4B portfolio at UTIMCO. He’s a Kauffman Fellow who has backed 7 unicorns, including Zoom, Carta, and Groww.Topics:

• AI Copilot for VCs: Inside Ensemble’s Unity Platform
• How Data Science is Changing Startup Investing
• From Yammer to Zoom: Lessons from 7 Unicorn Bets

#VentureCapital #AIinVC #StartupInvesting #FounderSupport #DataDrivenVC

Bala Sathiamurthy is the former Chief Information Security Officer at Atlassian, where he led global cybersecurity strategy and built scalable security infrastructure for products like Jira and Confluence. Previously, he served as CISO and VP of Engineering at NerdWallet, overseeing security, infrastructure, and data engineering functions. With over 25 years of experience, Bala has held senior roles at companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft, Foursquare, and Jive Software, and currently serves as an advisor to several cybersecurity startups. He is widely respected for building strong security cultures, navigating incident response, and aligning engineering with enterprise-grade security at scale.Chris Hughes is the CEO and Co-Founder of Aquia, a cybersecurity and digital transformation consultancy serving federal and defense agencies. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Chris previously served as a Cyber Innovation Fellow at CISA (the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), where he focused on public-private efforts to secure the software supply chain. He is the author of Software Transparency and Effective Vulnerability Management, host of the Resilient Cyber podcast and Substack, and an adjunct cybersecurity professor. Chris has led security architecture, engineering, and governance efforts across government and private sectors, and actively advises security startups on modern DevSecOps practices and regulatory readiness.Topics:

• What Makes a World-Class CISO
• What Every VC and Founder Should Know About Security
• The Art of Scaling Engineering and Security Teams Together

#StartupSecurity#SaaSLeadership#DevSecOps#CISOInsights#EnterpriseGrowth