Startup Mentors

About: A.T. enjoys spending time playing sports with his wife and three boys.

Bio: A.T. Gimbel is a partner with Atlanta Ventures, focused on helping entrepreneurs find community, content, and capital to successfully grow their business.  Previously, A.T. led product and go-to-market functions for the Healthcare division of LexisNexis, as well as leading roles in corporate strategy and mergers & acquisitions. Prior to that, he was in consulting with Bain & Company serving clients across multiple industries with a focus on growth strategy, process improvement, and customer loyalty. He has also worked for several startup companies in sales and operations roles.

How I can help:

• Fundraising/venture capital
• Business strategy
• Customer discovery

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Aaron is a proud father of three who loves spending time with family, cooking and watching Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech sports.

Bio: Aaron enjoys helping founders unlock the most effective levers for growth as the Managing Director of Endeavor Atlanta, a global non-profit that selects and supports founders of the fastest growing companies in the Southeast. He has deep technology experience with strengths in strategy, product development, finance and operations.

How I can help:
1. Go to market strategy planning: you’ve found product-market fit, now what?
2. Preparing to raise capital.
3. Leading and managing a growing team. 

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Alex is an expert problem-solver, hustling to help humans live better, and companies grow and scale accountability for better culture and People Ops outcomes.

Bio: Alex (she/her) is the founder and CEO of Laurl, an HRtech SaaS for employee relations, helping HR and People teams track and manage employee concerns that affect workplace culture and inclusion.

Alex is an experienced leader across employee relations, investigations, conflict resolution, diversity, accessibility, and inclusion. Alex has led over 300 EEOC and ADA harassment and discrimination investigations and mediations to date, and delivered 400+ trainings and keynotes for domestic and international tech, medical, legal, higher ed, government, and fortune 500 audiences. Alex has applied her deep knowledge in facilitation and policy development to strengthen workplace and equity accountability and investigations programs for 200+ organizations.

How I can help:

1. DEI, People, and Culture— defining DEI strategy, building diverse teams, and strengthening company culture
2. Storytelling— executive communication, speaker coaching, and company storytelling for fundraising, partnerships, sales, and recruiting
3. Early stage startups— identifying problems, value propositions, and building and iterating products

LinkedIn | Website

About:Andrew is an avid sports fan, golfer and foodie who appreciates all things local.

Bio: Andrew is the Managing Partner and Founder of Phoenix Capital Ventures (PCV), an early-stage VC firm partnering with companies in the sports, gaming, human performance, and immersive media industries. He has a long record of accomplishment growing and operating sports and entertainment properties with the NBA, MLS, NCAA and at Nike amongst others.

How I can help:
1. Sharing my experience and industry knowledge.
2. Leveraging your network.
3. Providing an unbiased POV and constructive feedback.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Company: LeanSquad

How I can help:
1. Business: How to apply Lean Startup principles to customer discovery & development process.
2. Product Management: Shape their product roadmap based on customer development outcomes.
3. Technology: Help startup co-founders (especially non-technical co-founders) with technology choices (how to build what they want to build, how to organize their team and development process)

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About:Currently, Bahadir is the Founder and COO of Cognira, located in Atlanta Tech Village. Baha brings together expertise in building scalable, data-driven technology solutions to retail problems.

Bio:

Bahadir has a proven track record of designing, configuring, customizing, implementing and delivering complex enterprise class planning, forecasting and replenishment software for Fortune 100 Retailers.

Prior to Cognira he has served leadership roles in multiple organizations in retail technology; Director of Product Strategy at Manhattan Associates, Senior Managing Consultant at IBM, Director of Program Management at Predictix (now Infor)

How I can help:

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Benjamin is a volunteer for the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, for which he has managed a Google Grant since 2010. He usually is found drinking iced coffee, even in cold months.

Bio: Benjamin is the President & CEO of Relevance Advisors with expertise in Digital Marketing. He helps companies drive traffic to their websites, measure results, and optimize performance.

How I can help:
1. Learn SEO Basics
2. Set up a Google Ads Account
3. Set Up and Interpret Google Analytics

More Info: Calendly | LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: I’m an Atlanta native (not many of us around!). Enjoy spending time with his adult daughters, occasional workouts (let’s not go overboard here), and college football season.

Bio: Bill is a VP at TechOperators Venture Capital. Spent 10 years doing product management and UX in the early days of Windows and spent another 10 innovating in mobile technologies. Through 4 successful exits, both products he led had more than 20M users worldwide. Ran a mobile marketing software company, founded his own startup, and has run a food cost management software company too.

How I can help:

1. Helping you become compelling through honest feedback
2. Challenging you around product innovation
3. Fundraising strategies and pitch

LinkedIn | Website

About: Brennen enjoys being back in Atlanta, spending time with family, following his beloved fighting Irish of
Notre Dame, and enjoying a good Kentucky bourbon.

Bio: Brennen is the Chief Revenue Officer at Axes.ai a Fintech providing solutions to the global gaming industry and has 25 years of experience scaling tech centric businesses. Having scaled his start-up from 1 employee to a global leader with thousands of employees and a $2B acquisition.

How I can help:

1. Developing internal operating structure and processes
2. Identifying and evaluating strategic partnerships
3. Sounding board for Go to market strategy, product and team development

LinkedIn | Website

About: Originally from Cameroon, Africa, Brice has settled in Atlanta after living in DE, TX, and MA. He believes in Atlanta becoming the new Silicon Valley :). He is also a big fan of Formula 1

Bio: Brice is the founder of Reserved, LLC, and has over 18 years of experience in IT, with 14 years at PwC in IT Consulting. Brice is passionate about Data but has also dabbled with Web Development. He has helped multiple startups go from ideation to live as a part-time CTO. Brice has been certified in the top 3 major Cloud providers: Google Cloud Platform (2 certifications), Amazon Web Services (2), and Microsoft Azure (1)

How I can help:

1. Google Cloud Platform products
2. Understanding Cloud in general
3. MVP Development process

   LinkedIn | Website

About: Cameron is originally from Massachusetts and moved to Atlanta to be with a girl (now they’re married). When he was a kid he didn’t accessorize with the normal safety blanket or teddy bear; he was a super-nerd carrying around a 14-gauge electrical wire with alligator clips on either end. Learning to code as a kid and getting “Hello World!” to pop up on the screen has given him an insatiable curiosity about how (and why) the world works and how to make it better. On the weekends you can find him doing home improvement projects or trying to convince his wife he needs to buy more expensive tools to complete them.

Bio:

Cameron Abt is the CEO of Atlas Bay VR, a B2B proptech startup providing visualization tools to real estate clients. He is passionate about operational efficiency, continuous improvement, and building stuff. As a broadly trained engineer turned CEO he has a unique startup perspective, focusing on streamlining production and removing operational friction instead of growth at all costs. Under his leadership, Atlas Bay VR has grown from a 2-person operation in a 1-bedroom apartment to a corner suite at the Atlanta Tech Village. With his first 7 years of full-time entrepreneurship under his belt, Cameron is excited to pay it forward to newcomers looking for where and how to start.

How I can help:

1. Thinking like an engineer. Looking for a technical co-founder? Missing a tech background? Let me show you what the dark side is thinking.
2. Defining unknown unknowns. There was a ton of early learning that I wish we could have heard before we started down the wrong path. Some of those landmines are easy to avoid with the right guidance.
3. Creating repeatability. Building processes and procedures that scale without sacrificing agility.

LinkedIn | Website

About: Chelsea is a founder, coach, and community builder. She lives in East Atlanta Village where she loves to garden and explore the Atlanta neighborhoods with her husband, two year old son, and two dogs.

Bio:

Chelsea is the founder, chief consultant and coach at Talent Praxis where she helps people turn ideas into action with 1:1 coaching, consulting and training. In addition to coaching Chelsea has 15 years of experience managing and leading teams; leading business operations and strategy; and leading HR, talent development, and talent acquisition across a variety of industries. Chelsea was the 16th hire at Patreon, a creator payment platform, managing business operations as the company scaled to 100FTEs and raised their series B and the People Operations Lead at Clara, a mortgage bank startup, acquired by SoFi. Chelsea has five years of experience as the COO and co-founder of a venture-backed startup, Marlow, building scalable coaching processes, platforms, and curriculum for managers. While at Marlow with her co-founder the two participated in Jason Calacanis’ launch incubator and Village Capital founder program, raised a pre-seed, successfully built their coaching platform and scalable coaching services, and increased revenue to $60k in MRR.

How I can help:

1. Early stage operations aimed at scale
2. Building a cohesive company culture
3. Choosing and leading your founding team

LinkedIn | Website

About: Chris is an early stage Real Estate & PropTech investor and advisor. His wife and 2 kids relocated to Chastain Park from the SF Bay Area in 2020. Chris loves sports (golf, tennis, cycling), the outdoors, and jamming with founders on startups, Real Estate, Proptech, and Logistics.

Bio: Chris is currently an early stage investor & advisor at On Deck. Chris scaled 3 startups to successful exits in proptech, logistics, and consumer spaces. He has deep expertise in Real Estate, PropTech and Logistics. Chris has taken companies from 0 to 1 and has helped founders with initial GTM strategies, hiring, contracts, new business lines, along with channel/distribution partnerships. He’s been fortunate to work closely with Proctor & Gamble, Greystar, Brookfield, Amazon, The Home Depot, UPS and more. 

How I can help:

LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: David is a 35-year sales veteran with success both as a quota carrying rep and sales leader in companies like BellSouth and CareerBuilder. An engineer by education, David sought after and discovered the secrets to his success by exploring behavioral psychology and understanding the science of human decision making. In 2012, he founded MasterMessaging to help clients increase their revenue by mastering the ability to elevate their value.

How I can help:
1. Identify your Value Positions so that you can communicate high value in your marketing and sales conversations.
2. Help increase your conversion rates in your sales process through higher value sales conversations.
3. Build a unique business development campaign to create predictable lead generation.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: David Leggett is an experienced entrepreneur with a proven track record of founding, selling, and investing in various startups. With a background in design and engineering, he has extensive experience leading multidisciplinary teams in the development of digital products.

Bio: David is a designer/engineer turned serial entrepreneur. From 2003 until 2008, David owned and operated a number of online publications with millions of subscribers. In 2008 he co-founded UX Booth, which he helped grow into the world’s leading user experience publication. He invested in Python Safety in 2011, where he played a key role on the leadership team until the company was successfully acquired by 3M in 2015.

Currently, David serves as Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Black Airplane, a digital product agency built to solve business problems.

How I can help:

1. Product development planning, estimating, and feedback
2. Building and leading technical teams
3. Marketing and Sales

LinkedIn | Website

Company: DeCarlo Management Systems

How I can help:
1. Go to market strategy: It’s all about communication a solution for the client.
2. Understanding marketing & advertising – especially decoding the myths about digital advertising and how to get the biggest bang for your buck.
3. Customer acquisition/Sales Development: how to get your first customer, your 10th, your 100th while building a successful sales team.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter

About: I am a serial entrepreneur with a passion for sports and data. I love city life, dogs, Dawgs, and entrepreneurship.

Bio: Diane is a serial entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry, including a successful startup launch and subsequent acquisition. She has in-depth experience in analytics, software development, and process improvement through her past roles at IBM and as a consultant. Diane is the founder of scoutSMART, a leading provider of predictive sports analytics. scoutSMART helps college football coaches find recruits that fit their program. Diane is considered a thought leader in sports analytics and has spoken at several sports analytics’ conferences including the Titans of Sports Tech Roundtable and the Georgia Tech Big Analytics Forum.

How can I help:

1. Leading technical teams
2. Creative boot strapping
3. Experience as a female founder

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Ellen moved to Atlanta this summer and works at the ATV. She’s a mom of five (yes 5!) beautiful children ages 15 – 2 and she moved to Atlanta this summer after a long stint in Raleigh-Durham. She’s from Detroit and has also lived in Connecticut, Washington DC and Chicago. She is not running from the law, her husband Kevin and her just believe in growth and stretching yourself and sometimes that means changing your environment. She has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Learning, Design and Technology from Purdue (Boiler Up!). She’s worked as a coach, a teacher, a technologist and a founder. Ellen is passionate about helping your startup succeed.

Bio:

Ellen Twomey serves as the Managing Director of Fugitive Labs where they launch ventures, ship products, and invest in startups. Fugitive has a decade of experience helping founders with product strategy through full stack development through a business needs first lens. Ellen has a heart for serving underrepresented founders and has lived that mission through her You are techY podcast helping moms gain the skills and confidence to get hired in their tech dream job.

How I can help:

1. Marketing from an actionable boot-on-the ground approach
2. Product Strategy that ties directly to UX Design which informs full stack technology development
3. Building a shippable product that people will buy

LinkedIn | Website

About: Executive, tech entrepreneur, advisor and passionate music lover that is trying to make a difference in the world.

Bio: Eric is the CEO of Vivo and a proven leader skilled in growing technology companies. He loves building businesses, solving problems, and creating a culture of engagement where employees love coming into work every day. He has a track record of creating operational efficiency, strong client relationships, and employee engagement.

How I can help:
1. Employee engagement.  Create a culture where employees are the centerpiece and watch as productivity, sales and customer service thrive.
2. Operational efficiency.  Understand how to structure your organization and create repeatable processes so that you don’t rely on a few employees to do everything.  You need to position your organization to be able to scale and support the growth you’re going to get.
3. Leadership. Leadership is not necessarily intuitive; it is a skill to be learned and developed.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website | Startup Website

Company: Google

How I can help:
1. Object Oriented Design and Architecture .
2. Interactive Strategy and Development for Mobile and Web.
3. 3D Application Development, Data Visualization and Simulation.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Hernando moved to Atlanta in the late Spring 2022 after living in New York for the prior two years and Europe the last 11 years.  He enjoys working with founders and gives back as a mentor at several accelerators.  He and his wife look forward to exploring more of Atlanta in 2023.

Bio: Hernando Bunuan is the Founder and Managing Partner of Z2Sixty Ventures, a US venture capital firm focused on pre-seed to Series A investments in four markets: Climate Tech/Smart Cities, Fintech, Digital Health, and Edtech. He has over 20 years experience advising and investing across the technology landscape in the US and Europe.  As a former senior technology banker with experience in major M&A and IPO exits, he originated, executed and advised on over 35 landmark deals worth over $45 billion.  Hernando has an MBA from Chicago Booth and Bachelor’s from Washington University.

How I can help:

1. Pitching Review
2. Fundraising strategy & options
3. Business strategy & financial planning

LinkedIn | Website

About: Jacey is a community builder with a desire to cultivate empowered groups of people. She uses her positive energy and supportive attitude to build up and train those around her.

Bio: She’s currently doing this as the VP of Marketing & Community at Atlanta Ventures. They empower entrepreneurs to start, grow, and learn and co-found companies with driven founders in a collaborative environment, fund founders, and equip entrepreneurs. With 10+ years of industry experience, she’s started or launched marketing initiatives for over 18 companies. She also runs Pitch Practice, a meetup for Atlanta entrepreneurs to practice their 30-second, 3-minute or 5+ min. investor pitch. They meet Fridays at 1pm at Atlanta Tech Village.

How I can help:

1. Marketing (Early stage and Go To Market)
2. Pitching (Elevators, Deck Review, and verbal pitches)
3. Community Building (Starting and growing communities)

LinkedIn | Website

About: James is an Atlanta native who enjoys spending time with his wife, daughter and 3 rescue dogs.  He also enjoys running, an occasional backpacking trip and rooting for all of our Atlanta sports teams.  He is passionate about serving others.

Bio: James is a Managing Director at EY and has over 30 years of experience working with a variety of business.  He assists organization in thinking through their most strategic issues, developing solutions and connecting with other people with the right experiences.  He loves growing revenues, solving problems, and building strong client relationships.

How I can help:

LinkedIn | Website | Twitter

About: Jeff Goldblatt has been involved with startups of many shapes/sizes (including: VC-funded, Angel-funded, Bootstrapped… successes, failures, and that subjective gray area between) for ~20 years and has served as Advisor/Mentor/Coach to 100+ young founders. Originally from Framingham, MA, he has an MBA from Emory University and a PhD from The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry.

Bio: As creator of the original “Rejection Hotline” – a satirical phone service that grew into a 7-figure VIRAL *P.A.C.A.S.M. company (*Products As Content As Social Marketing) with 300+ “Humor Hotlines” engaging millions of fans – Jeff became a nationally-recognized expert on VIRALITY (in Products/Content/Marketing). He feels awkward writing in the 3rd-person, so he will now switch to 1st-person (and so will I).

#BeReal – Like MOST entrepreneurs, I put “CEO” on my first business card. Also like most entrepreneurs, I once believed in The Tooth Fairy. In BOTH cases, it took YEARS to realize I WAS WRONG.

My #IamNOTaCEO epiphany was undoubtedly the catalyst for my first startup success. – [3 months after replacing myself as CEO of my own company, we raised $1 MILLION in funding; 9 months later we were a PROFITABLE 7-figure company – after YEARS struggling as a solo founder wearing all the hats)] – And it began my fascination (obsession?!) with #SelfAwareness and the MANY related problems that young founders are OFTEN blind to (until YEARS LATER – often lamenting: “I Wish I Knew THEN, What I Know NOW!”)

Full-Disclosure: Yes, I’ve occasionally been called a “Negative Nancy” – but I believe “Realistic Rick” is much more accurate AND much more helpful to young/future founders because…

“Negative / Pessimistic (BAD?)” vs. “Positive / Optimistic (GOOD?)” creates a Dangerous False Dichotomy! [Spoiler Alert] “Objective / Realistic (GAME-CHANGER!)”

How I can help:

1. Multiple Perspective Thinking: Helping you see how your and your business are seen by potential customers, employees, investors, and… by FUTURE YOU?!?
2. Helping YOU to challenge your own ASSumptions

   – Do you KNOW it or THINK it or HOPE it? – Do you Differentiate POSSIBLE vs. PROBABLE?

   – Confidence is great – sometimes; is yours based on data/stats/testing or hunches/hopes & conversion rates YOU plugged in to hit YOUR revenue/growth goals?

3. I Have Many *FUQs to Give! *[Frequently UNasked Questions] NOW is the time to discuss/debate uncomfortable topics (including potentially-bad FUTURE STUFF!) – so you can consider it objectively/calmly (with minimal emotional bias!) while it’s still just hypothetical!!

LinkedIn | Website

About: Jermaine is an avid reader, loves working out and roots for LSU and the Saints during football season.

Bio:Jermaine Brown is an investor and entrepreneur based in Atlanta. He’s currently a Partner at Outlander VC, an early-stage venture capital firm. He founded CCAW Automotive Group, a B2C automotive e-commerce company, and bootstrapped the company to over $10M in annual revenue. Jermaine has experience as a venture capital investor and building scalable teams, systems, and processes.

How I can help:

•  Identifying goals that move the needle and developing specific action plans to achieve those goals.
• Evaluating raising venture capital or bootstrapping.
• Building scalable processes and systems.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: John Dwyer currently leads AT&T’s Prepaid Wireless Portfolio, consisting of Cricket Wireless and AT&T PREPAID.

John earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing at the University of Wisconsin and a master’s degree in finance at the University of Chicago.

In addition to being President of AT&T Prepaid & Cricket Wireless, he serves on the executive board of directors for Junior Achievement of Georgia, the Board of Directors for 3DE, the executive committee for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the board of the Boy Scouts Atlanta area council.

A proud resident of Atlanta, John enjoys spending time with his wife and two children.

Bio: John was named president of Cricket Wireless in 2015, a subsidiary of AT&T Inc. Two years later, his role was expanded to include AT&T PREPAID, the company’s first prepaid wireless offering. 

John’s leadership of both Cricket and AT&T PREPAID continues to show great results with the combined portfolio consistently leading the prepaid industry in operational performance and customer experience. In fact, as of Q3 2021, the AT&T Prepaid Portfolio was the fastest growing prepaid carrier in the U.S. and has been for the past three years. Currently serving more than 19 million prepaid wireless subscribers, John and the prepaid team are committed to delivering an easy, high-quality and affordable wireless experience. Additionally, Cricket reached a big milestone as of Q3 2021, reaching 12.4 million subscribers. That’s an increase of more than 2 million customers over the past two years. 

Prior to leading the prepaid business, John led the customer experience effort for AT&T Mobile and Business Solutions. He also led the retail sales operations team and served in several sales and customer service leadership roles at AT&T, Cingular Wireless and Pacific Bell Mobile Services.

How I can help:

LinkedIn |Website

About: Kelly Anne is a native Atlantan, mom to 2 adventurous kiddos and 2 furr babies, wife to the biggest UGA fan there is, and alumni of University of Alabama. Outside of work, you can find her jogging around the city, dining on a patio, or on the lake during any season.

Bio: Currently, Kelly Anne is the Senior Director for Growth at Dualboot Partners, a custom software and business development firm. Prior to DBP, she started her professional career in non-profits then moved to clinical healthcare as a Certified Child Life Specialist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In 2016, she made a career pivot and joined the wild world of tech startups at Atlanta Tech Village. For 5.5 years, she had the privilege of building programs to serve entrepreneurs and bringing in strategic partners such as Invesco, Truist, and Coke.

How I can help:

1. Learning your customers to provide a solution – not just sell a product.
2. Rethinking current habits/tactics to uncover new and better solutions.
3. Early stage startups— identifying problemGrowing your sales team and streamlining process

LinkedIn | Website

About: Kerry is a corporate hippy that loves hiking, meditation, yoga, making kombucha and natural, healthy stuff.

Bio: Kerry has been in marketing for over 20 years from startups to Fortune 50 companies. She specializes in marketing strategies.

How I can help:
1. Creates succinct messaging
2. Helps with strategies to reach customers and message to them
3. Asks tough questions to help create focus

More Info: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website

About: Kim is an investor in early-stage technology, health care, consumer product, and media companies. The JumpFund has invested in more than 25 Southeast based companies since 2013, across our two venture capital funds.

Bio: Kim has more than twenty-five years of global expertise in human resource consulting, corporate and leadership roles. Kim’s experience includes leading M&A transactions, service delivery transformation, talent, compensation, benefits and recruiting program design, as well as technology development, selection and implementations.

Kim most recently was a Senior Partner with Mercer, responsible for leading their overall go-to-market strategies in Atlanta. Kim received a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Louisiana State University.

How I can help:

1. People and talent management strategies
2. Strategic planning
3. Fundraising with angels and venture capital

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About:Kim is a journalist turned entrepreneur who successfully founded, grew and sold her tech startup – and had three babies – all within the past few (chaotic) years. She and her husband, Geoff Wilson, live in Midtown Atlanta and are serial entrepreneurs who have founded, invested in, sold (and closed!) dozens of startups.

Bio: Kim is an experienced Founder and CEO, having successfully exited her most recent start-up: Social News Desk (SND). As a former-journalist, Kim saw a problem in her own industry and solved it by creating a SaaS company which would go on to become the worldwide leader in social media solutions for local news. In 2014, Kim led Social News Desk through an acquisition by Graham Holdings (NYSE:GHC); a public company which was founded by Katharine Graham, the first female Fortune 500 CEO. Today, Kim remains at the helm of Social News Desk, overseeing an entirely remote team and supporting more than 30,000 journalists worldwide.

How can I help:
1. Sales Strategy for early-stage SaaS
2. Optimizing Development Roadmaps
3. Pitch Deck Feedback

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Landon helps early-stage startups establish foundational growth, marketing, and operations. It’s all fun and games until a Series B.

Bio: Landon has led growth, marketing, and ops at Plastiq (Forbes FinTech 50), Fancred (Entrepreneur Magazine’s 100 Brilliant Companies), and is an advisor to MaxRewards (Techstars ’19) and Poppy (Techstars ’20). He’s the Head of Marketing at Rocketplace, a digital assets management platform.

How I can help:
1. Growth marketing
2. Operations
3. Fundraising Preparation

LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Bio: Senior executive with broad business knowledge, technical depth, and work experience in public and private organizations. Adept at building and leading teams and creating cross functional partnerships to deliver on business initiatives. Proven success at aligning business objectives with information technology goals.

Strengths in team leadership, strategic planning, and communication. Strong practitioner of Situational Leadership framework and Servant leadership principles. Certified in leadership coaching and hence seen as a mentor and coach who attracts, retains, and empower team members and enable them to grow while delivering results. Reward and motivate team members during times of rapid change while simultaneously address critical business needs.

Highly motivated leader especially skilled at collaborating and influencing diverse cross-organizational teams in delivering strategic solutions, including technical strategies to optimize the execution of business capabilities. Consistently identifies and reengineers inefficient processes to achieve a higher level of quality and productivity.

Awarded the CIO of Year and the Peer CIO awards in Pittsburgh. Nominated by peer CIOs to the Wall Street Journal CIO Forum in USA two years in a row. Recognized by PwC and ANSYS Board for making multi years of information security enhancements in 18 months. Recognized as an external leader on GDPR and other data privacy regulations.

Active in giving back to the IT community through advisory councils (ServiceNow & Microsoft), VC advisory forums, writing a book and many publications and by speaking at global conferences like Economic Times, and National CIO Review. Developing leadership within teams by acting as an advisor to a few startups; one focused on IoT (Adrich), second on Blockchain (AIO Network) and others focused on digital identity (ID Partners) and data privacy (Bornio).

How I can help:

1. Guide the startup on the articulation on business value and sales pitch for global customers.
2. Creative ways of positioning the company with potential global customers.
3. Operational aspects in the company both in USA and other countries.
4. Help in raise money with potential VC and Angel community.

LinkedIn | Website

About: Megan resides in Atlanta with her husband and their dog, Kevin. She is an avid reader, amateur chef and plays the drums in her spare time.

Bio: Megan is a Technical Program & Business Development Manager at Amazon Web Services, working across a global team of solution architects to build out strong partner practices. She has held roles at AWS on teams spanning project management, sales and most recently, technical. Prior to AWS, she worked on an agile team inside The Washington Post to productize and sell their publishing platform to other global entities and started her career in technical sales at IBM (here in Atlanta!). She is passionate about helping organizations and teams build their technical strategy, create their own brand and incorporating technical thinking into all areas of sales.

How I can help:

1. Technical questions around enterprise cloud and AWS
2. Business development and general sales strategy
3. Building holistic teams with clear visions of success

LinkedIn | Website

About: Michael is an Atlanta native, a Georgia Tech grad, and is constantly looking for the best Asian restaurant on Buford Highway.

Bio: Michael started his professional career over 10 years ago working in engineering & data analytics at Walt Disney World. Since then, he has held several technical and managerial roles across a wide range of companies, from big 4 consulting to technology startups (including several based out of the ATV!). He has always had a passion for sports – though his playing career never advanced past little league – and has performed research with medical professionals on predicting injuries in professional athletes. Outside of work, he enjoys running, playing tennis and spending time with his five little nieces and nephew.

How I can help:

1. Data analysis, modeling, and debugging
2. Data warehousing and architecture
3. Building a data analytics team

LinkedIn | Website

*Mike is not currently accepting new mentees 

About: Mike is a musician, braves fan and father of 3 daughters. His wife and he are avid cyclists and like to tour the U.S. in their RV.

Bio: Mike is a serial entrepreneur in B2B SaaS healthcare technology/patient experience. He founded Dialog Medical – the leading provider of Informed Consent systems – and sold it to Standard Register (NYSE: SR) in July 2011. He founded Clockwise.MD -the leading virtual queue for healthcare – and sold it to Warburg Pincus/DocuTAP in April 2017. He is currently founder and CEO of Copient Health.

How I can help:
1. Customer Discovery.
2. Customer Development.
3. Building a repeatable, scalable sales model.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Mike is passionate about cooking, fitness, college football (Go Auburn), and March Madness. He’s the only person we’ve ever met who once sold billion-dollar jet fighter aircraft for a living!

Bio: Mike is founder of Allegro Consulting , a business growth specialty advisory firm. He’s been helping metro-Atlanta private business owners and start-up founders build and execute growth strategies for 18 years. His focus is on strategy creation and sales process.  Prior to Allegro he was an international sales campaign leader and program manager for aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed. Disciplined adherence to sound business practices and utilizing a replicable sales process are his passions.

How I can help:
1. Conduct a candid review of and share feedback on your growth strategy or go-to-market strategy. Do you have one?
2. Reveal the “secret” to achieving a high win-rate in sales
3. Share 16-years of experience consulting elusively for privately-held businesses/startup founders: how they grow and how to avoid the common pitfalls that lead to failure.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Patrick is a hopeless optimist with a thirst for technology and how it can improve every facet of our lives, allowing us all to focus on those things that really matter.

Bio: As an audit principal with Windham Brannon LLC, a top Atlanta public accounting firm, Patrick leads their technology practice with a focus on wholistic objectives for businesses and its owners. Leveraging the experience of client’s success and failures, Patrick helps remove potential obstacles to enable greater success.

How I can help:
1. Assist with entity selection, set up of initial accounting processes, and understanding of fundamental financial acumen.
2. Develop financial modeling to tell your story.
3. Identify potential pitfalls in scaling your business.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: I arrived in the US with a backpack and $267 in cash after traveling around the world. I love mountain biking and follow an unglamorous Premier League soccer team.

Bio: My experience spans 25 years of leadership in technology and nonprofits. I have co-founded, run, and exited multiple technology start-ups in telco, music, and education.
I’ve overseen award-winning social innovation projects that have brought new opportunities to thousands of kids. My belief: give people access to opportunities, and they will thrive.

How I can help:

1. Find early-stage market fit
2. Develop sales & marketing channels
3. Make sure you stick to your passion

LinkedIn | Website

About: Former It Takes a Village startup founder and current product management professional who enjoys all things health and fitness, playing the piano, and traveling.

Bio: Rich is a Senior Technical Product Manager for Amazon working on the Alexa on Fire TV team. He’s also a Board Member for the Startup Runway Foundation, which is a non-profit that connects early-stage investors to underrepresented startup founders. Rich’s previous experiences include the founding of a health and fitness technology startup, product management in the cybersecurity and audio entertainment industries, business operations and corporate finance at Intel, and software engineering and technology research at Vanguard.

While his hometown is New York City, Rich is currently based in Atlanta, GA. He holds a B.S. in computer engineering technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and he received his M.B.A. from the University of Rochester, Simon Business School.

How I can help:

1. Understanding customer problems and turning them into viable product solutions.
2. Developing and executing product strategy including product vision, development, testing, iteration and measuring success.
3. Being an early-stage startup CEO or Co-Founder – pitching, day-to-day operations, wearing multiple hats, etc.

LinkedIn | Website

About: Rusty is a born-and-raised Atlantan. He and his wife live in Marietta where he hones his negotiating skills by mediating disputes between his three young daughters.

Bio: Rusty is an experienced technology attorney who counsels companies on complex transactional and IP matters. He also counsels startups on various early stage issues and helps them strategize a path to success – whatever that success looks like for them.

How I can help:

1. I can help you get your house in order.  You need to focus on being an entrepreneur, so let me help you think about all the easy structural steps you haven’t considered that will make investors comfortable when they come poking around.
2. I’ve drafted more patent applications than I care to remember and prosecuted many more.  Is IP significant to your business? Let me help you think through how it fits into your overall strategy and whether it’s worth protecting, be it through traditional means (patents, copyrights, trademarks) or other avenues (employment agreements, NDAs, trade secrets).
3. Who are you working with?  Let’s figure out what paperwork needs to be in place (if any!) so that you don’t unexpectedly expose your company to risk and uncertainty.

LinkedIn | Website

About: Scott is a father of two boys under two, so you may see him snagging a nap in the lobby at any time. He loves coffee, cocktails, and anything with a good story behind it.

Bio: Scott is the Principal at Tech Square Ventures, an early stage venture firm in Atlanta. He sources, conducts diligence, and invests in leading high growth tech companies in the Southeast. He knows how to clarify business milestones and line up funding accordingly. He is focused on helping founders find a repeatable and scalable go-to-market strategy.

How I can help:
1. Fundraising strategy
2. Business model
3. Go-To-Market strategy

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Stefanie is a boy-mom who loves dance, yoga, travel and personal finance. She is passionate about women’s issues, bravely living from your intuition, and anything that takes her back to her homeland of Puerto Rico.

Bio: Stefanie is the Founder & CEO of Powered by Verve, an investor relations firm focused on helping companies engage their existing and potential investors. She is Founder & Host of the She Conquers Capital Podcast and WOE | The Women Only Experience Atlanta-based event series. Contact Stefanie for advice on raising capital, crafting your pitch, connecting with investors, building community, public speaking, hosting events and anything to do with overcoming doubts and fears.

How I can help:
1. Investor engagement
2. Raising capital
3. Presentation/public speaking

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About:Susanne and her husband enjoy exploring new restaurants, farmer’s markets, hiking, boating, and playing pickleball with their two teenagers. Susanne also loves solving problems, both big and small. Ask her about Ikigai, keeping a sourdough bread starter alive, or her Velvet Elvis story to get things started.

Bio:
Susanne is a sales and marketing expert with over 20+ years of leading customer teams. While managing multi-million-dollar clients for Coca-Cola, she gained a deep understanding of how global brands innovate. Susanne enjoys sharing her knowledge to give early-stage companies a competitive edge. She specializes in teaching founders how to develop sales and marketing plans, navigate corporate partnerships and build collaborative teams.

How I can help:

• Win New Customers – Go-to-market strategies, value proposition creation, and brand communications.

• Build Partnerships – Relationship building, customer meeting prep, and presentation delivery.

• Navigate Corporate Brands – Negotiations, constructing deals, and stewarding results.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter

About:Tim is a technical founder of numerous startups, including SalesLoft, Showcase IDX, and Spaceship. He also apparently likes the letter “S” a lot.

Bio: Tim is a co-founder of SalesLoft, former Entrepreneur in Residence at Georgia Tech’s ATDC, CTO and CEO of several startups, a participant in the Flashpoint accelerator at Georgia Tech, and founded and sold his first company in his 20s. He is currently working on a new startup, Spaceship, in the DevOps/DevTools space.

How I can help:
1. Technical questions
2. Team building and leadership
3. General business strategy

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Wayt is a life-long ATLien, is the father of 5 kids, and spends time on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.

Bio: Wayt is a startup lawyer who loves helping early-stage SaaS and software entrepreneurs. He’s been a software entrepreneur and an angel investor, and is known for keeping the legal stuff as simple as possible.

How I can help:
1. I was a software founder (N2 Broadband) myself; after several near-death experiences we eventually “made it” and sold for a nice $$ exit after raising a bunch of VC money. Been there, done that, and can relate to the psychological demands on founders (that’s the hard part, IMHO).
2. I’m a lawyer for several SaaS startups, including several current and former villagers like Rigor, BridalLive, Terminus, SalesLoft, Calendly. I also represent ATV and Atlanta Ventures. So I can help startups avoid big mistakes and big expense by helping them keep it simple.
3. I’m old. It kinda sucks being old, but it means I’ve been around the tech community for a long time, seen a lot of ups and downs, done plenty of angel investing myself, and have learned a lot. I enjoy passing that on and helping early-stage startups.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Will Grossenbacher is corporate attorney based in the Atlanta office of Greenberg Traurig. Will’s practice focuses on transactional matters for companies in technology, life sciences, and other high growth industries. He has experience with all aspects of the corporate life cycle—from formation and funding, to day-to-day commercial contracting and licensing, to acquisitions and exits. Will received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, and his B.A. from the University of Mississippi.

Bio: I’m enthusiastic about helping founders plan their corporate structure and equity issuances to get it right the first time.
I work with companies across industries: video game publishers, financial services providers, drug manufacturers, payment processors, app developers—and love it. Seeing new ideas and challenges on a day-to-day basis is why I became a lawyer.
I’ve worked on numerous M&A transactions, both for buyers and sellers, and know the things you should do now—making sure you have a clean cap table and clear IP ownership, among others—that will make that process much smoother down the road.

How I can help:

1. I’m enthusiastic about helping founders plan their corporate structure and equity issuances to get it right the first time.
2. I work with companies across industries: video game publishers, financial services providers, drug manufacturers, payment processors, app developers—and love it. Seeing new ideas and challenges on a day-to-day basis is why I became a lawyer.
3. I’ve worked on numerous M&A transactions, both for buyers and sellers, and know the things you should do now—making sure you have a clean cap table and clear IP ownership, among others—that will make that process much smoother down the road.

LinkedIn | Website

About: Yusuf is an experienced leader, in-house attorney, angel investor, non-profit board member, amateur race car driver, and basement guitarist. Yusuf, his wife, and two children live in Alpharetta.

Bio: Yusuf was most recently Deputy General Counsel at Tesla, Inc., where he spent seven years building one of its legal teams from one person to 29. Prior to that, he handled virtually every type of legal issue facing his employer while working for a poultry company in North Georgia. He began his career with the federal government where he trained as a trial lawyer. Yusuf invests in purpose driven technology companies that use modern tools to solve old problems. In 2022, he was named to The 100 Influential Georgia Muslims by the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta.

How I can help:

1. Legal counsel utilization, management, and organizational legal health.
2. Employee life-cycle issues, including engagement, recognition, performance management, hiring, promotion, and termination.
3. Leadership development and difficult conversations.

LinkedIn |