Gopi Mattel

Managing Partner and CEO Gopi Mattel is a serial entrepreneur and is currently the Founder/CEO of CellarStone, Inc., a Silicon Valley-based company that provides solutions in the area of Sales Performance Management. Mattel launched a chapter of Founder Institute at Chennai, India. He serves as the Director of the chapter. And has been managing cohorts of startups through semesters for the last four years. Mattel has coached numerous startups through the detailed steps from ideation to funding. to this, Mattel had founded Motiva, Inc, a pioneering firm in the Sales Performance Management space, which was acquired by Siebel/Oracle. Mattel has decades of deep and granular experience in all the various aspects of starting and running a business. Mattel has more than 30 years of experience in Technology and Executive Management.
Mattel has implemented Sales Performance Management systems for companies such as Allied Signal Aerospace, Clorox, Milwaukee Electric Tool, Hill-Rom, Transamerica Capital, among others. Mattel has held Management positions at Citibank, FSB., and The Gap, Inc. Mattel is an advisor for Pepperdine University Graziado Business School’s Most Fundable Companies program.Prior Mattel is also a contributor to Thestreet.com, a premier investor publication. Mattel holds a Bachelor of Science degree and University First Rank in Geography and Statistics from the University of Madras, Chennai, India.
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Venture Partner

Adeo Ressi

CEO and Founder, Founder Institute Adeo Ressi is CEO of the Founder Institute, a startup launch program that operates in over 200 cities worldwide, and he is a recognized mentor for fast growing technology businesses. He has pioneered innovations in the protection of founder rights, the raising of early stage capital and the scaling of new businesses. Previous to the Founder Institute, Adeo has helped to create nearly $2 billion in shareholder value by founding or running nine businesses, including TheFunded, Game Trust, Xceed and Total New York. In addition, the Founder Institute has helped to create approximately $35 billion more in shareholder value by launching over 4,500 technology companies that have raised an estimated $1 billion from investors. Adeo previously served on the Board of the X Prize foundation to pursue his interests in space exploration and techniques to motivate human achievement.
He studied architecture and spent time living on a commune to explore his interests in designing better ways to live. Adeo is passionate about inspiring people to achieve greatness.
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Mike Suprovici

Founder Institute Managing Director, Portfolio Sucess Mike trains 100+ emerging VCs a year as the Manager of the Founder Institute’s VC Lab program. He co-leads investor relations for 200+ LPs as the Manager of FI’s Select Index program. As Managing Director of Portfolio Success, Mike oversees FI’s 4k+ company portfolio and helps 300+ start-ups a year raise capital. Prior to joining the Founder Institute, Mike was the founder and CEO at Explorence, a seed-funded startup that developed iOS apps focused on turning outdoor recreational activities into real-life video games. Mike recruited the team, launched 5 iOS apps, and raised funding. Specialties:Fundraising, Startups, Product Management, Product Development, Recruiting, iOS Development, Design, Analytics, Business Development, Sales

Michael Fox

CEO, Corporate Whisperer Corporate Venture Thought-leader MIT Venture Mentor Michael is a senior strategist, rainmaker and implementation Jedi. He’s a serial entrepreneur, launched the VAIO for SONY, worked as an Entrepreneur In Residence for a $5B fund where he grew one portfolio company from a valuation of $50M to $300M in five months, and is currently a thought leader in the Corporate Venture space. Michael also teaches entrepreneurship at an MBA program in Design Strategy in San Francisco and in Holland.Building valuation with investment, corporate development, and accrued relationship equity in the Corporate Venture Community. As a thought leader in the Corporate Venture community, investor, international speaker, entrepreneur, and adjunct MBA,
Michael is able to leverage his unique understanding of venture investing, building valuation, and risk mitigation.
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Greg Morton

Chief Evangelist, Venture Partner Greg Morton is a growth-development specialist, start-up mentor, and investor. With high-growth experience in “HR as a product/service” business model he has years of Fortune 500 and start-up experience within the space. Skilled at GTM strategy and brand development he’s had a consistent record of delivering extraordinary results in growth, operational performance, and profitability. He’s passionate about the start-up community and helping early-stage companies entering the market with message and strategy development as well as investor deck development. He is also an investor with interest in emerging technologies and business models within the greater HR space. Greg was global CMO of Great Place to Work, where he oversaw the production of Fortune magazine’s Best Place to Work list, has keynoted on the topic of work/life balance and enjoys moderating and judging investor pitch competitions.
As CEO he rebranded and repositioned NCHRA, the nations 2nd largest HR association eventually facilitating its acquisition by HR.com and was an advisor to Rallyteam, a digital work platform helping organizations supercharge innovation, agility and engagement prior to its acquisition by Workday.
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Ramkumar R S

Founder & CEO milliGOLD, Save First Foundation Director of RSR Innovations Ramkumar R S, has 30+ years’ experience in supporting new products, new divisions and new companies. He founded RSR Innovations, a strategic consulting firm in 2000 and has been working with start-ups and early revenue companies in areas such as branding, marketing, sales, operations, quality, accounts, finance, HR/OD and leadership development. He raised angel funds and ran a music distribution company during 2007-2010. He is currently incubating another venture milliGOLD in the Fintech-Savings space. He started his career as an Electronics Engineer at the Chennai based Murugappa group and acquired additional degrees in commerce (B-Com) and Management (MBA) from Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Ramkumar is a published poet and a student practitioner of Bharatanatyam a classical dance form from Southern India. He is a thought leader and writes frequently for Yourstory and Goodmenproject. He is passionate about “Purpose driven Growth” and “Why driven Marketing”.
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Advisory Team

Fred Durham

Co-Founder & Ex-CEO, CafePress President, Durham Labs Fred Durham was the Chief Executive Officer of CafePress.com, a company he co-founded shortly after graduating from Northwestern University. Durham is responsible for setting the strategy and overseeing the execution of the businesses and operations for CafePress.com.Under Durham’s leadership, CafePress.com experienced dramatic growth within the first six years.The company grew from two employees working out of a garage to approximately 200 employees in two locations – corporate headquarters in Foster City, California, and a state-of-the-art production facility in Louisville, Kentucky. Durham also skillfully guided CafePress.com through the burst of the dot-com bubble, reaching profitability within 12 months; this at a time when most start-ups were failing. After reaching profitability, CafePress.com continued to double its profits year over year.
Durham capped his effort by successfully leading CafePress.com to an IPO on the NASDAQ exchange.Durham earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Northwestern University.Prior to founding CafePress.com, Durham launched several consumer and business technology companies along with business partner, Maheesh Jain. Together, Durham and Jain focused on developing software applications targeted to the diverse needs of small businesses and the larger broadcast and commercial printing industries. Durham set out to redefine the way business is done by using the power of the Internet to create a new class of entrepreneurs. In 1999, taking the best elements from each of their previous business ventures, Durham launched CafePress.com, the online marketplace for self-expression. Durham currently runs Durham Labs, an incubator for specialty startups focused on educational technologies.
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Andrew D. Green

Partner, Broad Reach Growth Kearney Partner Emeritus Andrew is the Founding Partner of Broad Reach Growth working with Post-Series A and B companies to create value-building growth strategies and actionable implementation plans. Prior to Broad Reach Growth, Andrew was a Senior Partner at the management consulting firm Kearney. There, Andrew worked with clients across a spectrum of industries and served on the firm’s North American Management Committee, and led the firm’s North American Strategy & Organization practice. Andrew remains a Kearney Partner Emeritus.Andrew was also a Partner at the Jackson Hole Group and helped clients with strategy, strategy implementation, and effective governance. In addition to consulting, Andrew has held executive operating positions. As an Interim-CEO, he led Horizon Propane, a $40M company, through a successful
turnaround concluding with a sale to a strategic buyer. As President and Publisher of TechCom, Inc., Andrew led the firm’s successful revenue growth and margin improvement efforts and, ultimately, the profitable sale of the company to a strategic buyer. Andrew currently serves on the Board of Strategen, Inc. and as a Strategic Advisor to DeepLook, Inc. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Business School.
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George Orbelian

Board Member, Buckminster Fuller Institute Real Estate Risk Management Consulting GP, Planet Positive Ventures George Orbelian is a Principal in Orbelian Holdings, L.P., a San Francisco-based firm multi-family real estate company. He remains active in citizen diplomacy in which his late father, Harry Orbelian, was a community leader. George is co-founder of Ojingo Labs, Inc., a company creating social / mobile / web technology.George was appointed to the San Francisco Mayor’s Ocean Beach Task Force, served as a member of the Board of the Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association, is an advisor to San Francisco State University School of International Business, and works closely with the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection’s Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPPS) and Earthquake Safety
Implementation Program (ESIP) programs A noted author, George wrote the standard reference book on surfboard design, “Essential Surfing,” and served as Editor of the “Design Forum” columnfor internationally distributed SURFER Magazine. And as a surfer for over 40 years, George is passionate about the ocean and the environment and is co-founder of Project Kaisei which received Google Earth Hero recognition for bringing engineering, science, and technology together in researching solutions for plastic marine debris. He holds a BA in Art from San Francisco State University.
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Mascot

Robin

Robin is fun and charming team player. She is curious and super active Deeply interested in our meetings and progress.

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