Ayesha Kiani

Chief Operating Officer, LedgerPrime

Ayesha Kiani is the Chief Operating Officer of LedgerPrime. She is also a Faculty Professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering where she's teaching and researching on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology. Previously, Ayesha was a Managing Director for Republic Crypto, where she successfully led Republic’s fundraising efforts for its Security Token presale. Before Republic, Ayesha was an early employee of Consensys, within SingularDTV. She is currently an Investor Board Member at Ventures for America and a Venture Partner at NextGen Ventures.

Keith Grossman

President, TIME

TIME President Keith A. Grossman is a global leader in the rapidly evolving world of web3 and leads TIME’s growth within the web3 ecosystem. Under Keith’s leadership, TIME’s NFT and web3 community, TIMEPieces, has grown to include well over 50,000 artists, collectors, and enthusiasts.

In 2021, TIME’s web3 strategy produced eight figures of revenue as the brand expanded from NFTs to community building to partnering with several NFT creators to develop their unique IP into animated series for TV with TIME Studios.

Previously, Keith served as the Global Chief Revenue Officer for Bloomberg Media where he was responsible for the growth of their various media platforms. He was also part of the core team to launch QuickTake by Bloomberg, a 24/7 social, mobile news platform. Prior to Bloomberg, Keith was the Associate Publisher of WIRED as well as Ars Technica where he won two Project Isaac Awards for best Digital Inventions for his work on the WIRED Tablet Edition and Ars Accelerator.

He is a Board Member of New York Cares, New York's largest volunteer network connecting individuals within their philanthropic passions and, previously, was an Adjunct Professor at NYU.

Keith is a graduate of Cornell University and currently resides in New York City with his wife, Catherine, and daughter, Ellie.

Matthew Graham

Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Sino Global Capital

Matthew Graham is the founder and CEO of Sino Global Capital, an international crypto-native venture firm founded in 2015 that focuses on investing in best-in-class blockchain and digital asset projects. Matthew has been involved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem since 2013 when he drafted a proposal for a large MNC to pre-install a BTC wallet in their devices. Prior to founding Sino, Matthew was an emerging markets tech banker with a China specialty, where he represented some of the top tech firms in the world on strategic international investment.

Antonio Gracias

Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Investment Officer, Valor

Antonio is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Investment Officer of Valor. Antonio founded Valor in 1995. He has over 25 years of experience in private equity investing. Antonio was a Director of Tesla from 2007 to 2021. During his tenure, he served as Lead Independent Director for eight years, and helped take Tesla public. He is a Director of several Valor portfolio companies, including Space Exploration Technologies. He is a member of all Valor Investment Committees.

Antonio is actively involved in philanthropic activities. He is a trustee of The Aspen Institute, a member of the board of visitors of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and a member of the board of visitors of the University of Chicago Law School. Additionally, he is a member of the board of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and a member of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees.

In 2015, Antonio was appointed to the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship Program, chaired by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. The program was a first-of-kind collaboration among the White House, entrepreneurs, the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He is a 2009 Henry Crown Fellow, an Aspen Institute program designed to engage the next generation of leaders in the challenge of community spirited leadership. In 2008, Antonio received the Immigrant & Refugee Contributions Award for Entrepreneurial & Business Leadership from Changing Worlds, an educational arts non-profit organization.

Prior to founding Valor, Antonio was the Founder and Managing Member of MG Capital where he acquired and acted as Chief Executive Officer for a number of manufacturing and technology related companies. At MG Capital, together with the team that is still together at Valor today, he developed the operational skills that Valor uses to help its portfolio companies achieve scale and enhance their value. Prior to MG Capital he was at Goldman Sachs.

Antonio holds a joint B.S. and M.S.F.S. (Honors Degree) in International Finance and Economics from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He also studied corporate structures and economic development at Waseda University in Tokyo. Prior to completing his Masters, Antonio returned to Japan as a Nikko Securities Fellow. Antonio holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Omar Eissa

Managing Director, Financial Sponsors Group, Bank of America

Omar Eissa is a Managing Director at BofA Securities specializing in investment banking, advisory and capital markets financing transactions on behalf of private equity clients. Covering 15 firms spanning more than 100 private equity partners and principals, Omar has worked on over 70 completed M&A transactions, equity offerings and debt financings since 2010.

In addition to his investment banking responsibilities, Omar leads an internal ESG initiative to allocate LP capital to minority fund managers and entrepreneurs, with over $250 million deployed to date.

Omar is a leader in driving culture at the firm. He serves as a co-chair of Summer Intern Diversity Committee and a US Captain in our Africa Recruiting Program traveling to Ghana and Nigeria twice per year to hire 30+ interns into our London and NY offices.

Omar also serves on the Ambassador Board of Dream Charter School, a full-service pre-K through 12th grade community of school in the East Harlem and the Bronx.

Kevin Duignan

Global Analytical Head, Fitch Ratings

Kevin Duignan is the Global Analytical Head for Fitch Ratings. He is based in New York, and oversees ratings and research globally for all sectors.

Kevin’s previous responsibilities at Fitch over the past 29 years include heading the Global Financial Institutions group, the Global Structured Finance group, heading global Corporate Communications and leading the U.S. ABS group.

Before joining Fitch in 1993, Kevin was a manager and credit analyst in Citibank’s treasury credit department and Citibank’s mortgage conduit area.

Kevin received a B.S. in management from Tulane University.

Nicole Drapkin

Managing Director, Owl Rock Capital Partners

Nicole Drapkin is a Managing Director of Owl Rock Capital Partners and serves as co-head of Opportunistic Credit and shares responsibility for the Owl Rock Opportunistic Fund. Previously, Ms. Drapkin served as a member of Owl Rock Capital Advisors’ Originations team. Prior to joining Owl Rock in 2016, Ms. Drapkin was a Principal in the Principal Credit Investments Group at the CPP Investment Board, where she focused on sourcing and evaluating credit investments across the gaming, consumer retail, software and healthcare sectors. Prior to that, Ms. Drapkin was a Vice President in the Leveraged Finance Group at Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York. Ms. Drapkin received a B.A., with Honors, from Princeton University. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Marlene Meyerson JCC of Manhattan.

Lule Demmissie

US Chief Executive Officer, eToro

Lule Demmissie is the US CEO of eToro, the world’s largest social investing network that empowers people to grow their knowledge and wealth as part of a global community of investors. eToro US offers individual investors easy access to investment instruments ranging from stocks to crypto, innovations like CopyTrader and more to come. Lule joined the company in September 2021, overseeing the company’s expansion and investment within the US, operational infrastructure, marketing, investment thought leadership, corporate governance, compliance, and its regulatory affairs & risk management.

Lule previously served as the President of Ally Invest overseeing the business’ P&L and growth strategy. She also led the products and services delivered to Ally Invest’s all- digital client base, shaping the end-to-end client experience. Additionally, Lule served as the Managing Director of Investment Products & Digital Guidance at TD Ameritrade where she led the development and launch of financial guidance services, tools and products for long-term oriented retail investors. Lule has also worked for leading investment firms such as Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and Merrill Lynch.

Lule Demmissie is a unicorn in the retail investing and wealth sector. As a financial executive with a range of intersectional identities, a woman of color and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, she has a perspective that is much needed (and not often represented) in the area of fintech innovation, and gives voice to financial challenges facing a variety of communities.

As a leader, Lule is committed to cultivating a culture with diverse perspectives and talents. She has been sighted by many industry publications as a formidable leader in fintech. She was the recipient of a coveted TD Ameritrade Impact Award, a coveted annual award for leaders paving the way in building, developing and retaining a diverse group of associates — while continuing to foster a culture where all associates feel valued, included and challenged.

Lule holds a B.A. in Economics from Smith College, an M.B.A from Columbia Business School, a CIMA designation from the Investments & Wealth Institute (formerly IMCA) and the 7, 66 and 24 securities licenses.

Vaughan Crowe

Managing Partner, Newark Venture Partners (NVP)

Vaughn Crowe is a Managing Partner of Newark Venture Partners (NVP), a global seed-stage investment firm, with a focus on B2B technology.  Prior to joining NVP, Vaughn served as Managing Director at Wesray Social Investments, the investment arm of Ray Chambers’s family office.  Vaughn was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey.  He has a degree from Colgate University and attended Harvard Business School for Executive Education.  Vaughn currently serves as Vice-Chair of Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, an RWJ Barnabas Hospital, and the New Jersey State Investment Council, the governing body for the State's pension fund.  In his spare time, he likes to play golf, spend time with family, read, and listen to music.

Ron Conway

Founder & Managing Partner, SV Angel

Ron Conway is the Founder and a Managing Partner of SV Angel. He has been an active angel investor since the mid 90s and has received wide recognition for his role in the tech ecosystem. He was included on Vanity Fair’s 100 most influential people in the Information Age in 2010, awarded Best Angel at the 2009 TechCrunch Crunchies Awards, and has been named on Forbes Magazine Midas list of top “deal-makers” since 2011. Prior to founding SV Angel, Ron was with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions (1973-1979), Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO (1979-1990), taking the company public on Nasdaq in 1982, and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS) (1991-1995). PTS was acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft (Nasdaq SKIL).

Ron is an advocate for technology companies and civic engagement in San Francisco, as well as an advocate for immigration reform. He is founder and Chairman of sf.citi and co-founder of FWD.US. Ron is also working diligently on efforts to solve for systemic racial inequity and to support founders of color, especially through the launch of Slauson and Co. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 he has been involved in efforts to secure PPE and fundraise for a drug therapy/vaccine, and organized the Covid-19 Tech Task Force.

Philanthropically, Ron is a member of the Giving Pledge and Board Member of the Salesforce Foundation. He is a major donor and advisor to UCSF Medical Center and the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, College Track, the THORN Foundation, and many organizations focused on preventing gun violence including, Sandy Hook Promise, Giffords.org, and March for Our Lives.

Amanda Cassatt

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Serotonin

Amanda is the co-founder & CEO of Serotonin, the leading web3 marketing agency and product studio. Amanda is also co-founder & President of Mojito, the first venture to spin out of Serotonin. Mojito is an NFT commerce suite that is the top choice by Sotheby's, CAA, and major brands for engaging in d-commerce on web3. 

Amanda is a notable web3 product builder and master marketer who has helped bring some of the leading blockchain companies to market and advised global institutions on how to adopt NFTs and crypto.

From 2016 to 2019, Amanda brought Ethereum to market as the CMO of ConsenSys, supporting its growth to become the largest and most robust blockchain ecosystem. Prior to joining ConsenSys, Amanda co-founded media startup Slant, which she launched after working under Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post where she learned about the challenges for creators in web2 that she would spend her subsequent career addressing.

Geoffrey Clauss

Chief Revenue Officer, Blockdaemon

Geoff Clauss is Blockdaemon’s Chief Revenue officer and has 20+ years of fintech sales leadership experience. Geoff has an extensive background in trading networks, legacy financial infrastructure services, and managing successful teams. Geoff is passionate about developing teams that rise to the top of a competitive marketplace and knows the importance of happy and successful customers. Geoff is keen to help even more institutions access and unlock quality blockchain data with Blockdaemon.

John Caldwell

NFT Principal, Wave Financial

John, also known as VegSurfer, runs the Non Fungible Fund at Wave Financial, and is a founding member of Unicorn DAO. Before Wave Financial, he was a successful NFT collector and degen and Layer 1 business developer.

Ben Berman

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Tomorrow Farms

Ben Berman is co-founder and CEO of Tomorrow Farms, a food tech company commercializing novel ingredients to build the future of food. Tomorrow Farms recently launched Bored Cow, the world’s first animal-free dairy milk. 

Ben is previously the founder of Mainely Burgers, a food truck company based in Portland, ME that Ben grew to 3 trucks and 16 employees (and an appearance on the Food Network) before he exited the business in 2014 and the founder of Good Pizza, a nonprofit initiative Ben founded out of his apartment during the pandemic to raise money for hunger relief. Good Pizza was featured on the Ellen Show, Barstool Sports, NBC News, and more and is now the entrepreneurship program at Philadelphia's largest hunger relief organization, Philabundance.

Previously, Ben spent his corporate years as a management consultant with Deloitte, advising clients on their go-to-market strategies for new product launches, and at Amazon as a Senior Product Manager on the Operations and Logistics team. Ben also holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Staci Warden

Chief Executive Officer, Algorand Foundation

Staci Warden is the CEO of the Algorand Foundation, an organization dedicated to enabling an inclusive, decentralized, and borderless global economy - at scale - based on the Algorand blockchain technology. Prior to her current role, Staci was on the executive team of the Milken Institute, a leading financial think tank, where she led its work on capital market development, crypto/blockchain solutions, and innovative finance. Before Milken, Staci led JPMorgan’s EMEA public sector practice out of London and worked in sovereign debt capital markets in New York. Before JPM, she ran the Nasdaq’s two markets for microcap companies. She has also had senior roles at the U.S. Treasury Department, the Center for Global Development, and the Harvard Institute for International Development.

Staci has done business and worked with governments in more than 50 countries and has advised and spoken widely on the potential for crypto/blockchain to solve real-world problems and improve global inclusion. She sits on the Boards of the Global Blockchain Business Council, the Rwandan Capital Market Authority (Chair), and the Energy for Growth Hub. She serves on the advisory committees of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the European Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee (STOA), the U.S. Financial Technology Association, and Evolution Environmental Asset Management.

Chika Uwazie

Co-Founder, Afropolitan

Chika is a cofounder of Afropolitan, the first network state for the African diaspora. She is also the founder of the second-largest women's group on clubhouse with over 170K members. A serial entrepreneur that has been in the tech ecosystem for ten years, formerly as the CEO of Talenbase.

She has been featured on BBC, Wired, Tech Crunch, and Forbes for her work as a serial entrepreneur. Further, Chika has spoken globally at World Economic Forum, The Economist Summit, Cannes Lions, SXSW, and the UN, to name a few.

Ryan Tolkin

Chief Executive Officer & Chief Investment Officer, Schonfeld

Ryan Tolkin is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Schonfeld Strategic Advisors and a member of the three-person Executive Committee. Ryan joined the Firm in 2013 and is responsible for firmwide strategic initiatives, investment, risk, and business development teams, as well as capital allocation decisions. Prior to joining Schonfeld, from 2008 to 2013, Ryan worked as a part of the Corporate Credit Trading team at Goldman Sachs where he was responsible for mapping the Energy/Utilities and REITs portfolios. He graduated in 2008 from Duke University with a degree in economics and both Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude honors.

Peter Smith

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Blockchain.com

Peter is CEO and co-founder of Blockchain.com, one of the world’s largest and most popular crypto platforms, serving tens of millions of consumers and thousands of institutions since 2011. Evolving from early Bitcoiner to developer to CEO of a multinational company, Peter has worked tirelessly to accelerate crypto adoption and build a financial system for the internet.

Under his leadership, Blockchain.com has emerged as a leading provider of cryptocurrency products and services to retail customers and institutional clients alike. The company balances a robust retail brokerage of over 80M crypto wallets across 200 countries, a thriving exchange, and one of the largest institutional desks in the crypto space. 

After a modest upbringing in rural America, Peter developed a global perspective living, studying, and working in the US, Europe, MENA, East Africa, and Asia. A World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, he is frequently cited as an authority on cryptocurrencies and the potential impact they’ll have across the world.

Jasmine Richards

Head, Diverse Manager Research, Cambridge Associates

Jasmine joined Cambridge Associates in 2018 as Head of Diverse Manager Research to lead the firm’s ongoing initiative to identify and research investment managers in all public and private asset classes that have underrepresented owners or leaders, including women and people of color. She has over fifteen years of both buy and sell side experience. Prior to joining Cambridge Associates, Ms. Richards worked at Xponance (formerly FIS Group) where she was responsible for identifying and managing investment strategies, with an emphasis on diverse-owned asset managers. She is a frequent contributor to industry initiatives and events providing thought leadership on the diverse manager space.

Jasmine holds an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business where she concentrated in Finance, Accounting and Strategic Management. While at University of Chicago, she also studied Emerging Markets at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She also attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the New York Institute of Technology for her undergraduate education. She is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Boston. In addition to her professional responsibilities, Jasmine also serves on the Board of Trustees for Middlesex School, the Investment Committee for Rosie’s Place and the Advisory Board for the Boston Youth Symphony.

Brooke Masters

US Investment & Industry Editor, Financial Times

Brooke Masters is US Investment and Industry Editor and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times. She leads news coverage of American nonbank finance and writes a biweekly column on global business for the opinion section. She joined the FT in New York in 2006 from the Washington Post and recently returned to the US after spending more than a decade in the FT’s London headquarters. There, she served as chief business commentator, opinion and analysis editor and companies editor. Over the course of her career, she has covered politics, criminal justice, education, financial services, regulation and white-collar crime. The author of a book about Eliot Spitzer, she earned degrees from Harvard University and the London School of Economics and is the mother of two grown children.