Speaker | SALT Talks

Alex Rampell

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General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

Alex Rampell is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he focuses on financial services. He serves on the board of Branch, Brightside, Descript, Divvy, Earnin, FlyHomes, Loft, Mercury, PeerStreet, Point, Propel, Sentilink, Super Evil Mega Corp, Transferwise, and Very Good Security.

Alex additionally led the firm's investments in OpenDoor ($OPEN), Plaid, Quantopian (acquired by Robinhood), and Rival (acquired by LiveNation).

Prior to joining the firm, Alex co-founded multiple companies including Affirm ($AFRM), which he co-founded with Max Levchin, FraudEliminator (acquired by McAfee in 2006), Point, TrialPay (acquired by Visa in 2015), TXN (acquired by Envestnest in 2019), and Yub (acquired by Coupons.com in 2013).

He holds a BA in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Harvard University.

Jon Najarian

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Co-Founder, Najarian Advisors

Jon ‘DRJ’ Najarian was linebacker for the Chicago Bears before he turned to another kind of contact sport – trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. He became a member of the CBOE, NYSE, CME and CBOT and worked as a floor trader for some 25 years. In 1990 he founded Mercury Trading, a market-making firm at the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), which he sold in 2004 to Citadel, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. In 2005 Jon co-founded optionMONSTER and tradeMONSTER. He partnered with private equity firm General Atlantic Partners in 2014 and they sold the firm to E*Trade for $750 million in September of 2016. Today, he is a professional investor, money manager and media analyst. Jon has earned a reputation in the industry as an options trading expert and pioneer. He developed and patented trading applications and algorithms used to identify unusual activity in stock, options, and futures markets. optionMONSTER, the options news and education site he co-founded, was described by Securities Industry News as “content king of the options business.” For years, tradeMONSTER was consistently rated “Best for Options Traders” by Barron’s and was the first online broker to deploy streaming, desktop-like trading in a web browser. Jon can be seen weekly on CNBC, where he is cast member of the “Halftime Report” and “Fast Money” shows. Jon and Pete invest in and work with start-ups via Rebellion Partners, a venture consulting firm they launched in 2015. In 2016, Jon and Pete co-founded Market Rebellion, a company focused on educating the individual investor.

Dan Morehead

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Chief Executive Officer, Pantera Capital

Dan founded Pantera Capital in 2003 – managing a billion dollars in hedge fund strategies.  He previously served as Head of Macro Trading and CFO at Tiger Management with Julian Robertson.  Dan began his career as a Collateralized Mortgage Obligation trader at Goldman Sachs.  Dan graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a B.S. in Structural Engineering and received the Carmichael Prize for his thesis.

Pantera Capital is the first institutional investment firm focused exclusively on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem.  Pantera launched the first cryptocurrency fund in the United States when bitcoin was at $65/BTC in 2013.  The firm subsequently launched the first exclusively-blockchain venture fund.  In 2017, Pantera was the first firm to offer an early-stage token fund.  Pantera Bitcoin Fund has returned over 66,100% in eight years and has returned billions to its investors.  Pantera manages $4.7bn across three strategies – passive, hedge, and venture – exclusively focused on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem.

Brett Messing

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Partner, President & Chief Operating Officer, SkyBridge

Brett S. Messing is a Partner and the President and Chief Operating Officer of SkyBridge. He began his career at Goldman Sachs where he held various positions including Vice President and Co-Head of the Restricted Stock Group. Thereafter, he was a partner at Oscar Capital Management, which was acquired by Neuberger Berman, LLC. Following the successful integration of the business, Mr. Messing founded GPS Partners, a $2.5 billion hedge fund at its peak, which focused primarily in the energy infrastructure sector. Mr. Messing was the firm’s Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer. Thereafter, Mr. Messing worked for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villariagosa as Co-Chief Operating Officer responsible for economic and business policy. Mr. Messing served as a Senior Advisor to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at C40 Cities, a joint venture with the Clinton Climate Initiative. Mr. Messing is the Terence M. Considine Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard Law School. He is the co-author of The Forewarned Investor and contributed to Learning from the Global Financial Crisis - Creatively, Reliably and Sustainably, a compendium published by Stanford Business School. Mr. Messing received his A.B. from Brown University, magna cum laude, and his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.

Sal Khan

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Founder, Khan Academy

Sal Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone anywhere. Khan Academy's content and mastery learning platform has over 71 million registered users from all over the world and has been localized into over 30 languages.

Sal holds three degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard. He has been profiled by 60 Minutes, was the only non-profit leader ever profiled on the cover of Forbes and recognized as one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Chris Hentemann

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Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, 400 Capital

Chris founded 400CM in October 2008 and heads the Firm’s Investment and Operating Committees. Prior to 400CM, Chris was the Head of Global Structured Products at Banc of America Securities (“BAS”) where he led the strategy for lending, securitization, trading, sales, research and investment management of residential and commercial mortgage, asset-backed, CLO, tax and credit derivatives. Prior to joining BAS, Chris spent two years as at Salomon Brothers Inc. as a Vice President and senior trader in residential mortgage securities, CMO’s and derivatives. Chris began his career at CS First Boston where he was responsible for trading and structuring residential mortgage securities, CMO’s and derivatives. Chris serves on the Board of Directors for Renovate America, a private clean energy finance and technology company based in San Diego and chairs the Audit Committee, as well as the Board of Directors for InterNex Capital, a digital asset-based lender located New York City which provides working capital financing to small and medium sized businesses. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Boston College Wall Street Council and the Henrik Lundqvist Foundation. Chris graduated from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in Finance.

Clayton DeGiacinto

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Founder & Managing Partner, Axonic Capital

Mr. DeGiacinto is the Founder and Managing Partner of Axonic Capital LLC, a $2.6 billion independent investment management firm focused on structured credit and systematic fixed income opportunities. He serves as the Chief Investment Officer for the firm’s investment funds and commercial lending business.

Prior to founding Axonic Capital LLC in 2010, Mr. DeGiacinto was responsible for building out the mortgage investment platform at Tower Research Capital and was the Senior Portfolio Manager for Split Level LLC, the predecessor fund to the Axonic Credit Opportunities Funds. From 2002 to 2008, Mr. DeGiacinto was Vice President in the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Group at Goldman Sachs.

He previously served as an Army Ranger and Captain in the US Army 25th Infantry Division from 1995 to 2000. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds an MBA from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the Board of Directors of Team Rubicon, Inc.

The Honorable Stephen K. Benjamin

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Mayor of Columbia, South Carolina

At 29 years old in 1999, Benjamin was appointed to Governor Jim Hodges' cabinet as director of the state's second largest law enforcement agency, the Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. Mayor Benjamin has continued his service to the community in serving on numerous boards for nonprofit organizations such as the Columbia Urban League, Benedict College, the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce and as a founding board member of the Eau Claire Promise Zone. He also served as a founding member of Choose Children First and chief legal counsel for Midlands Crimestoppers. In 2009, Benjamin drew national attention by representing prominent radio host Tom Joyner and securing a pardon for Joyner's great uncles wrongfully convicted in the death of a 73-year-old Confederate veteran and executed in 1913. In a landmark decision, the South Carolina Board of Paroles and Pardons voted unanimously to grant the posthumous pardon, the first for South Carolina in a capital case. Reelected by a 30 percent margin in November 2013, Mayor Benjamin's administration has been characterized by his firm belief in Columbia's potential and intense focus on job creation. In his first term alone, his leadership helped cut unemployment in the metro by roughly half and secured billions of dollars in new regional capital investment in the midst of a national recession.

Combined with the rebirth of Main Street, these accomplishments have drawn national attention and accolades including his being awarded an Aspen Rodel Fellowship and receiving an Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Francis Marion University. He has twice been named to The Washington Post's "The Root 100 List” (2011 and 2013) as well as the 2014 GRIO 100 and was honored to receive a 2014 Triumph Award from the National Action Network as their 2014 Public Servant of the Year. As part of his commitment to fostering a world class police department in the City, Mayor Benjamin introduced the “Justice for All” initiative in 2014, which implemented new training, competitive pay, diverse representation and community engagement to strengthen the foundation of trust and accountability that exists between our communities and law enforcement agencies.

President Obama’s administration has also commended Mayor Benjamin on his work on behalf of My Brother’s Keeper (MBK). The city’s MBK efforts, in addition to Mayor Benjamin’s leadership, have led to Columbia being seen as a nationwide leader in implementing and upholding the missions of the program. Mayor Benjamin was asked to speak at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, where he talked about the importance of instilling in his daughters that they can do anything they set their minds to, even becoming President of the United States. In December 2017, Mayor Benjamin initiated city ordinance 2017-109, which banned the attachment of bump stocks and trigger cranks in the City of Columbia, making Columbia the first city in the nation to do so. He is a firm believer in common sense bipartisan leadership and endeavors to implement policies and programming that provide the best course of action for city residents.

In addition to serving as Mayor of Columbia, Mayor Benjamin also serves as President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and as Chairman for Municipal Bonds for America. He teaches a class at the University of South Carolina Honors College and Columbia College titled “Columbia, South Carolina: Building a Great City” and is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi and Sigma Pi Phi fraternities.

Mayor Benjamin is married to the Honorable DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, Chief Administrative Judge (Common Pleas) for South Carolina's Fifth Judicial Circuit. The two are the proud parents of daughters Bethany (13) and Jordan Grace (11).

Joshua S. Friedman

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Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer, Canyon Partners

Joshua S. Friedman is Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC, a leading global alternative asset management firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Canyon specializes in value-oriented investments for endowments, foundations, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors. Its investment strategies focus on distressed loans, corporate bonds, convertible bonds, securitized assets, direct investments, real estate, arbitrage, and value equities. Canyon Partners’ flagship fund, the Canyon Value Realization Fund, twice received Institutional Investor’s “Credit-Focused Hedge Fund Manager of the Year” Award. Additionally, the Canyon Structured Asset Fund received Institutional Investor’s “Hybrid Hedge Fund of the Year” Award. Mr. Friedman has also received Institutional Investor’s “Lifetime Achievement” Award.

Mr. Friedman is a graduate of Harvard College (1976) (B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Physics), Oxford University (1978) (M.A., honors, Politics and Economics, Marshall Scholar), Harvard Business School (1980) (M.B.A., Baker Scholar) and Harvard Law School (1982) (J.D., magna cum laude). Prior to forming Canyon, Mr. Friedman was Director of Capital Markets for High Yield and Private Placements at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Prior to working at Drexel, he worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of Goldman Sachs in New York.

Mr. Friedman is a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard Management Company. He is also a member of Harvard’s Committee on University Resources; the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors; the Harvard University Campaign Executive Committee; the Southern California Leadership Council for Harvard Law School; and the Harvard University Task Force on Science and Engineering. Mr. Friedman serves as a Trustee for the California Institute of Technology (Caltech); the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Mr. Friedman is a member of the Investment Committees for the Broad Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Trust and chairs the Caltech Investment Committee and the LACMA Finance Committee. Mr. Friedman also serves on the Boards of Advisors of the UCLA Hospital Department of Neurosurgery and the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Mr. Friedman and his wife, Beth, live in Los Angeles and have three sons.

Chamath Palihapitiya

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Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Social Capital

Chamath Palihapitiya is Founder and CEO of Social Capital, whose mission is to advance humanity by solving the world’s hardest problems. Social Capital is a technology holding company that backs breakthrough companies in areas including healthcare, artificial intelligence, climate change and space. Before founding Social Capital, Chamath was a member of the senior executive team at Facebook and a key driver in making it one of the most important companies in the world. Prior to Facebook, Chamath held leadership positions at Mayfield Fund, AOL and Winamp. He was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Canada, and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo. Chamath is also Owner and Director of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

Sam Zell

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Founder & Chairman, Equity Group Investments

Sam Zell is a global, industry-agnostic entrepreneur and investor. He has a long track record of turning around troubled companies and assets, leading industry consolidations, and bringing companies to the public markets. His current investments are in: energy, logistics, manufacturing, communications, healthcare, and real estate.

Sam is the Chairman of Equity Group Investments, the private investment firm he founded more than 45 years ago. He also chairs five companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange: Equity Residential, the largest apartment REIT in the country; Equity LifeStyle Properties, a manufactured home community and resort REIT; Equity Commonwealth, an office REIT; Covanta Holding Corporation, an international owner/operator of energy-from-waste and power generation facilities; and Anixter International Inc., a leading global provider of communications, security, and wire and cable products.

Sam also founded and chaired Equity Office Properties Trust, the largest office REIT until its 2007 sale for $39 billion in the largest leveraged buyout at the time. In addition, he introduced the first Brazilian and Mexican real estate companies, respectively, to the New York Stock Exchange through Equity International, a second private investment firm he founded to focus on real estate-related businesses in emerging markets.

Sam is an active philanthropist with a focus on entrepreneurial education. Through the Zell Family Foundation, he has led the sponsorship of several leading entrepreneurship programs, including: the Zell/Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business; the Zell Fellows Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management; and the Zell Entrepreneurship Center at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC). The Zell Global Entrepreneur Network (ZGEN) unites the students and alumni of these programs and actively provides them with connections, opportunities, mentorship and support. Sam also sponsors the Samuel Zell/Robert Lurie Real Estate Center at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Real Estate Center. He holds a JD degree and a BA from the University of Michigan.

Sam represents the REIT industry on the New York Stock Exchange’s “Wall of Innovators.” He was recognized in 2017 by Forbes as one of the 100 Greatest Living Business Minds. Also in 2017, Sam debuted his book, Am I Being Too Subtle? (Penguin RandomHouse), in which he shares fundamentals and philosophies that made him a self-made billionaire.

Michael Novogratz

Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Galaxy Digital

Michael Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital. He was formerly a Partner and President of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Prior to Fortress, Mr. Novogratz spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was elected Partner in 1998. Mr. Novogratz served on the New York Federal Reserve’s Investment Advisory Committee on Financial Markets from 2012 – 2015. Mr. Novogratz serves as the Chairman of The Bail Project and has made criminal justice reform a focus of his family’s foundation. He also sits on the Board of Overseers at NYU Langone Medical Center and is a board member of Princeton Varsity Club and Jazz Foundation of America. Mr. Novogratz received an AB in Economics from Princeton University and served as a helicopter pilot in the US Army.

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee

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Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Sinovation Ventures

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is the Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and President of Sinovation Venture’s Artificial Intelligence Institute. Sinovation Ventures, managing US$2 billion dual currency investment funds, is a leading venture capital firm focusing on developing the next generation of Chinese high-tech companies. Prior to founding Sinovation in 2009, Dr. Lee was the President of Google China. Previously, he held executive positions at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple. Dr. Lee received his Bachelor degree from Computer Science from Columbia University, Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Honorary Doctorate Degrees from both Carnegie Mellon and the City University of Hong Kong. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Times 100 in 2013, WIRED 25 Icons, Asian Business Leader 2018 by Asia House, and followed by over 50 million audiences on social media.

In the field of artificial intelligence, Dr. Lee built one of the first game playing programs to defeat a world champion (1988, Othello), as well as the world’s first large-vocabulary, speaker-independent continuous speech recognition system. Dr. Lee founded Microsoft Research China, which was named as the hottest research lab by MIT Technology Review. Later renamed Microsoft Research Asia, this institute trained the great majority of AI leaders in China, including CTOs or AI heads at Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, Lenovo, Huawei, and Haier. While with Apple, Dr. Lee led AI projects in speech and natural language, which have been featured on Good Morning America on ABC Television and the front page of Wall Street Journal. He has authored 10 U.S. patents, and more than 100 journal and conference papers. Altogether, Dr. Lee has been in artificial intelligence research, development, and investment for more than 30 years. His New York Time and Wall Street Journal bestselling book AI Superpowers discusses US-China co-leadership in the age of AI as well as the greater societal impacts brought upon by the AI technology revolution.

Steve Case

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Revolution; Chairman, Case Foundation; Co-Founder, AOL

Steve Case is one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and a pioneer in making the Internet part of everyday life.  Case co-founded AOL in 1985 and under his leadership and vision, AOL became the largest and most valuable Internet company, driving the worldwide adoption of a medium that has transformed business and society.

Case is Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a Washington, D.C.- based investment firm that backs entrepreneurs at every stage of their development. Revolution Growth has invested nearly $1 billion in growth-stage companies including Sweetgreen, Tempus, DraftKings, and Clear. Revolution Ventures has backed more than two dozen venture-stage companies, including Framebridge and PolicyGenius. The Rise of the Rest Seed Fund has invested in more than 200 startups in over 100 U.S. cities, in partnership with many of America’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors. 

Steve’s passion for helping entrepreneurs remains his driving force. Recently named co-chair of the National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Council will advise on the development of a National Entrepreneurship Strategy and continue to support policies that will ensure America’s competitiveness globally. In 2011, he was the founding chair of the Startup America Partnership—an effort launched at the White House to accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation—and member of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness where he chaired the subcommittee on entrepreneurship. 

He is also the author of the forthcoming book Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream as well as New York Times bestselling book The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future.

Michael Vranos

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Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Ellington Management Group

Mr. Vranos founded Ellington in December of 1994 to capitalize on distressed conditions in the MBS derivatives market. Until December 1994, Mr. Vranos was the Senior Managing Director of Kidder Peabody in charge of RMBS trading. With Mr. Vranos as head trader and senior manager, Kidder Peabody’s MBS department became a leader on Wall Street in CMO underwriting for each of the three years between 1991 and 1993. Mr. Vranos began his Wall Street career in 1983, after graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Harvard University. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Boys and Girls Harbor, Hedge Funds Care, and the Waterside School, and is an emeritus member of the Board of the Stamford Shelter for the Homeless. Mr. Vranos was raised in Ellington, Connecticut.

Stergios Voskopoulos

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Chief Executive Officer, Kanoo Capital

Mr. Stergios Voskopoulos is the CEO of Kanoo Capital, the Investment Division within YBA Kanoo, one of the largest and oldest family conglomerates in the Middle East. As CEO of Kanoo Capital, Mr. Voskopoulos is responsible for the active management of direct and indirect investments regionally and globally.

Mr. Voskopoulos has worked in the Gulf Region for over 10 years, and has over 20 years of global experience in the areas of Asset Management, Private Equity and M&A, including AIG Global Investment Group, Barclays, Investcorp and Seera Investment Bank. Mr. Voskopoulos has also been a serial entrepreneur himself and a speaker in several global summits in topics around investment management, family offices, global affairs and business. He has an MBA in Finance & Investments from Zicklin School of Business in New York and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Athens and speaks six languages having lived and worked in seven countries.

Noor Sweid

Founder, Global Ventures

Noor is the Founder and Managing Partner of Global Ventures, a UAE-based, Series-A focused, emerging-market venture capital firm with presence in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. With $200 million AUM, and financial returns rating it as a top decile fund, Global Ventures has become a leading investor across the Middle East and Africa.

Since its inception in 2018, Global Ventures has completed 50 investments across ten markets, deliberately focused on sectors positively affecting millions of lives across the world, such as FinTech, Digital Health, EdTech and AgriTech. In addition to generating top decile returns, the portfolio has had a demonstrable impact on millions of lives through its company founders creating 7,200 jobs, enabling female leadership, powering financial inclusion for over 27 million people and expanding healthcare access to over 4 million patients.

Prior to Global Ventures, Noor was the first woman to operate, scale and IPO a company in the MENA region, listing Depa on NASDAQ Dubai and the London Stock Exchange for US$1.1 billion in April 2008. One of the world’s largest interior contractors, Noor scaled Depa tenfold, expanding operations from six countries to 22, including four cross-border acquisitions.

Identified by Forbes as one of the “World’s Top 50 Women in Tech” and by Arabian Business as one of the “Most Influential Arabs”, Noor's previous roles include Chief Investment Officer at The Dubai Future Foundation and a Founding Partner at Leap Ventures. Noor also founded the largest chain of yoga and pilates studios in the Middle East, ZenYoga, which was acquired by Cedarbridge in 2014.

Noor is an active, independent board director of Clue, the largest femtech company in Europe, and VAM Acquisitions Corp., a US based special purpose acquisition vehicle focused on the space ecosystem. She is the Founding Chairwoman of the Middle East Venture Capital Association, a Director of the Global Private Capital Association, TechWadi, and the Karman Fellowship.

She is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. She previously held Board Director roles at MIT Sloan and was a founding board member of Endeavor UAE.

Noor holds Bachelors’ degrees in Finance and Economics from Boston College, an MBA from MIT Sloan.Noor is the Founder and Managing Partner of Global Ventures, a UAE-based, Series-A focused, emerging-market venture capital firm with presence in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. With $200 million AUM, and financial returns rating it as a top decile fund, Global Ventures has become a leading investor across the Middle East and Africa.

Since its inception in 2018, Global Ventures has completed 50 investments across ten markets, deliberately focused on sectors positively affecting millions of lives across the world, such as FinTech, Digital Health, EdTech and AgriTech. In addition to generating top decile returns, the portfolio has had a demonstrable impact on millions of lives through its company founders creating 7,200 jobs, enabling female leadership, powering financial inclusion for over 27 million people and expanding healthcare access to over 4 million patients.

Prior to Global Ventures, Noor was the first woman to operate, scale and IPO a company in the MENA region, listing Depa on NASDAQ Dubai and the London Stock Exchange for US$1.1 billion in April 2008. One of the world’s largest interior contractors, Noor scaled Depa tenfold, expanding operations from six countries to 22, including four cross-border acquisitions.

Identified by Forbes as one of the “World’s Top 50 Women in Tech” and by Arabian Business as one of the “Most Influential Arabs”, Noor's previous roles include Chief Investment Officer at The Dubai Future Foundation and a Founding Partner at Leap Ventures. Noor also founded the largest chain of yoga and pilates studios in the Middle East, ZenYoga, which was acquired by Cedarbridge in 2014.

Noor is an active, independent board director of Clue, the largest femtech company in Europe, and VAM Acquisitions Corp., a US based special purpose acquisition vehicle focused on the space ecosystem. She is the Founding Chairwoman of the Middle East Venture Capital Association, a Director of the Global Private Capital Association, TechWadi, and the Karman Fellowship.

She is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. She previously held Board Director roles at MIT Sloan and was a founding board member of Endeavor UAE.

Noor holds Bachelors’ degrees in Finance and Economics from Boston College, an MBA from MIT Sloan.

Anthony Scaramucci

Founder & Managing Partner, SkyBridge

Anthony Scaramucci is the Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital. He is the author of four books: The Little Book of Hedge Funds, Goodbye Gordon Gekko, Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole (a 2016 Wall Street Journal best seller), and Trump: The Blue-Collar President.

Prior to founding SkyBridge in 2005, Scaramucci co-founded investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold to Neuberger Berman, LLC in 2001. Earlier, he was a vice president in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs & Co.

In 2016, Scaramucci was ranked #85 in Worth Magazine’s Power 100: The 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. In 2011, he received Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year – New York” Award in the Financial Services category. Anthony is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), vice chair of the Kennedy Center Corporate Fund Board, a board member of both The Brain Tumor Foundation and Business Executives for National Security (BENS), and a Trustee of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Foundation. He was a member of the New York City Financial Services Advisory Committee from 2007 to 2012.

In November 2016, he was named to President-Elect Trump’s 16-person Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee. In June 2017, he was named the Chief Strategy Officer of the EXIM Bank. He served as the White House Communications Director for a period in July 2017.

Scaramucci, a native of Long Island, New York, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Tufts University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.

Gabrielle “Ellie” Rubenstein

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Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Manna Tree Partners

Gabrielle “Ellie” Rubenstein has over 10 years of experience in asset management, including as a Partner with a well-known, high net worth individual in Los Angeles, as Co-Founder of Pt Holdings, an arctic asset manager headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, and as a founding investor of the Alaska Angel Investment Network. As a member of a prominent family of asset managers, Ellie has been involved and mentored in the industry since a young age.

Ellie holds a MS-MBA in Food and Agribusiness Management, a dual degree program that awards an MS in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University and an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. While studying at Indiana University, she was honored to be accepted into the Tobias Leadership Fellows program. Ellie attended Harvard University where she received a BA in Sociology with an honors thesis on Philanthropy and was a Varsity Ski Racer. Having experienced the healing power of food and the outdoors in her own life, she also earned a graduate certificate in Mind-Body-Wellness from UCLA’s Center for East-West Medicine, and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

Ellie’s role as CEO includes driving a strong culture toward the firms billion dollar vision to revolutionize the food supply chain. She leads the firms fundraising efforts and is a member of the Investment Committee. Her expertise of global food systems and international network creates meaningful value for Manna Tree Partners Fund investors.

An active philanthropist, Ellie was awarded a Presidential Volunteerism Medal, currently serves on the American Red Cross as Lead Volunteer Advisor for Service to Armed Forces at its national headquarters, and as Board Member of the Mission and Outreach Committee at the American Red Cross of Alaska. Ellie also serves on various local boards and initiatives focused on the Military, Public Policy, Health, and Education.

Ellie is an avid hunter and fisher and spends much of her free time on the shores or in the woods pursuing protein sources. A self-described ‘foodie’, Ellie enjoys nothing more than sharing the nutritious food she has harvested with family and friends.

David Rubenstein

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Co-Founder & Co-Chairman, The Carlyle Group

David M. Rubenstein is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. Established in 1987, Carlyle now manages $276 billion from 27 offices around the world.

Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Economic Club of Washington; a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation; a Trustee of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Constitution Center, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; and a Director of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Rubenstein is a member of the American Philosophical Society, Business Council, Harvard Global Advisory Council (Chairman), Madison Council of the Library of Congress (Chairman), Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Business School at Harvard, Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University (former Chairman), and Board of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community.

Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Duke University and the Smithsonian Institution, and Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution.

Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, a significant donor to all of the above-mentioned non-profit organizations, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards.

Mr. Rubenstein is a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Mr. Rubenstein has also provided to the U.S. government long-term loans of his rare copies of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the first map of the U.S. (Abel Buell map), and the first book printed in the U.S. (Bay Psalm Book).

Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS and Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV; and the author of The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians, a book published by Simon & Schuster in October 2019, and How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers, a book published by Simon & Schuster in September 2020.

Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

From 1973-1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975-1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1977-1981, during the Carter Administration, Mr. Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman).