Future of Money & Technology Summit: Speakers

Bill is considered by many to be completely insane. That’s fine with him. Bill loves to talk about money and hopes that the world starts looking at money and payment in a completely new way over the coming years. Connected, always on devices mean financial inclusion for the majority of people on our world that have never seen a credit card or even had a bank account but now have a mobile phone. At m-Via, Bill and his team are creating an entirely new category of mobile payments for unbanked consumers in the Americas. Bill has been a pioneer in Internet and Mobile technologies for 20+ years. In 2000 the World Economic Forum recognized Bill as one of the original group of 30 technology pioneers for his work in Internet technologies at WebSentric. Bill worked on some of the earliest Internet/Web payment services projects as Technical Director for Netscape and learned the inner workings of money at Goldman Sachs in their Fixed Income Group. Bill’s other passion is for baseball which unfortunately he isn’t very good at which has relegated him to being a baseball stats freak and mediocre coach. It is Bill’s sincere hope that the financial center of our Universe migrates from Manhattan to Silicon Valley and that the Yankees make the same migration.

David Barrett – Expensify, Founder & CEO

David Barrett is the founder and CEO of Expensify, making the world a better place one expense report at a time. Prior to Expensify David went through the startup grinder several times (most successfully with Red Swoosh, acquired by Akamai in April 2007), bouncing between technical and management roles. David is perhaps best known for his high-profile termination from his previous employer, which not only earned him his own dedicated TechCrunch story, but was the subject of an MIT ethics debate regarding the boundaries between personal and professional communications. David is an avid tea drinker and world traveler, is engaged to an opera singer, and has the cutest beagle puppy known to man.

Pelle Braendgaard – OpenTransact, Co-Creator

Pelle Braendgaard is a Miami based cofounder of Agree2 a site for negotiating and signing agreements. He has been involved with payment and financial technologies for over a decade. Pelle is currently one of the main evangelists for OpenTransact which aims to create a common open standard for payments and other financial transactions. Previously he was CTO for VeraxPay in Panama and has consulted for investment banks in Europe as well as internet startups throughout the US.

Greg Brogger – SharesPost, Founder/CEO

Greg Brogger is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and Chief Executive Officer of SharesPost, Inc. SharesPost was built to bring the benefits of a modern communications platform to the private equity industry and liquidity to its participants. The SharesPost community of private equity buyers and sellers numbers more than seven thousand members and represents more than $40 billion in managed capital. Prior to SharesPost, Greg founded BrightHouse, Inc., a Santa Monica based incubator and investment vehicle for early stage companies. Previously, Greg co-founded Zag.com, Inc. a next generation online auto buying platform as well as CarsDirect.com (now called Internet Brands – Nasdaq: INET). Prior to that, Greg was Idealab’s VP of Business Development. Greg began his career advising early stage technology companies as an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Greg received his B.A. from U.C., Berkeley, his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from The Wharton School.

Cathy Brooks – Other Than That, Principal

Her first grade report card said it all. “Cathy likes to participate in any project, so long as she gets to talk.” That hasn’t changed. As a Journalist, Cathy’s experience encompasses reporting, writing, editing, broadcast management, and media training and strategy development – with an emphasis on helping clients work with the broadcast media.

Currently running her own consulting firm in San Francisco, Cathy works with companies and individuals helping them navigate the crowded waterways of new technologies with the express purpose of leveraging these rapidly evolving platforms to tell their stories. Through workshops, seminars and strategic consulting services, Cathy walks clients through the story-telling process and towards the kind of deep engagement that comes from truly authentic communication. Every week Cathy brings these discussions to life on Social Media Hour, a live, call-in, talk show on which industry leaders and average folks share their experiences and tell their stories. The program, for which Cathy is Executive Producer and Host, puts new technologies in human terms, and gives the audience a chance to interact via text chat and phone.

Jeff Clavier – SoftTech VC, Founder/Managing Partner

Based in Palo Alto, California, Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. Since 2004, Jeff has invested in more than 70 consumer Internet companies in areas like social media, communities, search, gaming or consumer infrastructure, almost exclusively in Silicon Valley. With over 20 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience, Jeff is able to add relevant perspective and value to his companies as they grow from inception to maturity, and hopefully, success.

In 2007, Jeff was recognized as one of the 13 “Web 2.0 King Makers” by (late) Business 2.0, and in 2008, BusinessWeek named him one of “The 25 Most Influential People on the Web”. He is often noted for his investments in categories such as “passion-centric communities” or online gaming, or for having sold a number of his Web 2.0 startups to the likes of Yahoo, AOL, Intuit or more recently Twitter.

Charles Eisenstein – The Ascent of Humanity, Author

Charles Eisenstein is the Author of The Ascent of Humanity and several other books, and is a contributor to the popular website Reality Sandwich. Charles graduated from Yale University with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, and spent 10 years in Taiwan serving as a translator and editor of Chinese language publications.

Betsy Flanagan – Wells Fargo Bank, Online Marketing Manager

Betsy Flanagan is the Online Marketing Manager at Wells Fargo Bank. She is also content creator and producer for StartupStudio.com, AllBusiness.com and University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business. Previous experience includes venture capital, investor relations, internet strategy, product management, wealth management and founder of Georgetown Tutors, a college prep/tutoring center (www.learnglc.com).

Mark Goldstein, Home Account, Founder / CEO

Mark H. Goldstein is the Founder/CEO of Home-Account. Mark, a recognized expert in consumer loyalty services and best customer management systems, is also the Co-founder and Chairman of Loyalty Lab Inc. A five-time serial entrepreneur, he co-founded BlueLight.com and served as its President and CEO. During his tenure at BlueLight, he launched its successful e-commerce shopping site, built its private label internet service to almost seven million members and installed 3,600 kiosks in Kmart stores.

Prior to his experience with the national retailer, Mark served as VP of Shopping at Inktomi (now a part of Yahoo), a software company that acquired Impulse! Buy Network, a web merchandising specialist that he founded in 1997 as its CEO. Earlier, Mark founded NetAngels, a web profiling firm (now a part of Microsoft), and before that he founded online gaming and trading firm Reality Online (now part of Reuters) where he served as President for over seven years. Mark has served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at both New Enterprise Associates and SOFTBANK Venture Capital. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where he attended the Wharton School and today serves on the Penn Library Board of Overseers.

Mark is a current or former Board of Advisor or Director at Salesforce, Bluefly, Bix.com (now Yahoo!), SocialMedia, Stylehive, Rapleaf, NapaStyle, Hawkeye Brewing Technologies, TradePoint Solutions (now DemandTec) and CommerceHub and is active in a number of environmental causes.

Alex Gordon-Brander, Global Energy Bank, President and Founder

Alex Gordon-Brander, CFA, FRM, MSI(Dip.) is the President and Founder of the Global Energy Bank. He is a 17-year financial industry veteran whose career has included trading Japanese bonds, commercializing Structured Finance analytics and architecting a bond trading system which has traded over $1trn of US Corporate Bonds. In recent years, he has turned his entrepreneurial focus to energy and the environment, including drafting the Environmental Business strategy for Standard & Poor’s . He is a Principal of Algae Systems, a leading-edge renewable energy production company.

Vikas Gupta – Jambool, Founder/CEO

Vikas Gupta co-founded Jambool in 2006 with current CTO Reza Hussein. The company launched several popular Facebook applications in addition to the company’s flagship product, Social Gold™, an industry-leading virtual economy platform for online games, applications and virtual worlds. Social Gold enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, provide an unparalleled payments experience to their users, and optimize their virtual economy using robust analytics. As CEO, Vikas Gupta provides expertise in managing virtual economies and leads the management team with a focus on product vision and development. Prior to co-founding Jambool, Inc., Vikas spent 7 years at Amazon.com where he led the Payments group and Web services products – building one of the busiest transaction processing systems in the world. Vikas was also the lead inventor for Amazon.com’s Flexible Payments Service product. In 2004, Vikas co-founded Amazon.com’s India office in Bangalore, and oversaw the engineering teams. Vikas holds a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kanpur and a Master of Science in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

Sean Harper – CEO, TransFS

Sean is the co-founder and CEO of TransFS (Transparent Financial Services) – a comparison shopping website for business financial services. Prior to starting TransFS, Sean worked as a venture capitalist at Longworth Venture Partners and William Blair Capital Partners and as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Sean holds an A.B. in economics from the University of Chicago, where he also studied computer science and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Tara Hunt – Shwowp, Co-Founder, / “The Whuffie Factor”, Author

Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt, named as one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company Magazine, has spent >15 years living her life online. Tara understands how the participatory web is changing all of our relationships: B2C, B2B and C2C. She doesn’t believe in pushing messages or creating strong brands, only in the power of building relationships. Tara wrote the book The Whuffie Factor is working on her second book, Happiness as Your Business Model, speaks all over the world on the subject of online marketing and business strategy and is the co-founder and CEO of Shwowp, a startup launching in 2010.

Jessica Jackley, Kiva, Co-Founder

Jessica Jackley is co-founder of Kiva.org, the world’s first peer-to-peer online micro-lending website. Kiva.org allows internet users to lend as little as $25 to entrepreneurs in the developing world, providing affordable capital to start or expand a small business. In just three years Kiva has helped raise over $61 million and connected thousands of people across 120 countries. A graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Jackley’s work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Today Show. She brings a fresh perspective on the personal nature of giving and how new generation leaders can innovate through technology.

Dr. Paul Kedrosky- The Kauffman Foundation, Senior Fellow

Dr. Paul Kedrosky takes a close, skeptical and sometimes bemused look at the ever-changing worlds of business and technology. Dr. Kedrosky is an investor, writer, and entrepreneur. He is a sought-after speaker; an analyst for CNBC television; a columnist for TheStreet/RealMoney; and the editor of Infectious Greed, one of the best known business blogs. He is frequently quoted in major publications around the world.

Dr. Kedrosky is currently a Senior Fellow at The Kauffman Foundation, where he is focused on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the future of risk capital. He is also a strategist with Ten Asset Management, a southern California institutional money management firm using innovative quantitative techniques in capital markets. He is also a fellow and on the advisory board of the Berkeley Center for Innovative Financial Technology. He is an advisor to various other companies, institutional investors, and venture capital firms.

Dr. Kedrosky is also a professional seed investor, having run an innovative seed capital program based out of the highly-ranked University of California, San Diego. He has also been a venture partner at Ventures West, a large institutional venture capital firm.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Kedrosky founded the technology equity research practice at HSBC James Capel. As a highly-ranked technology equity analyst, transactions with which he was involved created in excess of a billion dollars in public market value. Dr. Kedrosky was one of the first analysts to cover Internet companies, as well as making early and timely calls in networking and communications.

Dr. Kedrosky has written influential columns and articles for the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Harvard Business Review, and others. He has also appeared on many media outlets, including CNN, PBS Newshour, ABC Nightline, and the New York Times, and he can be seen frequently on CNBC. Dr. Kedrosky financed and launched GrokSoup, widely recognized as one of the first hosted blogging services. Under his management, the company grew to be among the largest such services in the market. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario, an M.B.A. from Queen’s University, and a B. Engineering from Carleton University.

Andrew Kortina – Venmo, Co-Founder

Andrew founded Venmo with Iqram Magdon-Ismail, where he works on product development and customer support. Prior to Venmo, Kortina worked with Betaworks to help build Bit.ly, a tool for shortening and sharing links. Previously, he worked at OMGPOP, and Carrot Creative. He has consulted on social media strategy for brands such as MLB, Colbert Report, NBC, and The Onion. Kortina holds degrees in Philosophy and English from the University of Pennsylvania. For fun, Kortina crossfits and explores the lovely NYC.

Chris Lindstrom – Co-Founder, Social Labs

twitter: chrisrockstrom

Chris Lindstrom is a Co-Founder of Social Labs. Chris worked for the Schumacher Society from 2003 to 2008. He organized the Society’s June 2004 conference “Local Currencies in the Twenty-First Century: Understanding Money, Building Local Economies, Renewing Community.” The conference brought together 300 local currency theorists and activists from 17 countries in a seminal gathering. Chris is a founding board member of BerkShares, a local currency for the Southern Berkshire region. He is also a co-founder and member of the Fund for Complementary Currencies and a founding member of the Slow Money Alliance. In 2008 he helped organize the “Economics of Peace Conference” along with RSF Social Finance and the Praxis Peace Institute. He is also a passionate networker and bridge builder.

Erin Lozano – Green Sherpa, Co-founder & COO

Erin Lozano is co-founder and COO of Green Sherpa and is dedicated to inspiring women to live and spend authentically. Her 14 years of experience in cash flow analysis for businesses and individuals helped her formulate the basis for the Green Sherpa™ Personal Cash Flow Management™ solution. Previously, Erin served 6 years as CEO of Simplicity Services, a personal assistance service for the home that helped families organize their finances, bills and other personal living expenses. Having earned a BA in anthropology (focus: patterns of currency and trade) from UC Berkeley, Erin has gone on to run three businesses after studying advanced accounting as a post-grad at UC Berkeley. Over her career, she has built up experience as a real estate and economic development executive, having represented major personal financiers, investors and companies in a number of mid-range purchases throughout the US.

Erin blogs about money and parenthood at http://blog.greensherpa.com, where she touts living out of her backyard by buying locally, discovering the joys of cooking, and raising kids.

David Marcus – Zong, CEO

David Marcus is the founder and CEO of Zong, the leading mobile payment service used by online gaming and social networking web sites. Zong is featured in hundreds of top applications on popular social networks like Facebook and MySpace as well as leading virtual worlds and other online gaming sites, such as Gaia Online, IMVU and Outspark. An experienced entrepreneur, David has created a number of successful venture-backed businesses, including the first alternative telecom carrier in Switzerland, GTN telecom, which he launched in 1996. Under David’s leadership, GTN became one of the top three alternative carriers in Switzerland and was acquired by World Access in 2000. In 2003, David co-founded VOX telecom, a leading VoIP and wholesale carrier which services over 60% of the largest incumbent carriers globally. David also spearheaded the creation of echo6 in 2006, now one of the most successful mobile entertainment companies in France. In March 2008, David co-founded Twitterfone, the popular and free service that converts a voice message into Twitter updates from any mobile phone.

Karl Mehta is Founder & CEO of PlaySpan Inc, an Inc 500 fastest growing company and a leader in monetization platform for online games, social networks and new media. Karl brings over 18 years of experience to PlaySpan in founding, building and funding technology start-ups in the US and International markets.

Prior to founding PlaySpan, Karl was founding team at MobileAria Inc. (acquired by Wireless Matrix) based in Mountain View and co-founder/ CEO of OmniLabs Inc., based in Singapore and India. Prior to that, he held executive positions at Hughes leading new business and technology development.

Karl was selected “Entreprenuer of Year” 2009 finalist by E&Y for Northern California and is a Charter member of TiE-Silicon Valley and board member of Ecosystem Ventures.

Dave McClure – Founders Fund, Startup Investor

Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, blogger, and internet marketing nerd. Dave currently runs FF Angel, a seed-stage investment program for Founders Fund, and also manages the fbFund REV incubator program on behalf of Facebook, Accel Partners, and Founders Fund. Dave’s passion is helping startups with marketing, product strategy, and startup metrics, and he is an advisor or investor for over 30 companies including: Canopy Financial, CreditKarma, KissMetrics, Mashery, Mint, RichRelevance, Simply Hired, SlideShare, TeachStreet, and Twilio.

Jolie O’Dell- ReadWriteWeb, Writer, Community Manager

Jolie O’Dell is ReadWriteWeb’s Community Manager and a daily writer. In the past, O’Dell has worked on newspapers, on magazines, for book publishers, for serial entrepreneurs, on startup teams, at advertising and marketingagencies, and for enterprise blogs and websites. O’Dell has a B.A. in Media Studies from Shenandoah University.

Ben Parr – Mashable, Co-editor

Ben Parr is a respected tech journalist, web entrepreneur, sci-fi author, and aspiring world changer. He is currently Co-Editor at Mashable, the world’s leading online publication on social media and web technology. He’s appeared in media such as CNN, the BBC, and The New York Times. In addition, he is working on a new, currently unannounced startup and recently completed his first sci-fi novel, Desel. In the past, he worked on Facebook applications and in the web health space.

Aaron Patzer – Mint.com, Founder

Aaron Patzer is the VP and General Manager of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group, managing the Mint and Quicken Desktop brands. He is also both the visionary and technical mind behind Mint.com, acquired by Intuit in fall 2009. Aaron designed Mint to meet the needs of people who value the immediacy of the web, simplicity and their free time. Prior to founding Mint, Aaron was an architect and technical lead for the San Jose division of Nascentric. Before Nascentric, Aaron worked for IBM and founded two web development and online marketing companies: PWeb and International. Aaron holds an MSEE from Princeton University and a BS in computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering from Duke University. He has 10 patents filed or pending. Aaron’s innovation leadership has been recognized by national and international organizations. CNNMoney identified him as one of six Money Heroes in the US in 2008 and a Top 40 under 40 entrepreneur in 2009, and Inc. magazine included him in a list of the Top 30 US Entrepreneurs under 30. He was named one of just 34 worldwide Tech Pioneers by the World Economic Forum of Davos, Switzerland in 2008.

Peter Pham – BillShrink, CEO

As CEO of BillShrink, Peter drives company expansion and is an advocate for customer rights and transparency among service providers. He was previously vice president of business development at Photobucket.com, where he was the fifth employee and was responsible for driving user acquisition, strategic partnerships and corporate development. Photobucket was acquired in 2007 by Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corporation.

When Peter left in 2008, Photobucket had grown to more than 61M users, making it the #1 photo sharing site and the 38th most visited site in the U.S. Prior to Photobucket, Peter was in the enterprise space for more than 8 years working in sales, marketing, reseller channel development, product and strategy for multiple startups in the fields of mid-range server computing, software as a service, solid state storage and mobilization of enterprise software.

Peter holds a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and a minor in business management from the University of California, Irvine.

Kevin Reeth, Outright.com, CEO and Co-Founder

Kevin Reeth is the CEO and Co-Founder of Outright.com. Kevin has spent more than 15 years bringing software applications and services for Intuit, Yahoo! and eGroups. With Intuit, Kevin launched numerous small business products, including versions of Quicken, rental property software, and the JumpUp community for entrepreneurs.

Erich is a 24-year technology veteran whose development efforts have powered millions of consumer and payment experiences on the web. Prior to BOKU, Erich architected and led several areas of development for Amazon, most recently creating the AmazonMP3 store. Erich originally joined Amazon after co-founding Accept.com, the person-to-person payment infrastructure that was acquired by the e-commerce leader in 1999, and is still used by millions today. In the 1980s Erich held a number of senior engineering management positions at Apple Computer, where he is perhaps best known for bringing multitasking operating systems to the Macintosh family of computers. And in 1990 he co-founded the legendary PC operating system company Be, Inc. with another Apple refugee, Jean-Louis Gassée.

Erich Ringewald – BOKU, Chief Technology Officer

Philip Rosedale – Second Life, Creator /Linden Lab, Founder & Chairman /LoveMachine Inc, Founder

In 2007, Rosedale was listed among Time Magazine’s100 Most Influential People in The World. Full Bio coming soon.

Alan Rosenblith – MetaCurrency, CoFounder

Rosenblith has a diverse professional background in music, permaculture, and currency design. After being certified in Permaculture at Santa Fe’s EcoVersity, Rosenblith pursued a career in filmmaking. His first film “Dreams of Green” detailed organic farming and was broadcast on New Mexico public television. More recently, Rosenblith has seen his filmmaking as one tool in a broader toolkit to promote human evolution. Rosenblith is currently working in partnership with The MetaCurrency Project, and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Jeremy A. Smith – SecondMarket, Inc., Chief Strategy Officer

Jeremy Smith is responsible for helping set the strategic direction of SecondMarket. He is in charge of the company’s marketing, business development, new markets and market intelligence programs. Prior to joining SecondMarket, Mr. Smith was the President of Arthur Lauer, Inc. where he redesigned and implemented the company’s business strategy and marketing program. Prior to his time at Arthur Lauer, Mr. Smith worked at the private equity firm Alliance Holdings where he aided in developing the firm’s business model and marketing program to enhance its deal sourcing and closing capabilities. Before Alliance Holdings, Mr. Smith was an investment banker at Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin where he focused on valuations, mergers & acquisitions, and corporate restructurings.

Mr. Smith graduated with honors from Emory University and received a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He is a frequent speaker at conferences on the topic of trading illiquid assets and has appeared in many leading publications, including The American Banker, BusinessWeek, DowJones, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Smith has also been featured on CNBC, Business News Network and Fox Business News.

Ted Sorom – Rixty, CEO

Ted is CEO of Rixty, a cash-based payment system that allows youth & adults to pay for online entertainment using Coinstar & the Rixty prepaid card. Ted has extensively researched youth and unbanked consumers, their financial habits and their alternative payment choices. Prior to founding Rixty, Ted developed cutting edge toys and consumer products at Wild Planet Entertainment for retailers such as Target, Gap Kids and Dreamworks. Ted began his career at Light & Motion where he served as the Chief Technical Officer responsible for the design and development of the company’s technical consumer products. Ted is a frequent speaker at the Engage Conference, the SD Forum’s ‘Business of New Media’ Conference and the Haas School of Business. Ted has a BS from Dartmouth College, a Masters from Stanford University and a MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Brad Strothkamp – Forrester, Principal Analyst

Brad serves eBusiness & Channel Strategy professionals. He is a leading expert on eCommerce/eBusiness strategy development within financial services, as well as on best practices of financial firms for selling to and servicing online consumers. He does extensive research on how consumers use the Internet to research and purchase financial products — regardless of the channel — as well as the seamless cross-channel customer experience financial firms need to develop and deliver in order to maximize sales. In his research, Brad covers such eCommerce and finance-oriented topics as the use of interactive help technologies (including online chat), the use of analytics to drive site development decisions, the ways in which financial services customers make product decisions, the role the Web plays during the product research process, and case studies and industry rankings of leaders in financial services.

Bill Tai – Charles River Ventures, Partner

Bill Tai is a partner at Charles River Ventures and famed kiteboarder. He earned his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business, and BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Brian Zisk – Future of Money & Technology Summit, Executive Producer

Brian Zisk is a serial entrepreneur and technology industry consultant specializing in digital media, web broadcasting and distribution technologies. Brian is a co-founder of Collecta, the ultra-hot realtime search engine. Additionally, Brian is a Co-Founder and Technologies Director of the Future of Music Coalition and a Board Member and/or Strategic Advisor for a wide variety of tech companies and non-profits. Brian was previously a founder of The Green Witch Internet Radio which was sold to CMGI (NASDAQ: CMGI) at the turn of the millennium. He is active in many influential computer-mediated forums, is quoted and published extensively in the media, frequently appears on panels and at industry events domestically and abroad, and is an expert at frenzy whipping, brand awareness, and in creating new business models. Brian is also the executive producer

More speakers will be added shortly. Stay tuned!