blackrock-alum
(2)
Pauline Roteta
Pauline Roteta is the co-founder and CEO of Pasito, a New York based startup building AI agents for the insurance and employee benefits industry. A former Senior Investor and Portfolio Manager at BlackRock, Fulbright Scholar, CFA and CFP, she launched Pasito in 2021 to attack the roughly $200 billion Americans waste each year on poor benefits decisions. Pasito went through Y Combinator's Summer 2022 batch and in February 2026 raised a $21 million Series A led by Insight Partners, bringing total funding to about $24.4 million.
Ryan VanGorder
Ryan VanGorder is the CEO of Opto Investments, a private-markets platform for wealth managers co-founded by Joe Lonsdale and backed by 8VC. A former BlackRock managing director who spent his early career at Seattle hedge-fund-of-funds Quellos, he is also a veteran adventure racer who has competed in more than thirty multi-day expedition races and once survived heat stroke in the Utah desert at 126 degrees.