Peter DiLaura is the CEO and Board Director of Helicore Biopharma, a San Mateo biotech building long-acting antibody-peptide conjugates that go after obesity by neutralizing the GIP hormone in the bloodstream rather than blocking its receptor. With nearly three decades of company-building behind him - CEO roles at Initial Therapeutics and Second Genome, business and strategy chief at Sonoma Biotherapeutics, and time as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Third Rock Ventures - he is the operator brought in to turn a $65M Series A and a clinic-ready antibody into medicines that aim for quarterly dosing and better-quality weight loss.
Adrienne Lofton is the Global Vice President of Product & Integrated Consumer Marketing for Google's Platforms & Devices Division, where she leads end-to-end marketing for the Pixel ecosystem and drives activation across Android, Chromebook, Chrome Browser, Google Play, and Google Health & Home. A Howard University graduate and Kellogg MBA, she built her career on brand authenticity — from multicultural marketing at Target, to CMO of Dockers at Levi's, to Senior VP of Global Brand Marketing at Under Armour, to VP Head of North America Marketing at Nike. An Ad Age Brand Genius award winner, Adweek Most Powerful Women in Sports honoree, and board director at Alaska Air Group, Lofton is one of the most recognized voices at the intersection of sports, culture, and consumer marketing.
Mala Anand is Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer at Microsoft, leading the Customer Experience & Success division. A 25-year technology veteran who immigrated from Mumbai at 17 on a Rotary Youth Exchange Scholarship, she has shaped enterprise software at Cisco, SAP, and Microsoft, driving AI-powered transformations that measurably improve how customers get support. She is also executive sponsor of Women at Microsoft and an independent board director at Agilent Technologies.
Andy Ballard is the CEO and co-founder of Wiser Solutions, Inc., the San Mateo-based omnichannel retail intelligence platform he built through the 2017 merger of Quad Analytix and Mobee. A Harvard undergrad and Stanford MBA, Ballard spent nearly a decade at Hellman & Friedman where he sat on the boards of DoubleClick, Getty Images, Internet Brands, and Catalina Marketing before launching Quad Analytix in 2012. Today he leads a 510-person company that tracks billions of online and in-store data points for over 750 global brands and retailers, while also serving on the boards of Domino's Pizza and Etsy, and running Figtree Partners, his software-focused investment firm.
Hatem Naguib is a cybersecurity operator who spent a decade at Barracuda Networks, the last four years as CEO, steering its shift into a platform-based, recurring-revenue security company. Before Barracuda he helped scale VMware's NSX networking and security business past $600M. He stepped down from Barracuda in September 2025 and joined Corelight's board of directors in May 2026.
Robert 'Bob' Donahue is a veteran technology and fintech executive who led Authorize.Net Holdings as President and CEO from 2004 to 2007, steering the company through its landmark $565 million acquisition by CyberSource Corporation - one of the defining deals in digital payments history. After joining CyberSource's board post-acquisition, he went on to serve as an independent director at NETSCOUT Systems and Sycamore Networks. With a career spanning senior executive roles at Manufacturers Services Ltd., Stratus Computer, and Celestica, Donahue has been a consistent presence at the intersection of technology infrastructure and financial services for over two decades.
Jacqueline 'Jackie' Reses is the Chair and CEO of Lead Bank, a Kansas City-based chartered bank she acquired in 2022 and transformed into a banking-as-a-service powerhouse serving fintech builders. Previously, she built Square Capital from zero into a multi-billion dollar lending business at Square (now Block), served as a board member at Alibaba through its historic 2014 IPO, led 41 transactions as Yahoo's Chief Development Officer, and spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in M&A. A Wharton-trained economist from Atlantic City, she co-authored 'Self-Made Boss' and holds patents in payments, credit, and cryptocurrency. Lead Bank closed a $70M Series B in September 2025 at a $1.47B valuation backed by a16z, Ribbit Capital, Coatue, and Khosla Ventures.
Chris O'Neill is a veteran technology executive with 25+ years of leadership across Google, Evernote, Glean, and Xero. Best known for leading Evernote's turnaround as CEO (2015-2018) and doubling its user base, he joined GrowthLoop as CEO in August 2024, steering the composable CDP startup through its AI transformation and Series D funding. A Tuck School of Business (Dartmouth) MBA and former Google Canada Managing Director who scaled that business to billions in revenue, O'Neill is also a board director at Gap Inc. and a published contributor to Fast Company and Fortune on the themes of AI, leadership, and compound growth.
Nayaki Nayyar is a technology executive with over 25 years of experience transforming enterprise software companies. As CEO of Siteimprove since March 2025, she is leading the company's pivot toward AI-powered content intelligence and digital accessibility. Her career spans CTO roles in oil and gas, senior leadership at SAP and BMC Software, President and CPO at Ivanti where she helped double revenue to over a billion dollars, and CEO at cybersecurity unicorn Securonix. She serves on the boards of Fortune 500 companies TD Synnex and Corteva Agriscience.
Rick Winningham is the CEO of Theravance Biopharma, a biopharmaceutical company focused on organ-selective medicines for serious diseases including COPD, rare neurological conditions, and inflammatory diseases. With over 40 years in the pharmaceutical industry - including 13 years as CEO of Innoviva and 15 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb - Winningham has built a career defined by transformative drug development, strategic company leadership, and a widely recognized commitment to mentoring the next generation of biopharma executives, particularly women in leadership. He was named the 2026 HBA Honorable Mentor by the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association.
Shelley Perry is a seasoned software executive with nearly three decades of experience scaling technology organizations. As CEO and Founder of ScaleLogix Ventures and Operating Partner at Insight Partners, she specializes in helping SaaS companies navigate the 'messy middle' - the critical growth phase between product-market fit and full-scale maturity. Her career spans VP Engineering at TicketMaster, CTO of Industry SaaS Solutions at HP, Chief Product Officer at NTT, and Operating Partner at Insight Partners, where she built their Product Center of Excellence and launched the CPO Accelerator program. She is a keynote speaker, board director at multiple SaaS companies including Chargebee, and founder of the Path to CPO initiative.
Valeska Schroeder, Ph.D., is CEO and Chairman of the Board at Cerapedics Inc., the Colorado-based orthobiologics company behind i-FACTOR and PearlMatrix - two of only three FDA PMA-approved bone grafts on the U.S. spine market. A materials scientist by training (BS, MS, PhD from UC Berkeley), she spent the first part of her career in medtech product development before transitioning to venture investing at KCK MedTech, where she led deals and sat on boards of companies including Sight Sciences, Aerin Medical, Intuity Medical, and Lungpacer. She joined Cerapedics' board in 2018, deepened her involvement in 2021, and took the helm as CEO in November 2022, steering the company through PearlMatrix's landmark FDA approval in June 2025 - making Cerapedics the only company with two PMA-approved spinal biologics.
Magdalena Yesil is a Silicon Valley pioneer who arrived in the US at 17 with two suitcases and $43 to her name, earned three degrees from Stanford, and went on to become the first outside investor and founding board member of Salesforce. A serial entrepreneur who co-founded CyberCash (one of the internet's first secure payment systems) and MarketPay, she spent eight years as a General Partner at US Venture Partners before co-founding Informed.IQ, an AI-powered document processing platform that has enabled over $350 billion in consumer loan originations. Author of 'Power UP: How Smart Women Win in the New Economy' and co-founder of Broadway Angels, she sits on the boards of SoFi Technologies, Smartsheet, and Zuora.
Diane Greene co-founded VMware and built it into the company that pioneered x86 virtualization, leading it through the largest tech IPO of 2007. After being ousted from VMware in 2008, she co-founded Bebop, sold it to Google for ~$380 million, and became CEO of Google Cloud - growing it from $2.1B to $8B in annual revenue. A naval architect and competitive sailor before turning to software, she is the first woman to chair the MIT Corporation and sits on the boards of Stripe, SAP, Intuit, and Maersk.
Heidi Roizen is one of Silicon Valley's most iconic figures — a serial entrepreneur who co-founded T/Maker in 1983, led Apple's Worldwide Developer Relations during a pivotal transition, and became a venture capitalist at Threshold Ventures. She is the subject of a landmark Harvard Business School case study on networking and the famous 'Heidi vs. Howard' gender bias experiment. Today she is a Partner at Threshold Ventures, a Stanford lecturer, board director at Planet Labs and Upside Foods, and host of 'The Startup Solution' podcast.
Margaret Cushing 'Meg' Whitman is a billionaire business executive and diplomat who transformed eBay from a 30-person startup into an $8 billion e-commerce giant, later restructured Hewlett-Packard, and served as U.S. Ambassador to Kenya. With a net worth of $4 billion, she's navigated roles from Procter & Gamble brand manager to failed California gubernatorial candidate to diplomatic envoy, making her one of the most prominent women in American business and politics.
Lea Bajc is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and board member with over two decades of experience spanning Silicon Valley and Europe. Born in Croatia and raised in Sweden, she holds degrees from Stockholm School of Economics, HEC Paris, and Harvard Business School. At Northzone Ventures, she co-led landmark investments in iZettle ($2.2B exit to PayPal) and Trustpilot (LSE IPO). She later co-founded Averon in Silicon Valley, raising $20M from Marc Benioff. Now based in Paris, she invests through Blue Horizon and Ozone X Ventures (backing underrepresented founders), serves on corporate boards, and is authoring 'Love After Love' — a forthcoming book reframing divorce as an opportunity for reinvention. A Kauffman Fellow and Forbes Technology Council member, she speaks six languages and is a certified nutritionist.