columbia-gsapp
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Gil Akos
Gil Akos is the co-founder and CEO of Astra, a payments infrastructure company that lets developers move money bank-to-bank in real time. Trained as an architect with graduate work at Columbia, he taught himself programming, then earned a stack of Udacity nanodegrees in machine learning and AI to build the company he imagined. Under his leadership Astra crossed $1 billion in lifetime payments processed and pushed past a $2 billion annualized run rate, positioning the company as connective tissue for instant payouts across vertical SaaS, marketplaces, and earned wage access.
David Fano
David Fano is the founder and CEO of Teal, an AI-powered career platform that helps people manage their job search, build resumes, and grow their careers. An architect by training, he co-founded the technology consultancy CASE Design, sold it into WeWork, and spent years as a senior executive there before leaving to build tools that put job seekers, not employers, in control. He runs Teal from Miami and is a frequent voice in press and podcasts on how AI is reshaping work.