marketing-tech
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Masa Shimizu
Masahiro 'Masa' Shimizu is the Founder & CEO of ZEALS Co., Ltd. and Omakase.ai, the Japanese pioneer of Chat Commerce. He started ZEALS as a Meiji University freshman in 2014 with robots and a mission to 'elevate Japan,' pivoted to chatbots within one month of Facebook opening its Messenger API in 2016, built Japan's #1 social chat commerce platform with 300+ employees and $69M+ raised, and is now taking that same hospitality-first philosophy — what he calls 'Omotenashi' — into voice-powered AI agents for global e-commerce through Omakase.ai.
Sean Whiteley
Sean Whiteley is a three-time enterprise software founder and President of Qualified, the AI pipeline generation platform he co-built with long-time partner Kraig Swensrud. Having navigated every major tech platform shift - from on-premise to cloud to AI - across a 30-year career that includes stints at AOL, PwC, PeopleSoft, webMethods, and Salesforce, Sean brings rare pattern recognition to go-to-market strategy. His companies have a track record of building deep inside the Salesforce ecosystem and exiting to strategic acquirers: Kieden to Salesforce (2006), GetFeedback to SurveyMonkey (2019), and now Qualified to Salesforce again (2025), in a deal that cements his legacy as one of enterprise software's most consistent repeat founders.
Troy Kirwin
Troy Kirwin is an Investment Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Cohort Lead for a16z speedrun, the firm's pre-seed accelerator program. A native New Yorker now based in San Francisco, he focuses on B2B AI and creative tech - including next-gen storytelling and design tools, marketing technology, 3D simulations, and vertical AI agents. Before a16z, he spent roughly 4.5 years as a Senior Manager at Unity Technologies, where he orchestrated over 20 acquisitions including Parsec and IronSource. He started his career as an investment banking analyst at Jefferies covering media and tech clients. His portfolio includes K-ID, Hedra, Backflip, Nunu.ai, and a dozen more.