northwestern-kellogg
(3)
Nick Anastasiades
Nick Anastasiades is the co-founder and CEO of Benji, a New York-based startup building a universal API for loyalty partnerships - what the industry calls the 'Plaid for loyalty.' Benji lets airlines, hotels, retailers and consumer brands link their rewards systems so members can earn and redeem points across companies, collapsing integrations that once took a year into a matter of days. In May 2026 the company raised a $6.25M seed round and counts JetBlue, CookUnity, 1-800-Flowers and Chip City among a network representing more than 50 million members. Benji is the third company Nick has built with co-founders Jon Elron and Arik Gaisler, following 2ndKitchen, the B2B virtual-kitchen platform acquired by REEF Technology in 2021. Raised in Beirut and trained at UC Berkeley and Northwestern, he is a Forbes Next 1000 entrepreneur and a Chicago Innovation Award winner.
Ali Amin-Javaheri
Ali Amin-Javaheri is the co-founder and CEO of Knowde, the B2B digital marketplace and data platform transforming how the $5 trillion global chemicals industry does business online. With 11 years of experience at ChemPoint - where he helped scale the chemical distribution startup to over $400M in revenue - Ali built Knowde from a PowerPoint vision into a platform hosting 8,000+ supplier storefronts and 230,000+ chemical products. Backed by Sequoia Capital, Coatue, and Sound Ventures (Ashton Kutcher's fund), Knowde has raised $180.8M total, including a $60M Series C in August 2024. Ali's drive is deeply personal: his father Mehdi fled Iran in 1985 and struggled to find work commensurate with his chemical engineering degree, and Ali grew up reading chemistry trade magazines, determined to modernize an industry built on relationships and paper catalogs.
Steven Basta
Steven Basta is the President and CEO of Phathom Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: PHAT), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on gastrointestinal disorders. He joined in April 2025 to lead the commercialization of VOQUEZNA (vonoprazan), a next-generation potassium-competitive acid blocker for GERD and H. pylori. With more than 25 years of biopharma and medical device leadership spanning BioForm Medical, Merz Aesthetics, AlterG, Menlo Therapeutics, Mahana Therapeutics, and SaNOtize, Basta brings a track record of building and launching products in highly competitive markets. He trained as a biomedical engineer at Johns Hopkins and later earned his MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School.