Jenni Ellis is the Executive Assistant to the CEO at CompScience, a San Francisco insurtech building AI control systems that aim to prevent one million workplace injuries by 2035. The right hand to founder Josh Butler, she runs the day-to-day machinery behind a fast-scaling, Series B startup. Before CompScience she logged operations and office-management time across some of the Bay Area's best-known tech names - Replicate, DoorDash, Instacart, and Dropbox - building a reputation as the steady operator who keeps founders and offices moving. Colleagues describe her as vivacious and enthusiastic, a natural leader who keeps tabs on the day-to-day flow of a business.
Winston Lin is a Program Manager in the Office of the CEO at Juniper Square, the San Francisco fintech that builds investment management software for private markets. Based in Austin, Texas, he sits at the operational center of a Series D company with roughly 950 employees, working close to the chief executive on the business operations and systems that keep a fast-scaling SaaS company running. Before fintech he spent his career in education technology, rising to Senior Director of Data Engineering at the charter-school network Achievement First. He holds a BA from Columbia University.
Maribel Garcia is the Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer at Sanity, the San Francisco company behind a content operating system used by developers and enterprises. She keeps the CEO's orbit running at a fast-scaling, Series C software company, drawing on a winding path that ran through public health at UC Berkeley, a food-in-schools mission at Revolution Foods, and the front lines of hospitality at AMC Theatres before landing in the tech world.
Yang Zhao is the Chief Business Officer of Handshake AI, where he runs business and operations for a fast-scaling human-data business serving frontier AI labs. He spent four years at Scale AI as Head of Product Deployment and Operations before joining Handshake, and earlier led growth and strategy at the consumer-rentals company Zumper. He pitches Handshake's edge not as tooling but as raw access to the largest expert network in the US.
Diya Mathew is a Senior Manager for Customer Engagement Strategy in the Office of the President & COO at ServiceNow, the enterprise cloud platform company valued at over $100 billion. A graduate of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and NIT Tiruchirappalli, she brings a rare blend of technical depth and strategic acumen forged across Cisco, Deloitte Consulting, Meta, and now ServiceNow. Based in San Francisco, she works at the intersection of executive strategy, customer engagement, and enterprise operations.
Jacqueline Ramos is a seasoned Executive Business Administrator at Microsoft with over 25 years of experience, currently supporting the COO, CMO for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa (CEMA), and VP for Global Partner Solutions (GPS) in the EMEA region. Based in Dubai, UAE, she has built her Microsoft career from the ground up - starting as an Executive Assistant to the Gulf Services Director in 2008, rising through roles in business operations, and eventually becoming an executive-level administrator supporting some of the company's most senior regional leaders. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of San Jose-Recoletos in the Philippines and has leveraged her technical grounding alongside exceptional organizational and leadership skills to become one of Microsoft's most trusted operational connectors across its vast Middle East and global operations.
Orisa Cherenfant is SVP of Industry Relations & Strategic Growth at Twilio, the cloud communications platform powering billions of messages, calls, and interactions globally. A first-generation college graduate from Cape Verde who earned dual degrees in Finance and Marketing from Boston College, she built her career through GE's leadership development programs before moving into tech. At Twilio, she leads industry partnerships and growth strategy, speaks at major conferences like MWC Barcelona and Twilio Signal, and was named a 2025 Entreprenista 100 Award winner. She is based in Los Angeles with her partner Eli and their twins, Margaux and Maverick.
Peter Cray is VP Strategy & Operations for AWS Sales, Marketing and Global Services at Amazon Web Services, where he oversees go-to-market strategy, business and sales operations, competitive strategy, and field marketing across 122 subsidiaries worldwide. With nearly three decades in enterprise technology, he spent 15 years at Microsoft in increasingly senior roles - including COO & Chief Business Officer for Microsoft China & Greater China Region - before joining AWS in 2022. He reports to Greg Pearson as part of AWS's integrated global sales organization alongside peers Dave Levy and Robert Chu.
Abby McGarey serves as Chief of Staff to the CEO at Hinge Health, the San Francisco-based digital health company that has redefined musculoskeletal care through AI-powered physical therapy and wearable technology. A UC Berkeley MPH graduate, she moved through healthcare strategy and operations roles - from biopharma research at IQVIA to primary care innovation at Aledade - before joining Hinge Health where she rose to her current role supporting CEO Daniel Perez as the company went public in May 2025. Off the clock, she sits on the board of 100+ Women Who Care San Francisco and volunteers with Project Open Hand.
Alex Bergonia is Chief of Staff to the CEO at Babylist, the leading baby registry and family commerce platform headquartered in Emeryville, California. With a background bridging impact investing and high-growth consumer tech, she has spent her career at the intersection of strategy, operations, and mission-driven work. Before joining Babylist, she held progressive strategy and operations leadership roles at Farmer's Business Network (FBN Financial), and earlier built expertise in impact investing through fellowships and roles at Komaza, The Nature Conservancy, DBL Partners, and RSF Social Finance. She holds an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and a BA in International Relations from Claremont McKenna College.
Marc Winterhoff is the interim Chief Executive Officer of Lucid Motors, the Newark, California luxury EV maker behind the Air sedan and Gravity SUV. A German-trained electrical engineer who spent decades advising automakers at Roland Berger and Arthur D. Little, he joined Lucid as COO in December 2023 and was elevated to interim CEO in February 2025 after founder Peter Rawlinson stepped aside. He has steered the company through a fragile stretch: stretching the cash runway into 2027, deepening the PIF and Uber partnerships, and prepping a robotaxi-ready Midsize platform. In April 2026 Lucid named Schindler veteran Silvio Napoli as permanent CEO; Winterhoff will return to the COO role.
Misty R. Jones is the president and CEO of Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley, a Pleasanton-based hospital affiliated with Stanford Medicine. A nurse-turned-operator with an MSN and MBA, she stepped in on June 9, 2025, after two decades running academic medical centers in the Midwest, and is now steering a 66,000-square-foot east wing expansion that will more than double the emergency department.
Paul McKnight runs the North American arm of John Paul, the Paris-born concierge group that quietly answers the phone when private-jet calendars implode and Michelin reservations vanish. A career CFO turned chief executive, he is the operations spine behind a 600-concierge global network serving luxury brands and their highest-spending customers.
Robert Weitershausen is Chief of Staff to the CEO at New Relic, the observability company. A retired U.S. Air Force aviator with roughly 24 years in uniform, he now translates strategy into execution at the top of a 2,000+ person software company - and writes about how leaders should think about disciplined AI adoption with humans in the loop.
Spain Salinas is the chief executive at Global Gourmet Catering, the San Francisco caterer that feeds Silicon Valley's biggest companies and largest events. He started as a sous chef in 2004 and worked his way up to running the company, which Apple, Google, Netflix and Salesforce hire when they need restaurant-quality food at stadium scale.
Susan Cubillos is the Senior Executive Business Partner to the CEO and CTO at Twitch, the live streaming giant headquartered in San Francisco. She operates at the hinge of the company, where calendar physics meets strategy, translating intent into motion for the people running one of the world's largest interactive video platforms.
Yann Calvez is a Microsoft executive based in Seattle, currently serving as VP of Partner Sales, Marketing & Operations within the Device & Partner Sales (DPS) organization. A graduate of emlyon business school, he spent more than fifteen years climbing through Microsoft's consumer device ranks - from coordinating marketing in France, to building worldwide Surface retail strategy, to leading the Surface Business Group for Western Europe.
Bill Liu is the Co-Founder and COO of Seel, the San Francisco-based company that invented Return Assurance — AI-powered insurance that lets shoppers add a refund window to final-sale purchases at checkout. Liu co-founded the company (originally called Kover.ai) in 2019 with CEO Zack Peng after completing the Techstars MetLife Digital Accelerator. He oversees team-building and go-to-market strategy for a platform now trusted by 5,000+ merchants, protecting 24 million+ orders and serving 2 million+ monthly shoppers. Seel has raised $29M+ in total funding including a Series B in May 2025 and was named to CB Insights' AI100 list of the world's most promising AI startups in 2023.
Joyce Salas is a Founder at Deel, the San Francisco-based global HR and payroll platform that has redefined how companies hire, pay, and manage international teams. Based in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, she brings a finance and accounting lens to one of the fastest-growing HR tech companies in the world - a company that has raised over $1.27 billion in funding, crossed $1 billion in annual revenue, and employs more than 8,400 people serving businesses in 150+ countries.
Kristin Werk is the CEO of BookNook, a San Francisco-based edtech company delivering synchronous, research-backed K-8 tutoring in reading and math to students across the United States. A self-described introvert with 20+ years of operational leadership—spanning 17 years at Thomson Reuters, followed by executive roles at Questar Assessment and NWEA—Werk joined BookNook in 2023 as COO, expanded the platform to include math tutoring, and stepped up as CEO in December 2024. She holds a BS in Journalism from St. Cloud State University, an MBA from Capella University, and a stack of certifications including PMP, Six Sigma Green Belt, and Prosci Change Practitioner.