DATA DRIVEN NYC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Partner at FirstMark
Adam is a Partner at FirstMark, where he focuses on investments in Fintech and Vertical Software. Previously, Adam spent nearly a decade in Silicon Valley, investing in early-stage companies as a Venture Partner at South Park Commons and a Partner at Social Capital.
Before Venture Capital, Adam was an early employee at Dropbox where he built and scaled Dropbox's Partner Network and Revenue Partnerships teams. Adam started his career in investment banking and private equity at Merrill Lynch and Lindsay Goldberg.
Adam holds both a B.A. from Brown University and an M.B.A. from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Alex is the Chief of Staff to the Chief Operating Officer at Firstmark, managing the operational rhythm of the firm and helping to build a best-in-class organization.
Prior to Firstmark Alex was Chief of Staff at venture-backed startup Daring. She began her career in strategy consulting at Accenture, where she advised Retail and Media companies on corporate strategy.
Alex graduated with honors from the University of Virginia with a B.S. in Commerce and a B.A. in English Literature. She holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- Investor at FirstMark
Aman is an Investor at FirstMark, where he focuses on early-stage enterprise investing across the Data, Machine Learning, and AI space. Prior to joining FirstMark, he spent time in the Bay Area investing in growth-stage businesses at ICONIQ Growth. Before ICONIQ, Aman was at Evercore, where he advised on M&A transactions in the Telecommunications group.
Aman graduated from Yale University with B.A.'s in Economics and Political Science.
Amish Jani is a Founder and Partner of FirstMark and has been an active venture capitalist for over 20 years.
He invests broadly across the cloud and Internet landscape, including SaaS applications, ecommerce, infrastructure and more. Amish has been recognized by CB Insights and the New York Times as a Top 100 Venture Capitalist globally. In 2022, he was recognized by Business Insider in The Seed 100 (best early-stage investors) and named one of the 50 Most Important VCs in New York.
Amish has invested in industry-defining companies that include Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Frame.io (acquired by Adobe), Pendo, Tracelink, Guru, Bluecore, Loop, IMImobile (LSE: IMO, acquired by Cisco), Schoology (acquired by PowerSchool), Boomi (acquired by Dell), Aveksa (acquired by EMC), and many more.
Prior to founding FirstMark, Amish served as a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Amish holds both a B.S. and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the Undergraduate Executive Board of Wharton.
Job Titles:
- Director of Communities at FirstMark
Ben Winn is Director of Communities at FirstMark, where he works to create and scale impact for founders through community, as part of the Platform team.
Previously, Ben was Head of Brand & Community at Catalyst Software, and the founder of CS in Focus, an international Customer Success community.
Ben is a Venture for Canada Fellow, and holds a business degree from Mount Allison University.
Job Titles:
- Associate at FirstMark
- Talent Associate
Casey Marx is a Talent Associate at FirstMark, where she works closely with FirstMark founders to help them build exceptional GTM teams. She is passionate about building great connections and making an impact on growing companies in a wide variety of industries. Previously, Casey was a Recruiter at Betts Recruiting where she focused on placing sales talent at hyper growth SaaS startups. Casey is a graduate of Georgetown University where she was captain of the Women's Varsity Tennis team and earned a degree in Psychology.
Job Titles:
- Head of Platform at FirstMark
- Partner & Head of Platform
Dan Kozikowski is Partner & Head of Platform at FirstMark. The FirstMark Platform accelerates the success of founders through connections to talent, customers, and expertise.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Finance
Daniel is the Vice President of Finance at FirstMark and has been with the firm for over 11 years. He is responsible for fund management among other finance-related duties.
Job Titles:
- Principal
- Principal at FirstMark
David is a Principal at FirstMark, where he focuses on investments in the application layer, developer tooling, and infrastructure.
Prior to joining FirstMark, David spent over six years at Accel, where he helped lead investments in Browserstack, Freshworks (FRSH), Higo, Jellyfish, Klaviyo (KVYO), Monzo, Nuvemshop, Pismo (acquired by Visa), Pluang, Shogun, Truebill (acquired by Rocket), and Veza.
David graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and was born and raised in New York City.
Job Titles:
- Principal
- Principal at FirstMark
Derek is a Principal at FirstMark and leads consumer internet investments in content and commerce marketplaces, and serves as a Board Observer at Pickle and MetaLoop.
Derek was previously a business unit leader at Airbnb, where he served as Chief of Staff to the Co-Founder & CSO, helped launch and co-lead Airbnb China with the COO & President, led business operations for North America's $10B GMV business, and first joined as Corporate Development Manager in the Office of the CFO (Deal Lead on the Series F, China M&A, acquisition of Luxury Retreats).
Before Airbnb, Derek was a Senior Associate at Menlo Ventures, where he sourced and served as a Board Observer at Tenor (acquired by Google), Synthego, and The Black Tux. Derek began his career as an Analyst in the TMT Investment Banking Group at Credit Suisse and graduated with honors from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Finance.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- Investor at Firstmark
Dez is an Investor at Firstmark where he focuses on sourcing and evaluating new investments, as well as supporting FirstMark's portfolio companies. Prior to joining FirstMark, Dez was the Commercial Strategy Manager at NYC-based startup Cadre, a tech enabled real estate investment platform. Dez began his career at Deloitte in their M&A strategy practice where he focused on commercial and operational due diligence for Fortune 500 companies, across various industries.
Dez graduated cum laude from The Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management at Cornell University with a B.S in Applied Economics & Management with concentrations in finance and entrepreneurship. While at Cornell he played 4 years of varsity basketball, and still enjoys playing today. Dez loves to meet with entrepreneurs and share their story. He actively writes about entrepreneurship in his newsletter All Things Venture.
Diego Gutierrez is the Director of IT at FirstMark.
Prior to joining FirstMark, Eric was the General Counsel of Naspers Ventures, where he helped launch the venture capital arm of one of the world's largest tech investors. Previously, Eric was a corporate, M&A and securities law attorney at Gunderson Dettmer in New York, where he guided companies and investors through all parts of the start-up life cycle and deal process.
Eric is admitted to practice law in New York. He holds an LL.M in Taxation and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and he holds a BA as a Dual Major in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, which he obtained after proudly (and foolishly) dropping out of the Wharton School of Business.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Executive Assistant at FirstMark
Estella Agababaev is an Executive Assistant at FirstMark, supporting Rick Heitzmann. Prior to joining FirstMark, Estella was an Administrative Assistant at Eminence Capital supporting the CEO.
Before joining Eminence, Estella worked as an Executive Assistant in various industries, including real estate, photography, and wellness. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from the University of Connecticut where she studied Psychology and Pre-Medical Studies.
Job Titles:
- Associate General Counsel
- Associate General Counsel at FirstMark
Jess is the Associate General Counsel at FirstMark. Prior to joining FirstMark, Jess was an Associate in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Financial Institutions groups at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, where she guided public and private corporations and financial institutions through a broad range of transactions.
Jess is admitted to practice law in New York and Washington D.C. She holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of South Carolina.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Executive Assistant at FirstMark
Katie Mills is an Executive Assistant at FirstMark, supporting Matt Turck & Dan Kozikowski. Prior to joining FirstMark, Katie was an Executive Personal Assistant at Silenok Ventures. Before becoming an administrative professional in New York City, Katie grew her career in Nashville, Tennessee, working in a variety of industries including non-profit fundraising, event planning, recruiting, and investment banking.
She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University and a Masters in Communications Management from the University of Southern California.
Lasana Brereton joined FirstMark in 2022 and currently serves as an Executive Assistant to Amish Jani and Shilpa Nayyar.
Prior to joining FirstMark, she was an Executive Assistant at Viking Global Investors. Lasana also worked as an Executive Assistant at The Carlyle Group supporting the CLO and CCO for over six years.
Lasana graduated from Springfield College with a B.S. in Sociology. She also holds a Paralegal Certificate from New York University.
Job Titles:
- Principal
- Principal at FirstMark
Lisa is a Principal at FirstMark, where she focuses on early-stage investments in SMB and vertical software, B2B marketplaces, and commerce infrastructure.
Lisa joined the investment team in 2018 and has partnered with many of firm's portfolio companies, including Loop Returns, Justworks, Pigment, EvolutionIQ, Workit Health, and Alloy Automation. She actively works with Loop Returns, UtiilizeCore, CognitOps, and Sonar as a Board Director or Observer.
Prior to joining FirstMark, Lisa was a Product Manager at NYC-based venture-backed startups Handy (acquired by ANGI Homeservices) and Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON). Previously, Lisa was a Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, where she performed due diligence for private and growth equity firms and advised Fortune 500 companies on corporate strategy.
Lisa graduated summa cum laude from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Finance and Management.
Job Titles:
- Operations Manager
- Receptionist at FirstMark
Maggie Streeter is Receptionist at FirstMark, where she supports the FirstMark team, our founder communities, and events across the FirstMark ecosystem. Previously, Maggie worked as a Wedding and Event Coordinator, as well as a Chief Operating Officer at a bakery in California. Maggie received her Bachelor's Degree in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Partner at FirstMark
Matt Turck is a Partner at FirstMark, where he focuses primarily on early-stage enterprise investing in the US and Europe.
Matt is particularly active in the data, machine learning, and AI space. Since 2011, he has been organizing Data Driven NYC, the largest data/AI community in the US. Since 2012, he has been publishing an annual landscape of the data/AI industry, the MAD report.
Earlier in his career, Matt was an entrepreneur and the co-founder of TripleHop, an enterprise search software startup that Oracle acquired, and then an executive at Oracle following the acquisition. Immediately prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the incubation arm of Bloomberg LP, which he helped start.
Matt graduated from Sciences-Po Paris and holds an LL.M. from Yale Law School. He actively blogs at mattturck.com and can be followed on Twitter at @mattturck.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Executive Assistant at FirstMark Capital
Nicole is an Executive Assistant at FirstMark Capital. Prior to joining FirstMark, Nicole worked at Social Capital as an Executive Assistant for over three years. Before becoming an administrative professional Nicole spent the first six years of her career as a publicist for a lifestyle PR agency and worked in-house at a design firm as a brand strategist.
Nicole holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Arizona State University and a degree in Product Development from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.
Job Titles:
- Certified Public Accountant
- Controller
- Controller at FirstMark
Patrick is the Controller at FirstMark, responsible for fund management among other financial duties. Prior to joining FirstMark, Patrick was a manager at PwC in the Real Estate Tax group.
Patrick is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New York and earned a BS in accounting as well as an MST in Tax at Ithaca College.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Partner
- Co - Founder & Partner at FirstMark
Rick Heitzmann is a Co-founder & Partner at FirstMark, where he focuses on investments in consumer technology, marketplaces, healthcare, gaming, and data and information services. Rick has led investments in market leaders like Pinterest (NYSE: PINS), Riot Games (acquired by Tencent), DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG), Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB), StubHub (acquired by eBay), Discord, and more.
Before founding FirstMark, Rick was an entrepreneur and founding member of the senior management team at First Advantage (NASDAQ: FADV), which he helped grow and sell to First American (NYSE: FAF). Rick has been named to the Forbes' Midas List as one of the world's top venture capitalists for the last three years in a row, and has received similar distinctions as one of the world's top venture capitalists from CB Insights, Insider, and the New York Times. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Venture Capital Association.
Rick holds a B.S. from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Job Titles:
- COO
- Partner
- Chief Operating Officer at FirstMark
Shilpa Nayyar is a Partner and Chief Operating Officer at FirstMark, where she focuses on helping to build and grow a best-in-class organization with a winning culture. As COO, Shilpa has direct responsibility across the firm, including Investor Relations.
Prior to joining FirstMark, Shilpa was Chief of Staff to Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone. Previously, Shilpa held a range of management roles at Credit Suisse, including Head of Strategy for Investment Banking & Capital Markets and Chief Operating Officer of the Financial Sponsor and Los Angeles Investment Banking groups. Shilpa began her career in healthcare investment banking at Credit Suisse, where she focused on healthcare services and medical devices.
Shilpa holds a BA in Economics and BAS in Applied Science from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- Investor at FirstMark
Steph is an investor at FirstMark, where she focuses on early-stage investments in digital health. She joined the team in 2020 and has been involved in several of FirstMark's healthcare & consumer investments, including Airbnb ($ABNB), DraftKings ($DKNG), Discord, Ro, Ezra, Roon, Legacy, Commure, Imperfect Foods (acq. by Misfits Market), Dashlane, Vacasa ($VCSA), Orchard, Extra, Hubble, HopSkipDrive, and Mockingbird.
Steph grew up in a large family of healthcare professionals, including both of her parents (one a physician; the other a pharmacist). This experience gave her a clear view into the challenges facing the US healthcare system, and the inspiration to find and invest in innovative solutions.
Prior to joining FirstMark, Steph served as Chief of Staff at Merlin, a FirstMark portfolio company, and before that, she was an investor at Bain Capital Ventures.
Steph graduated summa cum laude from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Finance and Operations. While at Penn, she was a Founding Partner at Dorm Room Fund, a venture capital firm focused on student-run startups.