SCALETECH - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Head of Glitch & VP, Developer Experience, Fastly
Anil Dash leads the team behind Glitch, the friendly developer community where coders have collaborated to create and share millions of web apps, serving as CEO of Glitch until its acquisition by Fastly. Honored by the Webby Awards with its lifetime achievement award in 2022, Dash is recognized as a leading advocate for more humane, inclusive and ethical technology through his work as an entrepreneur, activist and writer.
He serves as a board member for organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the pioneering nonprofit organization defending digital privacy and expression, The Markup, the leading nonprofit investigative newsroom pushing for tech accountability, and the Lower East Side Girls Club, which serves girls and families in need in New York City. Previously, Dash was an advisor to the Obama White House's Office of Digital Strategy, served for a decade on the board of Stack Overflow, the world's largest community for coders, and was on the board of the Data & Society Research Institute, which researches the cutting edge of tech's impact on society. Today, he continues to advise respected startups and non-profits including DonorsChoose, Medium, The Human Utility and Project Include. In 2008, he led a MacArthur-backed research project that carried out pioneering research on social media's impact on policy making. And during his tenure as CEO of Glitch, the company became the first tech startup to voluntarily recognize its workers' union.
As a writer and artist, Dash was a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Wired, has written for publications like The Atlantic and Businessweek, co-created one of the first implementations of the technology now known as NFTs, had his works exhibited in the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and collaborated with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on one of the most popular Spotify playlists of 2018.
Described by the New Yorker as a "blogging pioneer", his personal website has been cited in sources ranging from the New York Times to hundreds of academic papers. In 2013, Time named @anildash one of the best accounts on Twitter, and he is the only person ever retweeted by both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Prince, a succinct summarization of Dash's interests. Dash has also been a keynote speaker and guest in a broad range of media ranging from the Aspen Ideas Festival to Desus and Mero's late-night show. He's also guested on most of your favorite podcasts.
Dash is based in New York City, where he lives with his wife Alaina Browne and their son Malcolm. Like most people, he has never played a round of golf, drank a cup of coffee, filed a patent, or graduated from college.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and CEO, Hidden Door
Widely regarded as a pioneer in modern data science, Hilary served as chief scientist of the bit.ly Internet platform. She founded and ran Fast Forward Labs until its acquisition by Cloudera, where she held the role of General Manager of Machine Learning. She's also the Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners.
An active organizer of technology groups, she's behind DataGotham and HackNY, and is a director of the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology. In 2020, she co-founded Hidden Door, a generative social roleplaying game powered by narrative AI. You can learn more about what she's up to at Hilarymason.
Job Titles:
- Cloudera Founder Mike Olson, Loop.Io's Nahla Sahlem, and AirBnB 's Theresa Johnson to Discuss Enterprise AI Strategy
Job Titles:
- Founder & CEO, FilmHedge
- Founder of Film
Jon Gosier is the Founder of FilmHedge, a fin-tech company that disrupts Hollywood by offering new ways of financing major Film and TV productions. Previously he was the Founder and CEO of Audigent which was recently named 'one of the fastest growing tech companies in the country (2022)' by Inc5000. Jon is a serial tech-entrepreneur who has successfully scaled companies to exit on three continents (Africa, NorthAm, and Europe). When he's not disrupting media, he makes it as an Executive Producer of Film and TV. He is an active investor and the Principal of Southbox Capital.
Job Titles:
- Chief Innovation Officer of Hachette Livre
Maja Thomas is the Chief Innovation Officer of Hachette Livre, and the Director of the Hachette Business Development and Innovation Program, focusing on the intersection of publishing and digital innovation.
Job Titles:
- Chief Product Officer, Census
After starting his career as product manager for App Engine, Google's first entry into cloud computing, Sean joined YCombinator and co-founded tablet ad platform TapEngage. The company was acquired by Dropbox in 2012, where Sean served as Group Product Manager building out the company's team offering, APIs, and partnerships and driving growth.
A strong supporter of the startup community, he spent six months as Entrepreneur in Residence at Social Capital, and is a charter member of the C100. In March, 2018, he co-founded Census Data, where he serves as Chief Product Officer.
Job Titles:
- Product Leader / Board Member / Advisor, Former Shopify
Tui brings over 20 years of proven experience building world-class technology products, services, and marketplaces for global businesses. Her experience includes being Head of Product for Shopify's (SHOP) Financial Services where she led the direction of their banking and lending product portfolios. This included responsibility for Shopify Capital (delivering $4B+ in merchant funding), Shopify Balance (a newly launched banking platform), and Shopify's billing solutions.
Prior to Shopify, Tui was responsible for the direction of Blackbaud's (BLKB) Fintech portfolio and vertical solutions. This included accounting and payments products and vertical CRM solutions for the education and arts & cultural markets. Her leadership on the Fintech portfolio resulted in +$200M ARR. She also led several acquisitions.
She's a public speaker on Product Management, Fintech, and Innovation. In addition, she is an advocate for diversity in tech, is frequently featured on industry podcasts, was quoted in "Embedded Finance" by Scarlett Sieber and Sophie Guibaud, and a board member at Engaging Creative Minds (ECM), a STEAM education-focused non-profit.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director and North American Market Leader, BMO Technology & Innovation Banking
Umair has over 15 years of experience in corporate & commercial banking, private equity and financial advisory, and is currently Managing Director and North American Market Leader, BMO Technology & Innovation Banking. Umair's background includes originating, structuring, and executing transactions across the capital structure in a variety of industries.
In 2012, Umair joined BMO Capital Partners where he executed and managed private equity and junior capital investments. In 2017, he joined BMO Sponsor Finance as Managing Director providing financing solutions to private equity funds to facilitate acquisitions and investments.
Earlier in his career, Umair worked in the M&A advisory division of Deloitte and KPMG, where he was involved in several transactions in the industrial, consumer, healthcare, and technology sectors.