Entrepreneurship
When & Where
About this Track:
You want to build a successful and lasting company. Join us to hear from entrepreneurs who have done this in their own unique ways. You will learn how they navigated the fierce competition for customers, talent, and resources to build their businesses.
Where do you focus your time and attention as an entrepreneur? How do you grow your company? We will answer these questions and more.
Track Agenda
- 05/08/2021 | 9:00 am – 9:30 am PDT
- 30 mins Hall CSpeakersJay VijayanFounder and CEO
TekionJay Vijayan is an entrepreneur, engineer, inventor, and investor. He is the Founder and CEO of Tekion Corp, a hyper-growth technology company whose mission is to disrupt the status quo in the automotive retail industry by providing a cutting-edge cloud platform powered by Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things. Prior to founding Tekion in 2016, Jay was the Chief Information Officer of Tesla. During the years 2012-2016, Jay was responsible for building all of Tesla's information technology systems during the company's hyper-growth and ramp-up phase from when Tesla had nearly no revenue to when it reached an annual revenue run rate of over $5 Billion with a market capitalization of over $35 Billion. Jay is a Director on the Board of Directors of NIC Inc. (NASDAQ: EGOV. Jay has recently been appointed as a Director on the Board of Directors of HyreCar Inc.(NASDAQ: HYRE), a car-sharing platform for individuals who want to drive for ride-sharing companies like Uber or Lyft. Vijayan has previously served on the Executive Advisory Council of AT&T, Inc. and on the CIO Advisory Council of Microsoft Corporation. Jay is known for building simple and highly scalable technology platforms and solutions that transform, scale businesses, and enable operational efficiency.Eric WeiManaging Director
Advent International CorporationEric Wei is a Managing Director at Advent International Corporation, one of the largest global private equity investors, where his focus includes growth equity and majority investments in technology. Prior to joining Advent, Eric served as a Principal of Sageview Capital and Vice President of Bain Capital. Eric also serves on the Board of Directors of Conservice, FinancialForce, P2 Energy, Tekion and Zenoti. He has a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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- 05/08/2021 | 9:30 am – 9:50 am PDT
- 20 mins Hall CSpeakersPriya RajanMarket Lead for India and UAE
Silicon Valley BankPriya is Market Lead for India and UAE in SVB's international market development team, Global Gateway. She provides market entry advice and insights on cross-border engagement focused on constituents in the innovation ecosystem - founders and investors. Priya's work with Indian entrepreneurs and venture capital funds has yielded tangible value with founders accessing leading programs in the U.S. like Y-Combinator and investors getting visibility of great founders and deals. Priya calls on her experience, expertise and connections to champion a more inclusive innovation economy. She works closely with community leaders, including Change Catalyst, Kapor Capital, and YC Female Founders. She sits on the board of directors at non-profits Big Brothers Big Sisters and Women Who Code - an organization dedicated to helping women excel in technology careers. As a venture partner at Xfund, Priya connects VC firms with superior research universities and advisor at Entrepreneurship at Cornell University. Priya co-created the Diaspora Community initiative at SVB and is a charter member of TiE, a nonprofit focused on nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs with Indian ties. Prior to joining Global Gateway, Priya was a Director in our early stage practice (Startup Banking) where she led university programs and SVB Trek for student entrepreneurs. Leading to partnerships with Dorm Room Fund, The House Fund, Stanford Venture Studio and Rough Draft Ventures. Priya's career at SVB Financial Group began as a global group financial officer, a pivotal role in the Finance team. Earlier in her career, she held financial management positions at Charles Schwab and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. In addition to a bachelor's degree from the University of Madras and a master's degree in international business from Queen's University, Priya holds an MBA in business administration from Cornell University and a California CPA in accounting and business administration. Priya enjoys travelling the world, opening doors, and meeting new people. When not on a plane, Priya enjoys classical music - after studying music for over a decade, she passed on this passion and skill to her two children.Rohit ChennamaneniCo-Founder
DarwinboxRohit is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow (MBA) and has worked at the likes of McKinsey and Google in the past, where he has consulted large enterprises across the globe on digitalization and technology transformation. His experience in blending business strategy & technology and his aspiration to create disruptive products, business models and teams that drive growth, led Rohit to co-found Darwinbox, Asia's leading HR Technology platform. Rohit leads Operations, Investment, Customer Success and Expansion Strategy, amongst other things, at Darwinbox.Harshjit SethiPrincipal
Sequoia IndiaHarshjit advises on investments in early stage businesses at Sequoia India and is focused on fintech, SaaS and consumer internet sectors. He works closely with BharatPe, Darwinbox, Freshworks, smallcase, Turtlemint and Vymo amongst others. Prior to Sequoia, he was an early employee at Dropbox where he used to lead the android product which he saw scale to hundreds of millions of installs. He has completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering from Stanford University where he was a Frederick Terman scholar.
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- 05/08/2021 | 9:50 am – 10:20 am PDT
- 30 mins Hall CSpeakersJohn PennettPartner-in-Charge of the Life Sciences and Technology Group.
Eisner AmperJohn Pennett is the Partner-in-Charge of the Life Sciences Group and Technology Group. He has 30 years of public accounting experience, with a strong emphasis on public and private life science and technology companies. John is a frequent writer and speaker on topics related to issues impacting businesses in the life sciences and technology space. He is the publisher of Catalyst, a magazine focused solely on issues related to life sciences and pharmaceutical companies. John supports entrepreneurial organizations around the country with content and program development, and serves as a mentor to several early-stage companies. John has led the accounting, auditing and strategic advisory work for more than a hundred IPOs, private financing and mergers and acquisitions with an aggregate valuation in excess of $2 billion. In addition, he has served as the interim lead of the firm’s Risk Advisory Practice, leading internal audit, contract compliance and Sarbanes-Oxley implementation and testing. He is deeply involved in the firm’s Outsourced Accounting Services practice and the International Services Group. John previously worked as an Audit Partner for an international accounting and consulting firm.Betsy BluestoneCommercial Discovery Leader
P&G VenturesBetsy Bluestone is the Commercial Discovery Leader for P&G Ventures, an internal startup studio that works with entrepreneurs to create brands in new business categories for P&G. She has over 20+ years of sales and brand management experience within P&G. Betsy is an experienced business leader who has a track record of success across channels, geographies, billion-dollar brands, start-ups, and acquisitions. Within P&G Ventures she works with some of the world's most innovative thinkers, scientists, digital marketers, and entrepreneurs.Arpeeta OberaiCEO
BeauteaniArpeeta Oberai is the founder of Beauteani, an indie beauty-wellness brand that combines the innate vitality of self-care with super-potent beautyTM products — ingestible herbal teas and topical facial masks — that invite self-love rituals and create a more holistic lifestyle. She combined her years of experience in merchandise operations for Sephora with her roots in India to harness the superpowers of ancient herbal remedies and the undeniable power of taking care of yourself holistically for a completely new beauty — and life — experience. Her mission is to give you the fuel to ignite your best self, inside and out, because she believes nothing is more beautiful or powerful than authenticity. Arpeeta earned her B.S. in economics from Santa Clara University.Ben ParrPresident and Co-Founder
Octane AIBen Parr is President and Co-Founder of Octane AI, a platform to fuel brand growth and personalization. Octane AI powers engaging quizzes, data collection, and personalized Messenger and SMS automation. Ben is the author of "Captivology: The Science of Capturing People's Attention" and a board director of the non-profit Samasource. Previously, Ben was the Co-Editor of Mashable, a columnist for CNET, and a venture capitalist. He has sat on the advisor boards of Lufthansa Airlines and various startups. He is a member of Forbes 30 Under 30.Manu RekhiGeneral Partner
Inventus Capital PartnersManu brings deep experience building digital consumer and enterprise software businesses. As a General Partner at Inventus, Manu has worked with the founders at Poshmark (IPO), Vivu (ACQ: Polycom), Dhingana (ACQ: rd.io), Genwi (ACQ: Persistent), Credit Sesame, Talview, Stepfunction and many more. Manu is also on the board of Excelerate.it, an organization dedicated to helping growth ready enterprise startups scale by connecting Founders with customers and strategic partners across the globe Prior to joining Inventus, Manu built several successful digital consumer businesses for Google shortly after its IPO, then joined the founders at LoLapps to build a successful social gaming company, and was VP of Products at NewsCorp’s Digital Division. He started his career in the product group at AHWY (IPO). Manu holds a B.S. from Boston University and a joint MBA from Columbia Business School & The Walter Haas School of Business, Berkeley. He is a regular guest lecturer at Berkeley on the topic of entrepreneurship and Startup growth scaling.Chetan PungaliyaCo-founder & SVP of Engineering
PoshmarkChetan Pungaliya is the co-founder and Senior Vice President of Engineering at Poshmark, where he brings more than 15 years experience building and leading engineering teams from the ground up, as well as hands-on platform development. Prior to Poshmark, Chetan was co-founder and Vice President of Engineering at Kaboodle, where he oversaw product delivery, operations and strategy, and also recruited and scaled the engineering and operations teams in the U.S. and India. Prior to Kaboodle, Chetan was the Director of Engineering at OnVantage, Inc. where he managed a distributed engineering team of 50+ employees across the U.S. and China. Chetan holds a B.A. in Engineering from the University of Pune, India.
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- 05/08/2021 | 10:20 am – 10:40 am PDT
- 20 mins Hall CSpeakersSam NagarVP Corporate Strategy
SiemensAs VP Corporate Strategy for Siemens' Factory Automation business unit, Sam is responsible for executing the company’s digitalization vision and evolution of the Industrial shop floor. One of the original pioneers of edge computing, at the age of 23 Sam founded and grew his edge computing startup Pixeom to over $25M in annual revenue, 100+ employees, and 60+ Fortune 500 enterprise customers. He assumed his current position following Pixeom's acquisition by Siemens in 2019, after 6 years of growing the startup.Gary OliverCEO
ExcelerateGary Oliver has over 30 years’ experience building early stage, mid-size and global technology companies. Gary currently serves as CEO of Excelerate which was created to bridge the gap between innovators looking to scale and enterprises looking for game changing innovation. Excelerate selects the most promising scale ready startups and helps them prepare for and access global markets and strategic partnerships. Through a worldwide network of corporate leaders, advisors and mentors, Excelerate facilitates highly curated connections to accelerate revenue, strategic partnerships and scale.Gary is a graduate of UCLA and serves on multiple company and non-profit boards.Shyam RaoCo-Founder and Former CEO
PunchhShyam Rao is the Co-founder and CEO of Punchh, which was recently acquired for $500M by Par Technology Corporation, a leading global provider of restaurant technology. Punchh delivers dynamic, one-to-one customer engagement through data-driven, omnichannel loyalty, offers, and customer engagement for restaurants, c-stores, and other retailers. Shyam holds a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto and a MBA from the University of Chicago.
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- 05/08/2021 | 10:40 am – 11:10 am PDT
- 30 mins Hall CSpeakersNavneet ChughManaging Partner and Founder
Chugh LLPMr. Chugh has extensive experience in a wide variety of Corporate, Tax, Immigration, Litigation and Mergers & Acquisition matters. He is an attorney (1992) and a Certified Public Accountant (1990). He was the first president of the North American South Asian Bar Association (2003), a co-founder of The Indus Entrepreneurs Southern California (1997), Founder President of the South Asian Bar Association of Southern California (1995), the Indian Professionals Toastmasters Club (1986), the International Indian Bar Association and Chairman of the Board of Premier Media, Inc., a publishing company based in Los Angeles, California. Mr. Chugh is also on the board of Asia Society of Southern California, Habib American Bank, Ignify – an IT Consulting Firm, Pratham Southern California, and American India Foundation (AIF).Gaurav BhasinManaging Director
Allied AdvisersGaurav started Allied Advisers to serve entrepreneurs and investors globally. Gaurav began his career as an engineer and management professional before moving to Investment Banking. He has closed more than 50 transactions (M&A, Financings including structured debt and PE / VC raises, Recapitalization, Strategic Alliances and Divestitures, IPO and Follow-On for clients domestically and in Canada, Europe, Israel and India.) Prior to starting Allied Advisers, Gaurav was a Managing Director at Capstone Headwaters and Pagemill Partners / Duff & Phelps Securities. Previously, Gaurav worked as an investment banker at Banc of America Securities. Gaurav holds an MS in engineering from UCLA where he attended engineering school on a full research fellowship. He also got an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA while working full-time from where he graduated with Anderson Honors.Naeem ZafarCo-Founder and CEO
TelesenseNaeem Zafar has been teaching at the University of California, Berkeley since 2005. He is a Dean's Teaching Fellow, lecturer and Industry Fellow at the at the Center of Entrepreneurship and Technology. He is also an adjunct professor at the Northeastern University. He teaches courses in Entrepreneurship, Technology Strategy, Innovation and New Venture Finance. Naeem is also a serial entrepreneur and currently the co-founder and CEO of TeleSense, a company creating solution in AgTech space. Naeem has authored five books on entrepreneurship. Information can be found on www.NaeemZafar.com.Dave StevensAttorney at Law
Stevens Law GroupDave Stevens’ is an expert in helping companies develop IP programs, strategies and policies to protect a companies IP assets. His unique approach focuses companies on a wholistic approach to build IP portfolios as strategic assets. His IP practice includes a large team of world renowned industry experts in patent prosecution, transactions, due diligence work, agreements, opinions (including validity, infringement, patentability, right-to-practice (RTP) and freedom-to-operate (FTO) opinions), counseling, offensive and defensive patent strategies, licensing, and litigation. He also serves as an expert witness in technical and intellectual property legal issues and has been called as a fact witness in enforcement actions involving the many patents he has written. He also is an expert in copyright (including software, publications, products and artworks, and other copyrightable forms) and open source issues. He works with foreign IP firms and foreign clients with respect to domestic and international patent prosecution, including prosecution under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The technical focus of his practice includes electronics, computer technology, automotive technology, communications, optical systems, green technologies, software, semiconductors, life sciences, and mechanical devices.
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- 05/08/2021 | 11:10 am – 11:30 am PDT
- 20 mins Hall CSpeakersPaul SinghCRO
Tada Cognitive SolutionsR. Paul Singh is a serial entrepreneur with 4 successful exits with one company going public. He is an advisor to many startups and is also the CRO of Tada Cognitive; a supply chain software company. Paul is also a Google Startup Mentor and is also an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley and Northeastern University.Rehan JalilCEO
SECURITI.aiRehan Jalil is an Entrepreneur, Investor and Limited Partner in technology venture funds. Currently, he is the President, Founder and CEO of SECURITI.ai, the Cloud Services Security Company. He has been Venture Advisor at Mayfield Fund. Rehan Jalil is currently the CEO of SECURITI.ai. He was the SVP and GM for Cloud Security at Symantec,leading research and development for Cloud Security and helping to extend the reach of Symantec enterprise security products to cloud. Rehan came into Symantec with $4.7B acquisition of Bluecoat, where he ran cloud security. He came into BlueCoat via the $280M acquisition of Elastica, that he founded and ran as CEO. Elastica innovated CASB and drove it to become an important security category. Prior to that he was the founder and chief executive officer of WiChours, an innovator in deep packet inspection centered packet core, which was used to deploy some of the earliest 4G networks. WiChorus was acquired by Tellabs for $180M. Previously, he was Chief Architect at Aperto and helped innovate multicore processors at Sun Microsystems. He was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur finalist in 2010 and Top 25 Disruptor in 2015. He holds an AMP from Harvard Business School, an MSEE from Purdue University and a BS from NED University.
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Track Chairs
An entrepreneur, analyst, and consultant, the focus of Shannon's work is solving complex business challenges with the right balance of technology and process. As a part-time CTO/COO for his clients, he selects technology and aligns development plans and resources with the growth of the business.
Shannon's career has spanned many industries and touched on all aspects of the application of technology. From working in a warehouse configuring servers in the middle of a Chicago summer to managing projects for a Swiss bank. He has worked for early stage startups and some of the largest firms in the world. Sectors he has worked in include entertainment, fintech, telecommunications, law firms, enterprise software, and consumer internet products.
An active networker and event organizer, he has founded and organized multiple monthly networking events in Chicago and San Francisco and facilitated and organized many Open Space events including BarCamps and Hackathons. As a writer, he has contributed to many technology blogs as well as had an active presence online for over 20 years.
TiEcon 2021 Tracks
- AI & Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
All eyes on the business and human impact of AI
- Cloud & Security
Cloud & Security
Exciting new paradigms in cloud and security with a zero-trust position
- Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
Exploring the revolutionary future of entrepreneurship
- TiE Youth
- Healthcare Reimagined
Healthcare Reimagined
Reinventing healthcare in the age of the global pandemic
- Future of Work
Future of Work
Exploring the nature of work, workplace and workforce with the 4th industrial revolution
- Global Connect
Global Connect
Scaling global connectivity post digital transformation
- CXO Forum
CXO Forum
The CXO track provides an opportunity for the highest potential startups to interact with their biggest potential customers
- Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity and Inclusion
The Diversity & Inclusion track will focus on generating best practices for harnessing diversity and inclusion to drive innovation today and for the future.
- Social Impact
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Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
All eyes on the business and human impact of AI
-
Cloud & Security
Exciting new paradigms in cloud and security with a zero-trust position
-
Entrepreneurship
Exploring the revolutionary future of entrepreneurship
-
TiE Youth
Fostering youth entrepreneurship
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Healthcare Reimagined
Reinventing healthcare in the age of the global pandemic
-
Future of Work
Exploring the nature of work, workplace and workforce with the 4th industrial revolution
-
Global Connect
Scaling global connectivity post digital transformation
-
CXO Forum
The CXO track provides an opportunity for the highest potential startups to interact with their biggest potential customers
-
Diversity and Inclusion
The Diversity & Inclusion track will focus on generating best practices for harnessing diversity and inclusion to drive innovation today and for the future.
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Social Impact
Dare to Change the World for Good