ADVISORY COMMITTEE

  • Sophia Lee

    PRIVATE EQUITY, FINANCIAL STRATEGY, & OPERATIONS

    Sophia is a seasoned executive with robust leadership experience in financial strategy, private equity portfolio management, and operational optimization. Before her current role as a finance executive for the Washington Spirit Women's Soccer team, Sophia served as SVP at Riverwood Capital, overseeing finance operations for funds totaling $6 billion. She also served as Corporate Controller at InterVideo, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: IVII), leading worldwide financial reporting, budgeting, and operations through the company's IPO. Sophia holds an MBA from The Wharton School, an MSc in Accounting from Oklahoma City University, a bachelor's from National Taiwan University, and she is a CPA.

  • Robert Sistek

    REAL ESTATE & PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

    Rob is the Principal of Silver 47 Capital Management, bringing comprehensive leadership experience across all functional areas of a real estate investment fund. He has successfully overseen $8 billion in closed real estate transactions, holding key roles at top-tier private equity firms and REITs, including Prologis, The Carlyle Group, DCT Industrial, and BioMed Realty. Rob graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Accounting and earned an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

  • Ajai Sharma

    TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY

    Ajai has driven AI strategy for the world's largest enterprises across financial services, insurance, and healthcare. He has also pioneered, grown, and successfully exited award-winning AI start-ups. As Head of Product, Deep Learning at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ajai launched new cloud businesses on the award-winning SageMaker ML platform as part of AWS's Database, Analytics, ML, and Deep Learning division. He earned a Mathematics and Statistics degree from Berkeley and an MBA from The Wharton School.

  • Zrinka Dekic

    MEDIA, ENTERTANMENT, SPORTS, & GAMING

    Zrinka possesses extensive leadership experience in finance, strategy, and M&A transactions within top media, entertainment, and gaming companies, as well as bulge-bracket investment banks. She is currently a board member for D-BOX, and previously served as the CFO & Head of Strategy for Genius Brands (GNUS). Her executive roles also include positions at Goldman Sachs, Disney, and Houlihan Lokey. Zrinka received her BA from Amherst College and was both a Wolff and Soros Foundation Scholar. She holds an MBA from The Wharton School.

  • Charles Cartier

    SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE & TRANSFORMATION

    Charles is the founder and CEO of Opener Consulting (openerconsulting.com), bringing 20+ years of proven execution creating custom financial applications and re-engineering legacy systems for a highly diversified range of premier corporate clients, including Lululemon, Whistler Blackcomb, and Fitness World. Leveraging Excel/VBA, SQL, and business intelligence software, Charles designs solutions that are efficient, pragmatic, and durable. Charles graduated from Université de Sherbrooke with a degree in Computer & Information Management.

  • Kareem El Sawy

    PRIVATE EQUITY & EARLY-STAGE TECHNOLOGY (SAAS)

    Kareem was a founding partner of Arrowroot Capital, a global growth equity firm focused on enterprise software, which invested $600mm+ across 29 platform investments and 30 add-ons over his decade there. Prior to Arrowroot, Kareem was at OpenGate Capital, a global buyout PE firm with $1.5bn+ AUM where he was on the M&A team for North America and Latin America. He began his investing career in TMT merchant banking at Redwood Capital (now a part of Drake Star Partners). Kareem was named to GrowthCap’s Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors. He received his BS from the University of Southern California and an MBA from The Wharton School.

  • Steve Horrex

    NON-PROFITS & COMMUNITY BUILDING

    Co-Founder, Amor Ministries
    Co-Founder & CEO, Diagrid Advisors

  • Robert Bixel

    NON-PROFITS & COMMUNITY BUILDING

    Officer & Treasurer, San Diego Rescue Mission
    Founder, Integrity Plus Property Management