2019

As iCEO, co-founder and member of the board of directors for Ripcord, Alex Fielding is responsible for the leadership, vision and execution of the company. Fielding started his career as an engineer at Cisco Systems and Apple, where he worked on multiple generations of MacOS, PowerBook, Network Server and was part of the first iMac team. Shortly after departing Apple, he worked at Exodus Communications with Ellen Hancock, Exodus’ CEO who was Apple’s former CTO. He co-founded Wheels of Zeus with Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak in 2001, which was sold to Zontrak in 2006. Alex was Chief Technology Officer, Federal Government at Power Assure and then Vice President at Vigilent before starting Ripcord. Alex sits on the Board of Directors of The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), is a Board Member of the Code Warrior Foundation and is a founding member of Singularity University. He is an Orange Telecom mentor in their Mentor Fab startup accelerator and an Advisor to Astra Space.

I spend most of my daytime running MightySignal, a mobile software analytics company acquired in October 2018 by Xenon Ventures. They asked me to lead the company after the original employees left to join Instacart. 

Prior to that, I ran FindEmails and a few other small sales and marketing technology companies like eNPS, TrackJobChanges, and Voxloca. The passive income was enough to sustain and give me the freedom to write a book, The Parallel Entrepreneur, and spend a lot of time being a pretty awesome dad. In November 2018 I sold most of that income to Ramp Ventures and went full-time onto MightySignal. 

Besides work (and still being a pretty awesome dad and husband too, I think) I volunteer frequently in my community. I’m leading some initiatives for the Democratic Party of Contra Costa County, I’m on the Contra Costa County Sustainability Commission, and frequently speak about entrepreneurship at Diablo Valley College, where I’m also on the business program’s advisory board. 

I graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004 with a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Environmental Sciences. A few years later, I graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School with a Master’s in Public Policy and from the MIT Sloan School of Managementwith an MBA. 

Want to connect? Here’s who I’d love to hear from: 

• Thoughtful, energetic people who want to run for office in or around Contra Costa County and do something interesting in the vast middle ground between our two major parties. 
• Entrepreneurs who have found a balance between maximal earnings and maximal flexibility and family time. 
• People who have overcome some external obstacles and are focusing on health and happiness. 

Ethan is the co-founder and Head of Engineering of Musely, a marketplace of natural beauty and skincareproducts. Prior to Musely, Ethan was the co-founder and CEO of uni-U, a journaling app for your closefriends and families.

Shyam Rao is CEO and Co-Founder of Punchh, the leading customer platform for restaurants and retailers, providing all-in-one CRM, loyalty, and analytics. Previously, he held positions of increasing seniority at Motorola in its CDMA and WiMAX divisions, co-founded LoCognition, served on the Principal Investments Team at Merrill Lynch, and served as a Vice President of Business Development at Prime Focus. Mr. Rao holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Stacey has extensive experience building companies and fueling growth from stealth startup to brandname, global technology organizations, and is a passionate advocate for the advancement of women inthe workplace. Stacey Epstein is currently President of Zinc, an enterprise messaging platform recentlyacquired by ServiceMax. Prior to Zinc, Stacey was Chief Marketing Officer at ServiceMax. Prior to that,Stacey was head of global marketing at SuccessFactors, which was acquired by SAP for $3.4b in2012.Stacey holds a B.A. from Emory University where she was a four-time all conference soccerplayer. She is mother to two young daughters and is a prolific writer about her perspective concerningleadership, technology, and innovation.Her pieces have appeared in Inc., Fast Company, Entrepreneur,and Recode, among others.

Alexandre Lazarow is Director at Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Cathay Innovation was founded around the conviction that empowering digital entrepreneurs with a global platform can help them accomplish their vision. Cathay Innovation is part of Cathay Private Equity, a global private equity firm with over $3 billion in assets under management, and a global footprint including San Francisco, New York, Paris, Munich, Tel Aviv, Beijing and Shanghai.  Previously, Alexandre was a Principal with Omidyar Network, focusing on fintech investments across US, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. This includes investments in a number of innovative companies including GuiaBolso, Offgrid:Electric, Kin, Chime, Juntos, Cignifi, Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, Lenddo, MicroEnsure, Pagatech, RUMA, and Zoona.  Prior to joining Omidyar Network, Alexandre was a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Co.’s Brussels and Washington D.C. offices, where he served clients across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, across the private, public, and social sectors. Previously, Alexandre worked in financial regulation with the Bank of Canada’s Financial Stability Department, investing with Bridges Ventures and M&A investment banking with the Royal Bank of Canada. Alexandre is a Kauffman Fellow, earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder. He has a bachelor of commerce in international business and finance from the University of Manitoba. He is a Term Member with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Cameron Gray is Investment Banker at MDB Capital since 2013, and sits on the Boards of Cue Biopharma and Provention Bio. Cameron has a Ph.D. in biophysics and a J.D. Dr. Gray was a hedge fund trader prior to returning to law school. Before joining MDB Capital in 2013, Dr. Gray held senior roles at a fintech company in the community banking sector. After receiving his J.D., Dr. Gray led the early development of IPXI, a financial exchange spun out of Ocean Tomo in Chicago. Dr. Gray also ran Asia Pacific for ICAP’s Patent Brokerage business.
Dr. Gray has lived in the Bay Area since 2010.

Helen MacKenzie is Managing Director at Avalon Net Worth, a boutique investment bank. She is also a Managing Director of Artemis Ventures, Co-Capital Partners and President of MacKenzie & Associates, Inc.  She was Managing Director of multi-billion dollar Softbank Technology Ventures. She has been advisor/partner to more than a dozen other venture and private equity funds, including early stage Peregrine Ventures. She is an advisor, board member or investor to dozens of digital media and enterprise software companies. Previously, she was a Bank of America Vice President alternating between the Bank’s Credit Committee and managing corporate lending group.