Professor Alex "Sandy" Pentland directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics labs and previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and the Media Lab Asia in India. He is one of the most-cited scientists in the world, and Forbes recently declared him one of the "7 most powerful data scientists in the world" along with Google founders and the Chief Technical Officer of the United States. He has received numerous awards and prizes such as the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review, the 40th Anniversary of the Internet from DARPA, and the Brandeis Award for work in privacy.

He is a founding member of advisory boards for Google, AT&T, Nissan, and the UN Secretary General, a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded more than a dozen companies. His most recent books are `Social Physics,' published by Penguin Press, and 'Honest Signals', published by MIT Press.

Kat Manalac is a partner at Y Combinator and originally joined as its first Director of Outreach. Kat focuses on finding great entrepreneurs for the program. Prior to YC, Kat worked as Chief of Staff to Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of reddit and head of the nonprofit Breadpig. Before that, she was at WIRED Magazine. Kat attended Northwestern University where she studied communications and worked with the university's Web Use Project. Kat was born in the Philippines and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Jennifer Hanley brings twenty years of strategic communications experience to Tusk’s clients across politics, finance, corporate communications and the regulatory environment.

Prior to joining Tusk Ventures, Jennifer was the head of global communications and corporate engagement at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), a leading global investment firm that manages investments across multiple asset classes including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit and hedge funds. Jennifer successfully oversaw all internal and external communications and launched the firm’s corporate philanthropy program.

Prior to joining KKR in 2012, Jennifer worked at J.P. Morgan Chase, where she was a Managing Director working on the firm’s international expansion efforts, as well as Global Head of Marketing & Communications for the Treasury & Securities Services (TSS) business. She also served as a senior adviser and member of the executive committee to the TSS CEO.

Before joining J.P. Morgan Chase in 2008, Jennifer spent close to six years as press secretary for Hillary Clinton during her tenure as a U.S. Senator and during her presidential campaign.

Jennifer received a B.A. from American University in Washington, DC.

Dr. Gil is a leading technologist and senior executive at IBM. As Vice President of Science and Solutions of IBM Research, Dr. Gil directs a global organization of some 1,500 researchers across 11 laboratories. He has direct responsibility for IBM’s science agenda, with a broad portfolio of activities spanning the physical sciences, the mathematical sciences, healthcare and the life sciences. Dr. Gil is also responsible for IBM’s cognitive solutions research agenda, which aims to create scientific and technological breakthroughs to differentiate IBM’s solutions businesses and serves as an incubator for future cognitive industry solutions for IBM and its clients.
Prior to his current position, Dr. Gil was the Director of Symbiotic Cognitive Systems, where he led the creation of cognitive environments, highly interactive physical spaces designed to improve the quality of decision-making through always-on ambient intelligence. During his tenure he was responsible for the design and creation of three pioneering laboratories and experiential centers: the Cognitive Environments Laboratory, the IBM Research THINKLab and the IBM Watson Experience Center.

Dr. Gil is a passionate advocate of collaborative research business models and is the creator and Founding Director of two research consortia: the IBM Research Frontiers Institute and the Smarter Energy Research Institute. An expert in the field of nanofabrication, he led the team that built the world’s first microprocessor with immersion lithography in 2004.

Dr. Gil is a frequent speaker at business events, conferences (including TED), universities, research institutions and foundations. His research results have appeared in over 20 international journals and conferences, and he is the author of numerous patents. Dr. Gil is a member of the Future Trends Forum, the Industrial Advisory Group of the Institute of Photonic Sciences and an elected member of the IBM Academy of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Patricia is a General Partner of Oak HC/FT where she focuses on growth equity and early-stage venture opportunities exclusively in financial services technology. Since Oak HC/FT’s launch in September 2014, Patricia has led the fund’s investments in Fastpay, Feedzai, Insureon and Trov among others, and sits on the boards of each. She is also a Board Observer on Poynt.

Patricia joined Oak Investment Partners as a Venture Partner in 2002 and continues to serve on the Boards of Duedil and Freshbooks. Some of Patricia’s past portfolio activity includes Vesta Corporation, Acculynk, Argus Information & Advisory Services (acquired by Verisk Analytics), Harbor Payments (acquired by American Express), NetSpend Corporation (acquired TSYS), Point Carbon (acquired by Thomson Reuters), and TxVia (acquired by Google).

Patricia’s history includes over 11 years of senior management experience at Cendant (formerly CUC International). At various times she was responsible for the marketing, operations, or general management of a variety of direct marketing credit card affinity programs. Patricia has also previously held positions at Hewlett Packard and Merrill Lynch.

Tricia earned a BA and MBA from Stanford University.

Ariadna (Ari) Font Llitjós is Director of Emerging Technology Experiences at IBM Research, with the main mission to bring science to the world. Leveraging design thinking and lean UX best practices, Ari leads a team of researchers, developers, and designers identifying and enhancing scientific breakthroughs and creating and launching experiences that have significant impact on people’s lives.
 
In her previous life, upon obtaining a Ph.D in Language and Information Technologies in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (August 2007), she had over 5 different roles at a startup, ranging from computational linguist and UX lead to development manager.

Saikat Dey is a co-founder of Guardhat, Inc., a start up based in Detroit aiming to create an industrial IoT and wearables platform for workers in heavy manufacturing industries like steel, oil and gas and mining. Every year, over 4600 people lose their lives on the jobs in these industries due to unsafe work conditions. Guardhat, aims to change that by creating a wearable IIOT platform that provides real time situational awareness and connectivity to frontline workers in such industries.

Previously, Saikat served as the CEO of Severstal NA, which was the fourth largest flat steelmaker in the US competing against the likes of Nucor, US Steel and Arcelor Mittal. Severstal is considered one of the best examples of heavy manufacturing revival in the United States, with flagship locations in Michigan and Mississippi. Saikat led the successful turnaround and divestiture of these assets in September 2014 to two of its rivals.

He joined Severstal from McKinsey & Co. where he worked in the Global Energy and Materials practice. He is widely recognized as a global thought leader on investment strategies, commercial optimization and operational improvement within commodity industries, and has recently authored the book “Uncommoditized” which serves as a quick read on the DNA of successful players. He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an undergraduate degree in Mining Engineering from the National Institute of Technology in India.

Kent Bennett, a Partner in Bessemer's Cambridge, Mass. office, joined the company in 2008. Kent focuses on investments in the "big data", data-infrastructure sectors as well as tech-enabled consumer service models.

At Bessemer, Kent has been involved in investments including data-management companies Endeca (acq. by Oracle), Streambase (acq. by TIBX), Vertica (acq. by HP), Hadapt, Infinio Systems, Netuitive and Portrait Software; mobile-communications companies BroadSoft (IPO), Millennial Media (IPO) and Enforta; as well as in Blue Apron and Goal.com.

Prior to joining Bessemer, Kent was a creative executive for an entertainment-production company, where he developed and sold original material including a network television pilot and a feature film.  He began his career with Bain & Co.

Kent holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, and a B.S. degree, summa cum laude, in systems engineering from the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar.

Darren M. Jiron is a partner in Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP’s Reston, Virginia office. Mr. Jiron has extensive experience in patent procurement, patent litigation, and post-grant patent proceedings before the PTAB. With this combined experience, Mr. Jiron enjoys helping clients build strategically developed patent portfolios that align with and support their business goals, block competitors, and build corporate value. He is also skilled in defensive and offensive patent portfolio assessment, patent validity and infringement opinions, due diligence, product clearance studies, and patent portfolio management.

Coppelia Marincovic is the Investment Manager North America at Solvay Ventures, the venture capital fund of Solvay. With over 100m EUR under management, the fund invests in advanced materials with application in energy transition, health & well being, industry 4.0, with a strong sustainability component.

Her prior experience in VC was at Sofinnova Partners, a large VC fund based in Paris where she specialized in cleantech and industrialbiology. Before joining Solvay, Coppelia was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, advising top-tier pharmaceuticals and chemicals corporations on strategy and resource productivity. While at McKinsey, she won a Gold Medal at the McKinsey New Ventures competition (formerly Practice Olympics). Prior to her MBA, Coppelia was a project manager with Thinkstep (formerly PE International), a leading sustainability consulting firm.

Coppelia holds a MBA from INSEAD, MSc. in Environmental Sciences from Harvard and MSc. in Chemistry from Chimie ParisTech.

TJ Parker is the co-founder and CEO of PillPack. Parker is a second generation pharmacist and holds a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. He was named one of Forbes' '30 Under 30' in 2015 and Inc Magazine's ‘30 under 30’ "Most Dynamic Young CEOs in America" in 2016.

Mr. Ratha is credited to be the first to analyze and formalize the global significance of remittances. In 2012, he founded KNOMAD, a multidisciplinary, global hub of knowledge on migration. He is the focal point for the World Bank’s Migration Working Group and the Diaspora Bond Task Force, and a co-coordinator of the (G20) Global Remittances Working Group. He is the chair of the Board and first CEO and founder of the Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium. He is also the brain behind the African Institute for Remittances. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the South Asia Institute, Harvard University and a member of the World Economic Forum Council on migration.

Besides migration, he has done pioneering work on innovative financing including diaspora bonds, future-flow securitization, and shadow sovereign ratings.

He has a Ph.D. in economics from the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi where he worked as a visiting lecturer and helped build a CGE model for the Planning Commission of India.

Dilip hosts the PeopleMove blog. His TED Talk, “The hidden force in global economics: sending money home,” has over a million views.

Matt Marx is an associate professor of Entrepreneurship at Sloan. Previously, he worked as a software engineer and an executive at technology startups SpeechWorks and Tellme, where he received six patents. He holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, a master's degree from the MIT Media Lab, and an MBA as well as a doctoral degree from Harvard Business School.