Divya Gugnani

Founder of Behind the Burner

Divya Gugnani acquired a taste for her future in culinary arts while building a career in finance. In addition to a B.S. from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, Divya holds a degree from the French Culinary Institute, where she discovered her inner chef. Divya started her career at Goldman Sachs and then worked at Investcorp International and Millennium Technolgy Ventures. Most recently, as a venture capitalist and Principal at FirstMark Capital, Divya provided companies with strategic and operational guidance to achieve their visions. Divya has also catered events and worked in restaurant kitchens while managing her corporate boardroom responsibilities. With the creation of Behind the Burner, Divya blends her long-time passion for culinary arts with her expertise in business.

Divya currently advises several startups and establish brands with board level roles. She appears on MSNBC: Your Business and has been featured in BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, The Deal, Eat.Drink.Better and several other publications.

Gautam Gupta

Associate at General Catalyst Partners

Gautam focuses on investments in new and existing technology businesses.

Gautam joined General Catalyst from Procter and Gamble, where he analyzed brand strategy and consumer preferences in the Consumer Market Knowledge group of Procter and Gamble's North American Fabric Care business unit. Prior to that, he worked closely with the sales and marketing groups at Wireless Services Corporation and CTV Live on Campus, during his studies at Babson College.

Gautam received a B.S. in Business Administration from Babson College, with a concentration in Entrepreneurial Studies.

Girish Gupta

Associate at RRE Ventures

Girish Gupta is an Associate with RRE Ventures. Girish is actively involved with the following RRE portfolio companies: drop.io, Ember, Payfone, and Rave Wireless.

Prior to joining RRE, Girish was an Investment Banker in the Global Technology Group at Lehman Brothers. At Lehman, Girish was primarily focused on financing and M&A transactions in Software, Digital Media, Communications Equipment, and Technology Services. Prior to Lehman, Girish was with Alkeon Capital Management, a technology focused hedge fund. At Alkeon, Girish helped form sector and company investment theses for portfolio managers and educated investors on competitive technologies and trends in the semiconductor space. While studying Electrical Engineering at Columbia University, Girish was a research assistant at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, a university-based research center focusing on strategy, management, and policy issues in telecommunications, computing, and electronic mass media. Girish graduated with honors from Columbia with a BS in Electrical Engineering and minor in Economics.

Girish is a strong supporter of youth entrepreneurship and socially minded enterprises, serving on the advisory board of Ashoka's Youth Venture in New York City.

Ross H. Goldstein

Co-Founder and Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures

Ross H. Goldstein is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures, an early-stage IT venture capital fund based in New York City. He has worked directly with technology, communications, media and other emerging growth companies for most of his 25-year career. Mr. Goldstein has a combination of venture capital, technology start-up operating, and investment banking experience. Mr. Goldstein is DFJ Gotham's representative on the boards of Mimeo.com, Lumeta, ContextWeb, Searchandise, IZEA and Drop.io.

Prior to co-founding Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures, Mr. Goldstein was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Interactive Imaginations, Inc., one of the East Coast's pioneering Internet companies, and the predecessor company to 24/7 Real Media, Inc., which was recently acquired by WPP Group. Prior to Interactive Imaginations, Mr. Goldstein was with Morgan Stanley for 13 years, where he had most recently been a senior banker responsible for equity financings for the firm's technology, telecommunications and media clients. He also serves on the Board of Directors of New York Cares, a non-profit volunteer organization based in New York City. Mr. Goldstein received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics-Economics, magna cum laude, from Brown University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Liz Hamburg

Founder and President of Upstart Ventures

Liz Hamburg is a “serial entrepreneur” with extensive experience launching new products and companies in areas of communications, technology, entertainment and media. She is the founder and President of Upstart Ventures, consulting to and incubating early stage companies. Through Upstart, she has been involved in the startup of 15 new businesses including her latest venture, ApplyWise, an online college admissions counseling company.

Liz is the co-host on WOR radio (WOR 710AM) of “Launchpad”, a weekly radio segment focusing on entrepreneurs and small business. She also blogs about small business for the Huffington Post.

Liz was Chairman and Founder of Hypnotic, a broadband content and branded entertainment company and was one of the founding managers and Director of the Board of Vimpel Communications (NYSE:VIP), the leading cellular company in Russia.

She has launched new products for Reuters Tokyo and Fujisankei Communications, one of Japan’s largest media conglomerates, where she worked on the first international television home shopping show and played a leading role in the introduction of Fuji’s Nintendo game software into the U.S.

Liz received an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.A. from Brown University. She is a Director of the Board of Safe Space, a New York based non-profit; the President of the Advisory Board of the Brown University Entrepreneurs Program and a member of the Advisory Panel of the Columbia Business School's Eugene Lang Entrepreneur Initiative Fund. She is a frequent lecturer on topics concerning entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses.

Stephanie Hanbury-Brown

Managing Director of Golden Seeds LLC

Ms. Hanbury-Brown is the Managing Director of Golden Seeds LLC, which provides investment capital to early stage, high growth companies.

Prior to that, she spent 20 years working in the financial services industry in Sydney, London and New York. The majority of her career was with J.P. Morgan, where she headed several global businesses including Global Head of Futures and Options, Head of International Private Banking, Chief Operating Officer of Global Equities and Head of eCommerce.

She is currently a member of the board of directors of Design2Launch and Artemis Woman, both private companies, as well as Count Me In, a not-for-profit organization.

Wenda Harris Millard

President of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

Wenda Harris Millard was named Co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (MSLO) in June 2008. She is also the company’s President, Media, a position she assumed when she joined MSLO in July 2007 after three years of service as a member of the Board of Directors. Ms. Millard oversees MSLO’s media businesses, which include Publishing, Internet and Broadcasting.

During her tenure, Ms. Millard has been rapidly expanding the company’s presence in the digital space, including spearheading the company’s investments in WeddingWire and Pingg Corp. She has been the driving force behind creating cross-platform programs for marketers to leverage MSLO brands’ passionate consumer connection.

A seasoned executive with over thirty years of publishing and advertising experience, Millard was formerly Chief Sales Officer at Yahoo!, Chief Internet Officer at Ziff Davis Media, President of Ziff Davis Internet, and Executive Vice President of DoubleClick. Millard has also served as President and Group Publisher of SRDS, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Family Circle and Executive Vice President/Group Publisher of Adweek, Mediaweek and Brandweek magazines.

Millard is currently Chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Ad Council. She also serves on the Boards of Do Something, Pop!Tech and The James Beard Foundation.

Millard holds an MBA from Harvard University and a BA from Trinity College.

Rick Heitzmann

Managing Director at FirstMark Capital

Rick Heitzmann, a Founder and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, focuses on investments in the emerging media & advertising and data & analytics sectors, and serves on FirstMark Capital’s Investment Committee. Prior to founding FirstMark Capital, Rick was a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Rick led Pequot’s investments in StubHub (Acquired by eBay), First Advantage (NASDAQ: FADV) and US Search. Rick has led and sits on the board of 4 FirstMark portfolio companies, including Clickable, Weplay, Live Gamer and Riot Games.

Rick has a B.S. from Georgetown University and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.

Darren Herman

Head of Digital Media at The Media Kitchen

Darren is a serial entrepreneur, adviser, and board member within the media, advertising, and technology industries. Mr. Herman is fascinated with the white-space that exists between the above industries and looks for companies who try and bridge them together. Darren's belief is that 98% of ideas aren't really new; they are repackaged and spun differently to the marketplace. He's been through the first and second dot com wave, and learned quite a few lessons and look forward to applying them to his latest endeavors.

Over the past few years Darren has started and been involved with several companies including IGA Worldwide, The Media Kitchen, MDC Partners, Varick Media Management, FortuneCity, Shopflick, and many others. Herman has raised over $40MM for his own ventures and helped raise $30MM+ for ventures he's working with.

Herman has won numerous awards during his career for both execution and innovation but most notably, BusinessWeek's Top Entrepreuenr Award in 2007.

Erik Hopf

Director of Operations at Disperse Interactive

Erik Hopf is Director of Operations at Disperse Interactive - a pioneering, interactive marketing agency specializing in helping clients navigate and leverage the fast-evolving world of social media (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Delicious, Plaxo, LinkedIn). In his role, Erik oversees and coordinates all client-facing departments, including production and creative teams, Disperse teams, research and analytics, and client services. Erik has been involved in social media since 2002, having worked on brands including Pepsi, TVLand/Nick@Nite and Alberto Culver. Additionally, he is a frequent speaker on industry panels.

Erik holds a MA in English Literature from Seton Hall University and currently resides in his hometown, Jersey City, NJ.

Doug Imbruce

CEO & Founder of theU.net

Doug Imbruce is the Founder and CEO of theU.net, an online advertising network that reaches over 8,700,000 college-bound students and parents monthly. 80% of the domestic 15-18 YO college-bound audience visits at least one of our sites every quarter, while our tools and services (including flagship destination theU.com) assist hundreds of thousands of students daily in determining vocations and post-secondary education options. The company is headquartered in New York City and was founded in 2005 while Mr. Imbruce was a Senior at Columbia University.

Amish Jani

Managing Director at FirstMark Capital

Amish Jani, a Founder and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, focuses on software and systems investments in the enterprise, communications and digital media sectors, and serves on FirstMark Capital’s Investment Committee. Amish also leads FirstMark’s investment strategies for the Indian marketplace. Prior to founding FirstMark Capital, Amish was a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Amish has led and sits on the board of 7 FirstMark portfolio companies, including IMImobile, Conductor, Boomi and Lumos Labs.

Amish has both a B.S. and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jalak Jobanputra

Senior Vice President of New York City Investment Fund

Currently Senior Vice President at the New York City Investment Fund (NYCIF) where she oversees technology and digital media venture investments, Jalak spearheaded the formation of NYCSeed in 2008, a seed fund dedicated to funding early stage tech entrepreneurs in NYC, and sits on its investment committee.

Prior to NYCIF, she was a Principal at New Venture Partners, a $300 million early stage venture fund. At NVP, she founded and served as interim CEO of Real Time Content and was a Director of Procelerate Technologies. From 1999-2003, Jalak was at Intel Capital in Silicon Valley, where she oversaw enterprise software and digital media investments, including Demantra (sold to Oracle), Extricity (sold to Peregrine), Viacore (sold to IBM), Yodlee and Zinio. She was on the launch team of online financial research startup Horsesmouth in the early days of Silicon Alley in 1996, and began her career in media, telecom and tech investment banking at Lehman and Broadview in NYC and London.

Jalak has invested, and traveled extensively, in India, Europe, Africa, East Asia and Latin America. She is also active in supporting education reform and social entrepreneurship and serves on boards of Achievement First Bushwick Charter School (Brooklyn) and Echoing Green and has consulted for the Big Picture and Fenway charter schools in New England as well as Jobs for the Future. Jalak spent four months setting up microfinance programs and training women entrepreneurs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania after receiving her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 1999. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Communications from the Annenberg School and a BSE in Finance from the Wharton School.

Robin Kent

Former Chairman & CEO of Universal McCann Worldwide

Robin is the Co-Founder of Rebel Digital. A company which consults to a number of digital music platforms and sells advertising on their behalf to “blue chip” advertisers.

Prior to this Robin was the founding CEO of SpiralFrog from May 2005 to December 2006 where he was responsible for raising funds, creating the brand, putting in place the ad sales team and signing record label and publishing contracts. He left along with the majority of his team and the Board in December 2006 to establish Rebel Digital.

Until April 2005 Robin was the Chairman & CEO of Universal McCann, the media arm of McCann Erickson advertising and a part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Robin joined Universal McCann in 1996 and was appointed EVP, Regional Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa in January 1997. Under his leadership in EMEA, Universal McCann has led all media agencies in winning media-only new business throughout Europe for three consecutive years. Many proprietary research programs and strategy methods that were developed under his leadership have since been adapted worldwide within Universal McCann’s 123 countries, 180 offices and over 4000 employees.

In April, 2002, Robin was promoted to the worldwide post of Chairman & CEO of Universal McCann. In addition to his role of global Chairman, Robin assumed the role of Regional Director of UM North America and focused on elevating the quality of client servicing and new business development in the United States. In 2002, Universal McCann won over $1.7BN in new business in the US; $2.5BN globally. Under Robin’s leadership, Universal McCann was named “2002 U.S. Media Agency of the Year” by industry leading publications Advertising Age and AdWeek. Under Robin’s Global leadership Universal has been successful every year at the Cannes advertising festival, winning many media Gold Lions and the Grand Prix in 2003.

Robin has been in the media industry for 33 years and has expertise across all communication disciplines. He began his career at Saatchi & Saatchi in 1976, where he managed the media planning and buying for Proctor & Gamble, Dunlop and BP. Subsequently, Robin spent 11 years at Leagas Delaney as Media Director, responsible for Porsche, Harrods and Adidas. After Leagas, he moved to Paris as Client Services Director for Carat, managing Disney, Danone and VW.

Robin has received several prestigious industry awards including:

- AdAge Media Maven award 2002.
- AdWeek/MediaWeek: “Media All Star” for the media executive category 2002.
- AdAge Global: “Top 100 Marketers” (AdAge Global, July 2003) where he was recognized for his “fresh thinking and initiatives.”
- AdWeek and AdAge voted Universal McCann “Media Agency of the Year” in 2002.
- Gotham Top ten advertising people September 2004.

Nataly Kogan

Founder of Work It, Mom!

Nataly Kogan is the founder of Work It, Mom!, the leading online community and resource for working moms and the Chief Community Officer for Daily Grommet, a new company that discovers, sells and tells the story of one unique product every day.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur Nataly was a Managing Director with an early-stage venture firm based in New York City. While there, Nataly focused on investing in digital media and software start-up companies, had her share of great successes and dismal failures, but most importantly, learned one thing – she wanted to build companies rather than invest in them. Some of her favorite investments were Constant Contact, the leading email marketing company for small businesses, and Scanbuy, the leading global provider of mobile marketing solutions that use the camera phone as the link between the physical world and the digital world.

Before becoming a venture capitalist, Nataly worked in operations and business development at several early-stage technology companies, some of which managed to survive through the dot com bust. She began her career as an analyst with McKinsey & Company in New York.

Nataly has always loved to write and has a great appreciation for the power of content. A few years out of college, she started a publishing company together with her husband. They created a series of books called Students Helping Students, all authored by college students. After several years of running the company out of their one-bedroom New York apartment while still working at their day jobs, Nataly and her husband sold the book series to Perigee, an imprint of Penguin.

Nataly is also the author of The Daring Female’s Guide to Ecstatic Living: 30 Dares for a More Gutsy and Fulfilling Life, which was published by Hyperion in 2006. Nataly grew up in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to the US with her parents when she was 13. She graduated from Wesleyan University with University and High Honors.

Nataly has recently moved from New York City to Boston with her husband and young daughter, but she forever remains a New Yorker at heart.

Robert Levin

Editor-in-Chief, Publisher & Founder of New York Enterprise Report

Robert Levin founded THE NEW YORK ENTERPRISE REPORT in 2003 to serve the needs of the small business community with which he has worked so closely throughout his professional career. Available both in print and online, THE NEW YORK ENTERPRISE REPORT is the only media that caters exclusively to decision makers in the New York tri-state area’s small business market. Featuring award-winning "how-to" articles written by experts, each issue of NY REPORT provides critical knowledge that makes it a must-read for those looking to grow their businesses. In addition to its print and online properties, NY REPORT also produces events for business owners as well as hosting the annual Small Business Awards.

Prior to launching THE NEW YORK ENTERPRISE REPORT, Levin was the CEO of Profile Pursuit, a custom magazine publisher with clients such as Crunch Gym and the ATP. While CEO, he was in charge of revamping the company's sales process and improving its relationship with partners.

Levin was also the CFO of PenOp, a software developer based in New York and the U.K. Soon after joining PenOp, he became part of a three-man team that raised $4.4 million from venture capital and institutional investors, enabling the company to survive a cash crunch.

He has also served as COO and CFO of NutriPlus, LLC, an international marketer of personal care products. His responsibilities for NutriPlus included building a multi-functional management team, automating operational processes and designing and implementing a strategic planning and budgeting system.

Prior to his tenure at NutriPlus, Levin had his own consulting firm in Los Angeles that specialized in business management and finance.

Levin began his career as a tax consultant in Arthur Andersen LLP's Enterprise Group, assisting dozens of clients with tax and business issues associated with growing companies. A certified public accountant, Levin was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and earned his BS from SUNY Albany and his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA.

J.B. Lockhart

Vice President of Greenhill SAVP

Mr. Lockhart joined Greenhill SAVP in 2006. Previously, he was a Manager in The Walt Disney Company’s Strategic Planning Group, where he worked on the acquisition of Pixar and the formulation of Disney’s new media investment strategy. Prior to Disney, JB worked in media investment banking and technology strategic investments at Lehman Brothers.

JB currently serves as a Board Observerat Pontiflex and Serious. He is also a junior Board Member at The Beginning with Children Foundation,a non-profit charter school organization.JB received a BA with honors from Yale and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mark Mackenzie

Senior Digital Media Analyst at AllianceBerstein ESG/VC

Mark Mackenzie is the Senior Telecom, Media & Technology Analyst and heads the TMT Venture Capital effort at AllianceBernstein. Mark analyzes emerging global trends and utilizes that knowledge to drive late-stage venture capital and advise on themes that impact the firm’s public equity and fixed income portfolios.

In this cross-over roll, Mark leverages the largest publicly traded money manager (AllianceBernstein has almost half a trillion dollars under management) on behalf of his private investments - complementing existing venture capital by offering: a unique strategic vision through access to 300 internal and thousands of sell-side analysts; introductions to potential business clients through significant ownership in public companies; and insight into Wall Street's thinking as AllianceBernstein is one of the largest consumers of IPOs. Mark’s portfolio includes Brightcove (online video), Hillcrest Labs (digital home), JumpTap (mobile advertising), Lingtu (Chinese location based services), Obopay (mobile payments), Pure Digital (maker of the Flip camcorders) and Visible World (intelligent TV advertising).

Prior to his current role, Mark was at AllianceBernstein’s sell-side subsidiary Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. where he co-founded the media & communication strategy team and analyzed the impact of technology on film, internet, music, television and wireless. In this role, Mark co-authored books on the digital home, internet video and media’s digitalization. Prior to co-creating the M&C Strategy team, he was part of Bernstein’s Global Media research team covering large, publicly traded companies such as Comcast, Disney and Time Warner. Before joining Bernstein in 2002, he was a telecommunication, media & technology investment banker with Lehman Brothers in New York and London and a manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Beijing. Mark also worked for PwC in London where he co-founded a company, Pilgrim House Services.

Mark has a BBA in accounting from the University of Texas and an MBA from New York University. He is also a CPA.

Tad Martin

Founder of Cross Commerce Media and former COO/GMM of Overstock.com

Mr Martin joined Overstock as one of the company's early employees reporting directly to Patrick Byrne, Overstock's CEO. During his tenure at Overstock, the company grew from roughly $70MM in revenues to over $800