April 5th
9:30 am: Expo Opens
9:30-11:30 am: Global Crowdfunding Day
11:40 am-12:30 pm: Startups’ Demo Pitch Contest
12:30-2:00 pm: Lunch Break
2:00-3:50 pm: Demo Pitch Contest Continue
3:50-4:00 pm: Announcement of the Winners,
Closing of the Conference
Keynote Speakers / MC / Chair / Co-Chair
Tim Draper
Timothy C. Draper is the Founder and a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. On behalf of DFJ, Tim currently serves on the boards of DoAt, Glam, Prosper, and Miartech. DFJ's previous successes include: Skype (EBAY), Overture.com (YHOO), Baidu (BIDU), Parametric Technology (PMTC), Hotmail (MSFT), PLX Technologies (PLXT), Preview Travel (TVLY), Digidesign (AVID), and hundreds of others.
Tim launched the DFJ Global Network, an international network of early-stage venture capital funds with offices in over 30 cities around the globe. He founded or co-founded DFJ ePlanet (global), Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC), Zone Ventures (LA), Epic Ventures (Salt Lake City), Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburg), Timberline Ventures (Portland), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara), DFJ Vina Capital (Vietnam), and DFJ DragonFund (Shanghai).
Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP is the leading law firm serving the security crowdfunding industry. Recognized as a thought leader and expert on the nuanced legalities of the JOBS Act, Douglas S. Ellenoff has been a key representative and advocate for the industry and has actively engaged with the SEC to discuss many aspects of the proposed new law. Additionally, EG&S is working with securities professionals internationally to assist them with shaping smart legislation to foster investment crowdfunding in their jurisdictions. EG&S is actively engaged with clients in the crowdfunding industry, including funding portals, broker-dealers, technology solution providers, software developers, investors and entrepreneurs.
Howard J. Leonhardt
Howard Leonhardt is an inventor and serial entrepreneur. He has 20 U.S. patents for products for treating cardiovascular and heart disease. These include; cardiovascular balloon catheters, stent grafts for aneurysm repair, percutaneous heart valves, heart pacemakers with stem cell recruiting capabilities, electrical stimulation devices for promoting blood flow, electrical stimulation device for converting stem cells to heart muscle, stem cell compositions for heart repair, stem cell delivery systems, biological pacemakers and artificial lung catheter. His TALENT stent graft developed in the early 1990′s holds a leading world market share for repairing aortic aneurysms without surgery. His inventions have treated over 140,000 patients in 60 countries. In early 1999 Leonhardt founded Bioheart, Inc. www.bioheartinc.com a leader in applying adult muscle stem cells to treat heart failure. Bioheart has raised over $105 million in paid in capital and additionally $40 million in loans and grants. Bioheart MyoCell is in Phase II/III clinical trials at 33 leading centers in the USA (The MARVEL Study). MARVEL Phase II/IIIa part I results were published in the American Heart Journal October of 2011 and demonstrated Bioheart MyoCell patients improved 95.7 meters in exercise capacity over placebo patients receiving optimal CHF drugs, whom declined minus 4 meters. Leonhardt holds a Diploma in International Trade from Anoka Technical College. He attended the University of Minnesota and Anoka Ramsey Community College. He holds an honorary Doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Northern California and is an honorary alumnus of the University of Florida and Florida International University where he has served on various boards. He was South Florida Entrepreneur of the Year 2003 and State of Florida Entrepreneur of the Year 2004. Leonhardt has founded 20 companies to date, most them majority funded by his venture firm Leonhardt Ventures and their associated angel networks....
Source: http://www.leonhardtventures.com/founder-bio.php
Sydney Armani [Chair]
Sydney Armani is a long time silicon valley entrepreneur, with more than twenty years experience in Valley's community acting in both an entrepreneurial and investing capacity. Sydney's vision for starting and successfully managing innovative companies, like Hello Net Internet and Mobile telephony appliance services. Minitel and Videotex .A online a first generation of touch Screen tablets. His international experience in trade and International banking takes him around the world, projects with OPIC Overseas Private Investment Corporation for free trade with business engagement in Europe and UAE's Dubai. A creative person at heart, he's working on building CrowdFunding platform " Live Crowdfunding demo pitch contest building bridge for new generation of Startup's in the Crowdfunding industry.
Sydney is publisher of CrowdFundBeat.com, an online daily crowdfunding news site in US and UK. He is also the organizer of the annual Silicon Valley Meets Crowdfunders conference in Palo Alto, CA
Barry E. James [Honorary Co-Chair]
Barry is a serial tech entrepreneur, writer, columnist for RealBusiness.co.uk & Entrepreneur Country, award winning innovator with technology patents granted in the UK, USA & internationally. He's a frequent keynote speaker and visiting lecturer on Crowdfunding entrepreneurship, and innovation as well as an experienced conference chair and organiser.
He’s a prominent advocate of Crowdfunding in the UK having established the UK’s first national Crowdfunding Conference – Crowdfunding: Deep Impact - which led to the formation of the Westminster Crowdfunding Forum within the UK parliament which he helps to steer and facilitate.
He is founder and CEO of AngelRevolutions, his technology company which creates leading edge cloud services which blend the latest in social media with mobile apps and smartphone technology.
He builds on a 30 year career in systems design which ranges through sectors from banking and telecommunications to health and the NHS - where as well as pioneering electronic messaging for GPs and laboratories through the 1990s he created and chaired a leading conference supporting NHS innovators.
He holds a degree in Psychology and Mathematics from Lancaster University and his interest include 'disruption' and the increasing co-evolution of the Internet with society globally and in the UK.
His lifelong interest in the major tectonic shifts which result from the interplay of technology and society, and how they can be understood and harnessed for the common good, has led to the formation of The Social Foundation, a social enterprise formed late in 2012 in support of entrepreneurs and the new, collaborative, economy.
Tim Draper
Douglas Ellenoff
Howard Leonhardt
Sydney Armani
Barry James [UK]
First Panel - Multiple Faces of Crowdfunding:
Rewards Based Portals Beyond Kickstarter
Eric Hellman
Eric Hellman is President of Gluejar. After 10 years at Bell Labs in physics research, Eric became interested in technologies surrounding e-journals and libraries. His first business, Openly Informatics, developed OpenURL linking software and knowledgebases, and was acquired by OCLC in 1996. At OCLC, he led the effort to productize and expand the xISBN service. Eric's blog, Go To Hellman covers the intersection of technology, libraries and ebooks. Eric has a BSE from Princeton and a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. His current focus is unglue.it, a website that is crowd-funding Creative Commons ebooks.
Joy Schoffler
Principal Leverage PR
Joy Schoffler has spent her career launching high performing startups—helping them raise capital and achieve growth through creative publicity strategies. Leverage PR works with the leaders of the crowdfunding industry, investment firms, and high potential startups.
She has helped early-stage companies raise more than $20 million, make the Inc. 500 list, and secure Fortune 500 accounts. Joy developed the first of its kind publicity platform for crowdfunding and growth phase companies—Enhance My Visibility that will be available in early 2013. EMV will allow companies to leverage the power of publicity to increase investor dollars, close new accounts, and grow their businesses. Joy is the Chair of the Publicity Committee for the CFPA.
Alex Sheshunoff
Alex Sheshunoff is the founder of Foodstart.com, a crowd funding portal serving the food-and-beverage industry. Prior to Foodstart.com, Alex founded a venture-backed company called E-The People which provided backend software to 1,100 media web sites and was featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN, CBS, and other business and consumr press. Alex grew up in Austin, Texas and is a graduate of Yale University.
Devin D. Thorpe
Devin Thorpe thinks he is the luckiest person alive. After being “let go” from the best job he’d ever had—as the Chief Financial Officer of the multinational food and beverage company MonaVie—he and his wife ended up living in China for a year where he wrote Your Mark On The World and embarked on the career he’d always wanted yet hadn’t dared dream.
Now, as an author, a popular guest speaker and Forbes contributor, Devin is devoted full time to championing social good. His current life isn’t much like his past.
As an entrepreneur, Devin ran—at separate times—a boutique investment banking firm and a small mortgage company. He served as the Treasurer for the multinational vitamin manufacturer USANA Health Sciences years before becoming CFO for MonaVie. Over his career he led or advised on the successful completion of $500 million in transactions.
Devin squeezed in two brief stints in government, including two years working for Jake Garn on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Staff and another year working for an independent state agency called USTAR, where he helped foster technology entrepreneurship during Governor Jon Huntsman’s administration.
Devin is proud to have graduated from the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business, which recognized him as a Distinguished Alum in 2006. He also earned an MBA at Cornell University where he ran the student newspaper, Cornell Business.
Today, Devin channels the idealism of his youth with the loving support of his wife, Gail. Their son Dayton is a PhD candidate in Physics at UC Berkeley (and Devin rarely misses an opportunity to mention that).
Richard Bliss
Richard Bliss is a Crowdfunding & Kickstarter Expert and Experienced Marketing executive with extensive experience in Social Networking, SaaS, Cloud Computing, Collaboration Security, and Gaming. His podcast, Funding the Dream on Kickstarter, is listened to by thousands, and he founded the Crowdfunding Academy that helps Crowdfunding projects achieve success.
He is an International public speaker addressing audiences throughout Europe, Great Britain, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and nearly every State in the US.
He has lived in Latin America and Asia and speaks fluent Spanish.
Richard is a published author and in the summer of 2012 traveled 5,700 miles with his cameraman filming a documentary on the growth of crowdfunding and Kickstarter.
He is a Hands-On Senior Marketing Executive with a dynamic record of achievement positioning start-up high-growth companies for multi-million dollar revenue growth and acquisition. Global brand-strategist, with extensive International Business Experience, as well as industry expert in MDM and SaaS.
Responsible for providing leadership and management to a wide range of organizations, from start-ups to $100 million product lines.
His current focus is teaching and speaking on the unique opportunity that crowdfunding brings to every person with an idea or passion.
Eric Hellman
Joy Schoffler
Alex Sheshunoff
Devin D. Thorpe
Richard Bliss
Second Panel - Reaching the Goal: How to Make It Happen
Sonny Vu
Sonny Vu is CEO, Co-Founder of Misfit Wearables, makers of highly wearable products. Co-Founder of AgaMatrix, makers of the world¹s first iPhone-connected hardware medical device. Studied math (BS)at UIUC and linguistics (PhD) under Noam Chomsky at MIT and knows a number of interesting languages. He was featured on Techcrunch TV with Slava Rubin sharing his experiences in running one of top five most successful campaigns on Indiegogo, having hit funding targets ($100k) within 9.5 hours and ultimately crushing the target by nearly 850% with 8000 funders from 64 countries in 8 weeks.
BobBates
Bob Bates is Chief Financial Officer of Inova Technology Inc. Mr. Bob is a CPA, CVA and CFE with over 20 years experience as a Controller and CFO for various public and private entities in several countries. He was with Allied Capital (NYSE) as Controller and has worked for other Billion dollar companies. He also worked with KPMG. He is a director of Catalyst Group.
Dr. Cat
Dr. Cat has been making games professionally for over 30 years, working on hits such as Ultima, Ravenwood Fair, and dozens of other games. Through his own company, Furcadia was the first to employ the Freemium model in the 1990s, pioneering in social gaming, user created content, and many other areas. It currently holds the Guinness World Record for longest running game of its kind, at 16 years and counting. He’s recently worked at Lolapps, Idle Games, and Kixeye, and just conducted a successful Kickstarter, raising almost $107,000.
Kevin Lawton
Kevin is a progenitor of PC virtualization, many-time startup entrepreneur, trend-caster
and visionary blogger at the intersection of biz & tech (trendcaller.com), contributor for
VentureBeat, HuffingtonPost and SeekingAlpha, public speaker, prolific idea creator,
protagonist of two open source projects, and news, innovation, economics and business
book junkie.
Kevin Lawton
Kevin is a progenitor of PC virtualization, many-time startup entrepreneur, trend-caster
and visionary blogger at the intersection of biz & tech (trendcaller.com), contributor for
VentureBeat, HuffingtonPost and SeekingAlpha, public speaker, prolific idea creator,
protagonist of two open source projects, and news, innovation, economics and business
book junkie.
Sonny Vu
Bob Bates
Dr. Cat
Kevin Lawton
Third Panel - Business of Crowdfunding
Tom Foley
Thomas Foley is the Founder and CEO of Xpert Financial and is responsible for the company’s strategic direction and global operations. He is a frequent speaker at conferences on topics related to the private company securities marketplace.
Prior to Xpert Financial, Thomas was the Director of Business Development for Moblyng, a social mobile media and gaming company. Before joining Moblyng, he was an investment banker in the Software and Clean Tech sectors at Bay Capital Partners and Arbor Advisors. He also worked in the investment division of CB Richard Ellis and in Business Development for two Silicon Valley startups, iPlayMusic and FlipTrack.com.
Thomas has a B.A. degree in economics with a minor in philosophy from UCLA. He has held leadership board positions at Menlo School, The Olympic Club, and the BizWorld Foundation. He is currently an advisor for Language Island and The Valley Girl and, in 2009, was listed as #7 in BusinessWeek’s Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 Years Old. Thomas was an All-American water polo player and, while at UCLA, helped his team to a National Championship. Thomas holds Series 24, 62, 63, and 79 securities licenses.
Jeffrey Henderson
Jeffrey has a long history of building and selling boot strapped companies, including DONE! SEO, Cuban Rollers, and Adept Marketing Concepts. He currently heads up sales and marketing with Invested.in, helping clients refine their business plans, technical features, and launch strategies.
Sanj Goyle
Sanj Goyle is the co-founder and CEO of BancBox, the first API driven approach to enabling banking services for non-financial institutions.
In his leadership role, Sanj is focused on driving forward the product vision of BancBox as a compelling solution for fintech clients, maintaining the trust of our partner banks, and ensuring that BancBox remains a good financial steward of consumer funds and up to date on the current regulatory environment.
Prior to BancBox, Sanj spent several years in Online Marketing focusing on Lead Generation and Offer Optimization. Sanj was most recently at Yahoo, where he led the performance marketing team that developed and operated Yahoo's first Cost-per-Lead (CPL) line of business. The Yahoo CPL team launched multiple products (namely, Yahoo Tagline in Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Cross Sell in Yahoo Games, and CPL ad units in Yahoo Messenger). Prior to Yahoo, Sanj managed the consumer finance lead generation lines of business at Adteractive and Nextag. At Adteractive, Sanj managed a 20-person team that generated over $40m in annual revenue and managed ad spend of over $1m per month in online and offline channels. While at Nextag, lead gen revenue grew from inception to over $25m within 2 years. Sanj has spoken at industry conferences such as LeadsCon and Affiliate Summit.
Sanj started his career as a corporate attorney specializing in Corporate Securities, M&A, and Privacy. Sanj has considerable experience with the privacy and legal issues related to the marketing of consumer finance products— in particular, FTC TSR and Disclosure Guidelines, Gramm-Leach-Bliley and PCI compliance. Sanj is admitted to practice in California and New York, is a licensed real estate broker in California, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP). Sanj graduated from Boston University School of Law (magna cum laude) and Duke University. He currently resides in Menlo Park, CA.
Steve Ferrando
Founder and Chief Information Officer CrowdClear.
Steve has spent the majority of his information technology career in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Bendigo Partners and founding CrowdClear, Stephen ran the software solutions firm that he founded, dbConcert, Inc. In his capacity as CEO of dbConcert, Steve has worked with a wide variety of financial services institutions, from the smallest hedge fund to the largest investment banks. He was instrumental in helping the firm's clients improve operational efficiencies, streamline workflows and minimize the possibility of errors while at the same time reducing overall technology expense. Steve was CIO and one of the founding members of TIR Securities, an international soft-dollar broker.
Steve started his career with First Boston and attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Ruth Hedges
Creator of the:
http://fundingroadmap.com
http://crowdfundingroadmap.com
Ruth Hedges is the CEO of Unismart Capital Software Inc, creator and key architect of the Funding Roadmap virtual business plan and due diligence reporting system. Ms. Hedges has been responsible for pioneering a new and innovative virtual system for business planning, crowdfund compliance and due diligence reporting on the cloud.
The JOBS act was signed into law by President Obama on 5 April 2012 and supported by overwhelming bipartisan support. Ms.Hedges the creator of Crowdfundingroadmap has been active in pioneering this new industry and from the beginning of 2010 helped the Startup Exemption to move the bills passage through Congress. She has since been building awareness through her global event in Las Vegas, http://www.crowdfundingroadmap.com/bootcamp/and development of best practices, compliant technology and educational material.
Ms. Hedges is also a Founding board member of the Governance committee for the Crowdfunding Professional Association Organizing (CFPA) and also a Founding Board member of CrowdFund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA)
Ms Hedges is a council member of the Crowdfunding Accreditation for Platform Standards (CAPS) program which is an initiative by Crowdsourcing.org to promote the adoption of best practices for the operation of crowdfunding platforms globally.
Previously, Ms. Hedges was featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy as well as the New York Times, the LA times and People magazine for her work with Oxfam America and the Hollywood Hunger Banquets.She was featured on ABC's Home Show, and the Financial News Network produced a two-part series on Ms. Hedges for their show” American Entrepreneur”. She was invited to fill a cabinet seat on the Second Century Campaign board which raised over 16 million dollars to build the new Union Rescue Mission. She is the recipient of the Certificate of Appreciation from the City of Los Angeles for that work.
Ms. Hedges was also honored with an award from the late Mayor Tom Bradley for her work with feeding the homeless of the City of Los Angeles. In 2000 Ms. Hedges started and developed an incubation company in Pasadena California helping dot-com companies properly structure their operations, write business plans, and raise venture capital. Her lifelong entrepreneurial experience was a resource many companies needed. Helping those companies became the inspiration for the idea behind the http://fundingroadmap.com
Tom Foley
Jeffrey Henderson
Sanj Goyle
Steve Ferrando
Ruth Hedges
Fourth Panel - Equity Crowdfunding Portals
Sang Lee
Sang Lee is the founder and CEO of Return on Change, the next generation’s investment crowdfunding platform aiming to connect investors with innovative and socially conscious startups. He is a board member of CFIRA and CfPA and a contributor to Forbes, New York Enterprise Report, and Under30CEO. Sang is also a recipient of the Under30CEO Award in New York, a nationwide campaign to search for the most promising young entrepreneurs, big innovators, leaders, and world changers.
Jilliene Helman
Jilliene Helman is the Founder and CEO of Realty Mogul. Realty Mogul is crowdfunding for real estate, a marketplace for accredited investors to pool money online and buy shares of pre-vetted investment properties or loans secured by real estate. Previously she was a Vice President at Union Bank, where the majority of her time was spent in Wealth Management. She brings real estate and finance experience to the team and is incredibly excited to share real estate investing with a broader group of investors.
Jeff Lynn
Jeff Lynn is CEO and co-founder of Seedrs, the fastest-growing equity crowdfunding platform in Europe (and the first to receive regulatory approval anywhere in the world). Since launching in July 2012, Seedrs has funded 17 companies, with over £700,000 invested through the platform. Seedrs allows startups to raise up to £150,000 in equity capital, and investors may invest anything from £10 to the full amount the startup is seeking.
Jeff began his career as a corporate lawyer, practicing with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York and London. In addition to his work with Seedrs, he serves as a non-executive director of Companies House, the UK’s central registry for all corporate filings, as well as founding Chairman of The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), which lobbies on behalf of digital startups and SMEs.
Jonathan Sandlund
Jonathan Sandlund is founder of TheCrowdCafe, a leading provider of research and data on the global investment crowdfunding industry, and localinvestors.org, a social platform being developed to grow small business and startup communities.
A repeat entrepreneur, Jonathan built his first online community, tripledesignz.com, while in middle school. He went on to start Sandlund Investments LLC in college —providing fundamental research on micro-cap equities— before working in institutional investing and investment banking in New York. His disenchantment with the public markets, as well first-hand frustration with the inefficiencies and inequalities of the private markets, kickstarted his passion for investment crowdfunding.
Data-driven, an evangelist and idealist, Jonathan is thrilled to be part of a young and rapidly growing industry that, in time, is going to revolutionize the way we look at investing.
Sang Lee
Jilliene Helman
Jeff Lynn
Jonathan Sandlund
Fifth Panel - Crowdfunding in Private Investments Eco System
Steve Bennet
Steve Bennet is an active participant in the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ecosystem as start-up CFO, Angel Investor, and Professor. Over the past 20 years, he has been CFO, investor, and/or board member of over 50 technology start-ups. Steve is a faculty member at San Jose State University. His focus is on experiential education and has developed new courses including the Entrepreneurship Lab (ELAB), Venture Lab (VLAB), and Silicon Valley Experience. He is active with the Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship and UCLA Venture Capital Fund. Steve has degrees from Wharton and UCLA. He blogs at www.professorvc.com
DJ Paul
As Chief Strategy Officer with GATE Impact, DJ Paul develops solutions to facilitate and expand private and alternative asset transactions, including crowdfunding and 506/Regulation D securities.
DJ is nationally known for his expertise in regulatory compliance and electronic infrastructures and is regarded as one of the pioneers of the crowdfund investing movement. His desire to find solutions that work for investors, issuers and federal policymakers during and immediately after passage of the JOBS Act led him to coordinate the first post-JOBS Act meeting between the Securities Exchange Commission and crowdfunding stakeholders. This milestone meeting catalyzed and launched an ongoing collaboration that continues to this day between the SEC, federal elected officials, Wall Street and Main Street business leaders and crowdfunding advocates who are working together to shape regulatory oversight and implementation of the new industry.
DJ is co-founder and executive board member of two national crowdfunding organizations: Crowdfunding Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CfIRA) and Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA). He is frequently asked to publish and speak on themes related to regulatory compliance and sustainable policies and practices related to crowdfund securities in the U.S. and abroad.
Prior to joining GATE, DJ co-founded Crowdfunder, a Los-Angeles based crowdfunding intermediary platform where he served as CSO.
His financial services career includes sovereign and high-yield bond portfolio management positions at Banque Paribas (London) and CenTrust Bank (Miami), as well as mortgage-backed securities sales with Cowan & Co on Wall Street. Prior to entering the crowdfunding space, DJ spent 15 years as an award-winning film and TV producer.
DJ earned his BA in Philosophy from Brown University. He is a certified crisis counselor and Wilderness First Responder – valuable skills for the concrete jungles he calls home: Los Angeles and New York City.
Steve Cinelli
Steve has been on the forefront of "crowdcapitalism", the use of technology to facilitate broad based capital formation. A long time financier, he co-founded OffRoad Capital in 1999, which was the first online capital market for the private companies to raise growth funds, a precursor to the crowdfunding. Most recently, he founded and serves as CEO of PRIMARQ, a private market system dedicated to availing equity funds into the residential housing market in the US and abroad, as well as risk capital into emerging SMEs. He has been an active speaker and panelist on topics of crowdfunding, mortgage reform, and private markets.
Humphrey Polanen
Humphrey Polanen serves as Managing Director of I-Bankers Direct, a newly-launched, Web-based platform that provides accredited investors with 24/7 access to investment opportunities in private and public growth-stage companies. Based in Palo Alto, Humphrey previously founded and was Managing General Partner of Internet Venture Partners, a European venture capital management firm for technology companies. Prior to that, he was General Manager of two divisions of Sun Microsystems where he led the Internet Commerce Group and the Network Security Division. He also held executive positions at Tandem Computers, where his responsibilities included corporate ventures and emerging market development.
Humphrey is also a director of two public companies, Edgewave Software (San Diego, CA), which he took public, and Heritage Commerce Corp. (Nasdaq: HTBK), a bank holding company he co-founded. Additionally, Humphrey serves on the board of several private companies, including uCirrus Corp., a venture-stage company focused on real time data management, and Punchlime, an accelerator for early stage-companies. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and Harvard Law School.
Douglas S. Ellenoff
Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP is the leading law firm serving the security crowdfunding industry. Recognized as a thought leader and expert on the nuanced legalities of the JOBS Act, Douglas S. Ellenoff has been a key representative and advocate for the industry and has actively engaged with the SEC to discuss many aspects of the proposed new law. Additionally, EG&S is working with securities professionals internationally to assist them with shaping smart legislation to foster investment crowdfunding in their jurisdictions. EG&S is actively engaged with clients in the crowdfunding industry, including funding portals, broker-dealers, technology solution providers, software developers, investors and entrepreneurs.
LIVE CROWDFUNDING TV
Thomas Foley is the Founder and CEO of Xpert Financial and is responsible for the company’s strategic direction and global operations. He is a frequent speaker at conferences on topics related to the private company securities marketplace.
Prior to Xpert Financial, Thomas was the Director of Business Development for Moblyng, a social mobile media and gaming company. Before joining Moblyng, he was an investment banker in the Software and Clean Tech sectors at Bay Capital Partners and Arbor Advisors. He also worked in the investment division of CB Richard Ellis and in Business Development for two Silicon Valley startups, iPlayMusic and FlipTrack.com.
Thomas has a B.A. degree in economics with a minor in philosophy from UCLA. He has held leadership board positions at Menlo School, The Olympic Club, and the BizWorld Foundation. He is currently an advisor for Language Island and The Valley Girl and, in 2009, was listed as #7 in BusinessWeek’s Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 Years Old. Thomas was an All-American water polo player and, while at UCLA, helped his team to a National Championship. Thomas holds Series 24, 62, 63, and 79 securities licenses.
