Susan Mason CoFounding Partner Aligned Partners Susan has over 25 years of operating management and venture capital experience. Aligned Partners is an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in capital efficient start-ups in the enterprise space. Prior to Aligned Partners, she was a General Partner with ONSET Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm with $600 million under management.Susan specializes in investing in the information technology area, specifically communications, security and financial technology.As an investor and board member, Susan has played a pivotal role in the development of companies including Securent (acqd CSCO), Alteon (IPO), Gadzoox (IPO), SilverTail Systems (acqd EMC), Omney (acqd MA), and many others. Prior to entering venture capital investing, she held positions in high-technology engineering, marketing and business development.She led a highly successful consulting practice, helping Fortune 1000 corporations capitalize on emerging markets and technologies.Early in her career, she held positions in marketing and engineering design of high-performance systems and microprocessors for Fujitsu Microelectronics, Fairchild Semiconductor and NCR Microelectronics. Susan received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Colorado and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.She is a regular guest speaker on entrepreneurial topics at Stanford University, UCLA and many of the local events in Silicon Valley. She is a founding boardmember of the Center for Venture Education, which operates the Kauffman Fellows Program.She has served as its Chairman and continues to serve on the board as Chair Emeritus.
Interviews
Cang V. Quach, Managing Partner Stern Ventures #aifintech
Cang V. Quach, Managing Partner Stern Ventures. Previously, Mr. Quach served as the VP of Finance & Strategy at Untangle, Inc where he spearheaded the company’s acquisition growth strategy, doubling the size of the parent company. In addition, as part of the Technology Investment Banking Group at Morgan Joseph TriArtisan, Mr. Quach completed numerous equity, debt and M&A transactions, representing over $250 million in aggregate value. Mr. Quach co-founded two startups in the digital publishing and display sectors for mobile devices and holds five U.S. patents. Prior to these ventures, Mr. Quach served as an Equity Research Associate at Dodge & Cox, an investment management firm with over $200 billion in AUM, where he analyzed companies in the cellular, automotive and retail sectors. He also served as an economic analyst at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations in New York. Mr. Quach holds an MBA from U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business. He earned his B.A. in Economics with Honors and Phi Beta Kappa from Occidental College. Mr. Quach is a CFA charterholder and holds the FINRA Series 7, 24, 62, 63, & 79 licenses.
Sunil Madhu Founder/CEO Socure #aifintech
Sunil Madhu Founder/CEO Socure, the leader in real-time online identity verification solutions, a start-up company based in New York City. Sunil is a serial entrepreneur, with several successful transitions through IPO and acquisition. A security architect by profession, he has spent over 20 years innovating identity and access management, addressing hard problems in network and application authentication and authorization. At Socure, Sunil leads an experienced team who is ‘pushing the envelope’ of identity verification, by employing online and social media data for real-time consumer and business authentication. Sunil holds a MS degree in MIS from Glasgow Caledonian University and a BS with Honors in Computer Science from Strathclyde University in the UK.
Michael Sidgmore Venture Partner Broadhaven Capital Partners #ICOvVC
Michael Sidgmore Venture Partner Broadhaven Capital Partners, where he invests in early-stage FinTech companies. He is on the Board of Liveoak Technologies and Credijusto and on the Advisory Board at Trizic. Michael is also the Founder of Let’s Humanize Finance, a podcast that interviews FinTech innovators who are changing how we interact with money. Prior to Broadhaven, Michael was a pre-product employee and Senior Vice President at iCapital Network, a financial technology company that provides simplified and tech-enabled access to alternative investments at lower costs and lower minimums. Michael helped build the family office and RIA networks and helped grow the platform to over $2.1 billion of assets. Prior to iCapital Network, Michael was the first sales hire and the Director of Institutional Investments at Mosaic, a financing platform for affordable home solar loans that has surpassed $1 billion of loans originated and has received a $200 million equity investment from Warburg Pincus. Michael started his career as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs’ Principal Strategic Investments team in London, a direct investing team focused on market structure and FinTech investing. Michael is an Advisory Board Member for Village Capital’s US FinTech Program and a Special Advisor to Panorama Point Partners.