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Our members

Signing the Pledge and becoming a Founders Pledge member is a private commitment. Many of our members have chosen to make their Pledge public by sharing their journey with our community and the wider world via channels such as Linkedln. Here, you can meet some of the members who have opted to make their Pledge public in order to inspire other entrepreneurs who are thinking of joining our community.

Christina Sass

Co-founder and Chair of Andela

Christina Sass is the Co-Founder and President of Andela or, as CNN has called it, "The startup that's harder to get into than Harvard". Andela is a global company specializing in engineering-as-a-service. We build distributed engineering teams with Africa's top software developers. Christina has built education and employment programs in China, Gaza and the West Bank, Kenya, and Nigeria. Prior to co-founding Andela, she directed the Program department of the Clinton Global Initiative and advised the President and CEO of The MasterCard Foundation, a $9B global foundation working to advance education and financial inclusion for youth in Africa. Christina serves on the Advisory Council of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and on the board of the non-profit Global Give Back Circle. She also serves as education topic expert for the Clinton Global Initiative University annual meeting. Christina’s work has been mentioned by Forbes, CNN, The New Yorker, NBC, and WIRED. She has a BA in Ancient Philosophy from the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs) and a MA in International Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School from Tufts University.

Bryant Chou

Co-founder and CTO of Webflow

Bryant is a serial entrepreneur and technologist, having built several successful businesses in the mobile advertising and web design & digital publishing space. His current company, Webflow, is transforming the way people build for the web by marrying design with a codeless interface. Webflow has over 600,000 users and powering websites for the Fortune 500, to thousands of small businesses.

Aston Motes

First employee of Dropbox

Aston is a software engineering leader, angel investor, startup advisor, and serial entrepreneur. Previously he was the first employee and engineer at Dropbox. He’s a founding board member of /dev/color, a nonprofit that empowers Black software engineers to help one another grow into industry leaders, and most recently was interim leader of the organization. He also serves as a board member for Fast Forward, an accelerator for tech nonprofits.

Daniel Dines

Founder and CEO of UiPath

Daniel is the Founder and CEO of UiPath, the fastest growing and leading provider of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI software worldwide. Daniel started UiPath in 2005 with the goal of building a solution that could help humans reduce the time and stress that come from menial, administrative business tasks. Today, Daniel’s vision is to make software robots, powered by computer vision and AI, as common as PCs in the workplace -- a vision dubbed One Robot for Every Person. He began his engineering career at Microsoft where he designed and developed the SQL Server Agent. Still a hacker at heart, he is active in driving the company’s RPA platform and supporting the 250,000 developers who are building automations on UiPath’s RPA platform.

David Helgason

Founder, Unity Technologies

David is a technologist, the founder of Unity Technologies, non-exec director to others, and a restless entrepreneur with a passion for creating feedback loops between innovation and teams and products, applying new and old business models to changing industries, and pushing people to do the very best they can do. David's background is in programming, an assortment of university dabbling, creating companies, and helping entrepreneurs. He served as CEO of Unity Technologies since co-founding it in 2003 and until October 2014, with an unflinching vision to democratize game development, and to develop technology and business models for the next phase of the games industry.

Dustin Moskovitz

Co-Founder and CEO of Asana

Dustin Moskovitz is the co-founder and CEO of Asana. As Asana’s CEO, Dustin is dedicated to creating a product that helps the world’s teams collaborate effortlessly, in addition to leading the company’s award-winning culture. Prior to founding Asana, Dustin co-founded Facebook and served as the company’s first Chief Technology Officer and VP of Engineering. Dustin majored in economics at Harvard University prior to joining Facebook full-time in 2004.

Etosha Cave

Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of Twelve

Etosha Cave is Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Twelve (formerly Opus 12), a startup that is converting CO2 into higher-valued products using electricity and metal catalysts on Earth, and someday on Mars. Twelve has received grants from NASA, the US National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, Echoing Green, Peter Thiel's Breakout Labs and the Molecular Foundry. Before getting a Ph.D. at Stanford, Etosha worked in Antarctica at the McMurdo Research Station and hopes to return to the continent someday and stay during the winter. Etosha graduated from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in 2006 as a member of the first graduating class. When not quoting Star Trek characters, she spends her free time swimming, reading and enjoying the incredible outdoor landscapes of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Gaurab Chakrabarti

CEO and Co-Founder of Solugen

Gaurab is the co-founder and CEO of Solugen. As a physician-scientist, Gaurab took an oath to first do no harm—and for him, that goes beyond patients or medicine. So in 2016, he started Solugen to decarbonize the chemicals industry, one of the most damaging for people and the Earth. Gaurab believes in using biology in unconventional ways to solve incredibly complex problems and is building a world-class team to join him on the journey.

Hanno Renner

Co-Founder and CEO of Personio

Co-Founder & CEO at Personio (HR management, recruiting and payroll software for SMEs)

Shaun Zacharia

Founder of TripleLift

Shaun was the co-founder and president of TripleLift, which launched in 2012 with the mission of making advertising better for everyone. In 2015 he was recognized on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. He served as an Advisor at Thorn and, prior to Triple Lift, Shaun led custom engineering solutions at AppNexus for the industry’s largest marketers like eBay and WPP. Shaun graduated summa cum laude from Georgia Tech with a BS in Computer Engineering.

John Hering

Co-Founder of Lookout

John Hering co-founded Lookout, a leading global cybersecurity company, while attending the University of Southern California (USC). Lookout protects over 175 million devices globally and works with many of the largest organizations in the world including the US Department of Defense and the New Zealand Defense Force. Lookout is backed by over $400M in venture capital from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Blackrock, TRowe Price, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Qualcomm. Lookout is a member of the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer. Mr. Hering served as the company’s Chief Executive Officer until March 2014, and he currently serves as a Co-Founder and Executive Director. Top publications have recognized John as an industry leader and innovator. BusinessWeek named John a Best Young Tech Entrepreneur, Fortune named him a Smartest Person in Tech, the editors of MIT Tech Review dubbed John a 35 Under 35 entrepreneur and Fortune Magazine included John on its list of 40 Under 40 entrepreneurs. Mr. Hering now focuses his time as a technology investor at Vy Capital, a global technology investment company with over $1B in assets under management. Vy invests in pioneering technology companies on behalf of primarily non-profit institutions and endowments. John studied Public Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California.

José Neves

Founder and CEO of Farfetch

José Neves is founder and CEO of Farfetch, a global community of over 300 fashion boutiques offering an inspirational shopping experience to fashion-forward consumers. In creating Farfetch, José brought together his interests and experience in fashion, technology, design, wholesale and retail to create a business that gives boutiques the opportunity to compete with the leaders of fashion e-commerce. Farfetch now features more that 300 boutiques, has customers in over 180 countries and receives an average of 9 million hits monthly. José has received numerous accolades, including The Business of Fashion’s 500 People Shaping the Fashion Industry in 2013, Ernst & Young’s 2013 Entrepreneur of the Year and Vogue’s DirectorsOf.COM Top Entrepreneur in 2011.

Joshua Motta

CEO and Co-Founder of Coalition

Joshua is the CEO and Co-Founder of Coalition. Prior to Coalition, Joshua was the CXO and Head of Special Projects at Cloudflare (NYSE: NET), a $25B web infrastructure and security company, following roles at Goldman Sachs, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Microsoft, among others.

Kathryn Petralia

Co-Founder of Kabbage

Kathryn is Co-Founder of Kabbage a fintech company that allows businesses to access working capital through an online platform within minutes, compared to traditional, offline lending practices which can take weeks. Kabbage ranked on the Inc. 500 list as one of the fastest-growing companies in the US for the third consecutive year, on Deloitte’s Fast 500 list, and is in the top 10 of KPMG's Fintech 100. Kathryn is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the Atlanta Chamber Music Festival, an orchestra camp for young musicians with limited financial means. She was also named as one of Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.

Mada Seghete

Co-Founder of Branch Metrics

Mada is Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at Branch Metrics, an award winning innovative mobile linking platform which is dramatically changing how content is discovered and delivered on the Internet. Branch powers deep linking and mobile attribution for some of the most advanced apps in the world, including names like Airbnb, Pinterest, Slack, Ticketmaster, Tinder, Starbucks, and Yelp. Mada has a BS in Computer Engineering from Cornell and a masters in design from Stanford before jumping straight to the forefront of competitive startups in Silicon Valley. When she's not working on the Branch dashboard or partner products, Mada likes to go to growth hacking meet ups, play with dogs, and play the latest addictive mobile game.

Magi El-Richani

CEO and Founder of Nobell Foods

By now most people know that meat production is a nightmare for the environment, but fewer people focus on the negative ramifications of dairy production. Magi Richani, 33, is working to skip the cows, making dairy products that are less harmful while tasting just as good. “Our technology allows us to make dairy proteins directly from plants without the need for cows,” says Richani. In her view, most plant-based dairy products are missing one key ingredient: a protein called casein, which gives them their creamy texture. Nobell is making cheese using casein from genetically engineered soybeans and aims to have its first products on the market by next year.

Markus Villig

Co-founder and CEO of Bolt

CEO & co-founder of Bolt. Passionate about education and science.

Mathilde Collin

Founder and CEO of Front

Mathilde is the co-founder and CEO of Front. Prior to that, Mathilde served as a project manager at Concord. She holds a master's degree in entrepreneurship from HEC School of Management.

Niklas Adalberth

Founder of Klarna

Niklas co-founded unicorn payment company Klarna 2005, backed by investors such as Sequoia, Atomico and General Atlantic. More than 10 years later he quit his operational role as deputy CEO to found tech-for-good Norrsken Foundation. Norrsken invests in entrepreneurs such as Welcome Movement, Doctrine and Karma that tackles the biggest problems in society. In addition to investments, Norrsken last year opened the largest co-working space in Europe for people that tries to improve the world with over 350 members.

Oscar Pierre

Co-Founder and CEO of Glovo

Aerospace engineer and entrepreneur. Oscar Pierre, 26, is CEO and co-founder of Glovo. Pierre began his training at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. After two years, he moved to the United States to explore better opportunities. He began his professional career as an Aeronautical engineer at Airbus, but after 6 months he decided to look for new challenges. In 2015 he returned to Barcelona, his hometown, and founded Glovo. In January of 2017, he was part of Forbes magazine's annual list of most influential young people.

Peter Smith

Co-Founder and CEO of Blockchain

Peter Smith is co-founder and CEO of Blockchain.info — a Bitcoin block explorer service and cryptocurrency wallet provider. Peter Smith was born and raised in England and, before founding Blockchain, had been living, studying and working in the United States, Africa, Asia and Europe. Peter Smith’s Bitcoin involvement started with co-founding the startup Blockchain with Nicolas Cary in 2011. Under the leadership of Peter Smith, the Blockchain company has become a leader in the cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology market. For some time, he was an active investor in the crypto industry. Peter has been featured in popular magazines, and he is frequently invited as an expert and speaker at various related conferences.

Sofia Nunes

Co-Founder of Mambu

Sofia Nunes is Co-founder of Mambu, mentor and leadership coach. Sofia has been instrumental in building Mambu’s unique and diverse company culture through scaling over the last decade from three to nearly a thousand Mambuvians. She focused on creating an environment where employees can thrive and become their best selves. She is now on a one year break from Mambu, having built its people function from day 1. Sofia holds a master’s degree in human-computer interaction and she is passionate about using experience design in building high performing, healthy and supportive workplaces.

Taavet Hinrikus

Co-Founder and Chairman of Wise

Taavet is the Chairman of Wise, which he co-founded in 2010. Prior to starting Wise, Taavet was Skype’s director of strategy until 2008, starting as its first employee. He’s also an active angel investor in Europe with 100+ investments including Bolt, Zego, Veriff, Gideon Brothers, Meatable, Farewill and many others. More recently he co-founded Jõhvi Coding School to help increase the amount of people with coding skills and Certific to help bring trust to the medical testing market.

Uma Valeti

Founder and CEO Upside Foods

Uma is laser focused on advancing the commercial viability of real meat farmed directly from animal cells (sometimes called clean or cultured meat). A cardiologist by training, he believes that meat should not only be safe and sustainable but also good for the body and the soul. He has extensive experience in entrepreneurship and business and has invested in a variety of food, medical and tech companies. Uma is an advisory board member at The Good Food Institute, a former Board member of New Harvest and is a leader in the clean meat movement. In addition to his many contributions in the health sciences, he wants his biggest contribution to be leading the development of a profitable and a world positive future food system. Fun fact: Uma has rescued several people in cardiac arrest.