Events
SVCE Events - Fall 2022
Scaling a Business as a Latinx Founder
When: November 3, 2022
Time: 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Register at: bit.ly/joshsanchez
Speaker: Josh Sanchez, Co-Founder & CEO, FloatMe
Speaker's Bio
Josh Sanchez is the Co-Founder and CEO of FloatMe, a rapidly growing fintech platform
working to help millions of Americans better their finances. Under his leadership,
FloatMe has raised over $50M in financing, grown to over 70 employees distributed
globally, and helped millions of Americans save over $150M in overdraft fees alone.
Prior to FloatMe, Josh helped to scale the nation’s first registered digital marketing apprenticeship program where he headed employer partnerships. Josh is a native of the Rio Grande Valley and graduated with a Business Management degree from the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Most notably, Josh is a profound member of the Texas startup community by both investing in and mentoring other entrepreneurs.
10 Lessons Learned to Get to $100M ARR
When: October 17, 2022
Time: 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Register at: bit.ly/AlfonsoOct17
Speaker: Alfonso de la Nuez, Co-founder & CVO, UserZoom
Speaker's Bio
Alfonso de la Nuez is Co-Founder, former CEO, and now Chief Visionary Officer & Board
Member, UserZoom, the Experience Insights Management (XIM) company that helps businesses
gather and manage the insights they need to design and deliver exceptional digital
experiences. Under his leadership, UserZoom has grown from a bootstrapped firm into
a high-growth, global organization with Fortune 100 customers across the retail, e-commerce,
healthcare, financial services, technology, and insurance industries. UserZoom has
raised $150m and is backed by Silicon Valley investors Sunstone Capital and Owl Rock.
In March 2022, it closed a strategic growth investment from Thoma Bravo, a leading
software investment firm. The investment, which values UserZoom at $800 million, is
expected to be used to accelerate innovation and growth for UserZoom's proprietary
platforms.
Before founding UserZoom in 2007, Alfonso worked for companies including Dell Technologies, Icon Medialab (now DigitasLBi), and Proxicom’s venture in Spain (now Indra). Alfonso is an advisor to startups and a featured speaker at industry conferences, at Product School, where he helps inspire the next generation of UX professionals and Product Managers to create innovative products and apply best practices in their work. He’s authored a book called ‘The Digital Experience Company: Winning in the Digital Economy with Great Design’ (published in December 2021, and he's been granted three technology patents by the USPTO. Alfonso holds a BA in International Business from San Jose State University, where he also played Div. I Varsity Basketball after getting an athletic scholarship. An avid basketball player, he lives in Los Gatos, CA, with his wife, son and daughter.
Innovation - from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0 - and its impact on Entrepreneurship
When: September 12, 2022
Time: 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. (PT)
Register at: bit.ly/SabeerSep12
Speaker: Sabeer Bhatia, CEO & Co-Founder, Hotmail.com, ShowReel
Speaker's Bio:
Sabeer Bhatia is a technology entrepreneur who co-founded webmail company Hotmail
on July 4, 1996. Hotmail was the first free Web-based email service. It gave users
the ability to access their inboxes from anywhere in the world. As president and CEO,
Bhatia led Hotmail until its eventual acquisition by Microsoft in 1998 for an estimated
$400 million. Bhatia worked at Microsoft for one year after the Hotmail acquisition
and in April 1999, left Microsoft to start another venture, Arzoo Inc., an e-commerce
firm. He then started a free messaging service called JaxtrSMS and several other ventures,
including InstaColl, a collaboration software business, Sabse Technologies, a mobile
wireless startup, and one that applied the Internet of Things to agriculture. His
latest venture, ShowReel, is a social video messaging platform that helps people create
video resumes that can be sent out to job recruiters. ShowReel seeks to use the short
video format to connect job seekers with employers, entrepreneurs with venture capitalists,
and patients with doctors.
Bhatia was born in India. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree from Stanford University.
SVCE Events - Spring 2022
5 steps to building a successful career in tech - No coding required
When: April 18, 2022
Time: 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. (PT)
Register at: bit.ly/April18_22
Speaker: Rahim Fazal, CEO & Co-Founder, SV Academy.
Speaker's bio:
Rahim Fazal is a Canadian-born technology entrepreneur. He is notable for co-founding
Involver, Inc., a provider of social media management software. Involver was co-founded
by Fazal and Noah Horton in San Francisco in 2007 and was acquired by Oracle on July
10, 2012.
Involver was the technology platform that powered the first sponsorship of a Facebook Page. Facebook partnered with Involver to build applications for large events like Election Day, the FIFA World Cup, and the Super Bowl.
Fazal and co-founder Horton were named to Inc. Magazine’s Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 list in 2008. He received an Empact Award from Startup America and the Kauffman Foundation at the White House in 2011. He was named one of the Top 40 Under 40 by the San Francisco Business Times in 2013 and one of the Top 25 Digital Thought Leaders by iMedia.
Fazal is the holder of an MBA from the Ivey Business School. He was the youngest person to be accepted to the program without a pre-requisite undergraduate degree.
The shape of your network - Startup Success in 2022
When: March 5, 2022
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. (PT)
Register here
Speakers: Nick Larson, serial entrepreneur turned investor, in conversation with Mark DiTargiani, SVP at Pacific Western Bank.
Speakers' Bios:
Nick Larson is a serial entrepreneur turned investor with a passion for people, technology, and
surfing. A Silicon-Valley native, Nick has built and scaled mission-driven startups.
As co-founder and CRO of Willow (backed by Google, Green Park Ventures) Nick scaled
revenue from $0-1M ARR in 3 years. He served as VP of Sales & Co-founder OnePiece
Work (backed by UpHonest Capital) which scaled to $3M in 3 years. He now serves as
GP of Voyage Capital out of San Jose, California. Named one of the 25 most influential
people in communications technology by PRWeek. Currently advising a number of startups,
ranging from digital-health, travel-tech, IoT, and Ad-tech (Nick is also a mentor
at Europe's top Accelerator, the imec.istart program, as well as Dynamico Accelerator
in San Francisco. He also serves on the board of HackCancer, W.E.D. (Women's Entrepreneurship
Day, United Nations) and AR2C (A Real 2nd Chance) which gets non-violent convicts
technology tech jobs. Nick graduated from SJSU with a Bachelor’s degree in Business.
Mark DiTargiani is Senior Vice President, Venture Relations & Startup Services, Pacific Western Bank.
Mark originates loan opportunities with VC-backed tech firms in the Bay Area and Seattle.
He has 25 years of experience developing relationships and leading sales, business
development, revenue generation, and go-to-market strategy for startups, SMBs and
public companies. Mark has a deep ecosystem of relationships in the SF Bay Area and
beyond.
After teaching high school English after college, Mark entered the sales world with RS Hughes, a distributor for 3M and Loctite. After doing another stint as a teacher, Mark became a fully commissioned packaging salesman, helping companies like Applied Materials, Codexis and Shutterfly build their brands and deliver their products. He then started his first company helping small businesses, who couldn’t qualify at banks, gain the funding they needed. Mark worked at TriNet during its IPO and helped build the sales team from 30 to over 300 reps selling into vertical markets. Prior to joining Pacific Western Bank’s Venture Banking Group, he ran a consulting business coaching startup founders on go to market strategies and sales execution. Mark builds high touch relationships, getting to know his clients and their businesses. He and the team focus on adding shareholder value for founders and investors. Mark holds a B.A. in English from Wesleyan University. He is involved in lacrosse as the Executive Director of the Firehawks.
Embedding Values and Ethics in Entrepreneurial Ventures
When: March 2, 2022
Time: 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. (PT)
Register here
Speakers: Nada Miljkovic & Toby Corey
Nada Miljkovic, co-founder of the UCSC Center for Applied Ethics and Values in Emerging Technologies;
co-founder Get Virtual
Toby Corey, executive chairman and COO at CruzFoam; former President, Tesla Motors Global Sales
and Customer Experience Energy Group; co-founder Get Virtual
The Entrepreneur’s Mindset: How to Rewire Your Brain for Business Success
When: February 21, 2022
Time: 6:00 - 7:00 pm (PT)
Register at: bit.ly/SVCE-FEB21
Speakers: Lalia Helmer, author of The Entrepreneur's Mindset; Deepika Bodapati, Co-founder, Athelas; Chris Folayan, global serial entrepreneur; Young Han, serial entrepreneur.
Speakers' Bios:
Lalia Helmer, MS-Ed, MA- Industrial Organizational Psychology, is an executive coach and consultant,
who works with a broad range of entrepreneurs and leaders locally and internationally,
helping them to build collaborative teams and companies that flourish. She has taught
as an adjunct professor at the Palo Alto University BS Business Psychology program.
She has been a guest speaker for Entrepreneurship courses at San Jose State as well
as a judge for the former Neat Ideas Fair. Her most recent book, The Entrepreneur's
Mindset: How to Rewire Your Brain for Business Success, features over a half-dozen
one-on-one dialogues with startup founders, CEOs, and executives, where she reveals
their psychological orientation and mental strategies. Ms. Helmer lives in the San
Francisco Bay area. In addition to her work, her greatest passions are her family,
dancing, travel, and hiking.
Deepika Bodapati is the co-founder of Athelas, a remote patient monitoring company. The company has
developed an FDA-approved rapid blood diagnostic system which uses deep learning and
computer vision to generate complete cell blood counts from a single drop of blood
within seconds. Prior to founding Athelas, Deepika spent over three years working
at the Stanford Multi-modality molecular imaging lab. She co-authored multiple papers
during her work at the lab. Deepika was a student at the University of Southern California
before taking a hiatus from college to start Athelas in 2016, after being accepted
into YCombinator’s accelerator program. In January 2022, Athelas hit unicorn status
after raising $132 million in two consecutive funding rounds that boosted the company's
valuation to $1.5 billion. The company now serves more than 40,000 patients with chronic
conditions like hypertension, cardiac disorders and immunosuppression, making it the
largest provider of remote patient monitoring services in the U.S.
As an SJSU graduate with over 20 years’ experience as a serial entrepreneur Chris Folayan has made his mark globally. He was the Founder & CEO of Africa’s first groundbreaking
eCommerce platform, MallforAfrica which he ran for over a decade prior to its recent
sale. MallforAfrica was an award-winning patented e-commerce company, which enabled
Africans to purchase billions of products from over 250 US and UK retailers using
local African currency. Chris then expanded the same concept beyond Africa with another
of his companies Link Commerce Ltd, serving over 65 countries in Africa, MENA, LATAM,
Caribbean and Russia. Prior to his global eCommerce ventures, he was the Founder and
CEO of OCFX Inc an award-winning global software, mobile app and web design agency
based in the Silicon Valley serving Startups, Fortune 100 and 500 companies with clients
such as SONY, Cisco, HP, EPSON, Merrill Lynch and Capital One. At OCFX Inc, Chris
built an innovation division which created and sold platforms/software to corporations.
Chris has also founded several other companies throughout the years starting from
the tender age of 7. He has worked in everything from the music industry building
a digital record label to the recycle industry. He has been featured in several published
books, magazines and has received numerous awards throughout the years for his software,
mentorship, and impact to society. In 2019 Chris was nominated and presented the 30
Black Star award given to 30 of the most influential African Americans. Chris is currently
starting several online digital ventures keeping him active and involved.
Young in name and spirit, Young Han is an accomplished executive, advisor, speaker, and entrepreneur with more than 20
years of success in creating and implementing strategic operations plans to solve
growth challenges. He has been the COO of Cafe X Technologies, VP of Operations for
Limelight Health, and Director of Marketing for Philz Coffee. Young is also a university
guest lecturer, advisor, and aspiring angel investor to myriad business ventures.
Young’s deep understanding of operations coupled makes him a sought-after resource
for companies looking to solve growth challenges in people operations and change management.
He has spent the last few years using his entrepreneurial experiences to start additional
businesses including Blue Ocean Pool Service, The Girl Dad Show, PipApp.io, ATX Dwellings,
Forever Young Capital, and more. Young is a proud alumnus of SJSU’s Lucas College
of Business.