Robert Neivert

Venture Partner @500 Startups

Ex-executive for startups having founded or worked at eight companies with four exits and four companies still operating. Raised $6+ million in funding as CEO (Fididel and HighlightCam) from Intel Capital, NTT DOCOMO, Quest Venture Partners, K9 Ventures and others, was CEO and board member of two venture-funded startups. Moreover, Robert held the position of Executive in Residence at Quest Venture Partners. Currently, he is a Venture Partner at 500Startups running the blockchain program, a mentor/advisor for Cardinal Ventures, Stanford iFarm, and Stanford’s Treehacks program as well as an executive advisor for over 15 funded startups with a broad domain of expertise in products, marketing and operations.

Max Gurvits

Director for CEE, CIS, and MENA @Cross Border Angels

A lawyer turned entrepreneur and serial investor. Max co-founded and exited the first online legal service company in the Netherlands, followed by a brief stint as an investment banker. He was on the founding team of Eleven Startup Accelerator in Sofia, the largest acceleration program and seed fund in the Balkans region, and later of an angel investment syndicate called Teres Angels. Max also co-founded CCC Startups, a global network focused on supporting ecosystem-building across Eastern Europe and Middle East.
Nowadays, Max turned to helping teams avoid the mistakes he made before. At Cross Border Angels he bring top regional companies in touch with angel investors from all across the world.

Brock Bierman

Assistant Administrator, USAID

Tania Marinich

Co-founder & CEO @ BELBIZ Group of Companies

Prior to Belbiz Tania spent 8 years with the International Finance Corporation leading various projects for private sector development within IFC advisory activities. Tania received her International Executive MBA degree from IE Business School in Madrid

Michael Rumiantsau

Startup Advisor, Former founder of FriendlyData

Firat Isbecer

Co-founder & CEO @Commencis

Entrepreneur&seed investor. He co-founded Pozitron, one of Europe’s fastest growing mobile software company focused on digital banking, which was acquired by London-based fintech star Monitise plc in 2014.

 Firat joined Monitise as the MEA Managing Director, and after this company was acquired by financial services tech giant Fiserv Inc, he left Monitise and founded Commencis to help leading brands grow and scale in digital. 
Isbecer is also an active seed investor with 40+ seed investments in 11 different countries and member of Galata Business Angels, Turkey’s first angel investor group. 

He was selected into Fortune Turkey’s 40 under 40 list numerous times.

Dima Sarle

CEO @Arctic Startup

With 5 companies and an exit under his belt, Dima received a high level of business processes understanding allowed him to become CEO at Arctic Startup. During 6 year in post, he grew this company to the largest startup media and events organization in the Nordics & Baltics and started several new initiatives such as CoFounder Magazine, Reverse Pitching for Corporates, The Arctic15 Conference and more to further connect European entrepreneurship communities. To the same end he co-founded Startup Europe Advisory board, reporting to the European Commission. By following his mission of advocating true entrepreneurship and global unity through personal growth, Dima takes an active role in supporting startups, building communities and innovating the business ecosystems.

Jedrzej Iwaszkiewicz

Co-Founder & VP of Business Development @The Heart

Co-founder of The Heart, responsible for business development and strategic partnerships. Working with biggest multinational companies like Mastercard, AccorHotels, Ghelamco, PKO Bank Polski and more, on many different markets: Poland, Germany, UK, Israel. Mentor for acceleration programs such as Mind The Bridge, Alfa Ac, Starter. Expert in bringing corporations and startups together for joint business development. Named as an Influencer by MIT “Innovators Under 35”.

Juan Alonso-Villalobos

Fintech Programs Director @ Startup Wise Guys

+20 years experience in financial and Internet sectors.
Executive positions in Financial Institutions in Spain, France and Luxembourg.
Serial entrepreneur with 2 bankruptcies and some successes.
Managing Fintech-related content and activities within Startup Wise Guys.

Can Saracoglu

Founding Partner @String Ventures

Serial entrepreneur with three exits — two as a co-founder and one as a VC.
Can co-founded Litespell, a next generation interactive marketing communications agency with full-service capabilities.
He’s the founding partner of String Ventures, a pre-seed/seed VC fund, which invests in disruptive startups in Silicon Valley and a region that stretches from Berlin to Moscow — he’s running String Ventures’ Istanbul Office.

Alexander Kazakov

Co-founder @Glownet, Group Product Manager @Booking.com

Alex is a 5 year cofounder and product leader at Glownet, IE alumni and currently a Group Product Manager at Booking.com. Passionate about work in between technology and human behaviour, he convinced that the role of personal technology is to guide us, nudge us to gain joy, inspire us and empower lives well lived. By possessing strong expertise in IT and business, Alexander founded Glownet, market leader in cashless services for live events in 28+ countries, empowering music festival promoters with the latest RFID / NFC technology. Currently, works for Booking.com Amsterdam office, making travels more personal and enjoyable.

Alexandra Lamachenka

Growth Manager @Skyscanner

Experienced marketing manager with 6 years in marketing in IT, including 3 years as The Head of Marketing and Business Development at KUKU.io, GanttPRO and SplitMetrics, well-known startups from Belarus. Now Alexandra is involved in increasing the growth rate and market adoption of @Skyscanner as the Growth Hacker.

Egor Abramov

Investment Director @ FortRoss Ventures

Ihar Mahaniok

Business Angel, Software Engineer @ Facebook

Tanya Laura Fernandes

Lead Sales @ SplitMetrics

Mick Amelishko

Director of Engineering @ PandaDoc

Tobias Joest

Design Thinking Lead@ SAP, Professor for Design Thinking IE Business School Madrid

Jesus (Chus) Lozano

Business Angel, co-founder and principal author of “TopChallenge entrepreneurs training program”

Since Mr Jesus (Chus) Lozano founded his first startup at age 16, Chus
has become a serial entrepreneur with an in-depth understanding of the
ICT business model and global operations, with 21 years management
experience focusing on ICT startups, in Europe and China, with over
85M€ in exits of founded startups. Since 2011 Jesús has invested in a
total of 12 companies, such as Business Angel, actively working on its
development and expansion, and has collaborated with different
investment entities as a risk and investment opportunities analyst in
Startups in seed and early stage, with a total current valuation of a
1.2B€. Jesús is co-founder and principal author of “TopChallenge
entrepreneurs training program” with more than eight editions and 26
invested startups.

Brian McEwan

Innovation & Partnerships Manager @ Young Enterprise Scotland

Brian is Innovation & PartnershipsManager at Young Enterprise Scotland, having had over ten years’ teachingexperience in FE / HE alongside prior commercial roles in Financial Servicesand Oil & Gas Recruitment. Brian led on Enterprise Programmes for YES inScotland’s FE Colleges and Universities through his previous Bridge 2 Businessrole.

Now responsible for representing YES externally with strategic partners, both domestically and internationally to maintainexisting and develop new relationships to enhance the portfolio of YESProgrammes, in line with the Strategic Aims & Objectives of theorganisation.

Brianalso supports the Scotland Can Do Enterprise eco-system activities, is a proactivemember of The Institute of Director’s West of Scotland Committee and a Mentorfor the Young Scottish Talent Pathways Programme.

Maurice Beckand Verwee

Сo-founder @ Crosspring

Maurice is co-founder of Crosspring. Crosspring invests and incubates IT startups. The focus is on companies in the field of Fintech, AI, SAAS, Security, AR/VR, Publishing, mainly B2B. Geographical focus is West and Eastern Europe. Crosspring is also involved in different European projects focussed on entrepreneurship and growing international hence they have strong partnerships with different European tech hubs.