John Ewen is Senior Vice President in Corporate Finance and Investment Banking at Ardour Capital Investments, LLC.
Prior to joining Ardour, Ewen was portfolio manager at Bank von Ernst AG Liechtenstein where he focused on renewables and sustainability. Before that role, he served as Project Manager for New Business-Mining Sensing Systems at Hilti AG which led to filing of a number of German and international patents. Ewen has also worked as a Geophysicist at CGAS Exploration, Inc.
John Ewen holds a BS in Environmental Systems Technology from Cornell University and a MS in Geophysics from Ohio State University.
Kirsten Johnston Barker is President and Co-Founder of digital media company, Prendismo. In addition, she is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at KensaGroup,a conception-stage development group.
Barker has aggressively lead the operational and tactical efforts of Prendismo as it has transitioned from a ten-year academic research initiative within Cornell University called eClips to a high growth commercial enterprise.
Previously, Barker served as Chief Information Officer at NSF International, Senior Director at Solucient (a healthcare software company) and as a consultant at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
Kirsten Barker received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and a M.S. in Business and Information Technology from Johns Hopkins University.
Jay Fluegel is Vice President of Product Development at Event Innovation. In this role, Fluegel shepherds the product roadmap and leads the development team. His responsibilities include crafting detailed product requirements, managing a team of over 50 developers, and defining the architectural direction of the company's platform and products.
Prior to Event Innovation, Fluegel spent ten years at Microsoft in product development, management and strategic planning roles for some of the largest online services on the planet. He played a primary role in architecting and launching "Windows Live", combining the best of MSN web and Windows PC experiences into a single offering. As an international suite of services, Windows Live caters to over 430 million users with 33 languages in over 50 countries including Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger, Spaces and Events. He led strategic partnerships enabling Ebay, ESPN, Citibank, Match.com and several others to achieve their primary goals and business objectives.
Fluegel began his career as Director of Business Operations at Jump Networks which developed the Web's first free, completely-connected calendar, email and address book service, and was later acquired by Microsoft to bring that technology to Hotmail.
Jay Fluegel obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University and a MBA in Technology Management from The University of Washington.
Steve Gilfus is the Chairman and CEO of Event Innovation. Gilfus, together with Event Innovation's President Ron Dinwiddie, developed the idea and software design for Event Innovation, founding the company in 2007 to provide sports, entertainment and arts venues with better information about attendees and attendees with a better overall experience at events.
Gilfus is a serial entrepreneur, business leader, and noted software designer and inventor. Prior to founding Event Innovation Steve was co-founder of D.C based Blackboard Inc. (nasdaq:BBBB). Blackboard's flagship products are used by millions of instructors and students across more than 3,600 institutions in 70 countries. He has been noted as being instrumental to the development of the eLearning market space and making Blackboard a leading provider of e-Learning software and services.
Steve Gilfus received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University where he was an academic scholar and founder of the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization.
Miki Agrawal is half Japanese, half Indian, she has an an identical twin sister named Radha and also a third sister, Yuri, who is less than one year older than them. Miki is French Canadian by birth (grew up in Montreal until she was 18 years old), she speaks 5 languages (fluent in English and French, very proficient in Japanese, and proficient in Hindi and Spanish). Miki played soccer semi-professionally for the NY Magic post college, started out as an investment banker upon graduation (Deutsche Bank), then left to work as a commercial/music video/film production coordinator/manager for three years after that. Her entrepreneurial spirit then kicked in and at 25 years old, she decided to start the process of building the Slice concept. At 26, she opened Slice. She is currently working on developing more SLICE locations in NYC and in other cities as well as building her wholesale side to Slice. She recently launched her pizza kits which will eventually be sold in supermarkets nation-wide. Most recently, Miki Agrawal is a co-founder of the company, Thinx. Miki Agrawal is a graduate of Cornell University.
Hans Pfister is the President and co-owner of Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality.
He brings almost 20 years of experience in the hotel business in all capacities from trainee to General Manager, and currently focuses on marketing, finance, strategy and new projects. Born and raised in Germany, Hans' career began with the European tradition of apprenticeship as an introduction to the industry, rounding out his education and training with a degree from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration and experience in various properties in Europe, Asia, North- and Latin America.
Hans Pfister has been on the board of directors of the Costa Rican hotel chamber (CCH) for five years and served as representative of the private sector (CANATUR) in the Marketing Committee of the Costa Rican Tourism ministry (ICT) for over four years.
Hans Pfister received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Jeremy Knopow is a Senior New Experience Incubator at SC Johnson.
Prior to joining SC Johnson, Knopow was Design Manager at Fiskars, Inc and General Manager at Kohler Co.
Jeremy Knopow received a BS in Mech. Engr. from the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and then a Masters and Masters of Fine Arts in Industrial Design also from the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Sean Neville was most recently was the CEO and Co-founder of Simply Audiobooks, a $7 million internet retailer focused on the rental and sale of audiobooks. Sean led the company from inception to becoming the world's largest audiobook rental company with offices in Canada and the United States. He received the 2005 Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award in Ontario for his efforts in building the company. Sean negotiated the successful sale of Simply Audiobooks to another Canadian media company in the summer of 2009.
Before starting Simply Audiobooks, Sean explored a variety of high-profile positions, from trading at Goepel McDermid and UBS Warburg to VP of Sales and Marketing at Concept Plastics. Before starting his business career, Sean was a nationally ranked figure skater in Canada, and two-time Ontario provincial champion.
Sean Neville holds an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University, a BAS from York University, and he has completed graduate studies at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.
Tom Schryver is CFO of e2e Materials, a leading venture-backed clean tech company. e2e's proprietary biocomposites are biodegradable, 100% natural with zero toxins, and provide superior strengths at lower weights than toxin-laden wood composites.
Schryver has extensive experience providing financial and strategic services and advice to technology transfer startups. His most recent role was as vice president, finance and operations at Novomer, a green materials company commercializing innovative polymer technology developed at Cornell University. Prior to Novomer, he was director of finance for the Triad Foundation, where he was responsible for overseeing all financial operations of the Foundation, including accounting, audit, and investing the Foundation's $250 million portfolio.
Tom Schryver's comments are from the panel discussion entitled Investing in the New Economy: The Changing Landscape and its Funding Models from Entrepreneurship at Cornell's Celebration event in April 2010.
Schryver has an AB from Cornell University and an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management.