Principal | Deloitte

Chloë Domergue

Chloe Domergue is a principal in Deloitte’s human capital practice, bringing more than 15 years of consulting experience with global life sciences clients. She partners with her clients to simplify complex talent and organizational challenges to create practical steps toward thoughtful action. Her core expertise includes talent strategies, culture transformation, and leadership alignment.

Co-Founder & CEO | Relay

Chris Chuang

Chris Chuang is the co-founder and CEO of Relay, a communications and safety platform for frontline teams. Prior to starting Relay, Chris was CEO of Republic Wireless, which he also co-founded as a business unit within Bandwidth (ticker: BAND). Chris and team scaled Republic from zero to ~$100M in annual revenue, drove it to profitability, spun it out of Bandwidth, and later sold it to DISH in 2021. Before Republic, Chris held various leadership positions at Bandwidth, including Chief Strategy & Product Officer and his last role as Chief Operating Officer, with P&L responsibility for multiple business units. During his tenure, Bandwidth scaled from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of revenue.

Prior to joining Bandwidth, Chris served as VP of Strategic Development for Motricity, an early app store technology platform powering billions of content/ app transactions for the major mobile carriers. Chris helped Motricity raise hundreds of millions of capital from leading investors and scale annual revenues from ~$10M to $100M, enabling Motricity to go public and reach a market cap of over $1 billion. Prior to joining Motricity, Chuang was an investment professional with Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), a venture capital investor with over $25 billion under management. While at TCV, Chuang led the firm’s investment coverage of the communication markets, including the completion of a $27 million investment round in Motricity. Previously, Chuang was also a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and worked in investment banking roles at Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. Chris is a graduate of Stanford University.

Founder | Ariso

Erkang Zheng

Erkang Zhang envisions a world where decisions are made on facts, not fear; where people live and work fulfilled, not frustrated; and where AI is used for good and accessible to all.

A hands-on leader in data, AI, and cybersecurity, he is an engineer by trade and an entrepreneur at heart, driven by a deep passion for technology and solving real-world challenges.

As the founder of JupiterOne, he led the creation of a cloud-native security platform designed to bring knowledge, transparency, and confidence to digital operations for organizations of all sizes. Under his leadership, JupiterOne helped redefine how companies understand and secure their complex cloud environments.

Today, he is channeling his experience into a new venture—building an AI-powered platform that helps individuals and organizations unlock their full potential through intelligent, personalized insights and collaboration. His work centers on reimagining how AI can elevate people, not just technology, making it a force for empowerment and meaningful progress.

Founder & Strategic Advisor | Big Ripple Innovations

Giles Shih

Dr. Giles Shih co-founded BRI with his father, Dr. Jason Shih, in 1999 and has been managing BRI’s business development efforts since. Along with serving on the NCALS Research Foundation Board, Giles serves on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Biosciences Organization. Upon receiving his undergraduate degree at Cornell University, Giles went on to complete his graduate training at North Carolina State University (MS in Microbiology) and Emory University (Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics), followed by an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

BRI is a leading developer and supplier of feed additives that help poultry, swine and aqua producers optimize performance and gut health while maximizing profits in a sustainable manner. Based in the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, a major U.S. biotechnology hub, BRI applies the latest scientific techniques and rigorous data analysis to fuel the discovery, design, and production of specialty feed additives with functional characteristics that generate high value for animal producers.

COO | Pairwise

Ian Miller

Ian Miller is a life sciences operator focused on taking novel technologies from science to market. He began his career at the bench in drug discovery before moving into BigLaw, where he worked on complex deals and gained firsthand insight into how scientific innovation is commercialized.

Since then, he has built his career as an operator—leading turnarounds, driving strategic pivots, and building the infrastructure required to launch entirely new categories. At Pairwise, he has helped advance one of agriculture’s leading CRISPR pipelines.

He is known for building teams and partnerships that make hard things possible, grounded in the belief that breakthrough companies succeed not only because of great science, but because of the trust that enables people to tackle ambitious challenges together.

CEO | PublicInput

Jay Dawkins

As Co-founder and CEO of PublicInput, Jay leads a platform that helps governments gather resident input, streamline public communications, and leverage AI-powered insights to make and defend decisions. Public engagement often feels cumbersome and disconnected from meaningful results. At PublicInput, they transform that experience by making it easy for agencies to collect feedback across multiple channels, centralize communications, and quickly identify actionable insights through AI. Their goal is simple: Give public leaders the clarity and confidence they need to deliver projects and services that residents love.

Founder & CEO | Sift Media

Jud Bowman

Jud Bowman is a technology entrepreneur who has founded three companies: Motricity, Appia, and Sift Media.

He co-founded Motricity as a senior at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics and later took an indefinite leave from Stanford University to help scale the company to more than $100 million in annual revenue and 500 employees. Motricity delivered over $3 billion in mobile content, raised capital from leading investors, and completed a $50 million IPO co-led by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, reaching a peak market cap of $1.25 billion.

In 2008, he founded Appia, raising $30 million in venture capital and building a mobile user acquisition network that delivered more than 100 million app installs before its acquisition by Digital Turbine in 2015 for approximately $100 million.

He later founded Sift Media, an AI-driven mobile advertising platform that has delivered 100 million app installs and served more than 250 billion ads. The company has been recognized on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and Inc. 5000 lists.

He currently serves on the board of the Research Triangle Foundation and as a trustee of the North Carolina Symphony.

Co-Founder & CEO | Isolere Bio

Kelli Luginbuhl

Kelli received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University where she studied the design and development of phase separating proteins for various biomedical applications. She co-founded Isolere Bio in 2018 with the mission of reimagining the way the industry approaches advanced therapeutics manufacturing. Initially serving as Chief Scientific Officer, Kelli is an inventor on many of Isolere’s core patents. She transitioned into the CEO role in 2019 and helped secure a $7M seed round in 2021.

She continues to lead the Isolere team in the role of General Manager, reporting to the President of Life Sciences after the acquisition and integration into Donaldson Company in 2023. The company is focused on the launch, scale up, and commercialization of first of its kind purification reagents for AAV, LV, and ssRNA.

Founder & CEO | Culture Driven Sales

Kelly Breslin Wright

Kelly Breslin Wright has over 30 years of experience in leadership, sales, and go-to-market. Kelly has served in multiple executive roles, including as President and Chief Operating Officer at Gong and as Executive Vice President, Sales (Chief Revenue Officer) at Tableau Software, where she joined as the first salesperson and helped build Tableau into a multi-billion dollar public company, growing revenues from zero to $850m over 12 years. Kelly has served as a Board Director at Fastly (NYSE: FSLY), Plum (NASDAQ: PLMI), Gong, Lucid, Even, and Amperity, and as an Advisor at Dropbox, Asana, data.world, Hyperproof, Cien, and Two Ravens. Earlier in her career, she worked at Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, Bank of America, Dale Carnegie Training, and AtHoc.

Kelly is currently Founder and CEO of Culture Driven Sales, advising companies on how to structure best- in-class sales and GTM organizations. She is an adjunct professor teaching at both the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business and North Carolina State University’s Poole School of Management. She earned her BA from Stanford University and MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

CSO | Alpha-Stim, by EPI

Leah Townsend

Executive with a broad foundation in life sciences research and business consulting with over 10 years of experience in various therapeutic areas including neurobiology and neurotechnology development. She previously served as a Fonder in Residence at CED and now serves as the Executive in Residence at Cofounders Capital.

Since 2019, Dr. Townsend has utilized her expertise in biotechnology consulting and neuroscience to lead Pulvinar Neuro, a neurotechnology startup, which was acquired by EPI in 2022. To date, she has secured $4.5 M+ in non-dilutive grant funding to facilitate Pulvinar Neuro’s R&D goals and developed numerous academic and industry collaborations.

Founder | Quantified Ardor

Lesley Ross

Lesley Ross has spent nearly two decades helping companies grow, from global brands to scrappy startups. She began her career before “growth” and “analytics” were industry buzzwords, helping brands like Reebok, Procter & Gamble, Sony, Citrix, Autodesk, and Novartis use online marketing to drive measurable results. She helped launch Procter & Gamble’s first YouTube campaign and guided pharmaceutical companies on how to advertise online within FDA regulations.

She later moved into startups, first leading growth and then serving as a multi-time COO in San Francisco, New York City, and Mexico City. She helped build companies from the ground up, launched new ventures within an incubator, and supported Google in launching its first startup accelerator in Silicon Valley and later in Mexico City. She also served as an Expert-in-Residence at First Round Capital, advising portfolio founders on operations and analytics.

Today, she advises venture-backed founders on building stronger companies, becoming exceptional CEOs, and finding joy at every stage of the journey.

Co-Founder | Teamworks

Mitch Heath

Mitch Heath is a founder, advisor, and board member who spends his time working with organizations tackling large, systemic problems and striving to move the world in a better direction.

He joined the founding team at Teamworks in 2010 while finishing his undergraduate degree at Duke University and spent the next decade-plus supporting the company as it expanded across college sports, professional leagues, and international markets. During that time, he worked across operations, growth, go-to-market strategy, and global expansion, including a period living in Europe to help Teamworks launch internationally.

Today, he works closely with founders, executives, and boards across a range of industries. He focuses most of his time and energy on two areas he cares deeply about: sports and food security—fields where innovation, sound strategy and operations, and strong leadership can create meaningful societal impact.

Co-Founder & CEO | Plantd

Nathan Silvernail

Nathan is a highly accomplished entrepreneur and engineer with a passion for innovation. At SpaceX, he led the team that built life support systems for astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Nathan has also built launch vehicles, ground support equipment, and large composite structures. He made history by building the first payload fairing recovered from space and reused on a later mission.

In addition to his work at SpaceX, Nathan founded a company that designed, built, and flew reduced gravity experiments onboard NASA’s zero gravity simulation aircraft. He has received recognition for his work in the industry, including the Emerging Space Leaders Grant and the First Suborbital Research Flight with Virgin Galactic.

Nathan holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering and BS in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

CEO | Locus Biosciences, Inc.

Paul Garofolo

Paul Garofolo has been a member of multiple Executive Management teams of both publicly traded multi-national corporations and successful startup opportunities. He currently serves as the CEO of Locus Biosciences, an emerging biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of precision medicines using CRISPR-Cas technologies for antimicrobial and microbiome indications.

Paul also serves as Vice President of the Friends Board at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and as a Visiting Professor at North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management. He serves as an Executive-in-Residence for the HiTEC Graduate Program, the University’s Entrepreneurship Collaborative.

Co-Founder | The Futurists Network & Nura Studios AI

Robert Tercek

For 30 years, Robert Tercek has inspired and led the teams that expanded the boundaries of digital media, telecoms and entertainment around the world. Mr. Tercek specializes in launching new systems. His credits include the launch of the world’s first streaming video on mobile devices in more than 30 countries; the earliest multiplayer game platform on the Web for Sony; and the first pan-regional multichannel TV platform in Asia for StarTV.

Today he is the co-founder of Nura Studios, which provides artists with a comprehensive AI toolkit and agentic workflow to create scripted episodic video series; and he is the co-founder and President of The Futurists Network. He has served in senior executive leadership roles for Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and MTV: Music Television; and he has co-founded five startup companies. His book Vaporized, about rapid growth of the dematerialized economy, was selected as the International Book of the Year at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2016. He is a Special Advisor to the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Art at the University of Nebraska.

CEO of Slope Software

Tyson Nargassans

Tyson founded and led Saylent Technologies for over 15 years, growing it into a ~$10 million company focused on data analytics and customer engagement. After exiting Saylent, he served as CEO of CureMint, a procurement platform for the dental industry, where he led strategic initiatives and leadership transitions. Currently, Tyson is an Operating Advisor at Jurassic Capital, where he leverages his extensive experience to mentor and guide emerging companies.

Founder | Dealroom

Yoram Wijngaarde

Founder of Dealroom, a global data platform for intelligence on startups, innovation, high-growth companies, ecosystems and investment strategies.Top tier venture capital firms like Sequoia, Insight Partners, Balderton, Atomico, and world-class corporates like Google, Amazon, Stripe, McKinsey, BCG, EY, Deloitte, Unilever, Pepsi and others use Dealroom software and data to stay at the forefront of innovation and discover the world’s most promising companies. Before founding Dealroom, Yoram was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, Nomura Securities and NOAH Advisors in New York and London. Yoram has a cum laude Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam.