Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Chris Lustrino
Founder & CEO
Founder of Fintech publication, Simple.Innovative.Change, Chris was nominated as Fintech Journalist of the Year by LendIt in 2018, for his coverage of Fintech founders across the alternative investing and lending markets. He also spent 3 years as a strategy consultant for LEK Consulting with a focus on PE deal due diligence and corporate strategy. Most recently, he worked at Freebird, a Travel Tech Startup, where he developed the Sales and Finance Ops function for the team that has raised $16M to date including General Catalyst and Accomplice.
Sean O’Reilly
Chief Content Officer
Former Editor and Podcast Host at The Motley Fool, covering energy, industrials, technology and consumer goods, Sean is a content strategist for B2B and B2C organizations, with a passion for the financial markets and enabling individuals to invest confidently. He graduated from Case Western with a degree in Management, Economics and Finance.
John Fanning
Advisor
John Fanning, Founding Chairman and CEO of napster, has been a pioneer in internet technologies for over 25 years. In addition to his work with napster on the distributed aggregation of content, he has introduced such net-related innovations as client-server game play, voice over IP, and auto-upgrading/authentication. Since 1994, he has founded numerous successful Internet ventures, including napster, NetGames and NetMovies. John attended Boston College and has a background in finance from his work at Fidelity Investments in Boston, MA.
Mike Even
Analytics Adviser
Mike Even is an investment professional with over 35 years of industry experience. Mike worked for Citigroup for nine years building a global asset management organization. After Citi merged with Travelers, he became global CIO of the Private Bank and eventually, global CIO for and Co-Head of Citigroup Asset Management, overseeing investment teams running more than $500B in client assets. Following his time as CIO of Citi, he spent several years as President and CEO of Man Numeric, a quantitative driven investment firm. He is currently an adviser to Forge.AI, and Quantopian. He also spends time working closely with the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Management Board (PRIM).
Jenn Lee
Tech Adviser
Jenn Lee was the Director Of Technology of StreetAccounts. She built the tech behind the real time analytics platform that catered to the public markets, which was acquired by FactSet in 2012, where she spent time as Lead Software Engineer. She currently serves as Senior Software Development Manager at Amazon where she works on Audible features for Alexa. She has extensive experience in application and database architecture, Agile project management, as well as growing high-performing and diverse software engineering teams.
Patrik Hellstrand
Tech & Strategy Adviser
Patrik Hellstrand, an entrepreneurial executive with broad experience working with lifestyle and luxury companies, is the CEO of by CHLOE, a plant-based fast-casual restaurant brand based in New York, NY.
Barry Kurland
Marketing Adviser
Barry is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Cecelia Health, a venture-backed healthcare technology company focused on improving the lives and health outcomes of people living with diabetes and related chronic conditions. Previously he started up and scaled five businesses in emerging markets while a General Manager at Microsoft, was an Operating Partner at a venture capital firm that invested in technology-enabled business services, a VP of Early Stage Product and Business Development at a NYSE listed corporate payment and business solutions company, and a Chief Operating Officer of several technology startups.
John Engle
VC Adviser
John Engle is the President of Almington Capital, a merchant banking and venture capital firm founder in 2013, which is reimagining the merchant banking concept. He is also a business adviser to Redcrow, an online private market focused on funding healthcare related startups.
