Speakers

Jeff Perry is the Chief Revenue Officer at Carta, where he has dramatically scaled the revenue team. Responsible for all Carta core software revenue, Jeff is also accountable for creating synergy across all go-to-market functions and working with Carta’s Product and Engineering teams to deliver a great customer experience. Prior to joining Carta, Jeff grew the SMB sales organization, including New Business and Upsell motions at DocuSign, along with several vertical teams. Before that, Jeff spent 13 years at Oracle where he ultimately served as Vice President of Sales. Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Santa Clara University.

Kate started her career building a fashion brand from scratch, then led innovation at Cisco and BCG Digital Ventures, launching dozens of new ventures for some of the world’s biggest brands. She’s now Co-Founder and CEO of Heatseeker, where she helps marketing teams move faster, test bolder, and make smarter go-to-market decisions with live and synthetic market experiments.

Drew Dennison has a diverse work experience that spans over a decade. Drew is currently the Co-Founder and CTO of Semgrep since May 2017. Prior to that, they worked as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Redpoint Ventures starting in September 2016. Before that, they worked at Palantir Technologies, where they held various positions including Lead Software Engineer from October 2015 to September 2016, Software Engineer from August 2012 to October 2015, and Software Engineer Intern from May 2012 to August 2012. Drew also founded Silhouette Technologies in 2012 and worked there as a Founder until January 2013. In addition, they served as the Tech Chair for the Simmons Hall Tech Committee at MIT from November 2009 to June 2012. Drew also gained valuable experience as a Software Engineer Intern at OnStar from May 2011 to August 2011, where they developed a packaging utility in Java. Moreover, they worked as an Undergraduate Researcher at MIT in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering from September 2009 to September 2010. Lastly, they participated in the MIT Autonomous Robotics Competition in January 2010, where they contributed as a student and gained skills in team collaboration, problem-solving, soldering, programming, and control theory. Drew Dennison attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2009 to 2013, where they obtained a Bachelor of Science (S.B.) degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Dan Klein is a serial entrepreneur and professor of AI at UC Berkeley, where he has spent decades advancing the state of the art in natural language processing and intelligent systems. Many of his former students now lead AI teams at Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and other major research labs. Beyond academia, Dan has founded and scaled multiple successful startups. He co-founded adap.tv, an early pioneer in applying machine learning to advertising, which was acquired by AOL. He later co-founded Semantic Machines, where he led groundbreaking work in action-taking neural models and program synthesis before the company was acquired by Microsoft. Following the acquisition, Dan served as a Technical Fellow for AI at Microsoft, contributing to the company’s work on language interfaces and applied AI systems.

Charles Hudson is the Founder and Managing Partner of Precursor Ventures. Under his leadership, Precursor has raised five funds, invested in 450+ companies, and supported 1,000+ founders. Prior to founding Precursor, Charles was Partner at Uncork Capital and Co­-founder/CEO of Bionic Panda Games. He holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Stanford University. Charles stays connected with Stanford through volunteering and teaching. He is an active member of the VC community, serving on advisory boards and as a mentor to emerging managers. Charles was the 2023-2024 Chair of the NVCA Board of Directors and also serves on the San Francisco Opera Advisory Board.

Grace Gong is the founder of Smart Venture Media and the host of two well-known VC podcasts: Smart Venture Podcast (SVPpro.com) and Venture with Grace, a daily show. She is an angel investor in the AI sector, a super angel & venture scout for Alumni Ventures, Advisor at Berkeley SkyDeck. Her podcasts have featured high-profile guests such as C-level executives and VPs from companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Sephora, Dunkin' Donuts, Chipotle, Adidas, Pepsi, Instagram, Deloitte, Reddit, DoorDash, Pinterest, Cisco, Salesforce, NVIDIA, Snowflake and more. Additionally, she has interviewed Managing Partners from top funds, many of whom have appeared on the Forbes Midas List, as well as unicorn founders from companies like Craigslist, Square, Loom, and Glean. Grace regularly posts about technology, venture capital, and entrepreneurship and has been recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice in Finance. She is also a #1 Bestselling author in the VC category on Amazon New Release. Before founding Smart Venture Media, she worked in venture capital and private equity. If you share her interests, feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn @GraceGong.

Jon Carr-Harris is the Founder and CEO of CRED—an AI-powered platform enabling data-driven decisions with real-time external signals. Since its founding in 2023, CRED uncovers consumer and business behavior to drive profitability for enterprises such as the Golden State Warriors, UTA, and the PGA. With 10+ years as an entrepreneur and product innovator, Jon specializes in the application of predictive analytics, machine learning, and behavioral design. Previously, Jon founded Swish Labs, leading corporate solutions for Prudential, Nasdaq, Gatorade, and HSBC, and was a founding member of a financial exchange launched in 2018. Widely recognized as an expert in startup investment and marketplace platforms, Jon has also advised companies such as Airbnb, Khan Academy, and Kik to enhance their product strategy and development.

As CEO, Michel has grown Airbyte into the leading open-source data integration platform, known for its extensive connector library and flexible self-hosting. With over 600 connectors and 250,000+ deployments, it supports use cases across analytics, operations, governance, and AI across structured and unstructured data in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and now has more than 7K customers (including 18% of the F500). Prior to founding Airbyte, Michel served as Director of Engineering at rideOS and led data integrations at LiveRamp, where he helped shape foundational innovations in data infrastructure and engineering.