Thayer Ventures Annual LP Meeting 2019

Alex Aydin is a serial entrepreneur and senior technology executive with over twenty years of experience in the software sector. A dynamic leader and resourceful thinker, Alex has developed an expertise in successfully managing the operations throughout each phase of a company’s life cycle, developing innovative and profitable software companies.

Alex founded BookingPal in September 2013 to provide distribution capabilities to professional vacation rental property managers. BookingPal has developed the most advanced technology platform for distribution of vacation rentals.

Brian drives business and product strategy, forges and manages relationships with key partners and investors, and sets the company’s cultural tone. Prior to co-founding Uplift, Brian was a co-founder, CEO and Director of SideStep, which invented travel meta-search in 1999. SideStep was acquired by Kayak in 2007, which in turn was acquired by Priceline for $1.8B in 2013. Brian has been a board member and advisor of numerous startups and holds a BS and an MS in Electrical Engineering from MIT.

Brett Burgess leads Travel Network’s global product organization with responsibility for product innovation, platform vision, portfolio strategy, and financial performance. He has presented at industry forums on a wide variety of topics including innovation in travel technology, machine learning/artificial intelligence in travel, airline retailing, and the facts and fiction of the airline industry’s New Distribution Capability.

Before joining Sabre in June 2014, Brett was a Principal at Bain & Company, a leading strategy consulting firm. While at Bain, he was a member of the Global Technology practice, where he helped companies clarify their product and technology strategy, improve their software development practices, and improve operational performance. 

His hobbies include snow skiing, fishing, and backpacking, with the occasional video game session thrown in for variety.

Brett earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Mr. Carroll is a Senior Portfolio Manager of Hospitality within the Real Estate & Infrastructure Department of The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (“ADIA”). ADIA's mission is to invest funds on behalf of the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to make available the necessary financial resources to secure and maintain the future welfare of the Emirate. ADIA has been established for over 30 years, prudently investing the assets of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi through an investment strategy focused on long-term value creation. Throughout this time ADIA has built a strong reputation across global markets as a trusted and responsible investor. ADIA’s investment strategy involves looking beyond individual economic cycles and focusing on strategies aimed at capturing secular trends to generate long-term, sustainable returns. Mr. Carroll is a graduate of Dartmouth College (BA); Cornell University School of Hotel Administration (MPS) and the Marshall-Wythe Law School of William & Mary (JD). He has held a number of senior positions in hospitality and timeshare development, acquisitions, asset management, law and finance at several prominent real estate and management organizations over the course of his 30-year career. 

Raj Contractor is Senior Vice President of Investments for Host Hotels and Resorts and is responsible for acquisitions, dispositions, value enhancement projects and developments in the US. 

Raj joined Host in 2008 and has been responsible for over $2 billion in global real estate investments including acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, developments, and redevelopments in the US, Asia and Latin America. Prior to Host Raj completed ground up and value-add hotel developments in the San Francisco Bay Area. Raj holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Tulane University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Carolyn Corda is a data industry leader with extensive experience in driving marketing transformation for travel companies. She has built successful businesses by applying advanced analytics to large sets of consumer data to power marketing, loyalty and experience.

Adara, the premier provider of Predictive Travel Intelligence, brought Carolyn on as CMO in 2018. She’s responsible for aligning the brand with the company’s mission to deliver critical intelligence to activate personalization and relevance throughout the customer journey. 

Prior to Adara, Carolyn was Accenture’s Managing Director for Applied Intelligence for the travel practice. Her previous positions include executive roles at Epsilon, Fair Isaac and Sabre; and she co-founded Vistrio.

She has been recognized for her thought leadership and has spoken on customer insight at industry conferences—including Skift and Phocuswright. Carolyn earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, an MBA from UCLA and a master's from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration. 

Francis Davidson is the co-founder and CEO of Sonder, a next-generation hospitality brand recently named the "Most Innovative Travel Company of 2019" by Fast Company. Sonder builds beautiful spaces for travel and life, powered by technology, that heighten discovery, take people further and bring them home better. Today, Sonder manages $2 billion worth of real estate and continues to grow rapidly — operating in nearly twenty cities across four countries and welcoming hundreds of thousands of guests annually.

Francis was named EY’s “Entrepreneur of the Year,” one of the world’s most coveted and prestigious business awards. In 2018, he was put on Forbes’ “30 under 30” list for Consumer Technology. 

Francis studied Philosophy and Economics at McGill University. He enjoys science, art and literature, and lives in Sonders, full-time, in San Francisco. 

Alex is a Senior Partner in McKinsey’s London office. He leads the Consumer and TTLpractice in the UK and Ireland and heads McKinsey’s global Airline and Aviation practice, an area of passion and interest that is reflected in his client work. In his 17 years at McKinsey, Alex has been at the center of some of the most successful transformations of Airlines, Airline service companies, Aerospace companies and Government Agencies across the globe.

Carlos is an entrepreneur with a track record of building successful and innovative companies in the intersection of technology and marketing.

Carlos is the CEO of HYP3R, the leading innovator in location marketing cloud and one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Prior to HYP3R, Carlos founded Nobox, a social marketing agency (acquired in 2015), and Scrapblog, an online scrapbooking service (acquired in 2011). Carlos also serves as a board member of Techstars’ Bay Area Chapter.

For more information, follow @mkt_hacker on Twitter or visit www.linkedin.com/in/carlosgarcia.

As the Co-Founder and current Chairman of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT), Mr. Gresta leads a team of 800 professionals in 40 countries that span 6 continents. HyperloopTT was the first company to begin development of the Hyperloop™ and is the largest company ever built upon a collaborative business ecosystem. HyperloopTT, under Mr. Gresta's leadership, has been revolutionizing both mobility and the outdated business model.

Before HyperloopTT, Bibop co-founded the influential start-up incubator Digital Magics SPA, which has served as the catalyst for the launching of more than 70 other companies. In addition to his entrepreneurial successes, he is a world-renowned speaker on issues ranging from ethical entrepreneurship to mobility. Bibop has keynoted at events that range from the World Economic Forum and United Nations to TedTalk and MTV. He is known for always bringing a unique and thoughtful perspective. For this reason, he has a following that includes high school/university students to heads of state.

Steve Haggerty has 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry with significant experience in leading capital strategy, real estate development, and growth-related functions for global hospitality organizations. He joined Trinity Investments in May 2018 and currently serves as a Managing Partner. 

Mr. Haggerty focuses on strategic growth of Trinity’s platform throughout the United States and globally, including partnership formation. Most recently served as the Global Head of Capital Strategy, Franchising and Select Service at Hyatt Hotels Corporation. He was responsible for implementing Hyatt’s overall capital and franchising strategy and overseeing the Select Service business. Mr. Haggerty joined Hyatt in 2007, first as Global Head of Real Estate and Development, where he oversaw Hyatt’s Global Development, Feasibility and Development Finance, and Asset Management teams. He then served as Hyatt’s Executive Vice President, Global Head of Real Estate and Capital Strategy beginning in 2012. His responsibilities as EVP included implementing Hyatt’s capital strategy, managing Hyatt’s hotel asset base and providing support to the teams of development professionals on a global scale.

Prior to his tenure at Hyatt, spent 13 years working with Marriott International, Inc. in various roles in the finance, asset management and development departments around the world, including Hong Kong and London. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel Administration from Cornell University Advisory board member for the University of Denver Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management. 

Layton knows how to take a business to the heights of success. He co-founded online loyalty marketing company MyPoints.com, and as its co-president, saw revenue and profitability more than double. Prior to serving in that role, Layton was head of business and corporate development for MyPoints.com, overseeing public and private company acquisitions and developing strategic partnerships with Fortune 500 companies. He was CFO during the company’s pre- and post-IPO periods and later helped guide the sale of MyPoints.com to United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL) in 2001 and to United Online (NASDAQ: UNTD) in 2006. He is a graduate of the University of California’s Haas School of Business, where he earned an M.B.A. Layton also holds a B.S. in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from the University of California-Davis.

Julie is a customer experience advocate and thought leader with 20+ years as a data driven marketer focused on eCommerce, Digital & Loyalty Marketing for Fortune 500 companies in Travel and CPG verticals. She's led numerous teams and organizations through digital transformations and developed strategies around change management to enable teams and empower individuals. She views digital as an enabler to a better customer experience and this path being evangelized by small to large teams of highly engaged employees focused on driving experiences that matter for customers.

Rick Hoffman serves as the Executive Vice President, Mergers, Acquisitions & Business Development, a position he has held since August 2004. In his current role, he has responsibility for leading and supervising Marriott’s mergers and acquisition strategy and execution, and developing new business opportunities. He led the Marriott team in successfully negotiating and closing Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in 2016, the largest M&A transaction in the hospitality industry at over $13 billion. During his tenure, the company also acquired Delta Hotels & Resorts (Canada); Protea Hotels (Sub-Saharan Africa); Gaylord Hotels; and the AC by Marriott brand. Rick negotiated the EDITION brand partnership with Ian Schrager; and the Moxy Hotel brand partnership with Inter IKEA.

Prior to his current position, Rick served as Executive Vice President for Finance and eCommerce, as well as Senior Vice President, Finance. He started with Marriott as Senior Vice President, Special Projects in 2000.

Before beginning his Marriott career, Rick was an attorney at Williams & Connolly, a Washington, D.C. law firm, and served as Marriott’s lead counsel in several litigation matters. He received his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis (Summa Cum Laude) in 1977 and graduated from the University of Michigan Law School (Magna Cum Laude) in 1981. Following law school, Rick served as a law clerk to the Honorable Prentice H. Marshall, a federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois.

In addition to his work for Marriott, he served for ten years on the Board of Directors of the University of Maryland Medical System, by appointment of the Governor of Maryland, acting as Chairman of the Finance Committee and a member of the Executive Committee. He currently serves as Managing Director of Marriott’s Joint Venture for AC by Marriott Hotels and Deputy Chairman of the Board of Design Hotels, AG, a German public company.

Richard is the head of Southeast Asia for Susquehanna International Group (SIG), a privately held financial institution based in Philadelphia. Working from the premise of increasing internet penetration and favorable demographics in Southeast Asia, we are looking to work with the local economies to capture the outsized opportunities that are created by digitalization. With our experience of investing in China for over 10 years, we are endeavor to bring our learnings from the China venture capital investing to Southeast Asia. Richard had previously invested in Chinese companies such as ChinaCache (NSDQ: CCIH), Kingsoft (HKG: 3888), and Beijing Netposa Technologies (SZ: 300367). He was also an early investor in Crystal Orange Hotels which was acquired by China Lodging in 2017.

Prior to joining SIG in 2015, Richard spent 15 years with Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of Intel Corporation. While at Intel Capital, he served as an investment professional in Silicon Valley and China, and also headed up Intel Capital China investment program from 2009 to 2015. Richard received his BA from Pomona College in Claremont, and his MBA from University of Chicago.  

A career Investment Banker and Technology Industry advisor, Sanjay Jain has a demonstrated history of working with CEOs, financial and strategic investors, and Boards of Directors across Capital-raising, Capital Markets, Management, Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions. Sanjay has extensive global experience having worked in San Francisco, London, and New York, and having managed a Global Industry Group during his 25-year career at JPMorgan. Additionally, he sits on the Boards of Movius and Pupil which are, respectively, Silicon Valley and London-based private venture-backed Technology start-ups. Sanjay brings this wealth of business and finance experience to HyperloopTT at a time when the Company is accelerating its market position, evolving from concept to test phase, and institutionalizing its capital base. His deep network of executive relationships and deal experience allow him to partner with HTT’s leadership to drive the future growth of the Company.

Jungsang Kim is a co-Founder and CSO at IonQ, Inc., and also a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. After receiving his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Stanford University (1999), he joined Bell Laboratories and worked on developing cutting-edge optical and wireless communication systems, such as all-optical switches and digital antennas for broader cellular coverage. He joined the ECE department at Duke University in 2004, where he has worked on trapped ion quantum computing, high pixel-count imaging systems, and novel quantum device research. He has serves as the Principal Investigator for several multi-disciplinary quantum computing development projects supported by the US government over the past decade. He co-founded IonQ in 2015, a company focused on the construction of full-stack quantum computers based on trapped ion technology.

Evan Konwiser is the Vice President of Product Strategy & Marketing for American Express Global Business Travel. He is responsible for global marketing, communications, product strategy, and experience.

He most recently was co-founder and COO of Skylark, a luxury leisure travel agency start-up. He previously built two other travel products: FlightCaster, which predicts flight delays real-time (acquired in 2010), and Farely, which analyzes airline cost data for travel buyers. As part of the FlightCaster acquisition, Evan ran the travel business for Next Jump, which includes employee discount programs for Fortune 500 companies. Evan has also been an advisor to travel start-ups including Safely, Suiteness, Olset (acquired by Deem), RocketMiles (acquired by Priceline), and GetGoing (acquired by BCD Travel). Evan is a veteran Critic/Dragon at Phcouswright’s Travel Innovation Summit and facilitator of the Phocuswright Young Leaders Summit. He has served on the board of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives and was selected as one of the “25 Most Influential Business Travel Executives” of 2016.

Prior to his entrepreneurial work, Evan was a consultant at Bain & Company and he also spent time at Kayak. He has a BA and MBA from Dartmouth. Evan lives with his wife, two young children, and dog in New York City. He likes to escape the city to hike, bike, and ski whenever he’s not on a plane or rooting for the Yankees.

As an innovative business leader and top-performing investor, Simon Lehmann has been a respected name in the real estate and vacation rental industries for more than 25 years. He has also work in tourism, airline, service, and supply chain management industry.

For several years Simon was active in various top management positions at Swissport International, a worldwide leading company in the area of airport ground handling and former Swissair Group Company. Simon has expanded his expertise into the digital sphere, becoming an expert in digital transformation consulting and online travel niches such as alternative and private lodging on the global level.

From 2005 until 2014, Simon served as the CEO of Interhome, the European market leader in placing more than 32,000 vacation apartments, vacation homes and chalets in 29 countries. Then, he was appointed as the Deputy CEO of the entire Hotelplan Group, the second largest tour operator of Switzerland with revenues of more than 1.2bn USD.

Michael Lohnert as Investing Director for Boeing HorizonX Ventures leads the team responsible for Boeing’s venture investments within HorizonX Ventures, encompassing pipeline strategy and management, investing, portfolio management, and governance. 

Lohnert led the investment in Isotropic Systems, Accion Systems, BridgeSat, C360 Technologies, Gamma Alloys, Cuberg, Myriota, Agylstor, and Morf3D, where he remains active on several of their boards. 

Prior to his current role, Lohnert was a senior strategist for the Boeing Company responsible for emerging business opportunities, corporate strategy, and mergers & acquisitions and partnerships. He was also program manager and instructor for Boeing’s enterprise strategy training course. 

Outside of Boeing, Lohnert is on the board of directors of Pasadena Angels, ranked by Forbes as a top ten angel investor group, as well as cleantech startup and director emeritus for a financial services firm. 

Prior to Boeing, Lohnert was director of energy investments for a private equity group where he invested in the alternative energy, natural gas, and electrical generation sectors, as well as led turnarounds of portfolio investments. He was also involved in the acquisition of several operating companies that bolstered the group’s ability to maximize the returns of its portfolio. Lohnert has held strategy and M&A responsibilities for a specialty chemicals division of a major oil company and while living in Zürich, a global financial services company. He has also worked on a foreign currency trading desk and the treasury group for a Fortune 500 utility. 

Lohnert received his MBA from the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University where he concentrated in Investment Management and Strategy. His bachelor degree is also from Ohio State with dual majors in Finance and a Real Estate Finance. Lohnert also has also completed programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the Swiss Banking Institute at the University of Zürich, and University of California Haas School at Berkeley. 

Adam Malamut is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Marriott International and is charged with elevating the customer’s voice across the global business. In this new role at Marriott, Adam leads the Customer Experience + Innovation team responsible for the orchestration of customer strategies across the Brand, Marketing, Sales + Consumer Services (BMSC) organization, while also providing BMSC leaders insight and strategy capabilities to accelerate the innovation of the customer experience.

Prior to this role, Adam served as Global Talent Officer overseeing the innovation of all Marriott talent management areas (e.g., talent acquisition, learning and development, compensation, engagement) and supporting the company’s global brand and consumer strategies. In this position, he also served as Chief Learning Officer and was responsible for developing and implementing the strategy to reinvent the Marriott Learning + Development function and the company’s learning culture at large. Adam has also served in a number of Senior HR Business Partner roles, most notably as one of the key architects of the BMSC organization.

Adam’s work on organizational climate, diversity and inclusion, employee selection, and learning and development systems has been presented at numerous professional conferences and published in peer-reviewed books and journals. Adam’s applied research on workforce diversity and inclusion was recognized and supported by a multi-year grant from the National Science Foundation. He has a doctorate in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from The George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science from Penn State University. He is also an aspiring artist.

Jillian Manus is an experienced banking and media executive, a technology investor and entrepreneur. She is Managing Partner of an early stage Silicon Valley venture fund, Structure Capital. Branded” Architects of the Zero Waste Economy"  they invest in underutilized assets and excess capacity.

Ms. Manus serves on numerous boards including: Stanford University Digital Health, Stanford University School of Medicine Board of Fellows, Advisory Board of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center Board of Directors, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and Communities in Schools. 

Prior to Structure Capital, Ms. Manus was Founder of Broad Strategy, Manus Media and Global Goal Sports Management. She served as Co- Director of TMT for Credit Suisse Zurich, and Director of Development for Universal and Warner Bros and Associate Publisher of the national publication Upside, reporting on the financial strategies of the technology industry.

Gianni has over 20 years of Travel Industry experience in the Airline, Hotelier, and Software sectors. He has been at Google for over 8 years, and currently leads the Global Business Development team, responsible for all Travel related partners, deals and strategy for Air, Hotels, Destination activities, and enterprise solutions. Prior to Google, Gianni was Chief Commercial Officer at ITA Software, a privately held startup in Cambridge, MA, offering pricing and shopping solutions to the industry. Gianni also served as President, Airline Passenger Solutions at Sabre Holdings Corp. for five years, providing mission critical and decision support software solutions to suppliers and intermediaries. He also served as the Managing Partner for Worldwide Consulting. Gianni has held several international executive assignments in Canada, Paris and Rome where he led the turnaround efforts for the privatisation of Air Canada, Air France and Alitalia responsible for the areas of Pricing, Revenue Management, Netwrok Planning and Distribution prior to moving to the US. He graduated with an MBA from the John Molson School of Business at Concordia in Montreal where he was born. Gianni currently serves on the board of a non-profit and a biotech startup and is involved in mentoring young students in the MIT Sandbox project. 

Pedro Noyola is a founding partner and executive director of aklara, a firm that designs and executes structured auctions. He is a former Undersecretary of Trade and Undersecretary of Finance of Mexico. He represented Mexico in various trade negotiations, including NAFTA and OECD accession. He has taught mathematics, economic theory and applied economics courses at El Colegio de México, ITAM and Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. He obtained his BS in civil engineering at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, and earned an MA in economics and PhD in engineering and operations research at Stanford University.  

Edwin Olson is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan, and co-founder/CEO of May Mobility, Inc., which develops self-driving shuttles. He earned his PhD from MIT in 2008 for work in robot mapping. He has worked on autonomous vehicles for over a decade, including work on the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, vehicles for Ford and Toyota Research Institute, and now May Mobility. His academic research includes work on perception, planning, and mapping. He was awarded a DARPA Young Faculty Award, named one of Popular Science's "Brilliant 10", and was winner of the 2010 MAGIC robotics competition. He is perhaps best known for his work on AprilTags, SLAM using MaxMixtures and SGD, and Multi-Policy Decision Making.

Mr. Pawlikowski is President and Chief Executive officer of Optii Solutions, Inc. He is also an investor and director for the company. Prior to Optii Solutions, Mr. Pawlikowski was the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of HotSchedules, a global hospitality technology company that has grown to over 2.5 million users and he continues to serve on the HotSchedules Board of Directors. During his 17 year tenure, he championed product innovation, customer acquisition and global expansion to grow HotSchedules from an initial seed investment of $450,000 to the global, highly scaled business it is today. He spends his time as an active investor, business mentor, father of 3 children and has been married to his wife, Melinda, for 10 years. Mr. Pawlikowski is a member of the Entrepreneurs' Organization and NextGen Venture Partners. Mr. Pawlikowski has a bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

Mike Slagh is often described as the entrepreneur bridging the gap between the military and tech. By decoding experiences, he’s helping veterans get hired into roles not normally associated with military service. As Shift founder & CEO, he builds strategic hiring initiatives with executive teams and creates pathways for veterans into media and technology companies. In the Navy, he deployed to South America and the Middle East as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer, eventually running global operations for a bomb squad battalion. He’s a Naval Academy and Harvard Kennedy School graduate and lives in San Francisco with his family.

Michael Stacy is CEO of ID90 Travel, whose web-based SaaS platform fully automates airline employee space-available travel for carriers across the globe. In addition to automating the shopping and booking process for space-available travel, ID90 Travel is the first company in the space to provide airline employees the ability to easily purchase discounted hotels, rental cars, and cruises online or via their industry-leading mobile application. During his tenure at ID90 Travel, Michael has raised venture capital financing and brought the company to first-time profitability. In 2018, Michael was recognized as a Southwest Region finalist in the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for his contributions at ID90 Travel.

Michael has been a leader in online technology since the late 90s, when he was hired in a marketing role in the very early stages of the development of Travelocity.com. He rose to become SVP of Marketing while helping the company go public and through its purchase by Sabre Holdings. He also served as President of Cheaptickets.com, where he led the company to first-time profitability and helped parent company Cendant complete the acquisition of Orbitz.com and the consolidation of Cheaptickets.com into the Orbitz family of brands. 

Ryan currently serves Caesars Entertainment as the Senior Vice President of Global Hospitality Marketing. He is responsible for the brand and market strategy to drive top-line revenue through key initiatives focused on new market launches along with the positioning and performance of the nine resorts in Las Vegas. He is a graduate of the University of San Francisco and spent a decade working in the advertising agency business for both boutiques firms and larger agency’s in the Havas and WPP network. Ryan has lead accounts across many verticals including Financial Services, Technology, Insurance, Retail and Hospitality during his agency tenure. He developed a passion for hospitality while working on destination resorts throughout Mexico. He has focused over the last six years on the travel, entertainment and hospitality category in his tenure with Caesars Entertainment.

As Founder, Richard Valtr maintains and shapes the strategic vision for both product and financial matters at Mews. The son of an real estate developer and a software engineer, he first conceived of Mews whilst project managing the construction of a 60-key boutique hotel, which was the prototype for the kind of hotel Mews would end up enabling - one focusing on service and automation.

Matthijs Welle, CEO at Mews Systems, helps drive the team behind this industry redefining PMS Platform, with customers in over 45 countries, 7 office locations and 200 employees. Matthijs has 20 years of experience in the Travel Industry, but his passion to help re-shape hospitality started much earlier in life. Prior experience includes 9 years with Hilton Worldwide across F&B, Front Office and Regional Sales roles after the successful completion of the fast-track Elevator management program. 

Jeff Warren is the Founder and CEO of Migo, the On-Demand Mobility-as-a-Service App (www.getmigo.com). Jeff launched Migo in 2017 after 5 years at Expedia where he created and led the travel metasearch team, now generating ~20% of transactions for the travel brand. In his last role at Expedia Jeff served as the CMO for two Expedia Group brands, Travelocity and Wotif. Previously, Jeff was a co-founder or an early team member of 4 startups in the mobile and enterprise software space, and spent 5+ years at Motorola in various corporate development, business development and product roles. Originally from Boston, Jeff was an analyst and Principal at Atlas Venture in the heady ’98-01 internet bubble years, a treasured experience that nonetheless cemented his love of being on the ‘hands-dirty’ entrepreneurial side of the table. Migo is based in Seattle, WA., where Jeff now lives with his family of 5 (plus dog) on nearby Bainbridge Island.

Christopher Wolfe is the Chief Investment Officer for First Republic Private Wealth Management. In his role, he is responsible for leading First Republic Investment Management’s research and investment platform, as well as the investment strategy and outlook for First Republic’s integrated investment, trust and brokerage groups. Mr. Wolfe is an influencer and subject matter expert on the current state of the markets and frequently appears on numerous television networks and in print publications.

Prior to joining First Republic in 2016, he served as the Chief Investment Officer for Merrill Lynch’s Private Banking and Investment Group and, most recently, as the Head of Merrill Lynch Chief Investment Office. Prior to that, Mr. Wolfe was Global Head of Equities at JP Morgan Securities / JP Morgan Private Bank, and held research management roles at Lincoln Capital and Dover Management.

Mr. Wolfe received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Rhode Island, and his Master of Business Administration from Columbia University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM professional.