Engineer Your Future Forum

Ali Hamed

General Partner and Co-founder of CoVenture

Speech: Falling Forward

At CoVenture Ali has led 15 investments and helped portfolio companies raise close to $10mm in capital as well as do nearly $10mm in revenue within two years of its founding. Before CoVenture, Ali was a consultant to international corporations, governments and domestic financial institutions. He was a co-founder of the POPSHOP, a co-working space located just off of the campus of Cornell University and has been a mentor to both Startup Labs and LaunchPad.io. Ali co-founded Memsparx, a machine learning company in the fin-tech space.

Ali also attended Cornell University where he played on the baseball team during his first two years on campus.

John L. Neuman

Management Consultant and Professor at Cornell University

Speech: An Unexpected Journey

John Neuman has been a management consultant for over 41 years. Currently he heads the 1492 Consulting Group, a 14-year old international management consulting firm with headquarters in Ithaca, NY and is teaching at Johnson as a visiting lecturer. Included in his consulting career is 14 years with McKinsey & Co. where he was a Partner. In addition, Neuman has held senior consulting positions in such firms as: Coopers & Lybrand, IBM, and ATKearney. Among his consulting areas of expertise are: strategy formulation, revenue acceleration, complex alliances and mergers, e-business strategies, marketing strategies, market research, manufacturing/supply chain optimizations, re-organizations, procurement profit improvement, change management, new product development, and post-merger integrations.

Learn more about Mr. Neuman: http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/Faculty-And-Research/Profile?id=jln16

Peipei Zhou

Global Business Account Manager at Facebook 

Speech: Things I’ve Learned at Facebook to Help You Succeed in Life

Peipei is a Global Business Account Manager on the Global Accounts Team, helping Facebook’s top clients maximize their business potential on world’s largest advertising platform.  Prior to Facebook, Peipei led customer business development for various distribution partners at Procter & Gamble.  Peipei received a BA in Management Information Systems from the University of Texas at Austin on a full scholarship.  She was born in Shanghai, China and is fluent in both Mandarin and Shanghainese.  Outside of work, Peipei is passionate about making this world a better place and mentors immigrant students.  She is also an avid dancer, photographer and writer, whose works can be found in NYTimes and on NPR.  Peipei currently lives in New York City. 

Ali Hamed

General Partner and Co-founder of CoVenture

At CoVenture Ali has led 15 investments and helped portfolio companies raise close to $10mm in capital as well as do nearly $10mm in revenue within two years of its founding. Before CoVenture, Ali was a consultant to international corporations, governments and domestic financial institutions. He was a co-founder of the POPSHOP, a co-working space located just off of the campus of Cornell University and has been a mentor to both Startup Labs and LaunchPad.io. Ali co-founded Memsparx, a machine learning company in the fin-tech space.

Ali also attended Cornell University where he played on the baseball team during his first two years on campus.

Tim Novikoff

Founder and CEO of Fly Labs

Tim Novikoff is the founder and CEO of Fly Labs. Fly Labs was named by Fast Company as #1 Most Innovative Companies in Video for 2014, and by Business Insider as one of the 25 Hottest NYC Startups. Their apps for video creativity, including Clips Video Editor and Fly Video Editor, have been downloaded over a million times and each ranked as #1 under Best New Apps by Apple when they were released. Tim has a PhD in applied math from Cornell, working with professors Steve Strogatz and Jon Kleinberg on algorithmic education theory. Before going to grad school Tim taught math at Stuyvesant High School before that, and did voices on MTV's Daria during his past life as an actor.

Adam Maher

Founder and President of Ursa Space Systems Inc.

Adam Maher, Founder and President of Ursa Space Systems Inc., an Ithaca based start-up developing a cost-effective satellite platform to deliver high-resolution radar products, available at any time and in any weather. Adam formerly worked at Space Systems Loral in Palo Alto, Ca, where he was lead systems engineer for two complete satellite builds, satellite lead for four successful commercial satellite proposals, managed three major IR&D efforts each resulting in multiple satellite awards, program manager and capture lead for five US government programs, and helped establish a new subsidiary of the parent company. Awarded the 2011 Promise Award from the Society of Satellite Professionals International with recognition at the AIAA 2014 Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala. BSME (2006) and MEng (2007) Cornell University.

Jason Gabbard

Founder and CEO of Counselytics  

Accomplished technology entrepreneur and corporate transactional attorney with substantial securities, M&A, real estate and transactional experience.  He has founded multiple companies and advised businesses, financial institutions and individuals across multiple industries, including technology, venture capital and finance, real estate, fashion, film, music, and theater.  

Joseph Guy

Community Growth Manager at Venture for America

Joe runs the community growth team at Venture for America where he focuses on recruiting, marketing and developing partnerships at universities around the country. Prior to VFA, he worked as a digital marketing strategist at BlackRock. During his time at the University of Dayton, Joe started two businesses and served as CEO of Flyer Enterprises, one of the largest and fastest growing student-run companies in America. Joe also founded the Flyer Enterprises Alumni Association and continues to serve as its President. He sits on the national board of Epsilon Nu Tau, the nation’s first entrepreneurship fraternity, and is the youngest member of the University of Dayton’s Business Advisory Council. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, majoring in Operations Management. 

Dennis Chua

Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Dennis is an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs. He joined the firm in July 2014. Previously, he was an investment banking summer analyst at Citigroup.

Dennis graduated Summa Cum Laude and top of his engineering class, with a BSc in Chemical Engineering in May '14. He was also a 2014 Merrill Presidential Scholar. Dennis served as the president of Tau Beta Pi (NY Delta Chapter), president of Base Productions Dance Group, and was also active in other organizations such as the Hunter Rawlings III Presidential Research Scholars Program, Phi Sigma Pi, Engineering Peer Advising, AIChE, Cornell SSA, Cornell Orientation Committee, and more. In addition, Dennis was heavily involved in undergraduate research, and worked in both the Archer Group (Chemical Engineering) and the Lammerding Lab (Biomedical Engineering).

Selected awards and honors include: 2014 Merrill Presidential Scholarship, 2014 Tau Beta Pi Laureate Award, 2014 Engineering Degree Marshal, 2014 Undergraduate Student of the Year Award, 2014 Golden Key Undergraduate Achievement Award, 2014 John G. Karrer Scholarship, 2013 Tau Beta Pi Scholarship Award, 2013 President's Volunteer Service Award, 2013 Scholar of Promise Award, 2012 Capital One Undergraduate Scholarship Award, 2012 Hunter Rawlings III Presidential Research Scholarship, 2012 National Society of Collegiate Scholars Merit Award, 2012 Mathematical Contest in Modeling MAA Award (National Champion).

Neil O'Donnell

Dual JD/MBA candiate at Cornell University

Neil O’Donnell dual JD/MBA candidate at Cornell University with a skill set that includes in biomedical research, product development, and investment management. At Cornell, Neil is president of the Business Law Society and an associate of BR Venture Fund— a $1.6M venture capital fund managed by MBA students. This summer Neil will work as an intern in the Capital Markets practice of the law firm Davis, Polk, and Wardwell.

Neil completed both his bachelor's and master's degrees at Johns Hopkins University. His thesis researched methods to improve gene delivery of nanoparticles using principles of material science and thermodynamics.

Neil previously worked as a Product Development Director of Canterbury Road Partners. At the intellectual property accelerator, Neil identified valuable patents relating to Mass Spectroscopy within the Johns Hopkins patent portfolio and helped to launch the biotechnology company MASSIVE.

Additionally, Neil interns at Jacobi Capital management and develops quantitative analysis tools to identify undervalued companies. The core strategy of these quantitative tools identifies value stocks based on the corporation's price to sales ratio and potential for mean reversion based on its 50 day SMA. Previously, Neil worked an intern at Synaptic Capital Group, a hedge fund based in Radnor Pennsylvania. Neil identified undervalued companies with promising technologies by examining healthcare, biotechnology, and life sciences stocks listed on the Russell 3000 index. Previously, he worked as an intern within the Global Wealth Management Division of Merrill Lynch and as a documentary page within the United States House of Representatives.

Damien Rose

3rd year Law Student at Cornell University,

Incoming Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore

Damien is a third-year law student at Cornell Law School.  At the law school, he is the Senior Online Editor of the prestigious Cornell Law Review, and a research assistant to Professors Robert Hillman and Kati Griffith.

Damien has accepted an offer to join the premier U.S. law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.  Last summer he split his internship by spending six weeks at the firm’s London office, representing issuers in connection with bridge loans and long-term high-yield debt, and the firm’s New York office, focusing on leveraged and asset-based financing.

Prior to Law School, Damien was a civil engineer at Gannett Fleming, where he specialized in Intelligent Transportation Systems.  At Gannett, he performed design services on smart highway systems throughout Florida and the Midwest, including a proof-of-concept video-detection system for the Florida Department of Transportation.  His work on video-based wrong-way detection has since been published, cited and deployed by several Departments of Transportation. He simultaneously earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Florida International University, where he was offered membership to Tau Beta Pi.  His thesis utilized the microscopic traffic simulation software package, TSIS-CORSIM, to investigate the ability of diversion route planning to mitigate congestion on major state highways.

John L. Neuman

Management Consultant and Professor at Cornell University

John Neuman has been a management consultant for over 41 years. Currently he heads the 1492 Consulting Group, a 14-year old international management consulting firm with headquarters in Ithaca, NY and is teaching at Johnson as a visiting lecturer. Included in his consulting career is 14 years with McKinsey & Co. where he was a Partner. In addition, Neuman has held senior consulting positions in such firms as: Coopers & Lybrand, IBM, and ATKearney. Among his consulting areas of expertise are: strategy formulation, revenue acceleration, complex alliances and mergers, e-business strategies, marketing strategies, market research, manufacturing/supply chain optimizations, re-organizations, procurement profit improvement, change management, new product development, and post-merger integrations.

Learn more about Mr. Neuman: http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/Faculty-And-Research/Profile?id=jln16

Zack West

Experienced Consulting Associate at PwC

Zach West is an Experienced Associate aligned to the Technology Consulting practice based in the New York office. With PwC, Zach has worked at a Fortune 500 commercial airline, a large casino in Las Vegas, and also a Fortune 500 quick service restaurant company. He focuses primarily on IT strategy projects. Prior to joining PwC, he previously worked at Google and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He also founded a digital consulting business in college.

He graduated from Cornell University in 2013 with a Bachelor in Science in Applied Economics & Management. As a student, Zach was involved with his business fraternity and a student run consulting group. In his free time, Zach serves on the advisory board of a non-profit he founded at Cornell five years ago. Practice Makes Perfect provides a comprehensive summer enrichment program that engages underprivileged students to better prepare them for the next school year.

Soumya Banerjee

Manager at PwC

Soumya is a Manager in PwC’s Advisory Technology Consulting Practice and is focused on helping clients with their Cyber Security initiatives. His key responsibilities include helping clients to develop strategy and solutions related to authentication, identity and access management, to develop technical and business architecture for identity solutions, to lead analysis and implementations of identity solutions and lead national identity governance training initiatives.

Soumya is called upon to help organizations assess, design and implement information security functions, strategies and solutions. Soumya has led many large and complex identity management and Role Based Access Control design and implementation engagements.  He helps with IT process improvement and IT Governance and Compliance needs. Relied upon by significant industry clients and peers alike, Soumya is known for his ability to collaborate with others to identify and build highly focused and effective teams that provide value and quality service. He has worked in multiple PwC offices across the globe including Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and India. Soumya is currently located in the New York office where he is committed in his professional and charitable endeavors to leadership, teamwork and his community.

Phillip Tischler

Software Engineer and Site Reliability Engineer at Google

Phillip Tischler studied Computer Science at Cornell University. He graduated from Cornell in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science degree, and in 2014 with a Master of Engineering degree. He was best known for his work with CUAir, Cornell University’s Unmanned Air Systems Team, and for his work as a Teaching Assistant for Operating Systems, Analysis of Algorithms, Mechatronics, and Matlab Programming. He is also a member of the Theta Tau Professional Engineering and Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternities. While at Cornell, Phillip won the AUVSI SUAS competition, Cornell’s BOOM competition, Cornell’s GDIAC competition, and Cornell’s AMR competition. Prior to joining Google, Phillip worked at Microsoft (Bing Search), Lockheed Martin (Advanced Tech Lab - Intelligent Robotics), and The NPD Group.

Phillip is now a Software Engineer (SWE) and Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) at Google, focusing on the performance, scalability, and reliability of Google’s distributed systems. He currently works on Google’s social backend and structured search systems, both of which power hundreds of Google’s systems and products. Google has enabled Phillip to pursue his two passions: distributed systems (primary role) and autonomous robotics (20% time). As a Googler, Phillip also mentors a local FIRST robotics team and judges the AUVSI SUAS competition.

Bryan Doyle

Vice President in the Technology Division at Goldman Sachs

Bryan Doyle is a Vice President in the Technology Division at Goldman Sachs. Over the last nine years, Bryan has worked in the Database Engineering group, primarily focused on developing database self-service facilities and platform positioning, on-boarding and engineering. Bryan is currently the platform lead for MongoDB and has made major contributions to other platforms at the firm, including PostgreSQL. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in 2006, Bryan was the Program Manager of the CUSat Nanosatellite-4 Program. Bryan earned an MBA with Distinction from New York University’s Stern School of Business in 2012 and a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University in 2006.

Don Yu

Software Engineer at Facebook

Don graduated from Columbia University on May 2014 with a B.S. in Computer Science, and is currently an Android developer at Facebook. Before Facebook, he worked at the Columbia Startup Lab with a few college friends, trying to get various startup ventures off the ground - including an app to connect peer health counselors with students, an apartment search app, and a few iOS games. His short stint working on startup ventures was inspired by the 2 years throughout college and after graduation that he spent interning/working at the startup Betterment. During that time he helped launch their first Android app, built various iOS and Android features like pin login, and increased referrals & signups while on the growth team. As a student, he also previously worked on mobile app development at ZocDoc, testing infrastructure at BlackRock, and data logging at Brookhaven National Laboratory. On campus, he was a part of ADI (the tech group at Columbia) and CORE (the entrepreneurship group at Columbia) and used to hold a series of technical workshops that focused on the skills needed to make a MVP for a tech startup.

Adam Maher

Founder and President of Ursa Space Systems Inc.

Adam Maher, Founder and President of Ursa Space Systems Inc., an Ithaca based start-up developing a cost-effective satellite platform to deliver high-resolution radar products, available at any time and in any weather. Adam formerly worked at Space Systems Loral in Palo Alto, Ca, where he was lead systems engineer for two complete satellite builds, satellite lead for four successful commercial satellite proposals, managed three major IR&D efforts each resulting in multiple satellite awards, program manager and capture lead for five US government programs, and helped establish a new subsidiary of the parent company. Awarded the 2011 Promise Award from the Society of Satellite Professionals International with recognition at the AIAA 2014 Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala. BSME (2006) and MEng (2007) Cornell University.

Matthew Allen

Development Engineer at Moog Inc.

Matthew Allen is a Development Engineer at Moog Inc., a company that designs flight control systems for the world’s leading commercial and military aircraft manufacturers. He has been working as a member of the Supply Chain Engineering Team for 8 months. Matt and his team strive to develop new designs and manufacturing methods that minimize costs of existing components, while dually improving their reliability and performance. Since starting at Moog, Matt has been engaged in component design and testing, has played a key role in communicating drawing design intent with suppliers, and has participated in critical design reviews with customers.  He is currently working on a project to develop working relationships with potential suppliers of composite components to be used on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Matt graduated from Cornell University in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. While a student he participated in the Baja SAE Project Team that, each year, designs and builds an off-road racecar to compete in international competitions across the United States. Matt owes much of his success in a new engineering career to the fusion of in-class theory and analysis with hands-on application thereof as a member of one of the many project teams and research groups at Cornell University.