Violaine Pierre

CO-FOUNDER & STRATEGIC ADVISOR

Violaine has a passion for traveling. While pursuing her bachelor's degree, she spent a year in the Philippines, where she tried to visit as many of its 7,000 islands as she could. She also traveled in South East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Hong-Kong, India, Nepal). After the 2010 earthquake, she volunteered for an NGO in Haiti. Convinced that the practice of sustainable tourism is mutually beneficial for both visitors and local communities, she returned to the Philippines to study the effectiveness of community-based tourism. She enhanced this experience working for a sustainable tourism cooperative in Québec, Canada. She consulted for the World Bank in the field of impact evaluation and for UNICEF as a Community Manager.

Violaine holds a Master's Degree in Economics and Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris, and a Bachelor in Sciences from Paris VI. She speaks English and French.

Tal Riesenfeld

CO-FOUNDER, SUNBIT

Tal is a serial entrepreneur and experienced business executive with a track record of growing and scaling quickly through retail channels. Tal Co-founded and leads Sales for Sunbit, a fundamentally new way to pay that eliminates financial waste and enables retailers to earn more while customers pay less. Prior to Sunbit, Tal was Co-founder and SVP Sales of Eyeview, where he secured key accounts like Macy’s, Lowe’s, Mazda, Land Rover, Hyundai, Walgreens, DSW, Wal-Mart, Forever 21 and Ace Hardware. As the original member of the sales team, Tal opened 5 offices in the U.S and rapidly grew the sales operation from ground zero to a team of 25 Sales Executives and Account Strategists. In 2015, Eyeview was named the 9th fastest growing company in North America.
Prior to Eyeview, Tal held positions in strategic sales and product management at Google and Hewlett-Packard. In 2008, Tal won Harvard Business School’s best start-up competition for Eyeview and launched the company. Tal is a sought-after speaker at key industry events and was featured as a business leader in the book ‘Startup Nation’. He penned a Harvard case study on organizational team dynamics – drawing on his experiences as squad commander of an IDF Special Forces unit and as head of a large non-profit youth organization.
Tal holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.

Bruce Rosard

PRINCIPAL, UP211

Bruce has spent the past 30 years as an entrepreneur and travel industry strategist. A pioneer in online travel marketing, he built his first website in 1994 for Moguls Mountain Travel, where he was founder and CEO. After a successful exit, Bruce joined Phocuswright as Head of Sales and Marketing. There, he worked with major brands in the travel industry, was instrumental in developing the Phocuswright Travel Innovation Summit, and created the Young Leaders Summit. Bruce was an integral member of the senior executive team that built Phocuswright and positioned the company to be sold to Northstar Travel Media in 2011. He has been an active mentor at TechStars over the last five years and now serves as a mentor at 33entrepreneurs, a start-up accelerator based in Bordeaux, France that focuses on tech applications in the travel, food, and wine industries. Bruce graduated from the University of Connecticut with honors in Marketing and a minor in Skiing.

Beth Dunlap

SENIOR TRANSITION ADVISOR, USAID / OFFICE OF TRANSITION INITIATIVES.

Beth is a Senior Transition Advisor with the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Transition Initiatives (USAID/OTI). She provides strategic guidance and operational support to USAID/OTI programs worldwide, which aim to help local partners advance peace and democracy in countries in transition. Beth was previously the Director of Programs at Reboot, where she led a World Bank funded SMS based social accountability project in Nigeria and a communications design collaboration with a New York City based anti-trafficking organization. While based in Afghanistan and Indonesia with the International Organization for Migration, Beth designed and led initiatives that provided thousands of trafficked persons and migrant workers with entrepreneurial, medical, and education support. Beth is also an advisor with Visit.org, a social impact startup, and consults with Namati, an organization that implements innovative legal empowerment interventions.

Beth is a graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a graduate degree in International Administration and Human Rights from the University of Denver's Korbel School.

Aditi Davray

STRATEGIC ADVANCEMENT ADVISOR

Aditi is a strategic advancement consultant to nonprofit, philanthropic, and private sector organizations. Over the last decade, she has worked on projects with nonprofit organizations in the areas of program management, resource development, program design and implementation, board development, and strategic communications. Aditi received a Master's of Public Administration and Nonprofit Management and Public Policy from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Aditi used to work in the corporate sector managing sales operations for luxury hotel brands. Presently, she serves as a member of the Steering Committee for Asian Women Giving Circle and Board of Directors at Rescuing Leftover Cuisine.

Gloria Basem

CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER, MEDIAMATH

Gloria brings more than 20 years of human resources experience with a focus on talent management, organizational development, and change management. Through her roles as Chief People Officer at MediaMath, Regional Head of HR at Environmental Resources Management, CHRO at the CDM Group (division of Omnicom), and in consulting roles as Interim CHRO for New Avon and at Andersen, she has had success building new teams, developing culture, driving talent and career programs, and growing organizations. Gloria is a strong coach to leaders in private, public, and PE businesses, helping them grow and transform across the various lifecycle stages. Gloria graduated from University of Michigan with a BA in Organizational Studies and Human Resources and has an MBA from the Fox School at Temple University. She lives in Westchester, New York with her husband Eric and puppy Katy.