Speakers

Louis-James Davis (LJ) is an award winning inventor, innovator and entrepreneur in cyber technology security. He is also the CEO and founder of VST Enterprises a pioneering cyber security and technology firm based in Manchester As an inventor and innovator he has brought various concepts and technologies to market that are at the cutting edge of revolutionising the banking, identity anti counterfeiting and crime prevention sectors with a focus around consumer interactions and security.

Formerly a highly successful professional musician on the international stage, LJ retired from the rock music scene in 2009 after an illness took him away from mainstream performance. During his convalescence he turned his passion for technology into entrepreneurial momentum and invented a unique form of code scanning tech which has now become the basis for the innovation of the VCode® cyber security technology.

His first foray into the world of technology happened when LJ designed the worlds smallest combined GPS & telecommunications wristband for children and vulnerable adults with dementia and other illnesses. The technology that was designed by Louis was so ahead of its time that it was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This was all before Apple had bought the Apple Watch to market. The technology was later sold to a major corporation allowing LJ an exit strategy to focus and continue with his next innovation, the VCode®.

Having looked at the existing code scanning technologies that were in the market at the time with 2D bar codes and QR codes, Louis quickly realised that both technologies were limited in their uses and had major fundamental drawbacks in their applications. Fundamentally their biggest vulnerability lay in their security, allowing them to be hacked and breached.  As bar codes and QR codes were viewed as first and second generation technology, LJ set out to achieve the next generation of code scanning technology in the shape of VCode®.

Unlike bar codes and QR codes, VCode® would have the highest levels of security, greater operability, inter connectivity and flexibility to be used in many sectors from anti counterfeiting, government identity, logistics, supply chain management, to banking and finance. Alongside the VCode® technology, LJ also then built the secure platform engine for VCode® to sit alongside and provide the operability and capability to be used in other areas such as anti counterfeiting of currency, diamonds, precious metals and identity provisioning.

In March 2020 when the world was shaken to its core with the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, LJ wanted to see if he could pivot the existing technology of VCode® into a digital health passport that could provide a record of Covid 19 testing.  Within 6 weeks LJ’s idea to pivot the VCode® code scanning technology into a secure digital health passport was born.

Since then LJ  - as CEO of VST Enterprises - has used the VCode® technology components to create and launch the V-Health Passport™ globally. This has been developed into the worlds most secure digital health passport in the fight against Covid. The technology provides Governments, Corporations, organisations and the public to have a health passport wallet - contained in their mobile phone on an app  - secured by VCode® which provides authentication of a persons identity, their Covid test status and record of vaccinations. The V-Health Passport™ also uniquely has its own contact tracing capability built in and was designed with privacy in mind offering GDPR compliant technology built on a self sovereign identity model.

V-Health Passport™ is being rolled out to Governments around the world, corporations and organisations. It is also being used in pilots and active programs across sports, entertainment, airlines, business, commerce and industry. V-Health Passport™ is also front and centre of a number of campaigns such as ‘Fit To Fly,’ ‘Fans Are Back’, ‘Back To School’, ‘Fans Are Back’ all aimed at getting people flying, back into school or University or back into sports grounds, music concerts and/or theatres. 

A unique visionary and innovator in the tech and cyber tech space, LJ is an in-demand speaker on entrepreneurship, technology and cybersecurity and has spoken at many exhibitions and conferences on behalf of VST Enterprises, MIDAS, UK Trade & Investment and Manchester Universities.

Both he and his wife Nicole Davis are committed and dedicated philanthropists, committed to helping the next generation of male and female talented coders and programmers to gain entrepreneurial skills whatever their background. LJ is a primary supporter of numerous initiatives that help underprivileged or under supported businesses struggling to find a platform for their enterprise to access channels for contacts, investment and growth. LJ was awarded the role of Ambassador for Science & Technology by the President Of Zimbabwe in 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He later resigned the role to put more focus on developing other projects including one with the United Nations where VCode® is being used as part of the SDG Collaboratory Project ( Sustainable Development Goals) to give 9 Billion people unique identifiers using VCode® by 2030. These are projects to assist the ‘under banked’ and ‘under privileged’. LJ is the Creative Digital & Health Care Technology Ambassador for the Manchester Metropolitan University and also an ambassador for  Manchester’s leading Coding University Code Nation. He is also an ambassador for KidScan Children’s Cancer Trust and a founding trustee of the Darwin Charity Project.

Corey Massella has more than twenty-five years of experience as an entrepreneur, tax, and business advisor, and as a specialist in SEC accounting and audit services. Additionally, Corey has experience serving as a Private Equity and Technology Industry Group Practice Leader for a Top Twenty accounting firm. 

Corey has successfully guided his clients through all facets of the mergers and acquisitions transaction cycle to help them make critical decisions, while ensuring transactions are strategic and seamless. He has deep experience advising private equity funds, hedge funds, banks, broker-dealers, investor relations firms, and various other financial services companies. As a business consultant, Corey has worked with CEOs and CFOs, as well as the boards of both public and private clients. He has performed due diligence and negotiations on both the buy and sell sides. Corey also has experience preparing business plans and initial public offerings (IPO), and with cash flow and productivity analysis to help scale businesses for growth, as well as extensive knowledge and experience in complex tax structuring and planning.

In 2015, Corey was selected as the winner of the SmartCEO award for Industry CPA Leader in New York. He has served as moderator for several conferences, including ACG NY’s “M&A Landscape: Diving into Four of the Hot Industry Sectors” and “The M&A Advisor Summit,” and has authored numerous articles.

Alex Bente co-founded leAD Sports, the world’s leading sports tech investment platform, and as part of this, he manages the ADvantage Sports Tech Fund in his role as the principal.

In his more than four years investing in sports tech, Alex has been involved in sourcing, negotiating and supporting more than 30 global investments in the space. As a great-grandson of Adi Dassler, Alex created multiple other family businesses to preserve the legacy of his great-grandfather and brings a strong network in sports, business and investment to the fund and its portfolio companies.

Alex holds a Master’s degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of St. Gallen, one of Europe’s leading business schools, and is a former competitive tennis player.

Mike’s experience includes significant operational experience in technology companies, M&A and deal-making from a corporate perspective, business development in the technology area and international strategic planning for Fortune 500 companies. Mike leads Pharus’s practice areas in retail software, e-Commerce & Advertising Technology, Cloud Services as well consumer products and healthcare.

Prior to founding Pharus, Mike was Vice President and General Manager of govWorks, Inc. where he was responsible for the company’s consumer division and online business. Before govWorks, Mike was Director of Corporate Development and Director of e-Business for Revlon. Prior to Revlon, Mike was in the Corporate Development group at R.R. Donnelley & Sons, served in the National Economic Council at the White House and was a management consultant for William Kent International, a boutique consulting firm focused on international strategy.

Mike graduated with a BS in Economics, cum laude, from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and earned an MBA, with honors, from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Mike lives in Westport CT with his patient wife, three over-scheduled sons and a poorly-trained dog

Wylie is a Senior PE Analyst at PitchBook, where he contributes to the firm’s core private equity and M&A research. He also produces thematic analyst notes spanning various topics such as PE holding periods, tech-focused PE funds and PE firm valuations. Fernyhough is regularly cited in top tier publications including Business Insider, Institutional Investor and Mergers & Acquisitions. Prior to joining PitchBook, he served as a portfolio manager at Harvest Capital, a boutique wealth management firm based in Washington.

Fernyhough holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Seattle University. He’s based in PitchBook’s Seattle office.

Brian brings over 20 years of sales leadership experience to Armis. Prior to Sisense, he spent four years at Forescout running sales and operations as their SVP Worldwide Sales. Before that, he was VP for Americas East and Canada at Tanium, driving 400% YoY growth. He has also held various sales and leadership positions at McAfee and Cisco.

As Alpha’s Co-founding Partner, Brian builds and works with our vast early stage venture network to source and evaluate investment opportunities. Brian also advises Pritzker Group Venture Capital on deal origination and relationships.

Prior to Alpha Partners, Brian was the founder and CEO of Preclick, (sold to Smilebox), where he developed photo software licensed worldwide by HP, 3M, Sandisk, Walmart, Costco, CVS, and Walgreens. Prior to Preclick, Mr. Smiga was CEO at 3Path, an early Dropbox, an Intel and Goldman-Sachs backed startup, and the SVP of Marketing at 1ClickCharge, where his product launch resulted in a sale of the company to CMGi.

Since first working with Mr. Brotman at 1ClickCharge, Mr. Smiga advised Brotman-backed portfolio companies: Altruik, Headliner, Knovel, and Mobile Commons. In the 1990s, Mr. Smiga began his career as a developer at Booz & Co, and in Silicon Valley was the founder of Portfolio Software and Actioneer, where he co-authored six collaboration software patents and licensed top-rated software to Apple, IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, AOL, 3Com, Acco, and others. Brian received a BA in Liberal Arts from Swarthmore College, and a Masters of Philosophy in Literature from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. Brian is the founder of TEDxAsburyPark, the top-ranked TEDx conference on the US east coast.

Jaahred is a founding Partner of Connectivity Capital Partners with an innate knack for deep, analytical dives into the merits of each project CCP considers taking on. Prior to CCP, he spent 17 years in institutional equity sales. He spent the majority of his time during these years focused on the Media & Technology, Healthcare, Financials, & Consumer/Retail sectors and brings this valuable experience to CCP. He began his career with Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q) as a sales assistant  and after 3 years, was co-managing one of the largest books of business at the firm. He subsequently went on to assume increasingly senior roles with JPMorgan, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Oppenheimer  and other high quality investment banking boutiques. When not feverishly diving into the merits of a company’s business plan, or voraciously consuming the news, Jaahred can be found on the courts shooting hoops & playing tennis with his daughters. He also enjoys trying new restaurants with his wife and college sweetheart, who thankfully happen to be the same person.

Corey Massella has more than twenty-five years of experience as an entrepreneur, tax, and business advisor, and as a specialist in SEC accounting and audit services. Additionally, Corey has experience serving as a Private Equity and Technology Industry Group Practice Leader for a Top Twenty accounting firm. 

Corey has successfully guided his clients through all facets of the mergers and acquisitions transaction cycle to help them make critical decisions, while ensuring transactions are strategic and seamless. He has deep experience advising private equity funds, hedge funds, banks, broker-dealers, investor relations firms, and various other financial services companies. As a business consultant, Corey has worked with CEOs and CFOs, as well as the boards of both public and private clients. He has performed due diligence and negotiations on both the buy and sell sides. Corey also has experience preparing business plans and initial public offerings (IPO), and with cash flow and productivity analysis to help scale businesses for growth, as well as extensive knowledge and experience in complex tax structuring and planning.

In 2015, Corey was selected as the winner of the SmartCEO award for Industry CPA Leader in New York. He has served as moderator for several conferences, including ACG NY’s “M&A Landscape: Diving into Four of the Hot Industry Sectors” and “The M&A Advisor Summit,” and has authored numerous articles.

As Managing Director, Pat is responsible for developing and delivering the firm’s growth strategy while leading the client services and sales teams to achieve next-level growth. With over twenty years of experience, Pat joins from Gerson Lehrman where he spent nearly ten years as Managing Director, with multiple roles of increased responsibilities. As Head of the Private Equity / Venture Capital (PE/VC) practice, he led the business to achieve unprecedented growth, and as a result, it became the fastest growing segment at the firm. He was promoted to Head of Business Development, and ultimately, General Manager for Americas Financial Services. Pat has a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University and an MBA from The University of Connecticut School of Business.

Thomas C. Fountain is an Operating Partner focused on driving value creating through the deployment of technology-based solutions and IT excellence for One Rock and its portfolio companies.  Mr. Fountain brings over 30 years of technology and leadership experience having served in CIO roles in GE, Honeywell and Bunge Ltd.  In addition to large multi-national leadership positions, Mr. Fountain has also held CTO and CEO roles at software start-ups and emerging growth companies with a focus on innovative product design and new product introduction.  His focus on creating alignment between business operating models and technology strategy positions companies for high return investments and optimized service delivery. Earlier in his career, Mr. Fountain held Design Engineer and Intelligence Officer positions with Martin Marietta Aerospace and the Central Intelligence Agency respectively.

Mr. Fountain graduated from MIT with a degree in electrical engineering and later received his M.S. in electrical engineering and M.B.A. from Duke University.

Mike Gregoire is a Partner at Brighton Park Capital and is a member of the Investment Committee. Prior to joining BPC, Mike was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CA Technologies where he started in 2013. At CA, Mike accelerated the company’s software leadership with innovative offerings, a renewed brand, and a strengthened market presence. The result of Mike’s leadership over almost 6 years was the sale to Broadcom in July 2018 taking the stock from $22.38 to $44.50 per share yielding a $10.5 billion market cap appreciation¹.

Previously, Mike was Chairman and CEO of Taleo Corporation, a leading cloud-based talent management software company that he oversaw going public before its successful sale to Oracle in 2012. With a career spanning more than 25 years in software and technology, Mike also served as Executive Vice President at People Soft from 1999 to 2004 and Executive Director at Electronic Data Systems EDS from 1988 to 1999.

Mike is widely recognized as a strategic thinker in the information technology industry. He has been the chair of the World Economic Forum’s IT Governors Steering Committee, as well as a member of the Business Roundtable’s Information and Technology Committee. Mike also serves on the Executive Council of TechNet, an organization of CEOs that represents the technology industry in policy issues critical to American innovation and economic competitiveness.

Mike sits on the Board of Directors of Smartsheet (NYSE:SMRT) the largest provider of cloud collaboration workflow software and AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) one of the largest global chip companies that specializes in manufacturing semiconductor devices used in computer processing, memory, and graphics processors.

Mike has also served on the board of ADP from 2014 to 2019 where he was chairman of the governance and nominating committee. ADP is one of the world’s largest providers of human resources, business processing and cloud-based solutions. Mike is a strong champion of diversity and empowerment, and he currently serves as a member of the Board of the Women’s Sports Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating leaders by ensuring all girls access to sports.

Mike earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Computing from Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, and a Master of Business Administration degree from California Coast University.

John Polis is an entrepreneurial information management and business operations leader with a 25+ year track record of creating and enhancing technology enabled businesses and building platforms that allow for significant scale.

Prior to joining Star Mountain, Mr. Polis was COO and CTO for Guidepoint Global, a primary research firm and expert network serving the world’s leading Institutional Investors, Private Equity Firms, Consulting Organizations, and Corporations. Brought on in 2011 with a direct turnaround mandate, Mr. Polis changed the operating culture leading positive change in process and people management along with directing significant improvements to their information technology platform guiding the company back to profitability and significant double-digit growth.

Before Guidepoint, Mr. Polis served as COO and CTO for Coleman Research Group (CRG), also a primary research firm and expert network where he was recruited immediately after company secured financing. Without delay Mr. Polis led the product management and development effort on their custom built, Web based CRM, Recruiting, and Payment Processing platform – Knowledge Broker™ – while also being responsible for overseeing all operational areas of the company including research, relationship management, compliance, human resources, and data management. CRG also had a broker dealer arm, Coleman Brokerage Group, for which Mr. Polis served as compliance officer for. During his tenure Coleman Research scaled from 5 to 140 employees worldwide and in 2009 was voted one of Crain’s New York “Best Places to Work in New York City”.

Earlier in Mr. Polis’ career he served as a Co-founder and Executive Vice President Operations and CTO for Dotcom Distribution and Chief Information Officer for the GT Media family of companies.

Mr. Polis holds a BA in Economics from New York University, an MBA in Management from Wagner College and is FINRA Series 63, 7 and 24 licensed. He is also an adjunct at NYU where he teaches graduate level courses in Integrated Marketing Database Modeling and Management. Prior to NYU Mr. Polis was an adjunct at Touro College Graduate School of Technology where taught courses in Database Design and Modeling for Business.

Abilash Jaikumar is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of TresVista, the leading provider of high-end outsourced support for asset managers, investment banks, research firms, and corporates. He has worked in both the investment banking and private equity industries and has been involved in more than $20 billion of financing and M&A activity. Prior to co-founding TresVista, he was with Alta Communications, a private equity firm that managed over $1.5 billion focused on companies in the media and telecommunications sectors. Previously, Abilash was a part of Merrill Lynch's Investment Banking Division in New York in both the Telecommunications, Media, and Technology Group as well as the Global Industries Group. Abilash graduated with Honors from Georgetown University with a B.S.B.A in Finance and Accounting and minors in Philosophy and Economics. He currently serves as the Chairman of Georgetown's Alumni Admissions Program in India.