Meet the Team
Conference co-chairs
Jake Nelson (Co-chair): MMM. Prior experience at BMW, ExxonMobil, and BCG, spanning the manufacturing floor, investor relations, and investment cases for new industrial ventures. Passionate about solving complex problems in critical-to-society industries.
Eliza Doll (Co-chair): 2Y. Previously led fund management private credit vehicles investing directly into companies or indirectly into funds focused on supporting potable water, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, and livelihoods in emerging markets. Prior experience in equities trading and professional soccer in Switzerland.
marketing
Madison Pauly (Marketing): MMM. Expertise in digital product management, go to market strategy, and incremental growth with tenure at Vista Equity Partners, Apple Inc. and Deloitte Consulting. Passionate about the intersection of people, products and technology. Focused on value creation and expansion.
Sonaali Bhatla: 2Y. Ex- Forbes 30U30 founder and consultant at Mckinsey. Co-founded a design and architecture startup called Nori Narrative, with 50+ clients across 4 geographies. Expertise in building brand narrative, product and experience for consumer businesses.
Isha Rawat (Marketing): MMM. Spent the last five years as a start-up operator building two of India's leading consumer activewear brands from emergence to what is now a ~$25B market. Led product strategy, commercial growth, and P&L before most recently driving the company's Series A fundraising across pitch, diligence, and investor relations. Excited by building in ambiguity, and businesses that create entirely new consumer categories.
finance & sponsorships
Karthik Velamati (Finance and Sponsorships): 2Y. Spent five years at Rivian leading battery manufacturing automation for the R1 and R2 product lines. Passionate about both entrepreneurship and venture capital, with a focus on technologies serving historically underserved industries such as manufacturing. He is particularly interested in the intersection of software and the physical world.
alumni engagement
Valerie Fong (Alumni Engagement): 2Y. Early-stage investor and product operator focused on AI, healthcare, and fintech. Prior to Kellogg, Valerie worked in Product Management at Capital One and American Express, building digital lending and banking products. At Kellogg, she has deepened her investing experience through her work with Inflect Capital and Alumni Ventures while supporting research-driven founders with commercialization and GTM through Northwestern’s Querrey InQbation Lab. She is passionate about connecting people, products, and capital to advance inclusive innovation.
Celine Ferrero (Alumni Engagement): MMM. Passionate about making emerging technology genuinely useful. Her background spans enterprise AI, technical consulting, and customer strategy, where she's helped organizations adopt new technologies and improve the way people work. Brings experience from Slack, Box, and IBM and a curiosity for building products that are both intelligent and human-centered.
Austin Mankouski (Alumni Engagement): 2Y. Formerly a Consultant in Deloitte’s Strategy & Analytics practice, leading growth strategy engagements for private equity and Fortune 500 clients. Interned for Thompson Street Capital Partners’ Portfolio Support Group, Satterfield Paving, and Lookout Pest Control – focusing on margin and broader operational improvements.
speakers & content
Suhav Joshi (Speakers & Content): 2Y. Private equity investor with a background in structured finance. Previously spent six years at Santander, where he focused on structuring asset-backed financing solutions and working with private equity sponsors. Completed a spring internship at Ponte Partners, a private equity firm investing in LP stakes and direct portfolio acquisitions, and a summer internship at Stone Goff Partners, a lower middle market private equity firm, where he evaluated new investments and developed an investment thesis around the sports, media, and entertainment ecosystem.
Jan Kite-Powell (Speakers & Content): MMM. Enthusiastic about the role of private capital in funding new technologies and helping to solve impactful problems. Prior to Kellogg, Jan worked in management consulting, assisting private and public companies in margin improvement, due diligence, and post-merger integration. He is very excited about combining his business and technical background to support companies building and commercializing novel solutions to tough tech problems.
Kunal Vats (Speakers & Content): 2Y. Previously worked in Bain’s Private Equity Group, advising PE Funds on commercial and financial diligence, M&A, and portfolio value creation across SaaS, healthcare, and AI. Kunal also worked at an impact accelerator in Kenya, providing venture support to startups building the future of work. At Kellogg, Kunal has worked with Chicago Early Growth Ventures - a Chicago based VC, and won the Turner MIINT competition, gaining hands-on experience in impact investing.
Sophie Loesberg (Speakers & Content): MMM. Previously led UX/product research, strategy, and design for Fortune 500’s at PwC’s Experience Center across finance, healthcare, and AI, with work recognized by TIME’s Davos Ideas of the Year. Passionate about the intersection of customer experience, product, and capital. Excited by building and investing in technology that supports fundamental human behavior, and how that translates into durable value and reinvention of entire product categories.
Tasha Rhodes (Speakers & Content): E&W. Strategy Associate at Capital One, working on the firm’s $35B merger with Discover Financial Services. Previously in Private Lending at Goldman Sachs, and earlier a diplomatic liaison at USSOUTHCOM across Latin America and the Caribbean. Passionate about investor relations and the intersection of risk, strategy, and real estate/private credit.
Shianne Baggett (Speakers & Content): E&W. Previously led media partnerships, AI, and go-to-market strategy at Google after beginning her career in sports & entertainment marketing, supporting brands including Mattel, Gatorade, and McDonald's. Former two-time USA Track & Field Junior Olympian exploring the intersection of sports, technology & product innovation, and venture capital. Currently a Chicago:Blend VC Fellow developing a sports technology venture focused on reimagining how the next generation discovers, learns, and experiences sports.
Corinne DeMuth (Speakers & Content): E&W. PhD chemist with over a decade of experience leading industrial R&D, technology commercialization, and cross-functional innovation. Brings a deep-tech operator’s perspective to investing, with expertise in translating complex scientific topics into accessible business insights and connecting technical feasibility with market opportunity. Passionate about deep-tech investing, advanced manufacturing, AI-enabled R&D, and helping science-based companies successfully commercialize and scale.
Stephen Kurapati (Speakers & Content): MMM. Engineering and project management experience in leading complex machine vision and industrial automation projects across manufacturing, logistics, and airport baggage handling. I’m interested in operational forward approaches to value creation and supporting the role of private capital in accelerating reindustrialization efforts.
OPERations
Andrew Asbeck (Operations): 2Y. Prior experience in consulting, driving topline growth for B2B and B2C clients across a variety of industries through sales playbook design, go-to-market strategy, and marketing personalization. Now transitioning from advisor to operator-investor, spending the summer evaluating lower middle market acquisitions across US and Latin America and implementing AI to streamline operations at a search-acquired AV integrator. Co-President of the ETA Club. Passionate about entrepreneurship and the operator's role in value creation across the lower middle market.
Ethan Ramer (Operations): E&W. Brings a unique blend of experience in international diplomacy and investor relations, helping companies and governments shape and communicate their most compelling narratives. Has managed high-level diplomatic engagements and advised Fortune 500 companies across the energy, healthcare, and consumer sectors on financial communications and stakeholder engagement. Passionate about global venture capital, early-stage startups, and the intersection of business, investment, and international affairs.
workshops & integrations
Noah Korn (Workshops and Integrations): 2Y. Experience in consulting at ZS and BCG, advising companies on growth strategy, pricing, and commercial effectiveness. Brings experience across SaaS, travel and hospitality, and consumer businesses, including developing and executing post-acquisition value creation plans in consulting and at Thompson Street Capital Partners. Passionate about demystifying private equity and creating practical, accessible programming that builds student confidence in investing and value creation.
Sanjana Rai (Workshops and Integrations): MMM. Product designer with experience building consumer products and growth initiatives at Swiggy Instamart, bigbasket, and Deloitte. Has led 0→1 product development, AI-powered shopping experiences, and high-impact marketing campaigns while working across design, strategy, and business. Excited by designing and scaling consumer products that create business value, and by the opportunities at the intersection of technology investing and venture creation.
Joshua Olowookere (Workshops and Integrations): E&W. Passionate about the intersection of media/entertainment industry, capital, and storytelling in private markets. Began his career at PwC before transitioning into a family office with a media-based portfolio. Enthusiastic about connecting financial analysis with innovative industries and using workshops and programming to help students build stronger PE/VC investing skills and career paths. Fall term Private Equity Lab intern at Growth Catalyst Partners.