Mike Cagney is Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of SoFi. He is responsible for evangelizing the SoFi model, as well as overall operations and corporate strategy and development. In addition, Mike is a co-founder and a managing member of Cabezon Investment Group, a global macro hedge fund, and non-executive Chairman of ReFlow, which is 50% owned by Cabezon. Before Cabezon, Mike founded, was CEO and then Vice Chairman and Chief Architect of Finaplex, a leader in wealth management software that was sold to Broadridge (NYSE: BR). Before Finaplex, Mike was Senior Vice President and head trader for the proprietary trading and financial products group at Wells Fargo Bank. Mike holds an M.S., Management degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was a Sloan Fellow. He also received a combined BA/MS from UC Santa Cruz in applied economics.
Professor Christine Hurt joined the BYU faculty as the Rex J. and Maureen E. Rawlinson Professor in the Fall of 2014. Prior to that, she was a professor of law and Director of the Program in Business Law and Policy at the University of Illinois College of Law. Professor Hurt’s teaching and research focuses on securities regulation, corporate tax, microfinance, torts, and business associations. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Corporation Law, Iowa Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Boston University Law Review, and Cardozo Law Review,and she is a founder and regular contributor to The Conglomerate. Recently, she and colleague Gordon Smith have published a new edition of the popular treatise “Bromberg & Ribstein on Partnership” with Wolters Kluwer. Prior to teaching at Ilinois, Professor Hurt taught at Marquette University Law School and the University of Houston Law Center. Her most recent article, “Pricing Disintermediation: Crowdfunding and Online Auction IPOs” was accepted for publication in the Winter 2015 issue of the Illinois Law Review. Professor Hurt has also been a regular commentator on the radio program, Legal Issues in the News, on WILL Illinois Public Radio and BYU radio and a host of the former weekly television show, Illinois Law on WCIA-TV. Before entering law teaching, Professor Hurt practiced corporate law for a number of years in Houston at Baker Botts, LLP, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. As a first-year student at the University of Texas School of Law, she co-founded the Texas Journal of Women and the Law.
Mingfeng Lin is an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona. He received his PhD in Business and Management from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2010. He also holds master and bachelor’s degrees in economics. He is interested in empirical research of online crowdfunding, social media, and online labor markets. His research has appeared in premier academic journals such as Management Science and Information Systems Research, and has been funded by the Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Economic Club of Washington, NET Institute, McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, among others. His is one of the inaugural editors for the Kauffman Foundation “State of the Field” on crowdfunding. Since his dissertation, Mingfeng’s ongoing research on crowdfunding has focused on information asymmetry and market efficiency in this nascent market, particularly debt-based crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending. Through a series of projects, he and his collaborators have examined the influence of friendship social networks, geography, auction mechanism, linguistic features of texts, as well as institutional investors on transactional outcomes—such as the funding and repayment of loans. Most recently, he has started empirical studies of equity-, reward-, donation-based and other forms of crowdfunding, using proprietary data from major platforms in the United Kingdom.
Richard Swart has emerged as the global expert in developments in crowdfunding. His advice is sought by institutional investors, governments, universities, NGOs and platforms. He is the Director of Research for the University of California, Berkeley Program in Innovation in Entrepreneurial and Social Finance Program, which is dedicated to academic research on crowdfunding and alternative finance. He advises or is engaged with major institutions including the World Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Aspen Institute.
Paul Vroomen has spent over thirty years in the semiconductor industry, 27 of which were in Silicon Valley. He started his career as a chip designer, spending the first 7 years of his working life designing both analog and digital devices in CMOS and bipolar technologies. He then moved to product line management and worked his way up to VP/GM of divisions at three public companies: Zilog, Inc. (computer peripherals), VLSI Technologies, Inc. (digital TV) and Oak Technologies, Inc. (Digital TV and DVD). He then went on to become CEO of three venture capital funded start up companies, SandCraft, Inc (networking), Connex Technologies, Inc. (HDTV) and Sandbridge Technologies, Inc. (mobile phones). Paul raised more than $70M in venture capital funding during this period. He also spent 3 years at Tallwood Venture Capital, LLP, as an executive in residence where he reviewed candidate business plans and performed due diligence on selected promising enterprises. During this time he was a Board observer at 5 technology start-ups. He is now working on two start-up companies and is enrolled in the Technology & Information Management PhD program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Baskin School of Engineering, where he is researching decision support systems for private equity investment, with an emphasis on equity crowd funding. Paul has an MSEE from the Philips International Institute (now absorbed into Eindhoven University of Technology) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and has completed the Managerial Advancement Program at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Business in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Scott Alberts: Utilizing his 35 year career as a high technology executive, entrepreneur (three start-ups including a successful IPO) and venture capitalist, Scott is now working with technology start-ups as a board member or advisor. During his ten years at DCM Ventures, Scott served on over 20 start-up boards, helping companies with strategy, business partnerships, key hires and M&A. His industry experience includes digital media, online/mobile gaming, semiconductors, systems, and security businesses.Prior to joining DCM Ventures, Scott provided strategic consulting to companies such as Agilent, Broadcom, and Fortinet. Previously, he was co-founder of WebPartner, a venture-backed, start-up providing web performance management software. Scott spent ten years with Oak Technology, joining the company as its first marketing manager and playing a key role in growing the business from a start-up to $250 million in revenue and a successful IPO and secondary. He created Oak’s business development program, executing several acquisitions, including Pixel Magic, which firmly established Oak as a leader in the digital imaging market. Scott started his career at Silicon Valley pioneer – Hewlett Packard (Components Group – now Avago Technologies and Lumileds) where he led the LED automotive marketing efforts and later established a successful Japan market development program.A graduate of UC Davis, Scott has continued to stay involved with UCD as a mentor for the university’s Entrepreneurship Academies focused on helping engineers and scientists commercialize their innovations.
James Hardiman is a Principal at Data Collective, a Seed and Series A focused venture fund that invests in entrepreneurs building Big Data companies. He looks at companies across multiple sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, and finance. Previously, he was a consultant at ZS Associates where he advised management teams using insights gained from the analysis of large amounts of healthcare data. Most recently, while at Booth, James worked with technology executives during a stint in The Blackstone Group’s M&A Advisory Practice. James holds a BS in Engineering Physics from the University Of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business.
Dean (Kip) Witter III’s finance career started in 1974 with US Leasing International, Inc., after which he spent 12 years in various finance positions with Amdahl Corporation (formerly ASE: AMH). His last 5 years there were as Vice President and Treasurer. Since Amdahl, he co-founded Eeonyx Corporation (privately held) and served as a senior consultant with The Capstone Group and The Brenner Group, where he specialized in providing financial executive consulting to high-growth and early-stage clients. Mr. Witter joined Hello Direct, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: HELO) in 1999 and served as its Chief Financial Officer until the time of its acquisition by GN Great Nordic (2001). He became President of William D. Witter, Inc., in May 2003, and served as Chairman from February 2005 until April 2007. He re-joined The Brenner Group in January 2009. He is a director of Eeonyx Corporation.Mr. Witter received his MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and his BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard College (magna cum laude), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He served two years on active duty in the U.S. Army (1969 – 1971). He is president of The Dean Witter Foundation; a trustee of the Harvey and Maud Sorensen Foundation, of the Wine Country Marines and of the Woodside Trail Club, and a director and treasurer of the Mounted Patrol of San Mateo County Foundation. He is a member of the Mathematical Association of America, the Mounted Patrol of San Mateo County, the California State Horsemen’s Association, and the San Mateo County Horsemen’s Association. He is married to Rebekah Ferran Witter, and they have two grown children and four grandchildren. He and his wife were California State Horsemen’s Association Trail Trials champions, in their respective divisions, in 2010. He won this honor again, on a different horse, in 2013 and 2014. They live in Woodside, California.