CEO of Talino Ventures, a Global Venture Builder

An apparel, hospitality, and real estate entrepreneur, Eric Dayton started a movement to reimagine the identity of America's north as one of adventure, creativity and the embrace of cold winters. His company is on a mission to keep the north cold by donating 110% of its own carbon impact to organizations leading the fight against climate change. Prior to founding Askov Finlayson, he was a member of Arctic Transect 2004, a six-month, 2,000 mile dogsled expedition focused on climate research and education.

For over two decades, I have advised corporate, NGO and government leaders in dozens of markets across the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East around: corporate and executive positioning, public diplomacy, organizational design, digital strategy, crisis & issues management, sustainability & ESG.

At Weber Shandwick, Lead the Weber Shandwick Collective's 600+ professionals, globally, in corporate & public affairs, management consulting and research & insights businesses, advising clients at the intersection of organizational strategy, societal engagement and public positioning.

Prior to joining Weber Shandwick, at Teneo, the global CEO advisory firm, I advised Fortune 500 CEOs on formulating and implementing their agendas related to corporate reputation, organizational transformation and financial performance. I also worked with colleagues to establish Teneo’s Digital practice which advised clients on content & engagement strategies, digitizing their organizations and using data and analytics to produce insights specifically designed for the C-Suite.

Previously, I was the President of WCG, a full-service communications, digital marketing and analytics firm with 180 employees in seven U.S. and European offices. Before that, I was Burson-Marsteller’s Market Leader in China, overseeing the agency’s operations across its five offices in Mainland China. At Burson, I launched the Burson-Marsteller Leadership Institute, a first-of-its-kind communications leadership training offering in China; and I spent a decade at Edelman, where I co-incubated and led the global Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability practice which grew to 110 practitioners in 15 offices around the world.

Earlier in my career, I led fundraising in the Northeast for Al Gore's 2000 Presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee; and before that, I was the Director of Institutional Affairs for the National Minority AIDS Council, an advocacy and training organization representing 1000's of local community-based AIDS service providers.

I was also a Young Global Leader in the World Economic Forum; and I served as a Term Member in the Council on Foreign Relations (2003 – 2008).

In the year 2000 founded Hoteles.com, one of the leading hotel reservation sites targeting Spanish speaking users around the world, now owned and operated by Expedia. In 2003 he co-founded and led as CEO ClickDiario Network, at the time, the #1 Internet advertising network in Latin America, acquired by FOX International Channels (Newscorp) in 2006. From 2008 to 2011, de Tezanos led BrokersWeb as CEO, an online insurance marketplace in the United States, which became the 20th fastest growing company in the US in the INC 500 ranking of 2011.

Matias de Tezanos was Honored Young Global Leader by the WEF in 2009 and named one of the top 10 Hispanic entrepreneurs by INC Magazine during 2011 and 2012.

In 2012, founded PeopleFund, a private holding company that invests in tech-startups around the world, including several top INC 500 ranked companies like Healthcare.com, AutoWeb.com (merged with Nasdaq: ABTL), DiamondFoundry, Orionis Biosciences, GetAround, Bluekite (Acquired by Nasdaq: Xoom), among 30+ other companies and social impact projects like KingoEnergy.

Porter joined Bridgewater in 2009 and is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer. He partners with the CEO to set and drive the strategic goals and oversee the day-to-day management of the firm. Previously, Porter was Lead of Portfolio Analytics, working closely with our co-CIOs to evolve our portfolio construction process, evaluate and manage investment risks, and design investment strategies for clients. His work has included evolving our risk controls and event risk strategy, researching how to best combine beta and alpha, and systemizing our portfolio construction and trade generation logic. He is a member of the firm's Commercial and Business Strategy Committee, co-chair of the Operating Committee, and a Partner. Porter is also a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Dr. Abdigani Diriye is a technology leader and entrepreneur who is having an impact in the AI and Fintech fields. Dr. Abdigani is Head of Machine Learning at Atacana Group Inc. and has held positions in industry and academia at Amazon, IBM Research, Microsoft Research, and Carnegie Mellon University where he led the development and deployment of machine learning-based systems and voice technologies to millions of people in the Middle East and Africa. Dr. Abdigani has commercialized various technologies and published over 50 papers and patents and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from University College London and an Executive MBA from INSEAD.

In acknowledgement to his contribution to innovation, Dr. Abdigani is a recipient of a TED Fellowship, Next Einstein Forum Fellowship, and NSF Fellowship and has been selected by MIT Technology Review, Quartz, and Institut Choiseul as one of the leading innovators and global leaders. Dr. Abdigani contributes to the research community and sits on the program committee of several Special Interest Groups and conferences including SIGIR, CHIIR, RecSys, and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Michael Drexler is the Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Director at Brightstar Capital Partners. He currently serves on the boards of America's Group and REMarkets, both Brightstar portfolio companies.

Prior to Brightstar, Michael was Managing Director and Global Head of Strategy and Business Transformation at J.P. Morgan Asset Management based in New York. He was a member of the division’s Operating Committee and worked with all business lines on strategic initiatives, including M&A, business efficiency, and decision making.

Previously, he worked for nearly a decade in a senior leadership role at the World Economic Forum as Member of the Executive Committee responsible for partnerships and content in the Alternative Investment industry and later the Forum’s content initiatives across the financial sector, infrastructure, and long-term investing. Michael also spent nearly a decade at Barclays Capital in London, as the Global Head of Strategy and Planning for the majority of his time there, following his role as a consultant at McKinsey & Co and a post-doctoral position at Stanford University.

Michael holds a doctorate in Mathematics from Oxford University and an M.Sc. in Engineering from the Technical University at Munich.

Joy Dunn is the Head of Operations at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a clean energy startup based in Boston, where she is responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations including manufacturing, construction and facilities, safety, and quality. CFS was spun out of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and works collaboratively with MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center to combine decades of government and academic research with the innovation and speed of the private sector. Supported by the world's leading investors, the CFS team is driven by the climate change crisis to develop the fastest path to commercial fusion energy. Before joining the CFS team in early 2019, Joy spent a decade at SpaceX developing and manufacturing the Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. She was heavily involved with the manufacturing of the Dragon 1 spacecraft and played an integral role in SpaceX's achievement of being the first private company to launch a spacecraft in orbit and also dock with the International Space Station. She managed the manufacturing engineering team responsible for substantially reducing overall spacecraft build hours and cost while overseeing Dragon's annual budget and construction of a high-tech production facility for the Crew Dragon vehicle. Joy also co-founded both the Women's Network and LGBTQ employee interest groups at SpaceX and she is actively involved in STEM outreach events, including sitting on the Board of Directors for Out For Undergrad, a non-profit that helps LGBTQ students reach their full potential. She was also named to Business Insider's list of the Most Powerful Female Engineers of 2017. Joy received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Margot Edelman is the third generation in her family business, Edelman PR, and leads the New York office for the company. In her role as General Manager, she advises tech giants and industry disruptors alike on how to build trust and reputation.

Sofia Elizondo is a biotech entrepreneur. She is co-founder and COO of Brightseed, an AI company that discovers bioactive molecules for health based in San Francisco. Brightseed makes proactive, precision health a reality by using pioneering advancements in machine learning to identify bioactive molecules in nature. Brightseed has commercialized novel bioactives in gut health and has a pipeline with nutritional and therapeutic applications across a dozen health areas. It been selected as a Technology Pioneer by the WEF and awarded distinctions by Forbes, Nutritional Outlook, R&D World, Rabobank, FastCompany, Nutra Ingredients and Nutritional Business Journal.

Sofia has helped build multimillion-dollar companies and brands in the consumer goods, pharmaceutical, and technology industries. Before Brightseed, Sofia led the commercialization of plant-based protein products, including the novel mung bean protein isolate. She began her career at the Boston Consulting Group and was also a founding member of the BCG Henderson Institute; the consulting firm's think tank on the future of business innovation. She also served as a Special Advisor to the United Nations supporting their work with the private sector. Her decades of leadership now enable Brightseed's mission to illuminate nature to restore human health.

Sofia's accolades include Top 40 Under 40, San Francisco Business Times; WEF Young Global Leader; 100 Women of Influence, Entrepreneur Magazine; EXTRAORDINARY leaders in Health, Newsweek; Top 100 Female Founders, Inc. Magazine; Women in AI Award, VentureBeat. She has spoken at conferences ranging from nutrition industry with the American Nutrition Association to artificial intelligence and global affairs with the Milken Global Institute and JP Morgan Tech Revolution. Sofia holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Karen Fang is Managing Director, Global Head of Sustainable Finance at Bank of America. Formerly, she was the head of Global Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities (FICC) Cross Asset Trading, and the head of Americas FICC Sales & Solutions prior to that. She is a member of the Bank of America Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) committee, the Sustainable Markets Committee, as well as the firm wide Asian Leadership Council.
Prior to joining Bank of America, Karen was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs where she was the head of the Pension, Endowment and Foundation Cross Asset Solutions Group. Previously, she held senior positions in derivatives structuring, including at Merrill Lynch in Tokyo and Deutsche Bank in London.
Karen was named one of Fortune’s “40 under 40”and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (WEF). She was selected to be a member of the WEF Expert Network. Karen was a member of the Bank of America team recognized by American Banker as part of their “Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance” feature and was called out as one of five leaders who has made a significant impact in a short amount of time. She served as a mentor for the Global Ambassadors program, a Bank of America partnership with Vital Voices and was honored by the Women’s Venture Fund for her work with female entrepreneurs. Karen was chosen by Investment Dealers’ Digest as one of the “40 under 40” bankers and she was also a recipient of the Women’s Bond Club of New York’s “Rising Star Award.”
Karen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Tokyo.

Michael Faye is the co-founder and CEO of Taptap Send, which is working to ensure everyone has access to fairly priced remittances consistent with the SDGs. He's also the Executive Chair and co-founder of GiveDirectly, which has recognized by FastCompany as one of the top 10 most innovative companies in finance, and on the Board of Crown Agents Bank HoldCo.

Michael’s work has been published in the American Economic Review, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Foreign Affairs and others. He is a term member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 leading Global Thinkers. Michael holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard, where he also studied Math and Classics.