Steve co-founded Tripadvisor in 2000 with the mission to help travelers around the world plan and book the perfect trip. Under his leadership, Tripadvisor has grown into the largest travel site in the world. As CEO, Steve has led the growth of Tripadvisor, Inc., which includes 24 other travel media brands that operate in 48 markets worldwide. Prior to co-founding Tripadvisor, Steve was president of CDS, Inc., an independent software vendor, and prior to that, was co-founder and vice president of engineering of CenterLine Software. Steve holds several software patents. Over the years Steve has won a number of awards for his entrepreneurship and leadership in the travel industry including being inducted into the 2015 British Travel & Hospitality Hall of Fame, receiving the 2015 Pioneer Award by the International Society of Hospitality Consultants and 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Mr. Kaufer serves on the boards of CarGurus and the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (formerly known as Caring for Carcinoid Foundation). He's a fan of his brother-in-law's robot sculptures at Lipson Robotics (www.lipsonrobotics.com). Steve has a degree in computer science from Harvard University.Steve's favorite travel destination is Jerusalem, Israel.

Severin Hacker, Ph.D. has served as our Chief Technology Officer and a member of our board since co-founding Duolingo with Luis von Ahn in August 2011. Severin holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich, Switzerland, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Judith is a Partner at La Famiglia, a European VC investing into B2B technology companies that enable or disrupt large industries. She focuses on the future of work, as well as data and ML-driven business models.

Christian Angermayer is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and founder of his private investment firm, Apeiron Investment Group. With more than USD 3.5 billion under management and 50 FTEs across five international locations, Apeiron focuses on Life Sciences, FinTech/InsurTech/PropTech/Crypto, and FutureTech (e.g. SpaceTech, FoodTech, AI).Apeiron has a global approach and deploys its capital across the entire company lifecycle, from founding companies in-house, seed/startup investments to large-scale investments in listed companies. As Apeiron invests predominantly its own capital, the team is able to be highly entrepreneurial, reliable, and flexible.

Lena is Co-Founder and inventor of air up, the world’s first drinking-bottle that flavors water just by scent – innovative, sustainable and without sugar or artificial additives. Originally, Lena developed the first prototype of air up in her Bachelor Thesis at the University of Schwäbisch Gmünd which led to founding her own start-up in 2019. Since then, over 1M. drinking systems have been sold which saved 85 Millions of PET bottles and 2.465 tons of unnecessary sugar already.

Benedict Evans has spent 20 years analyzing mobile, media and technology, and worked in equity research, strategy, consulting, and venture capital. He is now an independent analyst, trying to work out what questions to ask whose newsletter reaches over 160,000 subscribers. Benedict is known for his yearly presentations that reveal and analyze macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. Having been a Partner at a16z for five years, Benedict is currently Venture Partner at both Entrepreneur First and Mosaic Ventures.

Catharina van Delden is a digital entrepreneur and experienced businesswoman. She is co-founder of the software company innosabi, which she led from a student start-up at the Technical University of Munich to a market leader as CEO. In her work, she deals in particular with the question of how organizations can make the best use of their ecosystem in order to become more innovative and agile. Catharina is an MBA graduate from the Technical University of Munich and has temporarily studied at UC Berkeley. Before founding innosabi GmbH, she worked at OSRAM, including at OSRAM India in Delhi. In addition, she has published two books on innovation strategies, “Crowdsourced Innovation” and “Connect the dots”. Besides managing her company, Catharina is and was active in various advisory and political functions, for example, on the advisory board of Deutsche Bank, on the advisory board of [Laya.AI](http://laya.ai/), or on the bitkom executive committee for over eight years. Catharina has received numerous prizes in the course of her career, most recently the “TU Munich Entrepreneur of Excellence” or the “Spark Female Founder Award” from McKinsey and the Handelsblatt.

Heini is Vivino’s Founder, Board Member, and Chief Evangelist. Credited with bringing a technologyrevolution to the wine industry, Heini founded Vivino because he was frustrated by not knowing whichwine to buy. It’s been his passion project ever since. During his tenure, Vivino has grown into a communityof 50 million users, raised $221 million in funding, and rolled out a worldwide wine marketplace. Beforestarting Vivino, Heini co-founded several startups, including global internet and mobile security companyBullGuard. Heini, who was named Entrepreneur of the Year by GP Bullhound in 2020, leads the team fromVivino’s European headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. Heini and Vivino’s story is featured in anindependent documentary, “Disrupting Wine, The Life of an Entrepreneur.” Heini also hosts the YouTubeseries Raw Startup, which offers candid advice for entrepreneurs and startups.

After graduating from the HSG (class of 2014), Léa Miggiano founded the start-up Carvolution at just 23. She succeeded in inspiring the right people for her idea within a short time. These include well-known investors, her co-founders, and a team that now counts 70. Today, Carvolution is the leading car subscription provider in Switzerland and has been one of the most promising start-ups for four years in a row. In her role as co-founder and CMO, Léa Miggiano was named one of the Top 100 Women in Business, featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 DACH for her achievements, and named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by SEF. She still has a long way to go, as she is determined to revolutionize the automotive industry with her team and change it for good.

Founder and CEO of Frontify, Roger Dudler has proudly led his organization to the forefront of brand management, with a powerful and holistic cloud-based experience. Since Frontify’s beginnings in 2013, he’s been the driving force behind Frontify’s mission and vision, empowering thousands of brands around the world to create, thrive, and evolve.

Hanna Asmussen is the CEO & Co-Founder of Localyze, a global mobility platform for companies and employees. With a passion for living abroad, having been an expat for 10 years and speaking 6 languages, Hanna co-founded Localyze after seeing the pain points associated with moving internationally for work.

Christian is the founder of Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees. He launched Ecosia in 2009 after a year-long trip around the world to help people in developing countries and to do something about climate change. The Berlin-based search engine now has 100 employees and millions of users, enabling the company to plant a tree every second.

Sygnum is the world’s first regulated digital asset bank, founded on Swiss and Singapore heritage, operating globally. Sygnum makes digital assets bankable, secure and convenient, empowering clients to invest in the digital asset economy with complete trust.Prior to Sygnum, Mathias was General Manager at RNT Associates, Mr. Ratan N. Tata's personal investment platform, where he joined as first employee. He led multiple venture capital and private equity investments and participated in Blockchain/ DLT related equity deals globally.Mathias started his career at Bain & Company where he led advisory projects for Private Equity Funds, Family Offices and Technology companies.He holds a PhD from the University of St. Gallen and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Jan Wurzbacher is a mechanical engineer by training, holding a master’s degree with distinctionand a PhD from the ETH Zurich. Jan is winner of the ETH Medal, an award for outstandingmaster’s and doctoral theses, and received several scholarships funded by the German NationalAcademic Foundation, The Boston Consulting Group and the Hamburg Foundation forInternational Studies. During his PhD, Jan researched direct air capture technologies andfounded Climeworks on this basis together with Christoph Gebald in 2009. With more than tenyears of experience in CO 2  capture from the air he is today the co-CEO of Climeworks.

Tobias is Founding Partner at Maximon, the longevity company builder. Maximon builds companies in the context of extending the human health-span and supports entrepreneurs both operationally and financially. Tobias sold his first company at the age of 23, built Europe’s leading climate-change infrastructure fund SUSI Partners, which manages CHF 1.8bn today, co-founded Crypto Finance Group, which was recently sold to Deutsche Börse Group – one of the larger exits in Switzerland’s start-up history – and also co-founded The Singularity Group, an asset manager identifying the most innovative listed titles across all sectors globally and beating MSCI significantly every year since inception in 2016. Tobias is a “lion” at the Swiss TV investor-show “Höhle der Löwen” (the equivalent to “Shark Tank”) and has visited more than 100 countries.

Jenny von Podewils is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Leapsome. Leapsome supports companies such as Spotify, Northvolt, and Babbel in building high-performing teams with a platform for performance management, employee engagement, and personalized learning. Jenny is an alumna of the University of St. Gallen, University of Oxford, and a fellow of Singularity University. Prior to Leapsome, Jenny led teams in business development, corporate development, and digital transformation roles in media and tech companies. In recognition of her work, she was recently honored as one of the 44 women to watch in Germany’s tech industry.

Dr. Jurgi Camblong is a visionary entrepreneur who is pioneering the data-driven medicine movement around the world. He is a molecular biologist (published in Cell, Science and Nature), has a PhD in life sciences from the University of Geneva and an EMBA in management of technology from EPFL/HEC Lausanne. In 2011, he founded SOPHiA GENETICS with Dr. Pierre Hutter and Prof. Lars Steinmetz. He has since successfully led the development of the company, listed among the 50 Smartest Companies by the MIT Technology Review. Jurgi has been a member of the Advisory Council on Digital Transformation to the Swiss government and was personally recognized by EY as Emergent Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.

Andri Silberschmidt was born in 1994 and is an FDP National Councillor and gastro-entrepreneur from Zurich. Growing up in the Zurich Oberland, he decided to do a banking apprenticeship with a professional baccalaureate after his compulsory schooling. He then worked until 2019 for the financial services provider Swisscanto and for the Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), respectively, where he was a fund manager in charge of quantitative funds for developing countries. Today, Andri Silberschmidt is an assistant to the Executive Board of Planzer Support AG. From 2013 to 2019, Andri Silberschmidt studied Business Administration part-time and graduated with a Master in Global Finance from CASS Business School in London. Furthermore, Andri Silberschmidt is co-founder and chairman of the board of kaisin. - a gastronomy company with branches in the cities of Zurich, Basel and Zug, as well as President of FH SCHWEIZ, the umbrella organization for graduates of universities of applied sciences.

After his studies in Computer Science and Economics, Thomas spent ten years inmanagement consulting, predominantly in North America and Asia.Thomas possesses a unique understanding of consumer behavior and the modeling ofcustomer-centric ecosystems, as well as deep experience in driving companies from theearliest stages through periods of rapid growth. He strongly believes in thedemocratization of technology as a benefit and cornerstone to modern society.After starting his own company and successfully selling it seven years later to a Fortune500 company, he started building the Venture Capital business for 3M corporation, 3MNew Ventures. In close collaboration with the leading global technology companies andthe relevant Venture Capital funds, 3M New Ventures built a strong portfolio of cuttingedge material science and technology startups.As Founder and Managing Partner of the Venture Capital firm Linden Capital, he isfocusing on early stage investments at the interplay of technology and creativity.Industries addressed are mobility, insurance, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, andfood & nutrition; technology focus areas are machine learning, artificial intelligence,natural language processing, microprocessor technology, and advanced robotics.As executive board member of a Silicon Valley based next generation semiconductorfirm, he works on the current paradigm shift in mobility systems and services, establishingnew technologies in advanced perception processing systems for autonomous vehicles.

Thomas Dübendorfer holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from ETH Zurich. He is president and co-founder of Swiss ICT Investor Club (SICTIC), the largest angel investor club in Switzerland with a focus on Swiss early-stage technology product startups. He has worked in Silicon Valley and at Google in Zurich as tech lead and security software engineer. He is an angel investor, co-founder and board member in several startups, and has had several successful startup exits.

Born and raised in Germany, Alex studied business at the Maastricht University, before joining the Boston Consulting Group. In his subsequent pursuit of a PhD he came across a surgical glue technology, upon which he co-founded Adhesys Medical. After building and successfully exiting his first venture, he founded cellvie with a group of researchers from Harvard in 2018 – a biotech-start-up developing a next generation cellular therapy, leveraging mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell.