Speakers

Phineas Barnes Partner, First Round Capital I am a Partner at First Round Capital and am fascinated by design+technology+startups. Before joining First Round, I worked at AND 1 from “day 2″ and founded a fitness video game company. After college I spent six years helping to scale AND 1 Basketball from $15 million to over $225 million in revenue. As the Creative Director for Footwear, I led product direction, managed relationships with national retail accounts and created the initial concept for the signature AND 1 marketing property—the AND 1 Mix Tape. In 2003, I wanted to build fitness technology and founded an independent videogame company to do it. We developed and published Yourself!Fitness, the first fitness game for Xbox and PlayStation2. I was responsible for managing the marketing and distribution and secured retail partnerships with Nordstrom and Best Buy as well as promotional partnerships with Proctor & Gamble and McDonald’s. After consulting for MTV on product and marketing, I decided to pursue an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. I earned my MBA in 2009 with honors and a double major in Operations and Information Management and Finance. A college basketball player at Haverford College, I have maintained my addiction to sneakers and a decent trashtalk vocabulary. I live in Brooklyn with my wife, Carrie, and daughter, Etta.

Marc Hochstein Executive Editor, American Banker As Executive Editor of the trade publication American Banker, Marc Hochstein oversees BankThink, a provocative blog, and the Morning Scan, a wildly popular daily e-newsletter summarizing mainstream media coverage of the banking industry with sophistication and wit. Marc joined American Banker in 1998 as a reporter covering the mortgage beat and has gradually added responsibility over the years. At one time or another he has directed the paper's news coverage of mortgages, credit and debit cards, consumer finance and community banking. Marc began his career as a reporter covering financial markets for Dow Jones, and he has also worked as a senior editor at GRID, a commercial real estate and architecture magazine. Marc has a bachelor’s degree in history from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s in urban and regional planning studies from the London School of Economics.

Jaron Lukasiewicz Chief Executive Officer, Coinsetter Jaron Lukasiewicz is the Chief Executive Officer of Coinsetter, which offers a high-performance levered trading platform for Bitcoin. Prior to Coinsetter, Jaron was the Co-Founder of Ticketometer, an social media-focused online ticketing platform. Prior to that, Jaron was an Associate at The CapStreet Group, a Houston-based private equity firm, and an investment banker at J.P. Morgan and Madison Williams in their global investment banking groups. Prior to that, he was a summer analyst at SPB Partners, a Las Vegas-based private equity firm. Jaron is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. Jaron graduated from Rice University on the President's Honor Roll with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics.

Abelardo (A.B.) Mendez Director, Capital Markets, Knight Capital Group / PE Source Abelardo (A.B.) Mendez has over 13 years of research, banking, consulting, and operational experience in the Internet media, E-commerce and software-as-a-service (SAAS) sectors. As a Director in Knight Capital’s PE Source (private shares) group, Mr. Mendez participates actively in the tech startup ecosystem and works to source new equity positions (primary or secondary issuances) in mid to late-stage private technology companies and place them with institutional investors among Knight’s client base of over 2,000 institutions. Prior to joining Knight PE Source he was a Senior Equities Analyst at Twin Red Asset Management where he covered TMT and financials and constructed a portfolio of long and short positions in equities and options. Prior to that Mr. Mendez was an Internet equity research analyst at BofA, FBR, and Thomas Weisel Partners. His operational and entrepreneurial experience includes independent E-Commerce and database consulting, working on multiple Internet startups and serving as Director of Operations at Web software firm Whiteboard Labs. He is currently an advisory board member with Houston, Texas-based e-book self-publishing company kbuuk.com. Mr. Mendez earned a BA in Economics and Political Science from Rice University and is a CFA charter holder and a member of the New York Society of Securities Analysts (NYSSA). He holds Series 7, 63, 86 and 87 licenses. His coverage of the Internet, SAAS and mobile wallet verticals has been featured extensively in the media, including frequent appearances on Bloomberg TV and CNBC as well as appearances on the BBC, BNN (Canada) and the PBS Nightly Business Report.

Alan Safahi Founder and CEO, ZipZap, Inc Alan Safahi is the Founder and CEO of ZipZap, Inc., the world’s largest cash payment network for online financial services and ecommerce transactions. A serial entrepreneur with nearly 30 years of hands-on experience in the information technology, telecommunications, and financial services industries, Alan has successfully created and managed numerous high technology and payment processing startups. Prior to ZipZap, Alan founded three start-ups including Card Express Inc. (CardEx), prepaid card processor and program manager with a history of innovations such as the first open loop MasterCard Gift Card (1996), the first open loop reloadable MasterCard prepaid card (1997) and the first virtual MasterCard prepaid Card (1999). Alan serves on the Advisory Board of OpenCoin,Inc., the creator of Ripple open source currency platform. Alan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from California State University, Fullerton and his M.B.A. from University of Southern California (USC).

Charlie Shrem Vice Chairman, Bitcoinfoundation.org and CEO, BitInstant Currently serving as CEO and co-founder of BitInstant, one of the largest, earliest and well known alternative payment companies, Charlie used his position in both the old banking world and new alternative currency world to help pave the way for the Bitcoin economy to emerge in early 2011. Known in the Bitcoin and old hacker communities as 'Yankee', he is also founding member and current Vice Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation. Along with Gareth Nelson, he found the need for a more secure, fast and convenient way of transferring funds between and within payment networks around the wold and leads BitInstant through the complex compliance, licensing and regulations of the worldwide banking system.

Trevor Timm Co-Founder and Executive Director, Freedom of the Press Foundation Trevor Timm is the co-founder and executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which supports and defends independent journalism organizations, including WikiLeaks, dedicated to transparency and accountability in government. Trevor also an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He has also contributed to The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera, and PBS MediaShift. Before joining the EFF and starting Freedom of the Press Foundation, Trevor helped the longtime General Counsel of The New York Times, James Goodale, write a book on the First Amendment. He has also worked for the former President of the ACLU and at The New Yorker. He graduated from Northeastern University and has a J.D. from New York Law School.

To suggest a speaker, please email the following to stewart@mediabistro.com:

• Biography and headshot of proposed speaker
• Why the proposed speaker would be a good fit
• Links to previous appearances, speaking events, videos, podcasts, or press
• Speaker contact information

Speakers should be submitted at least 60 days prior to the event. Please note that, due to the overwhelming number of submissions we receive, only individuals who are selected to speak will receive a reply.