Please join us for a panel discussion on the future of Fintech. Please bring your questions! Open to all students and alumni.
Speaker Profiles
Deepak Gupta (Moderator) '09
Director - Startup Advisor
Deepak has been working with startups and investment firms for the past 17 years. He is a mentor at 500 Startups, Alchemist, Highway1, StartX, and VegasTechFund. He is also a Startup Advisor at UC BerkeleyHass. Prior to Berkeley, he was a Managing Director at Seedchange, which looked at seed stage startups. Prior to Seedchange, Deepak worked at Propel Venture Partners and Hercules Capital, where he worked closely with technology, healthcare, and cleantech companies such as Radius, Simple, Trulia, Barrx, JustFab, Ancestry.com.
Deepak holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech, M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an M.B.A. from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Amanda Wood (Speaker), SoFi
Amanda is a Director at SoFi. She holds a BA in Economics and Psychology from Vassar College, as well as an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she focused on Finance and Social Enterprise. Amanda started at SoFi in June of 2013, and she has worked on the Capital Markets and Partnerships teams. She also heads the Entrepreneur Program at SoFi.
Ryan Gilbert (Speaker)
General Partner, Propel Venture Partners
Ryan Gilbert is a General Partner at Propel Venture Partners and Chairman and co-founder of Better Finance, the operator of SmartBiz, the leading provider of government guaranteed small business loans online. His 20 years of payments and start-up experience include executive and strategic roles at VC firm Venrock,real estate payments company PropertyBridge (acquired by MoneyGram), Wells Fargo Bank and Andersen Consulting. He is a director of River City Bank and bKash, and has advised fintech leaders including Eventbrite and Square.
Ryan is a member of the State Bar of California and YPO. Ryan holds B.Com and LLB degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Amir Friedman (Speaker) '07, Prosper
Amir Friedman oversees all aspects of bank partnerships at Prosper, including end-to-end responsibility for all bank capital investment on the Prosper platform; crafting pitches and proposals, negotiating and structuring deals, ensuring integration, and monitoring investment performance. Prior to joining Prosper, Amir worked in Business Development and customer acquisition at American Express, where he focused on partnerships with the largest US Amex merchants. Prior to Amex, Amir was head of capital markets for Prospect Capital, a private debt and equity firm with nearly $10 billion under management based in New York City.
Amir holds a BS in Finance from the University of San Francisco and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Rodolfo Gonzalez (Speaker), Foundation Capital
Rodolfo Gonzalez is a Partner at Foundation Capital with a fascination for financial disintermediation, peer-to-peer funding, and bringing transparency and simplicity to the consumer experience. As a kid, he wanted to be a professional soccer player or movie actor; but he grew into an adult with a passion for promoting economic growth and inclusion through innovation in financial services. He is driven by his work with ambitious and extremely talented entrepreneurs who are bent on changing the world for the better. Prior to Foundation Capital, Rodolfo was at McKinsey, where he worked with the top financial institutions in Latin America - banks, insurers, asset managers, and payments processors.
Rodolfo holds a MBA from MIT Sloan and degrees in Marketing from ITESM and International Relations from UNAM.