Founded in 2016 with the goal of providing individuals with a more concrete pathway into venture capital, GoingVC has continued to grow into a vibrant, collaborative, and inclusive community of like-minded individuals who have the common goal of advancing their careers in the field.
Over the course of our programs, we have had the pleasure of being joined by many investors from some of the top VC funds in the world, including:
Our Commitment To Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We are committed to creating a diverse venture capital ecosystem by fostering an inclusive and equitable environment through all aspects of our programming.
Our initiatives include:
Creating an expansive community that uplifts those from non-traditional backgrounds
Committing to hiring a diverse team which represents a vast range of backgrounds
The GVC Team
John Gannon
Co-Founder, General Partner
John Gannon
Co-Founder, General Partner
John has mentored thousands of current and aspiring VCs through his VC Careers blog and email list, which counts VCs from top firms like Sequoia, KPCB, and Bessemer as subscribers.
He serves as an advisor to Quantopian (Spark, A16z, Bessemer), Wallaroo Labs (Greycroft, Eniac, RRE, Boldstart, Resolute), and also advised Concord (Bloomberg Beta) prior to their acquisition by Akamai.
John was the founding member of the sales & marketing team at Turbonomic (Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital Partners), has worked in product management and services leadership roles at growth-stage startups like DigitalOcean and VMware, and raised seed capital from professional angels and VC firms for his own startup.
Arno Niazi
Co-Founder & CEO
Arno Niazi
Co-Founder & CEO
Arno is a serial entrepreneur that has built profitable companies.
He has worked at Chicago-based VC fund Origin Ventures, where he focused on Saas, Ecommerce and Marketplaces. He also worked at the family fund Bluestein Associates.
Arno holds and MBA from Chicago Booth, as well as two bachelor degrees in Economics and Accounting. He also received a Masters degree in Marketing from Uppsala University in Sweden.
In his free time, Arno loves walking and running in forests.
Anthony Bellafiore
Chief Operating Officer
Anthony Bellafiore
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
In addition to his role at GoingVC, Anthony Bellafiore is currently an Associate at LaunchCapital, where he focuses on sourcing and diligencing startups across a range of investment verticals, as well as performing market research on different sectors and industries.
Previously, Anthony was a member of the Funding Team at Greylock-backed European accelerator, Entrepreneur First, where he managed the firm’s investor network and helped its portfolio companies prepare for their funding rounds. He has also built up a cryptocurrency-focused newsletter – The Altcoin Transmission – to over 1.4k subscribers, and has consulted for and advised various startups in the content marketing and fintech sectors.
A dual-citizen of Italy, Anthony has lived and worked in Spain and the UK and loves meeting founders from the lesser VC-trodden corners of the world. Some of his main interests lie in sustainable ocean and energy, cryptocurrency, logistics, and impact investing.
Anthony graduated from Penn State University with a B.A. in Economics, a B.A. in English, and a minor in International Studies.
Abhishek Samdaria
Branding Strategy Lead
Abhishek Samdaria
Branding Strategy Lead
As the Branding Strategy Lead at GoingVC, Abhishek runs point on all aspects of technology operations, website maintenance, and technical planning and development. His previous work revolves around technical roles with a bit of operating experience sprinkled in.
In addition to GoingVC, Abhishek currently works as a technology consultant at EY, with a focus on product management, technical operations, and software strategy. At EY, he’s worked as a PM and developer for a pre-revenue product and helped plan and develop the product from its ideation phase to be client-facing. Besides his PM work, he helps run a biannual internal design thinking competition and has helped with the development of a published white paper on the future of consumer financial services.
In college, Abhishek was the founding member of a HealthTech startup focusing on improving accessibility to mental healthcare. In addition to health tech, he is interested in cross-border VC, quantum computing, fintech, and ed-tech.
Abhishek graduated from Macaulay Honors College at CUNY with a B.S. in Computer Science
Alana Mann
Venture Careers Advisor
Alana Mann
Venture Careers Advisor
Alana Mann is a Principal at Cultivation Capital. She works on developing a diverse deal pipeline of software & IT companies, performing due diligence research, assessing the market and team potential, and making investments in exciting opportunities in addition to marketing, investor relations, and operational strategy.
In addition to her work at Cultivation Capital, Alana is an involved member of The Wing and Female Founder Collective. She is also a mentor within the Built by Girls program, and regularly volunteers as a mentor for GoingVC & FLIK.
Prior to joining Cultivation Capital, in 2018, Alana launched her own venture VER CO. as a direct-to-consumer fashion brand making sustainability more accessible & affordable to millennial women.
Alana graduated from Vanderbilt University with a major in Political Science and minors in History of Art & Corporate Strategy. During her time at Vanderbilt, Alana was heavily involved with Nashville’s entrepreneurship community & took several graduate level courses at Owen Graduate School of Management and School of Engineering.
At GoingVC, Alana works with the Career Services team to help our members be best prepared to land roles in VC.
Aris “TaChelle” Morris
Junior Program Manager
Ta’Chelle Morris
Junior Program Manager
Ta’Chelle currently works in the private sector, as a Web manager for Strongbridge LLC. This organization focuses on solving the government’s critical challenges with software development, cloud services, digital strategy and IT engineering.
Prior to graduating from undergrad, Ta’Chelle was selected through a Bill & Melinda Gates funded program to work with TechTown, an entrepreneurship hub located in Detroit. During her time there she worked alongside several start-ups to develop marketing strategies for customer attraction, product launches, upcoming events, etc. In addition, Ta’Chelle has interned with multiple start-ups within a variety of industries.
Ta’Chelle holds an MBA from the College of William & Mary and B.A. in Psychology with a minor in English from Duke University. In her free time, she enjoys reading, movie binging, hiking and traveling.
Austen Legler
Manager of Content Strategy
Austen Legler
Manager of Content Strategy
Austen is a career marketer with a passion for content and storytelling. He brings more than eight years of marketing experience to his role at GoingVC. In his previous position, he worked as the head of marketing for a high growth tech startup based in Tampa, Florida. Prior to that, he spent a considerable amount of time working on the agency side helping Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and everything in between improve their marketing programs.
Austen was born and raised in Bradenton, Florida. He holds a degree in International Business from Rollins College. When he’s not working, he enjoys reading, biking, and spending time outdoors.
Casey Kwon
Partner Events Lead
Casey Kwon
Partner Events Lead
Casey is the Partner Events Lead at GoingVC and based in Oxford, England. She is currently working on a capstone client project on behalf of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society.
Previously, Casey lived in NYC and has freelanced for events such as New York Fashion Week, Tribeca Film Festival, and Moma PS1 Warm Up. She started her career in publishing at Marvel Comics and has production experience working with ViacomCBS and ABC. Most recently, she worked at edtech startup Teachable managing events for both community members and employees. She cares deeply about inclusivity, open access events, and triple bottom line sustainability.
Casey holds a BA in Journalism from NYU and will graduate with an MSc in International Events Management from Oxford Brookes University.
Chris DN
Head of Community Development
Chris DN
Head of Community Development
As Head of Community Development, Chris maximizes community engagement. This includes promoting members to meet/post, tracking member satisfaction, being a super-connector between members/our GVC network, managing Slack, and helping with bay area events.
Previously, Chris was at Sequoia Capital where he monitored the health of Sequoia’s global portfolio (4 years). He also has 5 years of management consulting / technology implementations experience, and 5 years leading Montreal’s largest Asian event production company.
When he’s not engulfed in the VC world, he obsesses over fitness/health hacks and recently completed 365 of consecutive workouts/500 days of absolute cold showers.
Houston Rhodes
Special Projects Manager
Houston Rhodes
Special Projects Manager
Houston is a Special Projects Manager at GoingVC where she is responsible for working on initiatives that support the development of GoingVC’s platform through engaging and networking with investors and members.
Prior to GoingVC, Houston worked in entrepreneurship and investment banking. Her experience includes building a time-sensitive vesicourethral anastomotic device for prostatectomies as Co-Founder of UroLink. She also worked as a clinical sponsor liaison, maintaining communication between three clinical sponsors and the team. Post co-founding UroLink, Houston worked at BMO Capital Markets in New York City as an Investment Banking Analyst, assisting managing directors and directors on advising multiple initial public offerings, acquisition financings, mergers and acquisitions, and debt refinancings for biotechnology, medical technology, and healthcare services companies. Houston is currently helping build a healthcare services startup, Residence Respite, as a Business Development Associate.
Houston holds a Master of Biomedical Innovation and Development from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as, a Bachelor of Arts in Global Health and a Bachelor’s of Science in Evolutionary Anthropology from Duke University.
Iman AbuAlia
Investor Program Manager
Iman AbuAlia
Investor Program Manager
Iman is the Investor Program Manager at Going VC. In addition to GoingVC, Iman works as a Community Manager at crypto.com.
Iman has spent the last few years working at and building startup accelerator programs in the Middle East. Starting as a business associate at Techstars and then going on to help build an accelerator for Wamda Capital, a Dubai-based VC and finally working with Microsoft and the Dubai government, managing an accelerator program for AI startups.
Previous to her work with accelerators, Iman worked as a business analyst for McDonald’s marketing team and was an initial team member of two different startups in London and Dubai.
In her free time, Iman enjoys spending time outdoors, mostly on the water.
James Ransom
Education Program Manager
James Ransom
Education Program Manager
After working for Armory Square Ventures as an Investment Analyst, James joined the startup side to gain experience as an operator. Along the way, he worked for Justworks, and attended Techstars with his previous role as Head of Sales & Growth at PowerSpike.
Currently, James is Head of Sales at ExPrep, an education startup building interactive training and spreadsheet automation for Excel. Accustom to wearing multiple hats, James enjoys working across sales, marketing, product, and finance to build early-stage companies. In addition to working at ExPrep, James advises early-stage startups in raising capital by structuring investments and providing introductions.
James joined GoingVC as a member in Cohort 5, and joined the team as Education Manager after completing the program. At GoingVC, he is responsible for creating models and assignments for the curriculum.
James graduated from Syracuse University with a B.A in Finance and Information Management & Technology. In his free time, he loves to play guitar and rescue feral cats.
JJ MacLean
Partner Services Manager
JJ MacLean
Partner Services Manager
JJ is the Partner Services Manager at GoingVC and based in Vancouver, BC. As Partner Services Manager he works to help provide GoingVC members with additional opportunities to gain hands-on experience and build relationships in the industry.
Previously, JJ was the cofounder of two startups working on solving problems around access to financial data and production management in fashion & apparel. He’s also the Vancouver city lead for Sandbox Network and an active volunteer with the Liberal Party of Canada working on Justin Trudeau’s tour team during the last two Canadian elections.
When not diving into VC, he loves geeking out over science fiction, wearables and fitness or productivity tools. He’s always game for a chat on any of them.
Jocelyne Morales
Associate Program Manager
Jocelyne Morales
Associate Program Manager
Jocelyne is an Associate Program Manager at GoingVC and based in Los Angeles, CA. As part of the Program Management team she makes sure that the program runs smoothly, that it is always improving, and that it is delivering a great experience to its members. She also gets to interact with many different teams.
Previously Jocelyne worked as a Summer Analyst at TCG where she worked on sourcing consumer tech startups and due diligence. Before TCG, Jocelyne worked as a research associate at Darcy Partners where she sourced Oil & Gas tech startups. Jocelyne started her career at KPMG advisory practice as an intern.
Jocelyne holds a BBA in Finance from the University of Houston. She is a native Spanish speaker and was raised in Mexico. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and sailing.
Karine Agajanian
Head of Investor Program
Karine Agajanian
Head of Investor Program
Karine was an early team member at Anzu Partners, an industrial tech venture fund based in Washington, DC, where she enjoyed a chaotic role in fundraising, due diligence, portfolio support, cybersecurity, and dealflow operations.
In addition, Karine was an Associate at the NY-based PE firm Olive Tree Ridge, where she helped source and evaluate deals with a focus on immigrant-owned businesses. She currently consults with several early-stage startups and first-time funds on their fundraising and overall strategy.
In her personal time Karine enjoys keeping up with the latest emtech and social impact startups, working on developing her data science skills, and talking for hours on end to anyone who will listen about the real future of work.
Karine has a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Utah and a Corporate Finance Certificate from Georgetown University.
Karrie Liang
Growth Marketing Manager
Karrie Liang
Growth Marketing Manager
Karrie is a Growth Marketing Manager at GoingVC and based in San Francisco, CA. She helps with managing GoingVC’s online presence, marketing channels, and creative contents.
Karrie is also co-founder & CEO at Belift Coffee, a specialty coffee company based in San Francisco and Indonesia built to uplift at-risk local communities through social impact initiatives. Prior to that, she was a mentor for high-school students at a start-up incubator.
She enjoys empowering others to unlock their potentials, breaking down complex problems, and studying philosophy. Some of her hobbies include hiking outdoors, running, reading, and writing.
Luke Sandler
Head of Career Services
Luke Sandler
Head of Career Services
Luke is an investor and advisor for early stage ventures, PE and corporate media clients. Luke was formerly the market lead for McKinsey’s Fast Growth Tech practice serving consumer clients on a variety of growth and operational strategies.
As an Engagement Manager he has experience leading digital strategy and transformation projects for consumer finance, media and telecom clients. Prior to McKinsey, Luke ran the digital media division of a Hollywood literary agency, consulting on digital video content, organization and advertising strategy for publishers and television networks in addition to representing IP for film/TV.
Luke is a Feldberg Fellow of Columbia Business School and a Scholar of Merton College, Oxford.
Nick Giometti
Education Program Manager
Nick Giometti
Education Program Manager
Nick is a bond portfolio manager turned venture capitalist. He is currently an MBA Associate at both Fernbrook Capital Management and BGV. Previously, he worked for BlackRock as a systematic investor for 8 years, where he designed algorithms and workflow automation software while managing $85B+ AUM book of risk.
Nick graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Economics and English, and is currently pursuing his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management. Nick is also a GoingVC Cohort 6 member.
Rachel Masterson
Senior Program Manager
Rachel Masterson
Senior Program Manager
Rachel has a background in international trade consulting for SMEs in the middle Tennessee and Phoenix areas. She also has experience consulting in various areas of business development for multiple social entrepreneurial start-ups. Her most recent work experience is in the venture capital space, as an Analyst for InvestU (a combined ASU + Thunderbird investing network) as well as an Analyst for the Arizona Founders Fund in Phoenix, AZ. In addition to GoingVC, Rachel is also working on developing an entertainment venue that incorporates a unique dining and sports bar experience with street soccer.
Rachel holds a Master of Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, with concentrations in Finance & Global Affairs. Rachel also received her BBA from Belmont University with a major in International Business and minors in Spanish & Entrepreneurship.
Roger Kuo
Community Development Manager
Roger Kuo
Community Development Manager
Roger is currently a business and marketing strategy consultant helping aspiring entrepreneurs with their product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, and marketing/branding strategy. Previously, he worked with Cardplus (fintech payments) as a Director of Product Marketing, and with Shanghai Valley (cross-border US-China venture capital) as a Director of Business Development, where he was responsible for bringing new startups to the platform. Prior to that, he was a successful entrepreneur in the e-commerce space.
He was born and raised in San Francisco and graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Business Administration. In his free time, he enjoys learning about new technologies (particularly regarding impact investing, fintech, crypto, AI, smart cities and transportation tech), meeting new people, and travelling the world.
Seena Vajed
Head of Investor Relations
Seena Vajed
Head of Investor Relations
Seena is a technology enthusiast with a background in business development, events management, and working with early stage technology startups. His early exposure to the startup world as a founder of his own events company in University combined with his technology focused studies in Economics drove him into the intersections of Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship.
Seena is currently the Business Development Manager at a Digital Mental Health startup called Healthynox where he leads efforts with investor relations, strategy, and works closely with the founders to help scale growth. Previously, Seena worked as a Project Manager for a consultancy based in San Francisco called Connection Silicon Valley that sources opportunities for Canadian startups, corporates and VCs to connect with the Bay Area technology ecosystem.
Seena holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of British Columbia. Outside of his work he enjoys hiking the outdoors, attending music festivals, and traveling.
Shravani Rau
Designer
Shravani Rau
Designer
Shravani is a designer for GoingVC, where she is responsible for not only the design of the website but also the branding strategy of GoingVC.
Besides her role at GoingVC, Shravani is also Product Designer at a startup in Bangalore, India, focusing on designing the product line for an Ayurveda healthcare app (for both Android and iOS)
With a masters degree in Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology and a passion for design, she made a career switch from development to design after moving back to India.
She has worked with several startups as a developer and now as a designer.
Apart from digital product design, she makes and sells handmade products. She enjoys painting, reading, music, and anything DIY.
Stephen Nehlig
Head of Business Development
Stephen Nehlig
Head of Business Development
Steve is a startup operator with experience in sales, business development, and sales operations. He started his career as a Financial Management Program trainee at General Electric but quickly moved into selling B2B enterprise software for a Series A startup in Washington DC. There, he managed a team of outbound sales representatives and developed onboarding, training, and management systems to quickly ramp new sales hires.
Currently, he operates a seed-stage education startup that went through Intel’s Edtech accelerator, the NSF I-corps program, and Towson University’s incubator. He also currently leads GoingVC’s business development efforts, focusing on formalizing relationships with top university programs.
He holds a BA in Business from The George Washington University.
Vishal Banerjee
Director, Strategy and Investments
Vishal Banerjee
Director, Strategy and Investments
Vishal Is Head of Growth at GoingVC, where he is responsible for designing and implementing the overarching strategy for GoingVC’s brand, digital marketing, content and offline customer engagement.
Vishal has investing and operating experience, having worked in Venture Capital in addition to having a background in Business Development and Digital Marketing. Some of his main interests lie in HealthTech, Logistics, SaaS and AI.
Vishal’s focus is on early-stage investing and helping young companies to scale. As a citizen of the UK, Vishal has a particular passion for working with immigrant entrepreneurs looking to expand to the US. Prior to moving to the US, Vishal was a Strategy Consultant at EY in London, where he helped global consumer brands achieve profitable growth.
Vishal holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Yana Mkrtchyan
Director of Admissions
Yana Mkrtchyan
Director of Admissions
Yana is a Junior Program Manager at GoingVC and will be involved with admissions and EA tasks. She has a background in administration and management. She spent years as an emergency dispatcher for the University of Utah Hospital system. From there she moved into an administrative role in the kidney and liver transplant department. Following that, she ran the business operations of a veterinary clinic where her role included everything from administration to marketing to laying on top of large dogs to hold them still.
Continuing her career in business operations, Yana took on the role of Operations Director at a popular dance studio and was the Project Manager for the studio’s various Latin dance programs, and taught the occasional class herself.
Since moving to Mexico City, she has been a part of a well-known dance company, traveling to and winning seven championships in Salsa and Bachata. She is currently a Community Outreach Manager at Reedsy, a startup involved in the publishing world.
Yezhisai Murugesan
Product Manager
Yezhisai Murugesan
Product Manager
Yezhisai’s responsibilities as a Product Manager at GoingVC include determining the customer’s wants, managing the product roadmap, overlooking the end to end product lifecycle by acting as a key cross-functional point of contact, identifying key differentiators for each of the product offerings and introducing new product ideas based on market needs.
Prior to GoingVC, Yezhisai has worked at technology companies holding various product and engineering roles. Her experience and interests pan across various fields from Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality to Blockchain technologies. Apart from working full-time as a Product Manager in the San Francisco Bay Area, she mentors young and upcoming product managers and engineers. She works with early-stage startup founders to help them find product market fit, discover their competitive edge, build a sustainable strategy and translate the grand vision into actionable milestones to ultimately generate long-term revenue.
Yezhisai holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and most recently, attended Stanford Graduate School of Business for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.