Paul Tumpowsky / Chairman of the Board
CEO – Square Zero
Columbia MBA 2000
Paul is the CEO of Square Zero, a development stage company building a platform designed to achieve real-time data processing and analytic capabilities for today’s large-scale data challenges. Most recently, Paul has been advising entrepreneurs in developing and growing early stage businesses. Prior to this work, Paule served as the COO of Two Twelve Management and a General Partner at Ross Common Partners, LLC. Both firms focused on the development, representation and marketing firm focused on the lifestyle, luxury and hospitality industries, while developing a private equity partnership focused on investing in high-end restaurant concepts around the world with a group of well known and respected chefs and restaurateurs. Paul was a principal with Metropolis Venture Partners in New York. Paul sourced deal flow, evaluated business plans, conducted due diligence and interviewed companies for early-stage venture fund focused on investing between $1-$10 million per transaction in the telecommunications, networking, wireless and enterprise software markets. As part of his responsibilities, Paul was the founding Chief of Staff of an optical networking hardware firm and operated a commodity metals trading software firm as CEO through multimillion-dollar Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy and wind down. Prior to business school, Paul spent over four years at Andersen Consulting, where he specialized in acquisition advisory, custom database design and development, and logistics strategy. Paul is the chairman of the Board of the InSITE Fellowship program in New York and has led the early-stage selection committee for NYNMA’s VentureDowntown conference. Paul has an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he concentrated on finance and entrepreneurship, a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois and has studied at the Shibaura Institute of Technology in Tokyo.
Chip Meakem / Venture Capital Advisor
General Partner, Kodiak Venture Partners
Columbia MBA 2000
Chip brings ten years of operating and investing experience in information technology. He joined Kodiak as General Partner from Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham where he was Managing Director and served on the boards of directors of ContextWeb, Massive Incorporated, Pantero and NanoOpto, and an observer to the board of Practical Engineering. Previously, Chip served on the Boards of LiveAdvice, acquired by Ingenio, Q-Link Technologies, acquired by Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) and Quantiva, acquired by NetScout Systems (NASDAQ: NTCT). Prior to entering the investment community, Chip was Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at N2K Inc. responsible for strategic distribution partnerships for the leading online music retailer. Before N2K, he was Vice President at Interactive Imaginations, the predecessor to 24/7 Media, Inc. At Interactive Imaginations, Chip created, built and managed the Commonwealth Network, one of the Internet’s first advertising networks. Chip holds a B.A from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
dawn barber
dawn is the co-founder of NY Tech Meetup. dawn has extensive experience in planning and organizing groups and conferences in and around the New York technology community, since having been one of NYNMA’s directors from 1998-2001.
Brian Carroll
Columbia MBA 2009
InSITE VP Companies 2008-2009
InSITE Cutcaster Team Spring 2008
Prior to completing an MBA at Columbia Business School, Brian worked for Akamai Technologies as a technology consultant to large online media and advertising clients. Before Akamai, Brian worked at Nielsen//NetRatings in the web analytics and ad effectiveness testing group. He began his career as a network engineer and web hosting administrator in Silicon Valley, and has engaged in consulting projects in Singapore, Tokyo, Vietnam and Prague. During school Brian has interned with Greycroft Partners. Brian holds a BA from Claremont McKenna College in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
Alex Ferrara
Columbia MBA 2004
Alex is currently a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. Formerly, he was an associate in technology, media and telecom investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Prior to business school, Alex helped start two successful technology companies before founding Boston Technical, a technology consulting practice, whose clients include Titleist Inc., Schering Plough Inc, and Novartis, Inc. Alex holds a degree in Electrical and Computer engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received research scholarships from the Sloan Foundation and National Science Foundation for various Internet-related researches. In addition to guest lecturing on e-commerce at institutions such as the Wharton School of Business, he has developed a variety of technology curricula for organizations such as Kaplan Inc., has served as a professor in adjunct at Northeastern University, and recently co-authored a book for the publisher O’Reilly & Associates entitled “Programming ASP.NET Web Services”.
Vinay Jain
NYU JD 2009
InSITE President 2008-2009
InSITE VP NYU Recruiting 2007-2008
InSITE Greenzer Team Spring 2008
Vinay is a mergers and acquisitions attorney atSkadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP in Washington, D.C. He completed his J.D. in 2009 at NYU School of Law where he concentrated on corporate and transactional law. During his summers, Vinay worked for McKinsey & Company in New York and Skadden, Arps in Washington, DC. Before law school, Vinay spent three years as Communications Manager for the National Wildlife Federation in Washington, DC, where he led media campaigns promoting clean energy development. He maintains his strong interest in the cleantech sector through his involvement in InSITE, which he joined in the Fall of 2006. Vinay holds a master’s degree in Journalism from Stanford and an M.Phil. in Political Thought & Intellectual History from Cambridge. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar.
Pete Karlen
Columbia MBA 2007
InSITE President 2007-2008
Pete is a Vice President at EarthWater Global, an early-stage water exploration and development company based in New York City. Prior to joining EarthWater Global as its 6th employee in February of 2008, Peter was a Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, where he focused on the biotech industry. Previously, Pete was the fourth employee and Director of Development at StreetSquash, a start-up youth enrichment program based in Harlem, where he led a $10.3 million Capital Campaign to fund an 18,000 square foot youth center in Harlem. Pete holds an AB in History from Harvard and an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Columbia Business School. Formerly a member of the US National Squash Team, Pete was Captain and All-American at Harvard on a team that won two Ivy League Titles.
Tom Karlo
Columbia MBA 2004
InSITE President 2003-2004
Tom is currently the Manager of Box Office Mojo, the number one Internet source for theatrical release results and analysis, and a part of IMDb, a subsidiary of Amazon.com. Before this role, he was an associate at Lehman Brothers. Prior to Columbia, Tom co-founded Impromptu, a technical consulting firm, reported on technology news for Cnet, and was Director of Program Management at iKena, a Boston software start-up acquired by Net2Phone. He is a co-owner of AsiaFoods, an imported foods e-tailer. Tom holds a Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
Dan Leberman
NYU JD/MBA 2007
InSITE President 2006-2007
Dan works at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco. While in school, he spent summer internships at McKinsey, Skadden Arps and Greenhills Ventures. Before entering the JD/MBA program, Dan worked in strategy consulting at Cambridge Pharma Consultancy and enjoyed a brief stint as a musician/bartender. Dan holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Daniel Lifton
Columbia MBA 2002
InSITE President 2001-2002
Dan Lifton is the founding partner of RubberWorks International – an environmental technology start-up focusing on the recycling of scrap tires, that has been funded by Columbia University’s Lang Fund. Previously, Dan has worked at Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures – an early stage IT venture capital firm. Prior to business school, Dan launched CommunityMe.com – a provider of Web-site building and hosting solutions for new Internet domain registrants. Prior to this, he spent three years with Deutsche Bank’s project finance practice in London. Dan holds an MBA with Distinction from Columbia Business School and a B.S. in International Finance and Commerce from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. In 2002, Dan received the “Most Promising Entrepreneur” Award at the 2nd Annual MBA Jungle Business Plan Competition sponsored by Forbes. He is fluent in Russian, French, and Spanish.
MacAdory Lipscomb Jr
“Mac” is the “go-to-guy” shaping how Americans and the world view Media, Sports, Celebrities, Politics and Technology. In a career ranging from the Carter White House to 2009’s Tiger Woods’ self-immolation, with a stop for the Mike Tyson ear-biting incident, he was a founding executive of XM Satellite Radio with corporate credentials that also include Accenture, Showtime Networks Inc, WorldSpace, and start up & venture coaching of 400+ CEOs including the IPO road show for Live Person. He is one of those rare executives that connect all the dots with McAdory & Co. Strategic Communications, a general management, marketing and crisis communications consultancy. A Senior Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future, Mac also has an MBA from Colorado, a Master’s in Speech Communications from Auburn University, and a Government and Politics degree from the University of Maryland where he is a member of the Executive Committee of the School of Behavioral and Social Sciences Board of Visitors. He is a Cable Pioneer and was honored with the inaugural Cable Industry Vanguard Award for Public Relations.
Robyn Soto
NYU MBA 2003
Robyn Harrell Soto is the Director, Executive Recruitment, Global Organization Strategy at Tishman Speyer. Previously, Robyn was a Consultant at Russell Reynolds, a global executive recruitment and management assessment firm that delivers solutions to organizational challenges through the recruitment of exceptional leaders. At Russell Reynolds, Robyn worked in the Consumer Markets Sector as well as with the Financial Officer Practice at Russell Reynolds. During business school, Robyn interned with a New York based special situations Private Equity Firm, Three Cities Research. Prior to attending business school, Robyn worked in Mexico in sales and product management positions for a logic and memory device distributor and an engineered plastics manufacturer serving global OEMs such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM. Robyn is an active member of the InSite fellowship program and continues to help with the recruiting process for the student Fellows from Columbia and NYU. Robyn has a B.A. from Middlebury College in Spanish Literature, an M.B.A. in Finance from the New York University’s Stern School of Business, and a Masters in Education from the University of Virginia.