Our Mentors
Grow alongside experienced founders. Founders Network is made up of 600+ startup founders with guidance and valuable connections to fuel your seed-stage startup's success.
Peter Imburg is the Founder and CEO of Elfster, everyone’s favorite service for secret santas, wish list sharing, and trending gift ideas. With over 26 million registered members, Peter has profitably scaled his company to $200 Million in gross merchandise sales with no outside funding.
In 2001, Peter Imburg began his startup journey with a simple mission, to simplify gift giving and gift exchanges during the holiday season. More than two decades later, his company Elfster has grown into a global community of 17 million users, with $200 million in gross merchandise sales.
Scaling Elfster to profitability with no outside funding was no easy feat. In order to navigate the challenges and hurdles, Peter had to evolve as a founder and leader. In his keynote, Peter will reflect on how his upbringing set the backdrop for life as a founder. He’ll also reflect on how challenges while building the company enabled him to grow and gain the self awareness he needed to succeed.
Neha Sampat is a three-time tech founder and CEO. As a non-technical person in a technical world, her passion is helping brands build composable digital experiences at the speed of their imagination. She is currently pioneering the leading Composable Digital Experience company, Contentstack, and has raised $169M in total capital over the past three years for her mission.
Giles became the CEO of Cint in April 2023. He was the founder and former CEO of Brandwatch, a digital consumer intelligence company, and led it from its inception for over 15 years. While at Brandwatch, Giles steered the company through a successful merger and integration with Crimson Hexagon, a US-based AI-powered consumer insights company that was its nearest competitor. In 2021, Brandwatch was sold to Cision, a global public relations software company, and Giles went on to become Cision’s Chief Growth Officer.
Giles is a seasoned leader with extensive experience in senior and non-exec positions at fast-growth global technology companies. He is a regular speaker at social media conferences and podcasts. He serves on the Industrial Advisory Board for Sussex University as well as being a school governor.
Born in Monterrey, Mexico, Domingo Guerra moved to the US at 18 to pursue his passion for technology. After working as an engineer at Applied Materials and a program manager at Brocade, he pursued his lifelong dream of starting a company. In 2011, he co-founded Appthority, a mobile cybersecurity startup which became the market leader in app security. Domingo served as President until 2018 when Appthority was acquired by Symantec. Domingo then led the go-to-market strategy for Symantec’s Endpoint Security division. Today, Domingo is the EVP of Trust at Incode, and continues to work with technology startups, as an advisor, investor, and board member.
Domingo holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Santa Clara University. He’s been granted 15 patents across the semiconductor, robotics, and cybersecurity industries.
Adam Cheyer is an inventor, entrepreneur, engineering executive, and a pioneer in AI and computer human interfaces. He currently serves as VP of AI Experience at Airbnb.
Adam has been a co-founder or founding member of five successful startups, including Siri (sold to Apple, where he led server-side engineering and AI for the Siri assistant), Change.org (the world’s largest petition platform), Viv Labs (sold to Samsung, where he led product engineering and developer relations for Samsung’s voice assistant), Sentient (massively distributed machine learning), and GamePlanner.AI (helping the world make better decisions, acquired by Airbnb).
Previously, Adam was VP Engineering at Verticalnet (enterprise software) and Dejima (mobile software). Adam also spent more than a decade at SRI International, where his most recent role was as Chief Architect of CALO/PAL, the US government’s largest funded AI project.
Adam has authored more than 60 publications and 39 patents. He graduated with highest honors from Brandeis University and received the “Outstanding Masters Student” award from UCLA’s School of Engineering.