AlchemistX: Innovators Inside

Who is Tiffani Alvidrez? Tiffiny joined Instacart as its Public Policy Manager after a dazzling career in government that began in the California state legislature as Chief of Staff to the California State Senate to Holly J. Mitchell. She also served as policy analyst to the California Department of Transportation and Drug and Alcohol Programs and special assisted in the California governor's office.  Today, AXII!

Who is Andi Mann? Andi was an analyst at Enterprise Management Associates and went on to be a VP in the office of the CTO at CA Technologies, where he was responsible for product strategy and marketing. From there, he went to a spectacular term at Splunk as CTO of DevOps which led to now where he is Chief Technology Officer at Qumu. Today, Innovators Inside!

Who is Mark Pesce? Mark is the host of the award-winning podcast The Next Billion Seconds, a columnist for The Register & the co-inventor of VRML. He's also the author of six books and was an entrepreneur in residence at Incubate Sydney University. He founded postgraduate programs in Digital and Emerging Media at the University of Southern California and the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School. And now, AXII!

Who is Mayra Ceja? Mayra is currently head of Business Development and Partnerships for HubSpot and the podcast host of www.VentureUnpluggged.com. She received her MBA from Wharton and her BA from Princeton, where she spent nine years as president of the Princeton Entrepreneurs Network and led 21 Investments for Princeton University's first seed fund.  With a knack for leadership, she is energized and inspired when advising VCs and startups in a way to facilitate their highest growth.  It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to Mayra Ceja!

Who is Fernanda Bordin? Fernanda is the Senior Manager for Innovation at Gerdau Next. The new business arm of Gerdau, the largest producer of long steel in Latin America. Before coming to Gerdau, Fernanda worked with open Innovation and data analytics at NASA via the laboratory of Innovation Science at Harvard and managed the business incubation program at Mercedes-Benz R&D North America.  And now, AXII welcomes her to the community!

Who is Jez Humble? Jez works in Site Reliability Engineering at Google and teaches at UC Berkeley. He previously co-founded the amazingly influential DevOps Research and Assessment, DORA. And co-conducted the annual State of DevOps Report. Before that was stints at 18F, the legendary Obama-era federal agency that modernized several digital services and thought works.  Get ready to meet Jez!

Who is Shige Ihara? Shigeto is the president and CEO of NEC X launched in 2018 by NEC Corp, formerly Nippon Electric Company. NEC X is a Palo Alto-based business incubator that fast-tracks technologies and business ideas selected from inside and outside NEC. Not only is AlchemistX working with them on their current accelerator batch, but we got Shige on our show! You're going to love Shige!

Who is Kathy Chill? Kathy Chill is a business development powerhouse. She spent 10 years at Citrix where she grew the SAAS business from 30 million to half a billion dollars - making Citrix one of the 10 biggest SAAS companies on Earth. But that was just the first act of a distinguished career. Kathy went on to found the awesomely named, Chill Strategic Partners, where she helps companies around the world accelerate time to market. Her clients include everything from early stage startups to established public and private enterprises. She provides both strategic guidance and hands-on operational support to folks launching new products in new markets. Kathy's particularly good at helping clients evaluate and capitalize on new market opportunities - the very core of Corporate Innovation.  What a delight to have her indeed!

Who is Laura Merling? Laura Marling is the Digital Transformation Officer Automotive for Google. Before joining Google, she was Managing Director and Chief Digital Officer for Slalom, providing business and product strategy to multi-billion dollar companies in technology, transportation, energy, cpg, retail, healthcare, and education. She served as Chief Digital Officer for Collins Aerospace and Vice President, Digital Products for Ford and AT&T.  Of course we had to get her on the show, she's awesome!

Who is Jesper Frederiksen? Jesper Fredrickson was president of research and development for Danaher. Since then Jesper has served as Chief Innovation Officer at Banfield Pet Hospital, at Mars company, and then at Mars Veterinary health care. Today he is VP and Digital Executive for Velux, a Danish manufacturing company. Jesper attended INSEAD at the Syed School of Business at the University of Oxford. And now, AXII!  You're going to love this one!