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Event date 19 - 20 July -
Event location New York
2023 Art+Tech speakers
Ester de Nicolas Benito
Ester de Nicolas is a Director of Growth, Strategy, and Innovation serving the Strategic Missions and Technologies division at Microsoft, where she leads a team responsible for creating, incubating and executing new business strategies, categories and offerings on Quantum computing and other strategic investments. In her role, Ester creates new growth scenarios, driving thought leadership connecting vision and technology roadmap. She holds a master’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering specialized in microelectronics and robotics and started her career as a researcher in medical technologies. She has performed different roles in areas such as High-Performance Computing, Open-Source Software, Cloud computing, and Artificial Intelligence both in HP and Microsoft for the last 18 years.
Keith Grossman
Keith A. Grossman, President of Enterprise: Keith Grossman is a global leader in Web3 and the President of Enterprise at MoonPay. Before joining MoonPay, Keith was President of TIME, where he pioneered TIMEPieces, the brand’s innovative NFT collectibles. TIME’s Web3 strategy helped modernize the brand and produce millions in new revenue for the company. Prior to TIME, Keith served as the Global Chief Revenue Officer for Bloomberg Media and the Associate Publisher of both WIRED and Ars Technica.
Joseph Lubin
Joseph Lubin is a co-founder of Ethereum and the CEO of ConsenSys, the leading company in blockchain technology that has been a pioneer in creating the foundational software that makes DAOs, NFTs, and DeFi universally easy to access, use and build on. ConsenSys’ products include MetaMask, the cryptocurrency self-custodial wallet, Infura, the #1 toolkit for blockchain developers and Linea zkEVM. Lubin graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He has held positions as a software and AI consultant, Director of the New York office of Blacksmith Software Consulting, and VP of Technology in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. In 2014 he met Vitalik Buterin and joined the Ethereum Project. After the Project was launched, Joe established ConsenSys. Since 2014 Joe and the ConsenSys team have been working on the foundational software for Web3, the next wave of the internet for a decentralized future.
Beeple
Beeple is Mike Winkelmann, an American artist who does a variety of digital artwork including short films, Creative Commons VJ loops, everydays and NFTs.
In May 2007 he began creating a picture everyday from start to finish and posting it online. This practice has continued for over 15 years and inspired thousands of other digital artists to start their own everydays practice. A collage of the first 5000 days of these images sold at Christies in March 2021 for $69,000,000 making him the 3rd most expensive living artist and kicking off an explosion in the NFT market while exposing digital art to the global community.
In addition to everydays he has also released a series of short abstract impressionist video loops under Creative Commons known as the “VJ clips”. These free-to-use videos have become ubiquitous in the concert visual space and led to work with Justin Bieber, Imagine Dragons, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, One Direction, Zedd and many other artists including artwork for the Super Bowl.
Beeple continues his everyday practice to this day and has also started making hybrid digital/ physical work, the first major work of this practice HUMAN ONE, sold at Christies in November 2021 for $28,000,000 and had it’s museum debut at Castello di Rivoli in April of 2022.
Cathie Wood
Cathie registered ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”) as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2014. With over 40 years of experience identifying and investing in innovation, Cathie founded ARK to focus solely on disruptive innovation while adding new dimensions to research. Through an open approach that cuts across sectors, market capitalizations, and geographies, Cathie believes that ARK can identify large-scale investment opportunities in the public markets resulting from technological innovations centered around DNA sequencing, robotics, artificial intelligence, energy storage, and blockchain technology. As Chief Investment Officer (“CIO”) and Portfolio Manager, Cathie led the development of ARK’s philosophy and investment approach and has ultimate responsibility for investment decisions.
Caroline D. Pham
Caroline D. Pham was sworn in as a CFTC Commissioner on April 14, 2022, after being nominated by President Biden and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Commissioner Pham is an internationally recognized leader in financial services compliance and regulatory strategy and policy, with deep expertise in derivatives and capital markets and emerging issues such as digital innovation. Her substantial experience spans key international issues such as prudential regulation and systemic risk, financial markets including currencies and commodities, fintech and digital assets, ESG, and the impact of major disruptions like the savings and loan crisis, the 2008 great financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Commissioner Pham is the sponsor of the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee.
Isolde Brielmaier
Isolde Brielmaier, PhD, is Deputy Director of the New Museum as well as Guest Curator at the International Center for Photography (ICP) in NYC. Previously, Isolde served for six years as Executive Director and Curator of Arts, Culture & Community at Westfield World Trade Center. Isolde is also Associate Professor of Critical Studies in Tisch's Department of Photography, Imaging and Emerging Media at New York University. Her most recent photography book, I am Sparkling, was released in June 2022. She is also the author of Culture as Catalyst (Fall 2020). She speaks regularly on topics related to art, culture, leadership and social impact. Previously, Isolde has worked for the Guggenheim Museum, the Bronx Museum of Art, and as Chief Curator for the SCAD Museum of Art. She serves on the boards of the Women’s Prison Association (WPA) and the sustainable luxury fashion brand Another Tomorrow, as well as an advisor to Malaika, an all-girls school in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Isolde holds a PhD from Columbia University and lives in New York City.
Laurie Segall
Laurie Segall is the founder of Dot Dot Dot, an entertainment and technology company focused on society and artificial intelligence. Formerly CNN’s senior tech correspondent and a reporter for 60 Minutes, Segall has interviewed the world’s most influential tech leaders including Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook. Segall is the author of Special Characters: My Adventures with Tech’s Titans and Misfits.
Noam Segal
Noam Segal, Ph.D. is the LG Electronics associate curator at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in NYC. Her work centers curatorial practice at the intersection of digital, political, and social representations in contemporary art. Prior to joining the Guggenheim, she was the director of curatorial research in the MA program for curatorial practice at the School of Visual Arts, New York. In that role, she organized the Algorithmic State, an online series of critical discussions that considers the evolution and implications of digital art and new technologies in current sociocultural, political, and ecological settings. Segal has curated exhibitions, biennials, and presented public lectures and programs at several museums and arts organizations across the Unites States, Europe, and the Middle East.
Sam Spratt
New York based Sam Spratt initially received a traditional art education in oils, with a focus on the Great Masters of the Baroque and Renaissance which he has translated into the digital medium. With processural similarities to traditional painting, he layers every small change, or pentimenti, to show the time and struggle through intricate brushwork to extract a human image in an otherwise sterile and clean digital environment. Inspired by our early hominid origins, Solomonic teachings, and the authorless story of pilgrimage, he is creating an episodic and connected world through his story “Luci”. The message is that of rediscovery, namely the rediscovery of the source of human values to surface amidst the soup of an ever-abstracted modern world.
Vignesh Sundaresan
Vignesh Sundaresan, aka Metakovan, is a blockchain technologist. He is invested in exploring the extended and 'alternative’ possibilities of this emerging technology. The rhizomatic decentralised network, conceptually and operationally shapes his approach.
As a collector and as one who commissions artistic productions, he is interested in new media practices and primarily in imagining digital immersive experiences.
In practice he recognizes NFTs as a digital responsibility, to sustain its persistence, to imagine its accessibility and in also finding new ways of activation. He has adopted blockchain technology, over other centralised storage or provenance providers, to shape persistence through self-hosted, peer to peer networks. With growing technological access and data generation, he sees NFTs as ethical chronicles, operating as critical data markers.
Tyler Hobbs
Tyler Hobbs is a visual artist from Austin, Texas who works primarily with algorithms, plotters, and paint. His artwork focuses on computational aesthetics, how they are shaped by the biases of modern computer hardware and software, and how they relate to and interact with the natural world around us. Tyler develops and programs custom algorithms that are used to generate visual imagery. Often, these strike a balance between the cold, hard structure that computers excel at, and the messy, organic chaos we can observe in the natural world around us.
Tyler’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at Unit London and Pace (NYC) in 2023. He is best known for Fidenza (2021), a series of 999 images generated from a single algorithm, which quickly became one of the most sought-after collections of digital art of all time, and has been featured in multiple auctions at Phillips, Sotheby’s, and Christie’s.
Michael B. Greenwald
Michael B. Greenwald is a senior executive for Amazon Web Services serving as the Global Lead for Digital Assets and Financial Innovation. Michael serves as a representative member for AWS of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Technology Advisory Committee. He is is an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Geoeconomics Center and Center for New American Security. He was a former fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was the first U.S. Treasury attaché to Qatar and Kuwait, acting as the principal liaison to the banking sector in those nations for two presidential administrations from 2010-2017.
Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose is the CEO and Co-Founder of PROOF, a collective supporting the current
disruption in the art industry, the Digital Renaissance: a moment when technology is
challenging the traditional landscape of art and commerce through decentralized ownership
and distribution. Founded in 2021, PROOF has built a 10,000+ community focused on the
intersection of art, technology, and innovation.
Kevin has a well-established career as a serial entrepreneur, media personality, and
technology investor. He is known for founding the social news site Digg, the intermittent
fasting app Zero, and was the CEO of Hodinkee. As a General Partner at True and Google
Ventures, he’s invested in companies like Art Blocks, Oura, Blue Bottle, Medium, and Next
Door; and was an angel investor in Twitter, Facebook, and Square. Kevin serves as a partner at
VC firm True Ventures, focusing on web3 blockchain, consumer internet, and health/wellness
startups.
Damara Inglês
Damara Inglês is a Metaverse Designer and Strategist, whose practice includes Digital Fashion, Immersive Experiences, and Postdigital Craft.
Her work delves into the notion of intersectional digitization within the realm of digital fashion, from immersive fashion worlds to augmented-reality lenses.
Alfonso de Gaetano
Originally from Italy, Alfonso de Gaetano has spent the past 15 years in Dubai. After an ankle injury, he made the leap from a professional soccer player to a career in business and technology. He has spent the 12 years at Google, where he was the Director of Google Publishers business across EMEA Emerging Markets. Burgundy is the region that made him first fall in love with wine, and he often makes long drives from Burgundy to his wine cellars around Europe to ensure bottles arrive safely and in perfect condition. Alfonso founded Crurated in 2021 to create a community of fellow connoisseurs that could come together virtually and physically around the globe to discover, learn and acquire wine from the hands of the best domaines themselves.
Alice Delahunt
Alice Delahunt is an industry leader in Digital, Brand Strategy, Marketing and Web3. She founded SYKY, a web3 fashion platform, in 2023 and serves as the company’s CEO. A luxury fashion expert, she began her career in the fashion industry at Burberry as Global Director of Digital & Social, and then transitioned to Chief Digital & Content Officer at Ralph Lauren. Alice is a Non-Executive Board Member of Soho House and a former Retail & Creative Council Advisory Member at Google and Snapchat. She currently serves as a Board Advisor at the Trinity College Business School from where she holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business and Political Science.
Anthony Troisi
Anthony Troisi is the Director of Finance & Operations at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. Prior to joining ICA Miami Anthony spent 20+ years working in commodities and finance between NY and MIA. As an avid supporter of the arts and technology Anthony was invited to spearhead the Museum’s innovation and digital assets projects alongside the Museum’s Artistic Director Alex Gartenfeld.
Blake Lezenski
Blake Lezenski is the Partner Program Director at Outlier Ventures that leads the execution of the FARFETCH Dream Assembly Base Camp program. Having successfully concluded the first edition he is currently guiding the next cohort of 7 startups. Deeply embedded in the global digital fashion network, he established best practices in building program-specific deal flow and unique domain insights into what makes a web3 luxury fashion project successful long-term. Earlier in his career, Blake worked with InnoEnergy VC as an investment manager, where he built a pipeline of cleantech startups, launched Beyond Capital, a consultancy firm advising blockchain founders and helped grow Uber Eats in Central America and the Caribbean.
Adam Levine
Adam M. Levine, the Edward Drummond and Florence Scott Libbey director of the Toledo Museum of Art and a scholar of ancient art, is a transformative leader with a deep conviction that art inspires and museums are change agents. Levine is the 10th director of TMA since its distinguished founding in 1901.
Prior to embarking on his directorship at TMA in 2020, Levine was the George W. and Kathleen I. Gibbs director and chief executive officer of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida. Under his leadership at the Cummer Museum, Levine oversaw numerous strategic initiatives, including the reconstruction of its historic gardens, expansion of its educational offerings and the implementation of innovative membership and audience development programs with dramatic gains in visitorship.
Levine originally joined TMA in 2012 as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, a two-year post-doctoral program designed to prepare the next generation of museum leaders, and went on to increasingly senior management roles at the museum, ultimately serving as deputy director and curator of ancient art. During his six-year tenure at TMA, Levine curated a diverse range of exhibitions, advanced the Museum’s first campus master plan and shared oversight of TMA’s $16 million budget and 250 employees.
Ciara Byrne
Ciara Byrne is the Vice President of New Business Innovation at Condé Nast. She is responsible for developing international businesses and emerging technologies for Condé Nast brands across all markets around the world. Using a design thinking lead process their team develops new businesses from conception through to implementation across direct to consumer and B2B models.
Before joining Condé Nast, Ciara spent five years at Google working across the AdWords, YouTube and Doubleclick teams in Dublin and London.
Ciara earned an International Bachelor of Arts Degree at University College Dublin in English and Philosophy and secured the position to study Philosophy at the Sorbonne IV Paris. She attended UCD Michael Smurfit Business School where she completed a Masters in Management. Ciara also completed a Degree in Piano Performance at the London College of Music.
Ciara sits on the board of British Fashion Council as a Non Executive Director and also on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Metaverse.
Dana Auslander
Dana is an investment management executive with 23 years of experience in product structuring, marketing, fundraising, investor relations and corporate communications. Before spending the last few years in fintech, Dana worked as a Managing Director at Blackstone, Harbinger and with other prominent hedge funds and family offices. She began her career as a lawyer at Schulte Roth & Zabel. Dana has a BA from the University of Vermont and a JD from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Dani Loftus
Daniella Loftus is a Digital Fashion creator, investor and entrepreneur.
The founder and CEO of DRAUP — a platform bringing code to couture — Dani was one of the original movers in the Digital Fashion space.
Beginning in 2020 as the first digital fashion content creator, she became a leading voice in the industry, with insights featured across global media including The New York Times, CNBC, Bloomberg and Vogue.
In October 2021, Dani's ecosystem expertise led her to become a founding member of Digital Fashion investment vehicle RED DAO, with over $6M of Digital Fashion assets under management, including the Dolce & Gabbana DOGE crown.
Dani is now building DRAUP — a Web3 native platform for the next era of luxury fashion. Deploying code to create clothes, with pioneering digital artists, DRAUP's mission is to unite algorithms and artisanship to define high fashion in the digital age.
Eric Diep
Eric Diep is founder of Manifold, an a16z crypto and Initialized Capital company enabling independent creators to publish, sell and own digital content across web3. Manifold smart contracts are trusted by top artists and culture makers, including Beeple, Jay-Z, SiA, and brands such as Adidas AG, Fortune Magazine, and Mercedes AMG. Fine digital art minted with Manifold has been sold at every major global auction house, including Christie's, Phillips, and Sotheby's.
Prior to starting Manifold, Eric was co-founder of A Thinking Ape Entertainment, a top mobile gaming company and pioneer of digital goods, acquired by The Embracer Group based in Sweden. Eric studied math at University of Waterloo in Canada.
Erick Calderon
Erick Calderon is a Houston, TX based blockchain entrepreneur fully immersed in the NFT space. Erick has dedicated himself to exploring functional use cases for NFT technology, specifically in the art sector. In November of 2020 these explorations culminated in the development and subsequent launch of the generative art NFT platform, Art Blocks, and the release of his own NFT project, the Chromie Squiggle.
Greg Scanlon
Greg Scanlon is a managing principal of Franklin Templeton Blockchain Venture Capital.
Greg brings 15 years of institutional-grade investment experience that includes fundamental and quantitative risk management of equities and equity derivatives. At the strategy level, he is focused on using data to scale the VC process and math to optimize portfolio construction. Fundamentally, Greg focuses on infrastructure and interoperability. With experience running validators, cold storing assets, and accessing/analyzing data on multiple blockchains, he understands the engineering and architecture of blockchain.
He is a mentor at the NYU entrepreneurial institute. Prior to joining FT, Mr. Scanlon was a senior quantitative trader at Citadel. He is ex-Karsch Capital Management and ex-Orange Capital. He is a CFA charterholder since 2009 and obtained a BSBA in Accounting from the University of Richmond [2005] and a MS in Data Science from NYU [2020].
Hannah Siegel-Gardner
For the last twenty years, Hannah has been guiding brand strategy for causes and companies. Her biggest joy is people, place, and story together to shape magical experiences that stretch the imagination. She currently resides in Houston with her husband and three kids.
Jason Silbergleit
Jason Silbergleit is the Vice President for IBM Research Business Development and Quantum Sales. In this role he leads a global team responsible for scouting, incubating, and executing Hybrid Cloud and AI research technology engagements with commercial enterprises. These engagements can include licensing of existing research technologies as well as joint development of new capabilities. In addition, Jason leads the global IBM Quantum sales team responsible for enabling IBM clients access to the world’s most advanced quantum computing platform and skills.
Jason and his team support over 3,000 researchers across the global IBM Research organization who contribute substantially to IBM’s innovation and organic growth. The offering portfolio includes Artificial Intelligence (inclusive of Generative AI), Hybrid Cloud, Quantum, and Security . Jason and his team have structured several important initiatives, including by way of example the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and the IBM-Cleveland Clinic Discovery Accelerator along with many industry collaborations.
Jeffery Fowler
A longtime personal fan of Hodinkee and how it shaped the world of watches, Jeffery joined the team as CEO in March 2022 to lay the groundwork for the brand’s future growth. Prior to Hodinkee, Jeffery served as President of the Americas and a member of the Executive Team at Farfetch, the leading global technology platform for the luxury fashion industry. In this position, he played a key role in Farfetch’s growth, building brand awareness, customer experience, and increased market share with brand and boutique partners. Before Farfetch, Jeffery garnered extensive experience working in the retail, e-commerce, and luxury fashion/consumer sector with leadership roles at LVMH (Louis Vuitton & TAG Heuer), Richemont (Cartier), and Tesla.
Jeremy Fox-Geen
Jeremy Fox-Geen is Chief Financial Officer of Circle, a global financial technology company that enables businesses to harness the power of digital currency and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications. Circle is the issuer of USDC, the leading regulated US dollar payment stablecoin. He also leads Circle Ventures and corporate development.
Prior to Circle he was CFO at leading innovative real estate finance companies iStar (NYSE: STAR) and Safehold (NYSE: SAFE). He previously served as CFO at McKinsey & Co. North America, and as a leader in the financial services consulting practice, helping clients craft compelling strategies, build effective and efficient organizations, create value, and manage risk. He began his career as an investment banker, including covering the internet and technology sectors during the dot com era.
Kathleen McKeown
Kathleen R. McKeown is the Henry and Gertrude Rothschild Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University and the Founding Director of the Data Science Institute, serving as Director from 2012 to 2017. She is also an Amazon Scholar. In earlier years, she served as Department Chair (1998-2003) and as Vice Dean for Research for the School of Engineering and Applied Science (2010-2012). A leading scholar and researcher in the field of natural language processing, McKeown focuses her research on the use of data for societal problems; her interests include text summarization, question answering, natural language generation, social media analysis and multilingual applications. She has received numerous honors and awards, including 2023 IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastructure Award, American Philosophical Society Elected member, American Academy of Arts and Science elected member, American Association of Artificial Intelligence Fellow, a Founding Fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics and an Association for Computing Machinery Fellow. Early on she received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, and a National Science Foundation Faculty Award for Women. In 2010, she won both the Columbia Great Teacher Award—an honor bestowed by the students—and the Anita Borg Woman of Vision Award for Innovation.
Lukas Amacher
As managing director of the 1OF1 collection, Lukas Amacher runs one of the premier NFT enabled digital art collections in the world. 1OF1 takes an activist approach to the work it collects, supporting forward thinking artists and institutions focussed on art in the digital age. In collaboration with Christie’s 1OF1 curated the Cartography auctions, two curated digital art sales to benefit MAPS, held in 2022 and 2023. Works from the 1OF1 collection have recently been involved in projects with Castello di Rivoli in Italy, the MoMA in New York or M+ in Hong Kong.
Maghan McDowell
Maghan McDowell is the Senior Innovation Editor at Vogue Business, where she leads its coverage of technology and innovation, and is on the advisory board for Condé Nast’s Web3 team. She is the author of the weekly Technology Edit newsletter, known for identifying the key drivers of the future of fashion and retail, and offering digestible insights on which technologies matter. She has become a leading expert on fashion’s role and opportunity in the metaverse and Web3. Before joining Condé Nast, McDowell reported for publications including W, Marie Claire, San Francisco Chronicle and Business of Fashion, and was the first technology reporter for WWD.
Marion Maneker
Marion Maneker has covered the international art market for more than 25 years. He has written about the art market and other topics for New York Magazine, The New York Times, the New York Sun, GQ and other publications. He was a Features Editor at New York Magazine and publisher of HarperCollins’s business imprint where he worked with Alfred Taubman, Jack Welch, Louis Gerstner, and David Rubenstein among other leading figures. He was recently President and Editorial Director of Penske Media Corporation’s ARTnews and Art in America. He is also the founder of the Art Market Monitor website and currently hosts and produces the Artelligence podcast and Artelligence newsletter, a global publication on the value of art.
Matthew Richmond
I am a designer & educator. I co-founded the digital design studio Chopping Block, which went on to produce award-winning work for a variety of global clients. In 2014 I joined the incredible Adobe Design team. As Senior Director of Pro Products I lead a global multidisciplinary team of ridiculously ingenious designers responsible for a handful of flagship and next-generation Digital Imaging, Photography, Video, and 3D tools within Adobe's Creative Cloud. With two plus decades of experience leading design teams, product strategy, and vision. I cultivate happy/healthy teams that design, build, and launch exceptional creative products that make a meaningful global impact. When I'm not working, I'm a dad, husband, professor (School of Visual Arts), photo nerd, and New Yorker.
Michael Figge
Michael Figge is the Emmy Award winning Chief Creative Officer at Yuga Labs, where he leads creative development across some of the world’s biggest and most impactful NFT projects - Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherside, Cryptopunks, Meebits, and 10KTF. In 2010, Figge co-founded Possible, a creative design practice based out of Los Angeles, where he designed over 200 arena and stadium- sized venues for the world’s most impactful shows that influence culture– like the VMAs, Billboard Music Awards, Coachella, and the Super Bowl halftime show, as well as the biggest musicians in the industry, including Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, and more. For over a decade, Figge grew Possible into a creative design practice with offices in Los Angeles and New York, charting new courses for brands creatively. In 2020, Figge led his team to an Emmy Award winning production in Shanghai, where they built the world’s biggest extended reality stage using Unreal Engine. In 2021, Figge seamlessly blended the worlds of eSports and luxury fashion, bringing to life a partnership with Riot Games and Louis Vuitton, ultimately becoming the Lead Creative for Louis Vuitton’s first ever mobile game (Louis The Game). In 2021 he co-founded and served as CEO for WENEW, where he authored 10KTF, featuring web3’s most beloved digital craftsman, Wagmi-san. In November 2022 Yuga Labs acquired WENEW, a deal which merged the best talent in web3. Today Figge is one of the leaders at Yuga, trailblazing web3 storytelling, experiences, and community, connecting brands across industries.
Nadav Hollander
Nadav is the Chief Product Officer at OpenSea. Nadav oversees all new product development and deployment at OpenSea. Prior to OpenSea, Nadav was the CEO & Co-Founder of Dharma Labs (acquired by OpenSea). At OpenSea, he has also served as CTO. Dharma Labs was a cryptocurrency lending platform and digital wallet capable of seamlessly moving money between any U.S. bank account and decentralized exchanges. Before founding Dharma, Nadav was a software engineer at Coinbase.
Noah Davis
Noah joined Yuga Labs as Brand Lead for CryptoPunks in June, 2022. Before that, he was the Contemporary Art Specialist in charge of NFT sales at Christie's, where he led the auction of Beeple's EVERYDAYS in March 2021.
Osinachi
Osinachi (b. October 24, 1991) is a digital artist born in Aba, Nigeria. The first crypto artist out of Africa, he has been in the NFT space for about six years now, making his artworks in Microsoft Word even before the advent of the blockchain.
A believer in building a bridge between Web3 and traditional art spaces, Osinachi has collaborated with several players in the art industry and beyond; and has facilitated the discovery of other artists through his work in curation.
Named as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans for 2022 by New African Magazine, his work can be seen in the collections of the following institutions/collectors: Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Museum of Crypto Art (MoCA), Artnome, WhaleShark, Batsoupyum, and Tokenangels, among many others.
He is currently engaged in a pioneering digital art residency at The Toledo Museum of Art, with the involvement of other strategic partners.
Paul Becker
Paul is an art entrepreneur, passionate about increasing access to art and building a better (art) world.
Art Money is a global fintech empowering people to buy art, building a sustainable creative economy that supports art buyers, artists and art sellers. In early 2023, Christie’s, through Christie’s Ventures, made an equity investment in Art Money for a non-control minority stake.
Representative Ritchie Torres
Representative Ritchie Torres is a fighter from the Bronx who has spent his entire life working for the community he calls home. Like many people in the Bronx, poverty and struggle have never been abstractions to him, and he governs from a place of lived experience. Ritchie’s mother single-handedly raised him, his twin brother, and his sister in a public-housing project. She paid the bills working minimum-wage jobs, which in the 1990s paid $4.25 an hour. While Ritchie grew up with mold, lead, leaks, and no reliable heat or hot water in the winter, he watched the government spend over $100 million dollars to build a golf course across the street for Donald Trump. In 2013, at the age of 25, Ritchie became New York City’s youngest elected official and the first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to office in the Bronx. Ritchie currently lives in the Bronx and represents NY-15 in Congress. He is a member of the Committee on Financial Services and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
Sandy Kaul
Sandy Kaul is senior vice president, Franklin Templeton, providing advisory consulting for the firm and thought leadership as part of the Franklin Templeton Institute. She delivers actionable intelligence and insights on the future of the investment and wealth management industry for the firm and its clients. Ms. Kaul has cultivated deeply informed insights and has an extensive background in driving market-leading research, thought leadership and predictive models centered on the evolution of the investment and wealth management industry. She identifies and champions opportunities to address industry advancements and drive transformation, with a focus on innovative distribution trends and digital disruption. She delivers strategic insights to inform the firm’s decision-making on partnerships and investments, including within Franklin Templeton's growing digital asset business.
Sarah Conley Odenkirk
Sarah Conley Odenkirk is a Partner at Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard, LLP, and Co-Head of the Art Law practice group, with a core practice in art, and emerging technologies. She is Co-Head of the Beverly Hills, California office. She is also licensed in New York, Oregon, Washington, and D.C.. Sarah represents clients in matters pertaining to art and intellectual property; business affairs and strategic planning; public art and policy; and Web3.0/Web3; AI and machine learning. Sarah is an Adjunct Professor at University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law where she teaches Art Law. Sarah sits on the Board of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Board of Directors for Fulcrum Arts; and the Advisory Council for the Arts at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Sarah is a frequent speaker and published author, and wrote "A Surprisingly Interesting Book About Contracts for Artists and Other Creatives.”
Sebastian Will
Sebastian Will is a quantum physicist and a professor of physics at Columbia University. He is working to control individual atoms as a resource for modern quantum applications, including quantum sensing, quantum simulation, and quantum computing. In his lab—the coldest place in New York—he and his team have pioneered techniques to cool atoms down to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. The Will Lab can then capture these ultracold atoms one-by-one and utilize their quantum properties. In addition to his research, Sebastian is co-leading a consortium to realize the New York Quantum Network and is broadly engaged in outreach efforts to share insights into the intriguing world of quantum physics. Sebastian has received the MIT Infinite Kilometer Award, the Columbia RISE Award, the NSF Career Award, and is a Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
ThankYouX
ThankYouX began his artistic journey on the streets of Los Angeles spray painting stencils in homage to Andy Warhol. His unique aesthetic has captured the attention of the art world and earned him international acclaim. ThankYouX has exhibited his work in London, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. Recently he has gained renewed attention for his contributions to the NFT space. A passionate advocate for new technology platforms, ThankYouX started working in the medium of NFTs in 2020, and he has quickly become one of the leaders in the space, bridging the gap between the traditional art and crypto worlds.
Thomas McLeod
Tom McLeod is a 5x serial entrepreneur. Currently he is building Arkive, the world’s first distributed museum curated by the people.Prior to Arkive he was the CEO and Founder of Omni (exited to Coinbase in 2019).Along with a passion for tech and the arts, Tom has a dedicated interest in service and supporting diverse communities. He sits on the board of the Camelback Ventures as well as advising numerous founders and startups.
Tom Jessop
Tom Jessop is the President of Fidelity Digital Assets. In this role Tom is responsible for daily business operations while directing the company’s long-term vision to create full-service brokerage capabilities for native digital assets and tokenized securities. Tom joined Fidelity from Chain, a leading provider of enterprise blockchain solutions to global financial institutions, where he served as president. Prior to joining Chain, Tom was global head of Technology Business Development at Goldman Sachs where he led efforts to invest in and partner with early stage technology companies across several domains including blockchain, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Tom was also a founding member of and senior leader in Goldman’s Principal Strategic Investments group (PSI). In this role he managed a global team focused on investments in exchanges, e-trading platforms, post-trade networks, and other fintech solutions. From 2008 to 2012 he built and led PSI’s Asia-Pacific efforts out of Hong Kong. In 2015 he was named to Institutional Investor’s inaugural “Fintech Finance 35” list. Tom holds an MBA in Finance from New York University and a BA in Economics from The College of the Holy Cross.
Yayoi Shionoiri
Yayoi Shionoiri is an art lawyer who supports artists. She serves as Executive Director to the Estate of Chris Burden and the Studio of Nancy Rubins, where she is responsible for stewarding Burden’s art historical legacy and promoting Rubins’s artistic practice. She also serves as U.S. Alliance Partner to City Lights Law, a Japanese law firm that represents creators, innovators, and artists; an Outside Board Director to Startbahn, an art x blockchain company that is attempting to bring greater reliability to transactions in the art ecosystem; and as Legal Advisor to KLKTN, a startup focused on engendering community through NFTs. In the past, Yayoi has served as General Counsel to Artsy, Associate General Counsel of the Guggenheim Museum, and Legal Advisor to Takashi Murakami. She has degrees from Harvard University, Cornell Law School, and Columbia University. Yayoi has written about, and presented throughout the world on, legal issues related to art NFTs and AI, and ethics related to new technology. She serves as a Board Director to the Asia Art Archive in America and an Advisory Panelist to the Serpentine Gallery’s Legal Lab.
Effie Epstein
Effie is the Managing Partner of Sound Ventures, an LA-based venture capital firm founded by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary. She joined Sound Ventures in 2016 and has brought a multi-disciplinary approach to the firm. In her role, Effie leads investing, strategy and the day-to-day management of the firm. With more than $700 million under management and 200 portfolio companies, Effie and her partners have been at the helm of six top quartile funds. Prior to Sound, Effie led Global Strategy at Marsh, a multi-billion dollar division of financial services firm Marsh & McLennan (NYSE: MMC). She's also held leadership positions across media, tech and financial services. Effie was SVP of Planning and Head of Investor Relations at iHeartMedia, as well as Head of Business Development and Strategy at CLEAR. Earlier in her career, Effie was part of Merrill Lynch’s Global Energy and Power Investment Banking group as well as the Global Strategy team at NYSE Euronext. Effie earned her BA from University of Texas in Austin and her MBA from Harvard Business School. Effie lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.
Greg Gottesman
Greg Gottesman is the co-founder and CEO of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio, and co-founder and Managing Director of PSL Ventures. He was one of the three founding Managing Directors of Madrona Venture Group, where he served for 20 years. On behalf of PSL, Greg currently sits on the boards of Boundless, Ever.green, Joon, and Kevala. He is the co-founder, former CEO, and current board member of Rover (NASDAQ: ROVR) and the founder of Madrona Venture Labs. Greg serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering Department and Business School where for the last 22 years he has taught a popular class about entrepreneurship. He is the author of three books. Greg graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors and distinction from Stanford University, with honors and distinction from the Harvard Business School (MBA), and with honors from Harvard Law School (JD), where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. When not working, Greg regularly injures himself playing non-contact sports and loves spending time with his wife Shannon, three children, and family dog Jordie. He believes the Slurpee is the best drink ever invented.
Julia Hartz
Julia Hartz is co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, responsible for the vision, strategy, and growth of the company. Under her leadership, Eventbrite has become a global self-service ticketing, marketing, and experience technology platform that serves a community of nearly one million event creators around the world. Julia is focused on cultivating a culture centered around the company’s mission to bring the world together through live experiences. She has been honored as one of Inc.'s Female Founders 100, Fortune's 40 Under 40 business leaders, Inc.'s 35 Under 35 and Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs.
Micael Barilaro
Micael Barilaro is VP Metaverse Ventures at Gucci. In this role he is responsible to further scale the House activities within the fast-developing Metaverse and gaming environments. Barilaro joined Gucci in 2010 and has since then held roles of increasing responsibilities in different departments, up to directing the New Businesses Gaming & Collectibles team, helping to shape the brand’s approach to collectibles, augmented reality, gaming, and digital entertainment. Team’s motto? GG, Good Game – of course. Before joining Gucci, Barilaro had previous work experiences at different international advertising agencies, often advocating – as digital evangelist – for the digital transformation of traditional marketing and communication strategies.
Susannah Shipton
Susannah is a Partner at AlleyCorp, focused on tech investments and incubations with an emphasis on marketplaces, ecommerce, and consumer-facing software and products. Prior to AlleyCorp, Susannah was Director of Strategy & Operations at Artsy. Susannah graduated from Princeton, where she was also captain of the women’s varsity rowing team.
Daouda Leonard
Daouda Leonard, CEO of CreateSafe, Inc., an AI design and development studio building digital asset management protocols and tools for artists at scale. After 15 years of working on production teams for artists like Lady Gaga, Kanye West and Justin Bieber as well as managing businesses for artists like Grimes, Skrillex and DJ Snake, Daouda started CreateSafe to build software products for artists and managers to build and scale their business. Daouda has worked as a manager, publisher, producer, A&R and creative director throughout his career in the music industry. His education and corporate work experience brought him to places like Northeastern University, Tudor Investment and MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he learned about Computer Science, Management Information Systems and how to build computers for stock and equities traders.
Grimes
Claire Boucher is the producer of the alter ego Grimes and an award-winning music video director, as well as a music writer, artist, producer, engineer and singer-songwriter. The world got its first glimpse of this vision on her 2010 full-length debut, “Geidi Primes,” which drew its inspiration from Frank Herbert’s “Dune.” Her sophomore outing, “Halfaxa,” followed the same year. Over the course of three weeks, 2012’s “Visions” came to life in her apartment and would be recorded solely on GarageBand. 2015 marked a commercial breakthrough on “Art Angels.” It appeared in the Top 5 of year-end lists by Pitchfork, Billboard, Consequence of Sound, The New York Times and Rolling Stone, in addition to being named Album of the Year by Stereogum, NME and Exclaim! In 2018, she made another conscious evolution, turning back to formative influences, such as Tool and Nine Inch Nails for inspiration — a style first hinted at on 2016’s “Suicide Squad” soundtrack contribution, “Medieval Warfare.” In 2020 she released “Miss Anthropocene,” a concept album about an anthropomorphic goddess of climate change, which received rave reviews. The album title stems from the words Misanthrope, “a person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society,” and Anthropocene, “the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.” In 2021, she set the NFT world on fire with the release of WarNymph Collection Vol 1 By Grimes x Mac. The collection contains 10 artworks, including a unique video work set to original music composed specifically for the project. Additionally Grimes appeared as a judge on Fox’s virtual avatar competition show, “Alter Ego.” Through the character of WarNymph and her decentralized AI girl group NPC, Grimes explores the fluidity of identity in the virtual age: the ability to create, augment and splinter ourselves into unlimited avatars.
Maaria Bajwa
Maaria Bajwa is an investor at Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary's Sound Ventures, where she oversees all blockchain and crypto investing. She has invested in blockchain companies like Chainalysis, Sardine, Zapper, and XMTP. In addition to leading crypto investing at Sound, Maaria is a co-founder of Stoner Cats, the first animated show to use NFTs as a distribution mechanism. Following Stoner Cats, she worked on The Gimmicks, an animated series co-created with NFT owners that launched on Solana last year. She was also on the inaugural board of ApeCoin, a top 30 market cap token for NFT communities including BAYC. While on the board, she pushed forward public good initiatives including funding of the ETH Global hackathons which introduce thousands of new developers to blockchain technology. Maaria also publishes a weekly newsletter called Crypto Weekly, which she has been writing since 2017.
Ivan Daashkov
Ivan leads PUMA’s exploration into new marketing technologies. He’s charged with taking the 75-year-old brand into new digital frontiers. As Head of Emerging Marketing Tech, Ivan has onboarded PUMA into new gaming and metaverse experiences such as Roblox, NBA All-World, and PUMA’s Black Station. Additionally, he has launched multiple successful NFT projects and established PUMA as a leading brand in the space. Before focusing on emerging tech, Ivan was PUMA’s Digital Culture Creative Director and led the brand’s use of new creative executions and adoption of new platforms such as TikTok. Before joining PUMA, Ivan worked on social and digital initiatives for the NBA, pushing the league into new spaces - at the time - such as Reddit, Vine, Snapchat, and Musical.ly.
Mario Klingemann
Mario Klingemann is an artist who uses algorithms and artificial intelligence to create and investigate systems. He is particularly interested in human perception of art and creativity, researching methods in which machines can augment or emulate these processes. Thus his artistic research spans a wide range of areas like generative art, cybernetic aesthetics, information theory, robotics, feedback loops, pattern recognition, emergent behaviors, neural networks, cultural data or storytelling. Mario is also the creator and guardian of Botto, an autonomous decentralized AI artist which, steered by its community, has created and sold NFTs for over 2.5 million US$ since its inception in fall 2021 and currently ranks among the top-5 artists on SuperRare. He was winner of the Lumen Prize Gold 2018, received an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2020 and won the British Library Labs Creative Award 2015. He was artist in residence at the Google Arts & Culture Lab and has been recognized as a pioneer in the field of AI art. His work has been featured in art publications as well as academic research and has been shown in international museums and at art festivals like Ars Electronica, the Centre Pompidou, ZKM, the Barbican, the Ermitage, the Photographers' Gallery, Colección Solo Madrid, Nature Morte Gallery New Delhi, Residenzschloss Dresden, Grey Area Foundation, Mediacity Biennale Seoul, the British Library and MoMA. He is represented by Onkaos, Madrid and DAM Gallery Berlin.
Christopher Shonk
As the oldest of eight children, Chris started his first business at fourteen and has been financially self-sufficient from that day on. Chris served in the US Army to provide money for college and attain leadership and strategic execution skills from the world’s most elite operators. He won the highly prestigious Special Operations Soldier of the Year award in 1996 and worked as an analyst at Merrill Lynch to begin his post-military career. Chris cofounded Virtus Financial Group (now Virtus Real Estate a $4B private equity fund) and served as managing director of the private equity unit. Chris sold his interests in 2006 and cofounded EZ Money Pawn bringing technology and ecommerce to the secured lending and pawn business. There after he cofounded Sneaky Games and was also their lead investor taking that to a successful exit via an Initial Public Offering. He is an active angel investor and mentor to other entrepreneurs and was a founding member of the Central Texas Angel Network and on their board for the first two years. Chris is currently a Co-Founder of ATX Venture Partners based in Austin, Texas. ATX is a premier early-stage venture fund and co-invest platform servicing the Central US. ATX has over $600 million in assets under management with two consecutive top quartile funds. Known as a numbers-based operator Chris is a sought-after director and advisor in the technology and venture industries, currently serving on the boards of: Protopia, Slingshot Aerospace, Pensa Systems, QuotaPath, AtomicFi, MacroFab and GoCo.
Jeff Staple
Jeff Staple (born Jeffrey Ng) is a creative visionary whose work encompasses graphic, fashion, and footwear design; as well as brand marketing. He is the founder of REED ART DEPARTMENT where he has worked on countless creative projects for clients ranging from startup brands to Fortune 100 companies. In 2022, Jeff celebrated the 25th anniversary since founding STAPLE in 1997, the NY-based pioneering streetwear brand with the now infamous “Pigeon” logo. In 2001, Jeff founded the experiential lifestyle retail store, REED SPACE. Jeff continues to traverse into new territory in the web3 space as founder of STAPLEVERSE — a new digital world based on everything he has learned in the past quarter century as a cultural leader. He shares professional advice as one of the top instructors on SKILLSHARE (the leading online learning platform) and he is host of the “Business of Hype” podcast on HYPEBEAST, as well as “Do Process” on Coinbase. In addition to his work as a creative, Jeff is a trusted voice in the business world, where he is a frequent moderator, lecturer, and keynote speaker at industry panels and conferences. Jeff Staple continues to expand his “Positive Social Contagion” worldwide, going on over two decades and counting.
Megan Kaspar
Megan Kaspar is an emerging technology investor and co-founder and Managing Director at FirstLight, a privately held digital asset, blockchain agnostic and technology investment firm. Ms. Kaspar is a founding member of Red DAO, the world’s first digital fashion focused DAO. Red invests in the emergent opportunities arising from dematerialized fashion and apparel trends, powered by blockchain technology. To date, Red DAO holds the most valuable fashion NFT, the Dolce & Gabbana Doge Crown purchased for 423.5 ETH. As a leader in wear-to-earn, Ms. Kaspar actively advises projects and brands, such as Digital Twin, EZU and 0xBrands in implementing blockchain-based augmented reality, AI generated digital fashion and digital twinned products enabling W2E activation models. Named “The Fashion Industry’s Greatest Disruptor” in 2022 by Haute Living in the January Miami issue, Kaspar was the first person to wear digital fashion from a luxury fashion brand, Fendi, on a publication cover. In October 2021, she was the first person to wear NFT digital fashion on live broadcast TV during a Yahoo! Finance segment. Ms. Kaspar is a SYKY Mentor, a Farfetch x Outlier Ventures Luxury Fashion Accelerator Mentor and currently sits as an web3 advisor to Miami Fashion Week. She constructed MIAFW’s metaverse activations during their scheduled calendar 2022 Resort Collection show. Under Ms. Kaspar’s advisory, the organization became the first CFDA globally recognized fashion week to participate in Metaverse Fashion Week.
Nick Adler
Nick Adler has spent his career at the intersection of entertainment and technology. Upon graduating with his JD, Adler began his career co-founding the Woodstock Film Festival and worked as an attorney in Manhattan for a number of years. After honing his skills in the legal realm, he relocated to Los Angeles, California and transitioned into television production and talent management. As a founding member of Stampede Management and Cashmere Agency in 2009, Nick led Business Development efforts for the company and its clients. Over the course of a decade, Nick helped to grow the business into a multi-million dollar enterprise with over 100 employees, before leaving to pursue new projects in Web3, cryptocurrency and the NFT space. Nick is an investor and advisor for a number of high-profile companies and luxury brands across the fintech and entertainment industries. Nick has also been a longtime business partner to Snoop Dogg, serving as a pivotal figure in growing him into a global icon. Nick is currently the co-founder and CEO of technology enabled fashion brand, MNTGE.
Diana-Luk Ye
Diana is the Head of Strategic Accounts at World of Women, where she spearheads strategic partnerships with WoW's key partners. With a focus on Luxury, Fashion, Beauty, Sports and Entertainment, Diana leverages her strategic consulting, partnerships and start-up background to drive iconic collaborations and products. WoW's recent partnership with FC Barcelona -- a 1/1 Masterpiece honoring the world's top female soccer player, Alexia Putellas and women's empowerment in sports -- sold for 162 ETH (over 300K USD).
Madeleine Pierpont
Madeleine Pierpont is a creative-innovator working at the intersection of art, technology, and web3. Driven by her desire to facilitate meaningful engagement with cultural and material aesthetics, she curates, strategizes, and produces art/tech projects across the digital and the physical. She leads web3 projects at the Museum of Modern Art.