Startups

MindShare is getting 64 DC CEOs in the same room

A look at the tech company leaders selected to participate in the latest class of the 20-year-old program.

Osage Venture Partners is looking to Washington, D.C. for deals. (Photo by Flickr user @ricricciardi, used under a Creative Commons license)

A group of more than 60 D.C. tech company CEOs will meet throughout the year as members of the latest class of MindShare.

The group was initially founded in 1997. Before incubators and regular tech events, the initial founders saw a need to provide a place in the greater D.C. area for entrepreneurs leading emerging companies to connect and learn from each other.

“They met with founders of companies that were starting businesses but really hadn’t been business leaders before,” said Steve Balistreri of Deloitte, who joined later and serves on the executive committee.  The first-time CEOs, he said, “didn’t realize that there was a community of folks out there doing exactly the same thing.”

Along with introducing community, MindShare also set out to teach the entrepreneurs how to become CEOs. It provides a yearlong curriculum covering a host of business areas, like raising money, sales and marketing, building teams and more, said , who is on the executive committee. Eight sessions are held throughout the year with a mix of speakers and other content, Balistreri said.

The program has continued with a new group each year since starting more than 20 years ago. It’s grown through the network, as well. CEOs in each cohort must be nominated by members within the alumni network, which now has more than 1,000 CEOs.

This year, the group received 200 nominations and picked a total of 64 CEOs to participate. There are plenty of names we recognize like Matt Caywood of TransitScreen, Amelia Friedman of Hatch Apps, Tiffany Jones of Distil Networks, Emily McMahan of Capitol Post, Marcus Bullock of Flikshop and Grant Elliott of Ostendio. But that’s by no means the complete list. Scroll through below to see the full list of participants:

  • Ali Allage, Boost Labs
  • Joshua Anton, X-Mode Social
  • Erik Ayers, GoodSeeker
  • Jeremy Barnes, Copiri
  • Jennifer Bisceglie, Interos Solutions
  • Christian Bonilla, UserMuse
  • Michael Brett, QxBranch
  • Marcus Bullock, Flikshop
  • Michael Canty, ARC
  • Matt Caywood, Transit Screen
  • Renee Dunn, Amazi Foods
  • Grant Elliott, Ostendio
  • Rachel Everett, Viderity
  • Joe Falit, Yombu
  • Jeffrey Fissel, KZO
  • Matt Forkas, GoMix
  • Chris Freire, Student Opportunity Center
  • Amelia Friedman, Hatch
  • Krishna Guda, Scientia Mobile
  • Adam Gross, RightEye
  • Chibs Ihenacho, ARMR Systems
  • Tisha Jepson, True Bearing Diagnostics
  • John Jolly, Syncurity
  • Tiffany Jones, Distil Networks
  • John Kaufhold, Deep Learning Analytics
  • Thomas Lah, Cognier Technology
  • Ken Lee, VanGogh Imaging
  • Ghazenfer Mansoor, Technology Rivers
  • Emily McMahan, Capitol Post
  • Vivek Mehta, AR Inspect
  • Suman Mishra, Umviia
  • David Moehring, IonQ
  • Michael Mok, Aida Health
  • Kimberly Moore, Go Together, Inc.
  • Nakul Munjal, Status Identity
  • Matt Nisley, Eagle
  • Enam Noor, Insightin Health
  • Beau Oliver, TECH2000
  • Chris Olson, The Media Trust
  • Brian Overland, Prolegis
  • Sam Owen, Otolith Labs
  • Leo Pareja, Remine Joe Saunders, RunSafe Security
  • Jake Schaufeld, Real Time Cases
  • Hammad Shah, Specialists on Call
  • Jignesh Shah, Rybbon
  • Neil Shah, Aspire
  • Param Shah, FusiForm
  • Chris Simkins, Hashlit
  • Harold Smith, Monkton
  • David Stillman, ExecVision
  • Alan Sullivan, Alchemy Data
  • David Sullivan, Till
  • John Swigart, Pie Insurance
  • Umar Syyid, Buckit
  • Rashin Taheri, Koantum
  • Azim Tejani, Yasabe
  • Jeff Tennery, Moonlighting
  • Michael Therrien, Cherry
  • Daniel Turner, TRAXyL
  • Tobin Van Ostern, Savi
  • Brent Williams, Euclidian Trust
  • Gabriel Wimmer, RobotsNOW
  • Yulia Yaani, Real Atom
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