Our teams
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Ventures
Ajay Singh
Senior Director, Ventures
Ajay Singh
Senior Director, Ventures
Ajay Singh is a Senior Director at Samsung NEXT Ventures. Based in Silicon Valley, Ajay focuses on early stage investments in software and services, particularly in artificial intelligence and emerging tech areas such as augmented reality and virtual reality. Ajay has over 12 years of investment and operational experience with venture firms, startups and small and large companies. Ajay graduated with BS in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, JD from Northwestern University School of Law and MBA from Kellogg School of Management.
Alex Hong
People Partner
Alex Pae
Associate, Mergers & Acquisitions
Alex Pae
Associate, Mergers & Acquisitions
Alex Pae is an Associate on the Samsung NEXT M&A team based in New York City where he is currently responsible for sourcing and executing acquisitions and investments. Alex was previously at IAC/Interactive Corp. where he focused on corporate M&A and venture investments. He began his career as an Investment Banking Analyst with Citigroup's Communications team. Alex earned a B.S. in Engineering from Columbia University.
Alexander Haque
Manager, Partnerships
Alexander Haque is an accomplished startup founder, speaker & innovator having built Retinad - the world's first VR/AR analytics platform. He helped Retinad go from zero to one, securing the first customers, funding & employees. In 2018 he sold Retinad to LumiereVR, transitioning to COO and helping lead the transformation of the company by securing partnerships with Madison Square Garden, the Canadian Film Center, and more. Prior to forging his path in the VR/AR space, Alex helped build & scale the McGill Dobson Center for Entrepreneurship at McGill University. Notably, he started & instructed the Lean Launchpad program for first-time founders and entrepreneurs, which is still running today.
Alicia Garabedian
Associate, Ventures
Alicia is an Investment Associate at Samsung NEXT Ventures based in Silicon Valley. She focuses on investments in consumer, digital health and enterprise SaaS. Before joining Samsung NEXT, she was an associate at HIVE Ventures where she invested in early-stage startups in SaaS, IoT, and Robotics. Prior to HIVE, Alicia was at Morgan Stanley, where she specialized in Impact Investing in public and private markets. She is passionate about working with Armenian entrepreneurs, D&I and social impact. Alicia has global experience working in London and Paris; she graduated Magna Cum Laude from DePaul University in Finance and International Business.
Antonio Key
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Antonio is a deal lead on the Samsung NEXT M&A team. He assists NEXT in the evaluation and execution of acquisitions and strategic investments, focusing primarily on software and services. His coverage areas have included Augmented Reality, AI, IoT, Digital Fitness and Mapping. Prior to NEXT, he served as an investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he specialized on Tech M&A for public and private companies. Antonio has an MBA from The Wharton School and a BA from Stanford University.
Bhavna Kumar
Senior Manager, Global Growth and Operations
Bhavna enables Samsung NEXT to enter burgeoning startup ecosystems around the world by evaluating markets' fit with NEXT, designing our go to market strategy, sourcing investment opportunities, creating strategic alliances with VCs, universities, and governments, and operationalizing new offices. Given NEXT’s global ambition (already with offices in Silicon Valley, New York, Tel Aviv, Suwon, and Berlin), Bhavna is also working to unlock strategic value for our portfolio companies, through the interconnectedness of our global locations. Bhavna is specifically passionate about startups taking advantage of their local 'moats' by creating locally relevant solutions with global scaling potential. She is also a champion for women in VC and corporate and believes it is her job to elevates women’s roles by providing active mentorship to women around the world.
Before joining Samsung NEXT, Bhavna worked at Citi Ventures where she helped launch Citi’s first corporate incubator and co-founded two homegrown startups by leveraging her expertise
in fintech, emerging markets, and customer development and observational research. Bhavna is an entrepreneur by nature and started her first business at age 15. She speaks three languages and has lived and worked in 6 cities around the world. Bhavna holds a BSc in economics from Purdue and an MBA from Georgetown.
Brandon Hoffman
Manager, Innovation
Brendon Kim
VP, MD, Global Head of NEXT Ventures and NEXT Offices
Brendon Kim
VP, MD, Global Head of NEXT Ventures and NEXT Offices
Brendon Kim has been investing in early stage startup companies for over 20 years. He is currently VP, MD, Global Head of Samsung NEXT Ventures and NEXT Offices. The Ventures team invests in compelling early stage software and services startups, bringing the power of the Samsung platform to accelerate their growth. Samsung NEXT is a global organization with offices in key startup ecosystems around the world. Prior to joining Samsung, Brendon was a co-founding general partner of Altos Ventures where he was a lead investor and board member in numerous early-stage software and service companies. Before co-founding Altos Ventures, he was a strategy and management consultant in the media, consumer and technology industries. Brendon received his MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and his AB from Princeton University.
Carla Perez-Vera
Events & Sponsorship Lead
Carla leads global events and sponsorship for Samsung NEXT where she develops conceptualization of our activations and executes sponsorship with multiple partners. Before joining Samsung NEXT, Carla was the global special events manager for Techstars, leading all their global summits and special event activations such as Startup Stage at CES. Carla received her bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain. Prior to her career in events, Carla worked as a journalist at various leading media corporations in Spain such as Unidad Editorial and EFE.
Carlos Cabrera
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions Integration
Carlos Cabrera
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions Integration
Carlos Cabrera is a member of the Samsung NEXT Strategy and M&A teams. Carlos drives strategy projects to foster innovation and to identify the “next big thing” for Samsung. He is also part of the M&A team where he is responsible for finding and acquiring innovative software and service startups and successfully integrating them into Samsung to maximize impact. Prior to joining Samsung, he worked as a Consultant at Capgemini in the Telecom and Media industry. Carlos holds a BEng and a MSc in Telecommunication Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and an MBA from the Wharton School
Chloe Seo
Manager, Product
Chloe Seo
Manager, Product
Manager at Samsung NEXT Korea, Chloe focuses on actualizing synergy opportunities between NEXT's innovative products and Samsung's current businesses. She is passionate about driving and maximizing the impact for Samsung through NEXT's innovation, and her primary goal is to unlock the strategic value of both teams through bridging one another. Prior to joining Samsung NEXT, she spent 4 years at Samsung's TV division, managing the product line-up strategy and marketing communication for the North America TV market. She holds a BA in English Literature at Yonsei University.
Chris Kurdziel
Principal, Ventures
Chris Kurdziel
Principal, Ventures
Christina Bechhold Russ
Director, Ventures
Based in London, Christina is a Director for Samsung NEXT Ventures, focusing on early stage investments across software and services, particularly in Mobile SaaS, mobility, consumer and IoT. A passionate supporter of young entrepreneurs, Christina is active in both the London and New York VC scenes, with multiple transatlantic investments already under her belt.
Dan Kim
Senior Manager, Ecosystem & MarComms
Senior Manager at Samsung NEXT Korea, Dan focuses on supporting the Korean startup ecosystem to take a step closer to maturity and creates an environment to provide more collaboration opportunities with Samsung’s business units. Before joining Samsung NEXT, he was in charge of BD and sales of Set-Top Box for Visual Display Business. He holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and an MA in International and Public Affairs from the University of Hong Kong.
Dane Howard
Global Head of Design, Product
Dane Howard
Global Head of Design, Product
Dane leads Design & Product for the NEXT Product teams. From early-stage narratives to full end to end product experiences, Dane and his team design for our growing products and services worldwide.
Dane has over 20 years experience growing & leading teams for both start-ups and big companies. He co-founded a start-up which was acquired by eBay in 2008. He has played principle design and leadership roles for Microsoft, BMW, Major League Baseball, Scient, Quokka Sports, NBCOlympics, eBay, and Trov. He is named in over 20 patents for his collaborations and inventions.
He is also an author, often speaking on design & culture transformation.
Daniel Lim
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Danny Carvajal
Head of Enablement, Product
Danny is the Head of Enablement for the NEXT Product team. Based in Miami, he is focused on cultivating a strong and healthy product development organization. His team provides program and project management support, agile coaching, and streamlines our portfolio management operations. Danny has led teams at both large Fortune 100 corporations as well as hyper growth startups. He graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in management.
David Eun
President; Chief Innovation Officer, Samsung Electronics
David Eun
President; Chief Innovation Officer, Samsung Electronics
David Eun has a dual role as President of Samsung NEXT and Chief Innovation Officer of Samsung Electronics. Samsung NEXT works with startups to identify and develop software and services that will complement Samsung’s leading hardware footprint through early-stage investments, product development, partnerships, and acquisitions capabilities. As Chief Innovation Officer, David is responsible for developing a long-term vision for Samsung Electronics and driving future growth opportunities for the company. Prior to joining Samsung, David served as President of AOL Media and Studios, and Global Head of Content Partnerships at Google after developing new digital businesses as a venture capitalist and executive at Time Warner and NBC Entertainment. David is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
David Park
Director, Strategy
David Park
Director, Strategy
David Park is a Director of Strategy at Samsung NEXT. Based in New York City, he is responsible for developing strategies and projects aimed at transforming Samsung into a SW and Services leader in growth markets. These projects ultimately guide the work of Samsung NEXT, sparking investments, partnerships and M&A. Within Samsung NEXT, David has initiated projects spanning across Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Gaming and more. David holds a B.S in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in Economics from Virginia Tech and an MBA from INSEAD.
Deborah Conway
Associate, Ventures
Deborah Conway
Associate, Ventures
Deborah is an Investment Associate at Samsung NEXT Ventures. She focuses on sourcing investments in urban tech, media, and identity. She is a 2019 SAFE Energy Fellow, and a member of the inaugural Steering Committee for The Grid. Before joining Samsung NEXT, Deborah worked in a BD and strategy role for a social media and mapping startup, Visor Inc., and for a real estate startup, StreetEasy (acquired by Zillow Group, 2013). Deborah is a graduate of Harvard University, where she served as a member of the Women’s Ice Hockey Varsity Team for four years.
Donghoon Lee
Manager, Ventures
DH is a Manager on the Samsung NEXT Ventures team based in Korea, where he is currently responsible for investing in Korean/Asian startups and finding strategic alliance opportunities for portfolio companies. DH began his career at Samsung Electronics, where he worked as PM under AR/VR Product Strategy team. He earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Columbia University.
Elyssa O’Hara
Recruiting Coordinator, People Ops
Emily Becher
SVP, Global
Emily Becher
SVP, Global
Emily Becher is SVP, Samsung NEXT, and Head of Global. Emily brings an extensive media and technology background, most recently serving as Co-Founder of mobile travel startup, Travlist. As SVP & GM at AOL, Emily led a dozen commerce and classified businesses. Prior to AOL, Emily worked at Yahoo! as a category development officer and also previously served as director of Hearst New Media Ventures. Emily began her lifelong passion for technology as an OpenDoc evangelist for Apple Computer. Emily holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford University.
Emily Koster
Communications
Emily leads day-to-day internal and external communications for Samsung NEXT and advises portfolio companies on their public relations strategies. Prior to joining Samsung NEXT, Emily cut her teeth on the PR agency side, consulting to a mix of Fortune 500 companies and the technology startups that challenge their thinking. Emily received her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and spent her junior year in Havana, Cuba. In 2016, she pivoted for five months to hike the Appalachian Trail; it's had a profound impact on her approach to all aspects of life.
Eyal Miller
VP, Managing Director, Ventures
Eyal Miller
VP, Managing Director, Ventures
Eyal Miller is the Managing Director and CEO of Samsung NEXT Tel Aviv, which offers tailored support to startups at every level, from idea to scale. As an expert in entrepreneurial businesses and corporate development, Eyal specializes in early-stage venture development, strategic initiatives and strategies for scaling startups. He was featured in Business Insider as one of the The Most Influential Israelis in Tech Worldwide 2014 and in The Marker Magazine as one of The Most Influential Israelis in Tech 2013. Prior to joining Samsung, Eyal co-founded the Google Campus in Tel Aviv, and served as Head of New Business and Corporate Development for Google Israel and a member of the EMEA Business Development team. He holds his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management and an MBA from Recanati School of Business at Tel Aviv University.
Eyal Shavit
CTO & Global Head of Engineering, Product
Before joining Samsung NEXT, Eyal was the CTO at Sports Illustrated Play (acquired by NBC), a Sports technology platform for youth and amateur sports. Eyal was also the Chief Product Officer focused on Innovation at Deluxe, the largest provider of post-production technology for major movie studios and online services such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple.
Before Deluxe, Eyal played key Engineering roles at companies such as Tagged, IdleGames and Macrovision where he managed worldwide Engineering for an internationalized Game syndication and Commerce platform, servicing over 250 affiliates including major portals such as Yahoo! Games worldwide, AOL Games, Disney and Earthlink.
Eyal brings 20 years of experience in Artificial Intelligence, building products at scale, hiring top talent and growing teams in-house and distributed worldwide. He took part of multiple successful acquisitions on both sides of the transaction and has helped build over 30 international systems and products serving at times over 300MM users.
Eyal holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence). M.Sc. in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) and B.Sc. in Computer Science & Mathematics.
Gary Coover
General Manager, Silicon Valley
Gary Coover
General Manager, Silicon Valley
Gary Coover is the Head of Operations at Samsung NEXT International, located in New York, San Francisco, Tel Aviv and Berlin. Gary has spent the last 10+ years architecting and launching scalable structures and growth-generating opportunities for early-stage startups and large multinationals. Gary originally joined the Samsung NEXT founding team in Korea where he helped create the broader Samsung NEXT organizational strategy. As Head of Operations, has helped launch and scale Samsung NEXT Start internationally, create new funding programs, drive internal and external BD efforts, and develop and run all operating processes. Prior to joining Samsung, Gary worked as a consultant at Navigant Consulting and co-founded a modular watch startup (Modify). Gary is based in San Francisco and holds a B.A. in Economics from Santa Clara University and an MBA from University of California Haas School of Business.
Gus Warren
Managing Director, Ventures
Gus Warren
Managing Director, Ventures
Gus Warren is a Managing Director at Samsung NEXT Ventures and the General Manager of Samsung NEXT NYC. Gus focuses on early stage investments in software, services, and media with a particular emphasis on "consumer empowerment": technologies and business models which give consumers more control of their data, attention, and time.
Prior to Samsung, Gus was a Venture Partner at FirstMark Capital and Co-Founder and COO of Disconnect, a leading consumer privacy software company. Prior to FirstMark and Disconnect, Gus spent 4 years as a VP, SVP, and GM at Spot Runner, a digital video advertising platform whose investors include Battery Ventures, Index Ventures, and CBS. Prior to Spot Runner, Gus was at Granite Ventures and Time Warner Ventures, where his portfolio included InfoGear (acquired by Cisco), Speakeasy (acquired by BestBuy), Digital Fountain (acquired by Qualcomm), Arroyo Video Solutions (acquired by Cisco), BigBand Networks (acquired by Arris Corporation), and SkyStream Networks (acquired by Ericsson Television).
Earlier in his career, Gus was VP of Marketing and Business Development at NetMarket (acquired by Cendant) and Product Manager at Internet Profiles (acquired by Engage Technologies). Gus graduated with a BA in Government from Cornell University and serves on the advisory board of Red Bear Angels, a network of alumni that invest in Cornell-affiliated start-ups.
Haley Lancaster
Associate, Platform
Haley Lancaster
Associate, Platform
Hamid Dalglijli
Senior Manager, Strategy
Hamid is a Senior Manager overseeing strategy and product initiatives at the Korea-based Samsung NEXT team. Before joining Samsung NEXT, he was a member of the Samsung Global Strategy Group. Before Samsung, he worked at Deloitte and Google. Hamid earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, as well as MA and BA in Economics from Baku State University.
Harry Yoon
Director, Ventures
Director at Samsung NEXT Korea, Harry invests in early stage startups in collaboration with Samsung NEXT investment team. In his daily life, Harry focuses on investing in Korean/Asian startups and finding strategic alliance opportunities for startups in Samsung NEXT investment portfolio. Prior to joining Samsung NEXT, Harry was in charge of BD in the Global Alliance Group in Samsung Electronics Mobile Business. Prior to Samsung, Harry spent years in the Software industry as an engineer and PM. He holds an MBA from Texas Austin University and a BS(CS) from Seoul National University.
Hyungchul Shin
Director, Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions
Hyungchul is a Director on the Samsung NEXT BD, M&A team. He is responsible for leading the execution of acquisitions and partnerships which benefit Samsung Electronics in diversifying its global business and shaping the future. Before joining Samsung, Hyungchul spent seven years at Standard Chartered Bank as an M&A advisor and three years at Macquarie Securities as a research analyst. Hyungchul holds a BS in Economics from Seoul National University.
Iskender Dirik
Managing Director / General Manager, Europe
Jacklyn Trejo
Operations Manager, Ventures
Jacklyn Trejo
Operations Manager, Ventures
Jacklyn is the Operations Manager for Samsung NEXT Ventures. She focuses on deal flow management, portfolio support, financial reporting, and process improvement. Jacklyn holds a BA from Stanford University and an MS from Imperial College London Business School.
Jacopo Lenzi
SVP, Finance and Corporate Development
Jacopo Lenzi
SVP, Finance and Corporate Development
As Senior Vice President, Jacopo Lenzi is responsible for running Samsung NEXT’s overall operations, including overseeing Finance, HR, Legal, Marketing, and Communications. Jacopo joined Samsung NEXT in 2013 to establish its M&A effort, which he managed until 2017. Before joining Samsung, Jacopo served as Vice President and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions and Strategic Partnerships at Walmart eCommerce. Prior to that, Jacopo held a variety of roles within Corporate Development and Corporate Strategic Alliances at eBay. He has also worked in strategic consulting with McKinsey & Co. and investment banking at Lazard Freres & Co. Jacopo has an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BA from Columbia University.
Jaemin Lee
Senior Manager, Ventures
Jaemin is a Senior Manager on the Samsung NEXT Ventures team based in Korea, where he is currently responsible for investing in Korean/Asian startups and finding strategic alliance opportunities for portfolio companies. Before joining Samsung NEXT, Jaemin was at Samsung Mobile responsible for building new content and services products for Smartphones and Tablets. He earned his MBA at Columbia University and a BA in Communications from Sogang University.
Jairaj Sounderrajan
Head of Sales & Marketing, Product
Jairaj Sounderrajan
Head of Sales & Marketing, Product
Jakob Fricke
Director of Platform Business Development
As Director of Platform Business Development for NEXT Europe, Jakob is interested in providing value-added services, offering both guidance to portfolio companies looking to expand to Europe as well as the facilitating collaborations with the Samsung ecosystem.
Jamie Choi
VP, Head of Samsung NEXT Korea
As Corporate Vice President of Samsung NEXT Korea, Jamie oversees day-to-day operations of the Korea team and is responsible for representing Samsung NEXT in its mothership. Joining Samsung Electronics, she spearheaded major M&A transactions of Samsung NEXT and expanded her role in securing executive decisions on Samsung NEXT innovation initiatives. She is a seasoned investment banker with 10+ years of experience. Prior to joining Samsung, she served as a Vice President of Goldman Sachs Investment Division. Jamie has a master in international business from Yonsei University and a BA from Syracuse University.
Jason Koo
Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Jason Koo
Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Jason is a Manager on the M&A team based in Korea. Jason started his career at Samsung Electronics in the Visual Display finance team before joining Samsung Next. Prior to Samsung, he served as an interpreting officer in the Korean Air Force. He earned his BA in Mathematics and Economics from Whitman College.
Jeff Chen
Chief of Staff to President
Jeff Chen supports President David Eun in his office as leader of Samsung NEXT and Chief Innovation Officer of Samsung Electronics. As part of his work, Jeff provides guidance on business strategy and operations for Samsung NEXT. He came to Samsung NEXT from Amazon where he leveraged AI to optimize sales for 3rd party Marketplace sellers. Prior to Amazon, Jeff ran business planning and operations for the global Yahoo Media group. He was also part of an internal startup at Thomson Reuters that launched Reuters Insider, a streaming video product for finance professionals. Jeff received an MBA from NYU Stern and a BS in Electrical Engineering from UCLA.
Jenny Hofmann-Otake
Office & Operations Manager Europe
Jenny, based out of Berlin, is the Office Manager for Samsung NEXT Europe. Playing a crucial role in the establishing and running of operations out of the European hub, Jenny also acts as a first point of contact for visitors and team members alike.
Jeyoung Maeng
Senior Manager, Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions
Jeyoung Maeng
Senior Manager, Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions
Jinho Kim
Senior Manager, Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions
Jinho Kim
Senior Manager, Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions
Jinho is a Senior Manager on the Samsung NEXT M&A team based in Korea. He previously worked on the Computer Vision R&D team at Samsung Mobile before joining Samsung NEXT. Jinho holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS in Computer Vision, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University.
Jiun Kimm
Head of Diversity & Inclusion
Jiun Kimm is the Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Samsung NEXT. Based in New York, Jiun is focused on strengthening internal support and programming for underrepresented groups across NEXT’s offices, and providing thought leadership and strategy to increase NEXT’s engagement with underrepresented founders and businesses serving marginalized communities around the world. Jiun has over 10 years of diversity and inclusion experience in education, philanthropy, and tech. She has a BS in Economics from Wesleyan University, a Master’s from Hunter College through the Teach For America program, and is a trained social justice facilitator.
Joan Kim
Strategy Manager
Joan is a Strategy Manager at Samsung NEXT. Based in Silicon Valley, she is responsible for developing strategies and projects aimed at transforming Samsung into a global SW and Services leader. Prior to NEXT, Joan worked in a corporate strategy and investments role for sketch-to-scale manufacturing leader, Flex, and spent time as a ratings analyst for Moody’s Investors Service. Joan holds a B.S. in Hotel Administration and a Minor in Real Estate Finance from Cornell University.
John Yim
Senior Manager, Product
John Yim
Senior Manager, Product
John Yim is in charge of product management and business development at Samsung NEXT Korea. Before joining Samsung NEXT, he was responsible for the Smart TV strategy in Visual Display and new business development efforts in other divisions. Before Samsung, he was in NCSoft and also worked as an IT consultant in the SW industry. John holds an MBA at the University of California at Irvine and a BS in computer science from Boston University.
Jonathan Tepper
VP and General Counsel
As Vice President and General Counsel, Jonathan Tepper overseas Samsung NEXT’s legal practice, including its M&A, investments and partnerships activity, as well as its SmartThings subsidiary. Before joining Samsung, Jonathan was an investment banker with Citigroup and a corporate attorney with the international law firms of Clifford Chance and Skadden Arps. Jonathan received an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley – Walter A. Haas School of Business, a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and a B.A. from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor – Honors College.
Jordan Hoffner
VP, Head of Partnerships, Strategy & Innovation
Jordan Hoffner
VP, Head of Partnerships, Strategy & Innovation
Jordan Hoffner is an accomplished media executive, innovator and change agent with over two decades of digital media, traditional media and technology experience. He is the global lead of strategy, innovation and partnerships for Samsung NEXT. Prior to Samsung, Jordan was the CEO of Salon Media Group where he led the turnaround, restructure and sale of the iconic pioneering, award-winning news site, Salon.com. Prior to joining Salon Media Group, Jordan served as CEO of Federated Media, a Media General company and leader in native advertising, ad technology and influencer marketing for digital and TV. He has held senior level strategy and business development roles at Google and YouTube. While at YouTube, Jordan led the content partnerships and business development teams in the Americas for YouTube where he was able to secure deals with nearly all of the major media companies, news organizations and sports leagues. In addition, Hoffner accepted the company’s 2008 prestigious Peabody Award for YouTube’s involvement with CNN in presenting a new format for the Democratic National Debates as well as promoting a free exchange of ideas expressed in video formats around the world. After YouTube, Hoffner was on the founding leadership team for the IAC entertainment venture Electus in partnership with former NBC Entertainment president, Ben Silverman, where he held the role of President of Digital. In addition, Jordan is an entrepreneur and angel investor having started and incubated multiple businesses in the media and technology sector. He began his career as an accomplished NBC News producer before moving to the business side of the company and taking on roles as Director of Corporate Development, General Manager of NBC Weather Plus and VP, Digital Studios at NBCUniversal. He earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Vassar College and a MBA in finance from NYU's Stern School of Business. He currently sits as a council member for the nonprofit organization Common Sense Media. Hoffner is based in San Francisco with his wife and three children and is active in the community by volunteering in youth sports, elder care and education reform.
Lily Chen
Chief of Staff, Product
Lily is currently Chief of Staff to the SVP Head of Product, Travis Bogard. Previous to jumping into the Chief of Staff role, Lily was a part of Samsung NEXT's Global Strategy team, where she led several initiatives, ranging from IoT Cybersecurity to new opportunities for Visual Display to Samsung NEXT's China market expansion efforts. Lily has cross-border strategic and operational experience from her time at UberChina in Beijing. In addition, she is fluent in Mandarin, is licensed to practice law in NY, and has dabbled as a Wall Street debt analyst. She holds a BA in English and Economics from Duke University, and earned her J.D. from UCLA School of Law. Lily is mission-driven, people-oriented, and passionate about leveraging creativity, curiosity, and discipline to find paths to change and improve the way humans experience and use technology.
Mia Manantan
Community Lead
Mia is the Community Lead based in New York and focuses on developing and maintaining relationships with key players in the NY tech ecosystem as well as planning and executing community events and programming that align with our focus areas. She also helps cultivate NY's internal office community by running a program that helps local startups, hosting various team building events, celebrating milestones, and supporting tech forward initiatives. Mia holds a B.S. in Health Care Management with a concentration in Public Health and Advocacy from New York University.
Minah Lee
Senior Manager, Ecosystem & MarComms
Minah is a Senior Manager on the Ecosystem and MarComms teams based in Korea, where she is currently responsible for building ecosystem programs and increasing brand awareness for Samsung NEXT. Minah previously worked on the Digital Marketing team at Samsung Mobile and has over ten years of marketing experience working with startups to large corporations. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA of Communications from Seoul National University.
Nick Nigam
Principal, Ventures
In his role of Principal at Samsung NEXT Ventures Europe, Nick focuses on early stage investments and acquisitions of startups. Whilst heavily involved in the establishing and building out of the Samsung NEXT Europe team, Nick is keen to change the image of CVC’s and has already worked on the investing and acquiring of startups such as LiquidSky, Spatial, AdGear, Unbabel and Grover.
Patrick Chang
Director, Ventures
Patrick Chang
Director, Ventures
Patrick Chang is an early stage investor at Samsung NEXT Ventures. He primarily focuses on seed to series B enterprise / B2B investing and specializes in security, AI, enterprise/industrial IOT, blockchain 2.0, distributed computing and more. Prior to Samsung, Patrick was at Foundation Capital with a focus on SaaS and enterprise software. He has over 12 years of experience investing in enterprise software including IT security, infrastructure, developer tools, business intelligence/analytics and more ranging in various stages from seed to growth equity at Bain Capital Ventures, Investor Growth Capital, New York Angels and Updata. Patrick is also a recovering tech investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers, where he helped public and venture backed technology companies raise capital and execute M&A transactions.
Raymond Liao
VP, Managing Director, Ventures
Raymond Liao
VP, Managing Director, Ventures
Raymond Liao is a Managing Director at Samsung NEXT Ventures. Based in Silicon Valley, Raymond looks for early-stage startups with fundamental technology innovations, with special interests in Security/Privacy, Machine Learning, and Enterprise IoT. Previously Raymond was the founding CTO of Siemens Industrial Communications business in Germany. He joined Siemens TTB in Berkeley to bring external innovations by spin-in, investment and partnership. Some of his success cases led to the market-leading industrial WLAN business for Siemens, and were featured in Siemens Annual Report and Harvard Business Review. In his past life, Raymond was a productive researcher with over 20 academic publications and 10 issued patents. He received Ph.D. from Columbia University with the Eliahu Jury Award.
Ricardo Mendez
Technical Director, International
As NEXT Europe’s Chief of Technology, Ricardo splits his time between supporting the NEXT Ventures team, seeking out and reviewing new startups for potential investment and the NEXT Platform team. Here he takes an active role on helping startups, both from our portfolio and from the community at large. As one of our in-house mentors, Ricardo also gives his time to the NEXT Europe “Office Hours” mentoring sessions in Berlin.
Royi Benyossef
Manager, Ventures
Royi Benyossef
Manager, Ventures
Royi Benyossef is the ecosystem relations manager at Samsung NEXT TLV, an early stage investment and innovation arm that focuses on software and services. Royi is also an Android Google expert since 2013 with a vast experience as an Android evangelist on stages that included Google I/O, AppsWorld, DroidCon, CodeMotion, BABBQ and more. Prior to joining Samsung, Royi was the Android group leader at Vidmind where he managed a multinational group of engineers in designing and building Android clients for Vidmind's OTT platform as well as proprietary Android based Smart TVs and STBs with Hisense.
Ryan Lawler
Content
Ryan Lawler
Content
Sam Gu
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Sam is a Senior Manager on the BD and M&A team based in Korea. Before joining Samsung NEXT in 2014, he worked on product planning and global partnership management in Samsung Mobile and IT Solutions Business for ten years. He earned his B.A. in Public Administration from Yonsei University.
Sarah Cho
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Sarah Cho
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Scott Armanini
NEXT Platform Business Development Advisor
Scott Armanini
NEXT Platform Business Development Advisor
Stefano Invernizzi
Senior Director, Head of Strategy
Stefano leads projects that direct the work of Samsung NEXT, with the ultimate goal of transforming the way Samsung operates and does business. From designing a new, long-term vision on how Samsung can create value for our customers, to addressing day-to-day questions coming from NEXT teams building innovative products, working on M&A deals, and partnering with Ventures to develop common investment theses.
Stefano has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Degree in Economics and Management from Universita’ Bocconi (Italy).
Stuti Sanketh
Head of Business Ops
Stuti Sanketh
Head of Business Ops
Tandy Cheng
Associate, Mergers & Acquisitions
Tandy Cheng is an Associate on the Samsung NEXT M&A team based in Silicon Valley. He is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and executing acquisitions and investments. Prior to NEXT, he was an investment banker at Alantra where he advised technology companies on M&A and capital raising transactions. Tandy holds a BA from New York University.
Thomas Choi
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Thomas Choi
Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions
Thomas is a Senior Manager on the BD and M&A team based in Korea, where he is currently responsible for finding strategic partnership opportunities. He began his 15 years career at Samsung Electronics, where he worked in a variety of roles across multiple divisions within HQ. He earned his MBA at Indiana University Kelley School of Business and BA in Business Administration from Sogang University.
Tim Casio
Senior Director, Mergers & Acquisitions
Tim Casio is a Senior Director of M&A based in New York City. Prior to joining Samsung NEXT Tim spent 12 years at Honeywell focused on aerospace and defense electronics and software. He holds a BS from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Tracy Hinds
Head of Platform
Tracy Hinds
Head of Platform
Tracy is the Platform Manager at Samsung NEXT. She is using her passion for startup engagement, cultivated in her prior work as a web engineer, community builder, and strategist to build a service platform that provides portfolio companies resources, value-added services, tools, and access that leverages the unique strengths of Samsung to help teams succeed and scale. Tracy holds a B.S. in Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina and serves on the Node.js Foundation Board of Directors.
Travis Bogard
SVP, Head of Product
Travis Bogard
SVP, Head of Product
Travis joined Samsung NEXT in late 2017 as the organization’s first Head of Product. In under two years, he has built the product organization from 1 person to more than 200 distributed team members around the globe. Under his lead, the teams are building across many product areas to solve problems around decentralized computing, spatial experiences and Food AI, with products such as Dis.co and Whisk. He is a purpose-driven product leader who is passionate about the opportunity for technology to solve real problems, to make life easier, and to enable people to live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. Prior to joining Samsung NEXT, Travis held a number of roles in the product development space, including leading product and business as the Global Head of Uber for Business and driving Jawbone’s hardware, software and services portfolio as the VP of Product Management and Strategy.
Vincent Tang
Principal, Ventures
Vin Tang is an investor at Samsung NEXT. Previously, he was as a machine learning engineer with Clarapath/New York Genome Center after earning his degree from Carnegie Mellon. In his spare time, he builds flying and talking machines, and mentors at NYU's AI NexusLab, 37 Angels, and TechStars.
Vivian Lovett
Assistant General Counsel
Vivian Lovett
Assistant General Counsel
Yonatan Machado
Director, Ventures
Yonatan Machado
Director, Ventures