June 2019 Breakfast Program

Lyndsey is an Associate at Better Ventures , a venture capital firm based in Oakland, California that backs mission-driven early stage companies leveraging technology in sustainability, health and access to opportunity.

Previously, Lyndsey spent over a decade in finance and was an Executive Director at UBS in Zurich and Hong Kong where she worked with CEOs and senior management teams across wealth management and investment banking, defining and implementing regional strategy across Asia Pacific. With a passion for social impact she also led global sustainability initiatives including a program working on financial solutions to support the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to her professional career she has spent the last eight years advising and consulting social enterprises in Asia, Africa and the US.

Nicole Demeo is a partner in a fund and senior marketing and communications executive helping funds and companies create clarity in their brand positioning and messaging and develop go-to-market strategies -- to drive revenue, grow their businesses and increase valuation. Nicole is also an accomplished business launch, growth and turnaround expert. As a C-level contributor, go-to-market strategist, and advisor, she also works closely with executive teams to guide strategy and growth. As a Silicon Valley veteran, she's developed strategies and guided companies through multiple phases of their lifecycles for over 20 years. Fueled by her desires to give back, she's also worked with major non-profits.

Nicole has orchestrated over 50 company launches – including four of her own – and has created significantly increased valuations, acquisitions and IPOs. She's served as brand ambassador and marketing strategist for industry leaders such as Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Carly Fiorina (great stories from those experiences.) She's provided business strategy, fundraising expertise, brand positioning, messaging and go-to-market strategies for Fortune 500 companies including Apple, HP and Accenture and has expanded on those roles for many high visibility start-ups including Real Names, When.com, HitFox, Peak Games, EyeEm.

Nicole has held the Chief Marketing Officer positions for Andra Capital and before that Glispa Global Group bridging Europe to global markets working with Earlybird Venture Capital and many fast-growth portfolio companies. She provides C-level strategy as well as advising high growth startups and funds. Nicole is based in the SF Bay Area and with her spare time is delight in making and sharing her wines as the owner of Media Luna Vineyards.

Shaloo Garg is currently Managing Director, Silicon Valley, Southwest region for Microsoft for Startups. She brings a combination of strong startup, enterprise, strategic partnership and corporate development experience. Previously, Shaloo was at Oracle at Global Oracle Innovation where she lead the Global Customer Connect practice of commercializing revenue opportunities for startups into the enterprise client base and partner ecosystem. She has also lead go-to-market for Oracle’s cloud business and was part of the M&A team that acquired Peoplesoft, Siebel, Retek etc.

Prior to joining Oracle, she was in a couple of early stage startups. Shaloo is passionate about education and is a “Champion of Innovation” at UN Women where she is spinning up virtual Innovation Labs with Universities leveraging emerging technologies to encourage digital literacy in developing countries for young girls who do not have access to education. Shaloo strongly believes that technology’s best user case ever is using its power to impact wider social issues like hunger, poverty, STEM education, clean water, energy, sustainable cities etc in developing and under-developed countries She is an MBA from Delhi University and has done specialization in Innovation and Design Thinking from Stanford d.School.

Mr. Hochberg joined CircleUp in 2015 and founded CircleUp’s credit division. He currently oversees all aspects of the CircleUp Credit platform. Prior to CircleUp, Mr. Hochberg spent nearly a decade in the investment management industry across private equity and public-equity disciplines. He was previously a Managing Director at Crestwood Capital Management, a growth-oriented equity hedge fund. Prior to Crestwood Capital Management, Asher evaluated private equity and private credit investments within the Principal Investment Area (PIA) of Goldman, Sachs & Co. Mr. Hochberg received his B.A from Harvard University.