Team Members

Gordon Hoffstein

Gordon founded and has served as Chief Executive Officer of five companies. These companies have included Be Free, PCs Compleat, and Microamerica. As CEO, Gordon has overseen the acquisition of 13 companies and negotiated the sale or merger of five companies. Gordon has raised more than $62 million from nine venture partners and over $250 million in public money during the successful IPO’s of Microamerica and Be Free. Gordon also orchestrated the sale of Be Free to ValueClick.

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Leonard Schlesinger

Len is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School after concluding a five-year term as President of Babson College. Prior to Babson, Len was at Limited Brands (now L Brands), where he served as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, and before that was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Au Bon Pain. His earlier academic career includes twenty years at Harvard Business School where he served as the George Fisher Baker Jr. Professor of Business Administration, leading MBA and executive education programs. Len currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), a Director of Viewpost, LLC, a Director of Demandware, a member of the Corporation of the Winsor School, a member of the President’s Council of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, an advisory council member of Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative, and as a member of both the Council on Competitiveness and the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Jim Salzano

Former President of Clarks Americas. In his role, Jim was responsible for overseeing US, Canada, Central and South America and the Caribbean markets. Jim was with the company for 19 years and during that time the company grew from just over $200M in revenues to over a $1B share of the North American market including over 13,000 locations where Clarks products are sold, inclusive of almost 300 company-owned stores.

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Jason Robins

Jason Robins is chief executive officer of DraftKings. Mr. Robins co-founded DraftKings in 2012 and oversees the company’s strategy and operations, while also driving funding and partnerships. Jason has built a reputation for expanding DraftKings’ reach across numerous platforms through wide-ranging, forward-thinking partnerships. Mr. Robins has led efforts at DraftKings to work with policy makers and regulators to pass responsible sport entertainment legislation. Also under Mr. Robins’ leadership, DraftKings became the first company to launch an online and mobile sportsbook in New Jersey in 2018. Mr. Robins’ work has been recognized by the media and his peers, both nationally and locally in Boston. Recognition includes: Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list of the most influential people in business, appearing on that issue’s cover, Sports Business Journal’s “40 Under 40,” Boston Business Journal’s “Power 50: Game Changers,” and “40 Under 40,” among others.

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Alan Phillips

Founder of Where.com, a mobile location-based media company, which sold to eBay in 2011. Prior to Where.com, Alan was at GrandBanks Capital, a Softbank affiliate, and before that, Alan served as an Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of ZDNet, where he managed technology and infrastructure and was instrumental in the sale of ZDNet to CNet for $1.6 billion.

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Steve Papa

Founder and CEO of Endeca building it until it was Oracle’s 6th largest acquisition ever on announcement in 2011. Prior to its acquisition, Endeca had achieved $750M in cumulative worldwide revenue and pioneered Guided Navigation, one of the leading search innovations of the decade and now an industry standard. Before founding Endeca, Steve was part of the original team creating Akamai; a member of the early team at Inktomi in charge of creating the company’s infrastructure caching business; a product manager at Teradata; and a venture associate at Venrock.

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Jason Krantz

Jason Krantz is founder and CEO of Definitive Healthcare, a healthcare data and analytics company. Mr. Krantz has expanded his Framingham, MA company to nearly 500 employees serving 2,500 clients, including 9 out of 10 of the U.S.’ top pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology companies. Mr. Krantz has been the key architect and strategist behind this rapidly growing company that has produced an award-winning product, collaborative culture, and community service-oriented mindset. Before founding Definitive Healthcare, Mr. Krantz founded Infinata in 1999. The Company provided online databases of information for the pharmaceutical industry under the brand BioPharm Insight. Mr. Krantz is an owner and board member of several data and media businesses in the healthcare sector and an industry expert on healthcare trends and developments. He is also a former McKinsey & Company consultant.

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Peggy Koenig

Peggy is the current Chair and former Co-CEO of Abry Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm which has invested over $80B in 550 transactions. Prior to Abry, she was a Partner and member of the board of directors of Sillerman Communications Management Corporation, a merchant bank making investments principally in the radio industry. She is currently the Producing Director of Black Cap Productions. She also serves on the boards of Virtuoso Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:VOSO), a special purpose acquisition company, and the Citi Private Bank North American Advisory Board. She is a member of the National Board of the non-profit Cradles to Crayons, the Massachusetts Women’s Forum, and the Advisory Board of the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School. Peggy is also a Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Cornell University, where she is Chair of the Research and Innovation Committee as well as a member of the Executive Committee. In addition, she is a member of the Cornell Tech Council of Cornell’s NY Tech Campus, and a member of the Board of Advisors at the Millstein Program in Technology and Humanity. Peggy received a B.S. from Cornell University, an MBA from the Wharton Business School, and a fellowship in Advanced Leadership from Harvard University.

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Diane Hessan

Founder, Chairman, and former President and CEO of Communispace, a leading social networking company that is transforming the way that companies listen to and understand their consumers. Communispace was sold to Omnicom in 2011. The company has created nearly 600 private online customer communities for a premier list of over 120 global corporations, with a 90% client retention rate and a tripling of revenues over the last four years. Communispace has won over a dozen awards for impact, innovation and culture. Diane has also served on the boards of numerous organizations including The Advertising Research Foundation, the Alliance for Business Leadership, Horizons for Homeless Children, and The Boston Philharmonic.

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Nick Grewal

Nick is an experienced technology entrepreneur and investor in over forty high-tech companies and has led engineering, business development, and operational teams at companies such as CrossCom, Proteon, Fibronics, and Compugraphics. He has also served on several company boards and as an advisor for venture capital firms in the Boston area. In the 90s, he started Onlake Investments, a successful investment company. Prior to Onlake, Nick was the founder and CEO of Nashoba Networks, which was acquired by Cisco Systems for $100 million, where he remained as vice president.

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