Venture Madness Conference

Sydnie has served as a Venture Madness Board Member since 2020, and is the 2023-2024 Board Chair. In 2019 she joined Kickstart, a pre-seed/seed fund focused on the Mountain West region, and Utah’s most active VC firm. She has since led 8 investments and served as a Board Director/Observer for 10 companies spanning across Enterprise and SMB SaaS, Healthtech, Medical Devices, e-commerce, EdTech, Gaming, AI/ML, and Music Tech. After 5 incredible years with the firm, she recently joined a portfolio company, Music.AI (formerly known as Moises) where she is building out the go-to-market motion for their B2B product as their second Sales/Business Development hire. She has closely supported the company alongside Gavin Christensen (Kickstart Founder and Managing Partner) since leading their seed round in 2021. She also wrote / recorded Moises's first (and her first) platform demo song, which has now been played by millions of users. She has loved her involvement in the Arizona ecosystem and looks forward to remaining deeply engaged in the tech scene, now on the startup side.

Sandra Watson is an economic development professional with over 30years of leadership experience in business attraction and expansion, innovation, entrepreneurship, economic policy and workforce development. She and her teams have worked with more than 1,177 companies that have committed to creating more than 267,000 quality jobs and investing more than $113 billion in capital in the state. Currently, Ms. Watson is the President & CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), a public-private partnership that leads statewide economic development. The unique structure of the ACA brings together leaders from private industry, academia and all three branches of state government. She also oversees the Workforce Arizona Council and Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, a data-driven team focused on economic and labor market analysis. Ms. Watson is a member of the U.S. Investment Advisory Council, advising the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on policies to attract foreign direct investment. She is also a founding member and the Chair of the State Economic Development Executives Network Board of Directors, a founding partner on the Institute for Automated Mobility Board of Directors and serves on the boards of the National State Science and Technology Institute and the Make-A-Wish Arizona Foundation.

Salman Ahmad is the co-founder and CEO of Mosaic, a construction technology company that provides institutional grade general contracting services to residential developers. He holds a PhD from MIT and a Masters from Stanford, both in Computer Science. Salman has founded and advised numerous start ups and also worked with Microsoft in developing data center solutions in the early days of the cloud. Previously, his academic research focused on programming languages, software systems and human-computer interaction. His dissertation centered around a series of new programming languages he created including Dog, a language for human computation, and Silo, a language for building distributed and scalable systems. Before that, Salman worked on machine learning systems for improving web design. Salman is the author of 20 technical publications and patents.

After robust personal and professional successes in college athletics, law enforcement, presidential campaign fundraising, and executive marketing strategy, Cindy’s entrepreneurial life took flight pioneering a breakthrough/novel solution in health technology with her first venture, Medical Referral Source (MRS), an innovative, proprietary tool for transforming healthcare operations and patient care experiences. Cindy took the national stage growing this high-value, disruptive enterprise and in 2013, the Advisory Board Company acquired MRS, now known as Crimson Medical Referrals, for $12.5 million. Cindy’s next ground-breaking venture was borne out of deep, personal motivation by a family member's struggle with a mental health crisis. With keen insight and awareness of the troubling gaps in healthcare she founded Pyx Health in 2017 and launched another breakthrough solution affecting profound change in the pervasive loneliness and social isolation epidemic. The Pyx Health platform is a new, inclusive paradigm of health and wellness that is improving health outcomes for the most vulnerable populations. Pyx Health was named one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies 2 years in a row, climbing to the top 15% in 2023, and Cindy was awarded a 19th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, Most Innovative Woman Category. Cindy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Government from George Mason University.

Bret Larsen is the CEO and Founder of Chief, the AI Operations Platform that helps growth stage, B2B SaaS businesses predictably drive growth, and decrease costs by enabling them to build, deploy, and manage AI trained on their business data. Prior to Chief, Bret founded, and scaled eVisit where he currently serves as Chairman of the board. As CEO, he scaled eVisit to over 300 enterprise customers, was named market leader by Forrester, Gartner, and KLAS, and raised over $78M in venture and growth capital from Goldman Sachs, Kickstart Seed Fund, AZFF, UGF, and others. He also led Marketing at CampusLogic (acq. by Ellucian), and StatDoctors (acq. by Teladoc). He is a 2x Ernst and Young, Entrepreneur of The Year Finalist, a Titan 100 CEO, and a Top 50 CEO in Healthcare Technology. The organizations he’s built have repeatably been ranked on the Inc. 5000, Deloitte Fast 500, and are recognized market leaders by leading analysts such as Forrester, Gartner, and KLAS.

Kieran O'Brien is the 24-year-old CEO and founder of Shopgenie, an all-in-one auto repair marketing platform. He is also the owner of the "Auto Shop Owners Hangout" Facebook group. Kieran is an industry leader in empowering auto shop owners to succeed in the digital landscape.

Mark has pursued a path supporting entrepreneurship as a way to lift others out of poverty while celebrating innovation and creating sustainable economies. Mark has worked with startups across four continents and consulted for Fortune 100 companies like Pfizer, Nike, and EMC. After graduating from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business with an MBA in 2017, Mark joined a private equity firm and moved to Arizona to lead one of their portfolio companies. Before joining the Journey team, Mark worked at the Arizona Commerce Authority where he supported entrepreneurs and startups across the state by leading programs like the Arizona Innovation Challenge and the Venture Ready Accelerator.

Mark has pursued a path supporting entrepreneurship as a way to lift others out of poverty while celebrating innovation and creating sustainable economies. Mark has worked with startups across four continents and consulted for Fortune 100 companies like Pfizer, Nike, and EMC. After graduating from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business with an MBA in 2017, Mark joined a private equity firm and moved to Arizona to lead one of their portfolio companies. Before joining the Journey team, Mark worked at the Arizona Commerce Authority where he supported entrepreneurs and startups across the state by leading programs like the Arizona Innovation Challenge and the Venture Ready Accelerator.

Alex is a Principal at Access Venture Partners, supporting deal sourcing and diligence, as well as working with portfolio companies on strategic projects. Previously, Alex was Project Director at Michael Porter's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School where she led a team focused on strategy research and advisory for governments and large corporations. Alex moved to Colorado in 2020 to pursue an MBA in entrepreneurship, during which time she was an Investment Associate with the Deming Center Venture Fund, worked with the Techstars Boulder program team, and joined a Techstars portfolio company, Terraseed, as Interim COO. Alex attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts where she studied Political Science and Economics. She received an MBA with honors from the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business. Alex lives in Denver with her wife and son. In her free time, she enjoys playing any team sport and getting out on her mountain bike.

Tanner is a partner at Kickstart. Prior to Kickstart, he spent time in various operating roles, including product, sales, and operations. Tanner worked in product at Nike and at Vivint. While at Vivint, he launched AI cameras. in product, sales, and operations. He got his undergrad from BYU and MBA from Harvard Business School.

Gregg Scoresby is the Founder and Managing Partner of PHX Ventures, which aspires to be the most active early-stage software investor in Arizona. Prior to PHX Ventures, Gregg founded CampusLogic, which became one of the fastest growing software companies in Arizona. CampusLogic transformed the student financial aid experience in higher education and raised nearly $200 million from leading venture capital and private equity investors. Before being acquired in April 2022 by Ellucian, a portfolio company of Blackstone and Vista Equity, CampusLogic’s award-winning products were used by over 4 million students at 800 colleges and universities. In 2015, Gregg and CampusLogic were winners of Venture Madness. Gregg is also on the Board of Directors of StartupAZ and several high-growth software companies in Arizona.

Jami is an executive, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist with over 15 years of healthcare experience investing in and operating companies from inception through growth stages. Her foundational experiences as a hospital administrator with Trinity Health and BJC Healthcare have uniquely positioned her to navigate and spearhead transformative leadership in the complex healthcare ecosystem, setting new standards of excellence and innovation. Jami is currently serving as the President and CEO of HealthEco, a trusted advisory and investment firm, where she strategically collaborates with healthcare organizations to foster and scale pioneering ventures throughout the industry. Since founding HealthEco in 2019, Jami has grown the company through the creation of a robust healthcare ecosystem, diverse venture network, venture studio, commercialization accelerator, and investment platform. These achievements have magnified HealthEco’s influence across both established providers and emerging startups, establishing the company’s market-leading position as a business model transformation partner dedicated to improving patient outcomes. Jami is also the Chief Operating Officer and member of the board for HealthEco portfolio company, Atalan. Launched in partnership with an expanding network of the nation’s leading health systems, Atalan is a tech-enabled clinical partnership creating access to the best in laboratory medicine. As an investor, Jami has led the syndication of over $40M in strategic capital across three portfolio companies, and generated over $250M in equivalent net patient revenues for health systems. She is active in the venture capital networks serving on the boards of the Mid-America Healthcare Investor Network and the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association. Jami has a Master of Health Administration from St. Louis University, and a Bachelor of Science in Cell and Molecular Biology and a minor in Chemistry from Missouri State University.

Diana Vowels is a community builder, investor and founder with a passion for driving the tech ecosystem forward in Phoenix. She is a board member of Venture Madness and the co-founder of Pet Ortho Braces, an innovator in the pet rehabilitation market. She previously served as CEO of StartupAZ.

Hamid Shojaee is a local veteran entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder of Axosoft, a software development tools company, and Pure Chat, a live chat software company. Both companies were acquired in 2020, at which time Hamid shifted his focus more towards his passion for startups and investing. As an investor, Hamid has been involved with numerous Arizona tech startups, including being an angel seed investor to companies like CampusLogic, Prenda and Equipifi to name a few. He is also a board member of the StartupAZ Foundation and Venture Madness.

Gregg Scoresby is the Founder and Managing Partner of PHX Ventures, which aspires to be the most active early-stage software investor in Arizona. Prior to PHX Ventures, Gregg founded CampusLogic, which became one of the fastest growing software companies in Arizona. CampusLogic transformed the student financial aid experience in higher education and raised nearly $200 million from leading venture capital and private equity investors. Before being acquired in April 2022 by Ellucian, a portfolio company of Blackstone and Vista Equity, CampusLogic’s award-winning products were used by over 4 million students at 800 colleges and universities. In 2015, Gregg and CampusLogic were winners of Venture Madness. Gregg is also on the Board of Directors of StartupAZ and several high-growth software companies in Arizona.

Sydnie has served as a Venture Madness Board Member since 2020, and is the 2023-2024 Board Chair. In 2019 she joined Kickstart, a pre-seed/seed fund focused on the Mountain West region, and Utah’s most active VC firm. She has since led 8 investments and served as a Board Director/Observer for 10 companies spanning across Enterprise and SMB SaaS, Healthtech, Medical Devices, e-commerce, EdTech, Gaming, AI/ML, and Music Tech. After 5 incredible years with the firm, she recently joined a portfolio company, Music.AI (formerly known as Moises) where she is building out the go-to-market motion for their B2B product as their second Sales/Business Development hire. She has closely supported the company alongside Gavin Christensen (Kickstart Founder and Managing Partner) since leading their seed round in 2021. She also wrote / recorded Moises's first (and her first) platform demo song, which has now been played by millions of users. She has loved her involvement in the Arizona ecosystem and looks forward to remaining deeply engaged in the tech scene, now on the startup side.