Enhancing Startup Ecosystem Performance
Core Team
JF Gauthier
Marc Penzel
Marc leads global growth and impact. He advises governments, scientific organizations and venture backed startups alike and is an appointed Expert in Entrepreneurship, IT and Future of Economic Progress by the World Economic Forum.
Stephan Kuester
Stephan works with clients in government and private industry consortia all around the world, advising on the creation and the acceleration of tech and innovation clusters. Prior to his role at Startup Genome, Stephan headed up the International Consulting practice at UK ecosystem agency Tech Nation (fka Tech City UK) in London and served as Managing Director of digitalswitzerland.
Previous to his work in the digital ecosystems space, Stephan worked as an executive director for professional services firms Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young. Stephan holds an MSc in Economics and studied at the University of Bonn, Germany and the London School of Economics (LSE).
Tricia Naik
Tricia runs operations and content at Startup Genome. Most recently she led communications and marketing at the BridgeCommunity corporate commercialization accelerator and helped Georgia State University expand their entrepreneurial efforts through opening an incubator and building a resource directory.
Tricia previously served as the Director of Marketing at TechSquare Labs incubator and seed fund and kickstarted Hypepotamus as a publication — the largest tech blog in the Southeast U.S.
Mike Jackson
Mike leads on developing and delivering Startup Genome’s Hypergrowth Programs for cities and countries around the world using his experience as an exited entrepreneur himself, prolific angel investor and advisor to Governments and Ecosystems.
Prior to this, Mike was Entrepreneur Success Director at UK Government funded Tech Nation responsible for rolling out a UK wide network of scaling support programs for ambitious UK tech entrepreneurs through national growth stage and sector specific programs including Upscale and Future Fifty which forms the basis of the Hypergrowth programs.
Gary Oliver
Gary Oliver serves as Chief Commercialization Officer at Startup Genome Hypergrowth, helping to provide high potential scaleups with the know-how and global network to rapidly become category leaders. Gary has over 30 years’ experience building early stage, mid-size, and global technology companies.
Prior to Startup Genome Gary served as CEO of 3 Silicon Valley companies and exec chairman of 2 others. Gary led the IT Service Management business at Remedy with over 10,000 customer sites and a $1B exit, and was Senior Vice President at Visa responsible for the company’s IT strategy and initiatives. Earlier in his career, Gary held sales, marketing and executive roles at IBM including responsibility for IBM’s multi-billion-dollar Data Management SW revenue. Gary is a graduate of UCLA and has served on multiple technology company and non-profit boards.
Hiro Nishiguchi
Ravi Narayan
Ravi is a pioneer in the startup accelerator space and has helped build several startup ecosystems in the world. Since 2006, he has been helping startups in the Indian startup ecosystem through a fund called Mentor Partners. Ravi is a co-founder of Microsoft for Startups and established its presence in China, Israel, Europe, US and India. As the CEO of T-Hub, he built the world’s largest innovation campus in Hyderabad. And as the Chief Innovation Officer of Telangana state, he helped build a vibrant innovation ecosystem of social, rural, student and women entrepreneurs in the state.
He is a seasoned business leader, mentor, investor and serial entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience building high performance teams that collaborate across various functions to execute for consistent results. He has taken several companies from startups through growth to exit, both in the US and in India.
Dr. Christopher Haley
Chris is Head of Research at Startup Genome. He was formerly head of new technology and startup research at Nesta, the Innovation foundation, and, prior to that, worked for several years in university technology transfer and enterprise strategy.
Chris has advisory roles with the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship, the UK Intellectual Property Office and the ScaleUp Institute. He is a 'Startup Europe' Ambassador, a Policy Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, and a Senior Fellow at the Global Entrepreneurship Network. He also consults as a Senior Entrepreneurship Strategy Specialist at The World Bank. Chris previously helped run the Startup Europe Partnership - a pan-European programme dedicated to promoting corporate-startup collaboration - and was part of the secretariat of the European Digital Forum, dedicated to helping digital startups scale across Europe.
Adam Bregu
Adam is focused on the growth and impact of Startup Genome’s acceleration and development globally. Previously, he worked in both the public and private sector across Australia and Europe, including Milan Government, European startup ecosystem projects, tech startups, as well as consulting.
A strong education and research background from The University of Melbourne and Double Masters from Bocconi University lead to his passionate research on the analysis, mapping, and development of startup ecosystems.
Rahul Chatterjee
Rahul's primary focus is to ensure operational efficiency at Startup Genome, and he is also tasked with building and managing a knowledge hub in India. In a career spanning 18 years, Rahul has had varied experience spanning policy research, strategy consulting, business development, sales operations, and team building.
His wealth of experience is drawn from companies ranging from the global Fortune 500 to national chambers of commerce to tech startups.
Pranav Arya
Pranav supports assessment and strategy formulation for ecosystems across the world. He works extensively with Startup Genome’s members and partners to drive the largest data collection project on startup ecosystems globally. Previously, Pranav was a Research Analyst at A.T. Kearney and supported the firm’s Private Equity and M&A practice.
He has worked on projects spanning investment strategy development, due diligence, target screening, and synergy optimization.
Parshant Sharma
Parshant has been in data analysis for the past 10 years, 6 of which have been in Startup Genome’s Data Science team. He leads the team responsible for the quantitative data infrastructure and analysis. This includes data on over 3 million companies, 280+ ecosystems, and survey data from more than 100,000 startup executives across the globe.
He brings a wealth of experience in working on GSER rankings and Ecosystem Assessments to the role. Prior to Startup Genome, Parshant had a Data Analytics role in a California based SaaS company.
Sama Siddiqui
Sama is the primary liaison between Startup Genome and the Members, and works closely with the implementation teams to ensure all deliverables are on track. She is the point person managing queries and connecting Members to one another to build a strong, integrated network of ecosystem developers.
Previously, as part of the Research team she provided research, analytical, and communication support across multiple projects including the production and launch of the annual Global Startup Ecosystem Reports.
Liam Ward
Liam is responsible for the building and delivery of our Hypergrowth Programs globally, which are currently live in Montreal, Canada and Tokyo, Japan. Prior to Startup Genome, Liam was previously Head of Programmes at Tech Nation, responsible for the delivery of growth programmes to 250 entrepreneurs from seed-Series B+, and leading Upscale, a program supporting Series A+ companies with their growth challenges.
He also worked in Strategy and Operations for a FTSE 100 tech company and led programs for an innovation consultancy.
Forrest Wright
Prior to joining Startup Genome, Forrest worked as the Data Manager at the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), where he was responsible for data analysis, survey development, and content generation.
Forrest holds a MS degree in Information Science from Drexel University.
Ethan Webster
Ethan specializes in offering key insights and recommendations for governments and ecosystems globally. He closely engages with our clients to produce relevant and actionable policy roadmaps.
Prior to joining Startup Genome, Ethan worked with the ESCP Business School studying startup ecosystem creation and success factors and holds a MA from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He has also worked with Scottish Parliament, US Congress and the Texas House of Representatives specializing in multilevel governance and international trade and finance.
Marina Krizman
Prior to joining Startup Genome, Marina was part of various marketing agencies and early stage and scaling startups, helping win over and gain insights into customers.
Marina acquired and managed accounts for over 100 companies and co-founded a small video production company.
Franzis Walther
Franzis is in charge of events and public relations. She is a seasoned operations manager, bringing in over 10 years of experience in the media industry.
Previously she worked at the German Press Agency (dpa) and was involved in the production of several critically acclaimed movies, documentaries, and commercial campaigns. Franzis holds a degree in Communications from Berlin University of the Arts.
Anna Chadwell
Anna is a primary contact point for Startup Genome’s global membership in developing and creating maximum impact in their startup ecosystem. She oversees inquiries and cultivates connections, forging a robust, cohesive network of ecosystem developers.
In prior roles, Anna focused on business development, focused on building relationships with ecosystems and providing dedicated support to help them thrive.