Advisory Boards

Advisory Board Chair
Managing Director and Co-Founder,
Carrick Capital Partners

Marc is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Carrick Capital Partners, a growth equity firm based in San Francisco. Prior to Carrick Capital Partners, Marc was a Managing Director at General Atlantic, a $15 billion global private equity firm, where he led investments in enterprise services and software and was head of the Palo Alto office. Prior, Marc was a Vice President in the high-tech mergers and acquisitions group of Goldman Sachs, Inc. and was an Associate at Morgan Stanley, where he worked in the telecom/media M&A group.

Marc is a trustee at the University of Pennsylvania and a board member of Classroom, Inc., an NYC-based nonprofit dedicated to improving language arts and math skills in elementary and middle school children from economically disadvantaged areas.

Marc has a B.S. degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business.

Marc lives in Marin with his wife, Marjorie, and their two sons.

Founder, SEO Scholars, San Francisco
Head of Orbis US,
Orbis Investments

Adam is head of Orbis US and a Director of its parent company, Orbis Investment Management Limited. Prior to joining Orbis in 2002, Adam was a partner at Palladium Equity Partners, a private equity firm in New York. He started his career as a financial analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (“DLJ”).

Adam graduated with honors from Northwestern University with a B.A. in Economics and earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. In 1992, Adam was recruited by SEO and placed in a summer internship at DLJ. In 2005, he was elected to the SEO Board of Directors Adam has been an essential supporter, both individually and through Orbis Investment Management, of The Campaign for SEO and SEO Scholars. Currently, Orbis Investment Management underwrote the launch of SEO Scholars Program San Francisco.

Adam and his wife, Tonia, have created and endowed several scholarships focused on providing support to students of color interested in teaching at inner-city schools. In 2010, Adam was elected a Trustee of the Northwestern University Board of Trustees. He also serves as a director of Allan Gray Limited in South Africa as well as a trustee of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Endowment.

Adam lives in California with his wife and their three children.

Managing Director,
Owl Ventures

Chairman & Managing Director,
Genstar Capital

Jean-Pierre L. Conte is the Chairman and Managing Director of Genstar Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm focused on investments in targeted segments of the healthcare, financial services, industrials, and software industries. A graduate of Colgate University and Harvard Business School, J-P joined Genstar Capital in 1995. Genstar currently has approximately $35 billion of assets under management and is investing out of its tenth fund, with approximately $12 billion of committed capital. He is a Director of Signant Health and ConnectiveRx. He grew up in the New York area and began his career at Chase Manhattan Bank. J-P earned an M.B.A. from Harvard University Graduate School of Business and a B.A. from Colgate University.

Chief Executive Officer,
Mosser Capital

As CEO of the investment management arm of Mosser, Jim Farris leads all facets of the investment management platform, including strategic vision, developing new capital partner relationships, acquisitions, recapitalizations, dispositions, geographic expansion, and asset management. Jim has more than 17 years of experience in real estate investment, finance, and property operations. He is an IREI Springboard Leader Alumni and an iREOC Board of Governors member as well as a UC Berkeley Fisher Center Advisory board member.

Jim earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Santa Clara University and a dual Masters of Business Administration degree from Columbia Business School and the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Managing Director and Co-Head,
MSD Growth, MSD Partners

Mr. Hwang brings to MSD more than 25 years of experience focused on private technology investments and operations. Most recently, he was a Managing Director, General Partner and member of the Investment Committee for the secondary funds of Industry Ventures, a leading investment firm focused on the venture capital market, where he established a strong track record investing in enterprise, internet, and healthcare companies over more than a decade. Before joining Industry Ventures, he was an active angel investor and held investor and operating roles at Internet Capital Group and Goldman Sachs & Co.

Victor is an avid foodie and a hack sommelier who brings a keen passion for wine, Burgundy and Bordeaux in particular, and loves nothing more than to share a great bottle of wine from his cellar with friends. Despite his best efforts to improve, Victor brings more enthusiasm than skill to tennis, a sport he loves to play in his spare time. If he’s not playing tennis, he’s can frequently be found on a Peloton, road bike or in the gym. Victor and his wife live in Marin, where they have raised their three daughters. Victor is on the Advisory Board of SEO Scholars San Francisco, which educates and mentors underserved public high school students to and through college with a 90% college graduation rate.

Mr. Hwang received his B.A. from Stanford University and his M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Partner,
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Abtin Jalali is a partner in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of Gibson Dunn’s Private Equity and Mergers and Acquisitions Practice Groups.

Mr. Jalali has extensive experience representing private equity firms and their portfolio companies in all aspects of their businesses, with a focus on acquisitions, divestitures, growth equity investments, and general corporate matters. Mr. Jalali has advised on transactions in various industries, including enterprise software, data and technology, healthcare, business services, consumer products, and industrials.

Chief Executive Officer,
K1 Investment Management, LLC

In addition to managing the day-to-day operations of K1, Neil is an active board member for the firm’s portfolio companies and advisor to its management teams.

Previously Neil worked for Kayne Anderson, Brentwood Associates, Olympus Partners and J.P. Morgan Securities. He has served as a director of numerous companies and also serves on the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement of Southern California.

Neil is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, where he received an M.B.A., and of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a BS in Finance from the Wharton School and a B.A.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the school of Engineering and Applied Sciences, magna cum laude.

VP Corporate Development and Investor Relations,
Lyft

Kristina is the Chief Financial Officer of Wheel, where she brings over 20 years of experience in corporate development, investment banking, and strategy. Previously, Kristina was the Executive Vice President of Finance for Everly Health and Vice President of Corporate Development for Lyft. Prior to these roles, she led M&A for Adobe Systems Inc., where she focused on inorganic growth strategy, equity investments, M&A execution, and post-merger integration. Prior to Adobe, Kristina held positions with Lehman Brothers in Technology Investment Banking and with Hewlett Packard in Strategy & Corporate Development.

Kristina holds a B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Managing Director & Head of Strategy,
Advent Tech

Lisa Westley is a Managing Director and Head of Strategy, Advent Tech at Advent International, a global private equity firm. Prior to Advent, Lisa was a Partner and Chief Operating Officer of Brooklands Capital Strategies, a spin-out of TPG Capital that provides global fundraising and strategic advisory services. Lisa also spent nine years at TPG Capital, initially as the Chief Operating Officer of TPG’s Asia-Pacific private equity business and subsequently as the Global Head of Talent Management. Before joining TPG, Lisa was an investment banker, having been a Founding Partner, Co-Head of the Consumer Group and Head of the IT Services / Business Services Group at Thomas Weisel Partners and a Senior Managing Director at Montgomery Securities. Lisa began her investment banking career at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Salomon Brothers, Inc.

Lisa received a B.A., phi beta kappa, in Economics and Asian Studies from Amherst College and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Lisa is also an SEO alum, having been placed in a summer internship at Chemical Bank after her junior year at Amherst.

Managing Director,
GI Partners

Philip Yau is a Managing Director with GI Partners, private equity and real estate investment firm based in San Francisco, which has raised over $16 billion. Prior to joining GI Partners in 2017, Philip helped lead the Private Funds Group for 12 years at UBS Investment Bank and has over 25 years of investment banking and private equity experience.  Philip is a graduate of Princeton University and has an M.B.A. from Northwestern University.