Advisory Boards

Founder, SEO Scholars, San Francisco
Chair, Advisory Board
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 San Francisco-based Genstar Capital LLC, responsible for acquisitions, divestitures, and oversight of portfolio companies in a number of industries including healthcare, software, and industrial technologies. He is a Director of Boyd Corporation, ConnectiveRx and Bracket Global. Prior to leading Genstar Capital, J-P was a principal at The NTC Group, Inc., a private-equity firm focused on industrial technology companies. 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.

J-P serves on the board of several philanthropic organizations. He is a trustee of the Pepperwood Preserve, an ecological institute dedicated to educating, engaging, and inspiring our community through environmental preservation, education, and research. J-P is also on the Board of Trustees of the California Pacific Medical Center and serves on the CPMC Research Education and Leadership Council. He also founded the Conte Task Force on Comprehensive Immigration Reform at the Hoover Institution in 2011.

Founder, Aura (formerly Insikt),
Founder, Oportun

James is a leading social entrepreneur and innovator in lending and financial technology. Prior to Aura (formerly Insikt), James founded and was CEO of Oportun (formerly Progreso Financiero), the leading provider of responsible, unsecured loans to Hispanics in the US that recently surpassed $1.5 billion in loans and over half a million borrowers since its founding. As CEO from 2005-2012, James led Oportun from its development as a nascent start-up to a market leader in the lending industry and raised over $250 million of debt and equity to fund its growth. Under James’s leadership, the company scaled its loan originations to over 200,000 per year with revenues of $65 million, 85 retail stores in California and Texas, and 600 employees.

James has served on Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council and the Centennial Advisory Committee and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences on financial services innovation. James also co-authored and helped pass two federal and state laws to help increase the availability of safe and affordable, small-dollar loans. In 2010, BusinessWeek selected James as one of America’s most promising social entrepreneurs and in 2012, Goldman Sachs named James one of America’s top-100 most intriguing entrepreneurs.

In addition to Aura, James also serves on the boards of Talent Inc., Listo!, SEO Scholars San Francisco, and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. James is a founding partner of Aura (formerly Insikt Ventures), an early-stage fund with investments in OnDeck Capital, Listo!, and Blend Labs. James was also an early investor in many leading technology companies including Trulia, OkCupid, StubHub, and Symphony Commerce. James graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Stanford’s Graduate 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.

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.

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.

VP Corporate Development and Investor Relations,
Lyft

Kristina is Vice President of Development & Investor Relations at Lyft, where she brings over 20 years of experience in corporate development, investment banking, and strategy. Most recently, Kristina was Vice President of Corporate Development at Fitbit, and prior to that, 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,
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.