Speaker

Brian S. Cohen

Chairman of the New York Angels

As an angel investor and mentor to entrepreneurs, Brian has served as Chairman of the New York Angels for nearly a decade and is Founding Partner at New York Venture Partners. The NY Angels is among the most active and successful angel groups in the country, with more than $150 million invested into more than 200 early stage companies. Brian was the first investor in Pinterest, and numerous other industry leading startups.

As an author, Brian‘s book entitled “What Every Angel Investor Wants You To Know: An Insider Reveals How To Get Smart Funding For Your Billion Dollar Idea” was published and released by McGraw Hill in April 2013.

As a technology media strategist, Brian is considered one of the fathers of science & technology strategic communications, and co-founded Technology Solutions, Inc. with his wife, Carol, in 1983. Notably, TSI received the Gold CIPRA Award in 1998 for the IBM Deep Blue/Gary Kasparov Chess Match Concept and Communications Program. TSI was recognized as the #1 fastest growing agency in the United States. Brian sold the company to The McCann Erickson World Group.

Brian is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award and holds a Masters Degree in Science Communications from Boston University.

Joanna Stone Herman is a Partner at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips and serves as the TMT Industry Group Co-Head for Oaklins International, our global investment bank with offices in 60 cities across 40 countries. Prior to joining Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips in 2011, Joanna worked in several senior executive roles including as SVP Global Strategy for LexisNexis, EVP of Corporate Development for Thomson Financial Corporate Group, VP of Strategy for Thomson Learning and Director of Strategy for Dow Jones. Joanna also served as CEO and co-Founder of Librify, a technology start-up that was the exclusive e-book platform for Target, sold to Scribd in 2015. Joanna has a B.S. and Masters degrees from MIT and an MBA from HBS.