Leadership
EIG’s leadership is drawn from a wide array of backgrounds: policy experts, start-up founders, investors, and academics. What they share is a commitment to creating a more dynamic and innovative economy across America.
Founders Circle
EIG’s Founders Circle is an honorary advisory board comprised of leading entrepreneurs and investors united by a deep commitment to building more broadly shared economic prosperity across American communities.
Sean Parker is a philanthropist and entrepreneur with a record of launching genre-defining companies. The co-founder of Napster at age 19 and Plaxo at 21, in 2004 he joined with Mark Zuckerberg to develop the online social network Facebook and served as Facebook’s founding president. In 2007, Mr. Parker co-founded Causes on Facebook, which registered 180 million people to donate money and take action via Facebook; and, in 2014 announced his backing of a new initiative called Brigade an online platform for civic engagement. Mr. Parker is also a board member at Spotify. Mr. Parker has been recognized for his leadership in funding and promoting research into the relationship between the immune system and cancer, and helping to establish the Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C) Immunotherapy Dream Team. In 2013, he was honored by the Cancer Research Institute with the Oliver R. Grace Award for Distinguished Service in Advancing Cancer Research. Mr. Parker has continued to advance critical research in life sciences with a recent pledge of $24 million to the Stanford University School of Medicine to launch the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford University.
Ron Conway is a founder of SV Angel. Ron has been an active angel investor since the mid 90’s. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005). He was included in 2010’s Vanity Fair 100 most influential people in the Information Age. He was awarded Best Angel at The 2009 TechCrunch Crunchies Awards. He was named #13 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top “deal-makers” in 2011. Ron was with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions (1973-1979), Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO (1979-1990) and took Altos public on Nasdaq in 1982 and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS) (1991-1995). PTS was acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft (Nasdaq SKIL).
Philanthropically, Ron is a Board Member of the Salesforce.com Foundation, and a member of the UCSF Medical Center Chancellor’s Advisory Board in SF, and is active in fundraising for the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, College Track, Sandy Hook Promise-Newtown CT, Americans for Responsible Solutions-Gabby Giffords, and the THORN Foundation. Ron is an advocate for technology companies and civic engagement in San Francisco and founder of sf.citi (San Francisco’s tech-backed civic organization). Ron is also an advocate for immigration reform and a co-founder of FWD.US.
Dan Gilbert is Founder and Chairman of Quicken Loans Inc., the nation’s second largest mortgage lender. He is also Founder and Chairman of Rock Ventures LLC, the umbrella entity for his portfolio of business and real estate investments, and majority owner of the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers. Rock Ventures and its more than 110 affiliated companies across the country employ more than 24,000 team members.
In 2013–2014, Detroit-based Quicken Loans closed $140 billion in home loan volume across all 50 states, and in 2014, for the fifth consecutive year, earned J.D. Power’s highest rating for customer satisfaction among all U.S. home loan lenders. Quicken Loans is No. 1 on Computerworld magazine’s “100 Best Places to Work in IT” and has been named one of FORTUNE Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” for 12 consecutive years.
Dan is also a shareholder in several sports-related consumer and technology businesses, including a leading wall graphics company (Fathead), electronic ticketing company (Flash Seats) and innovative sports equipment helmet maker (Xenith). In 2008, Dan acquired One Reverse Mortgage. The company specializes in products that allow homeowners, 62 years and older, the opportunity to convert some of the equity in their homes into tax-free money. One Reverse Mortgage is now the largest retail reverse mortgage lender in the country.
Dan began moving his Family of Companies to Detroit’s central business district in 2010 in an effort to help lead the transformation of a great American city. In January 2010, Dan co-founded Bedrock Real Estate Services, a full-service real estate firm specializing in purchasing, leasing, financing, developing and managing commercial space based in downtown Detroit. Since then, he has invested more than $1.8 billion to purchase and renovate more than 80 commercial properties accounting for more than 13 million square feet in the city’s urban core. Thousands of jobs have been created, and today more than 13,000 Rock Ventures team members work in downtown Detroit.
Dan founded Rock Gaming, a developer and owner of unique urban casinos in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Baltimore. The company acquired Detroit’s Greektown Casino-Hotel in April 2013.
In March 2013, Rock Ventures, in collaboration with the Downtown Detroit Partnership and Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, unveiled and implemented a visionary placemaking and retail plan centered on creating activity and vibrant, distinct destinations to draw people to the region using a multifaceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces.
Dan is a Founder and Principal of Detroit Venture Partners (DVP), a venture capital firm that funds startup and early-stage technology companies in Detroit. He is also a Founding Partner of Detroit-based private equity group Rockbridge Growth Equity LLC, which invests in growing businesses in the financial services, Internet technology, consumer-direct marketing and the sports and entertainment industries across the United States.
In September 2013, Dan was named co-chair of the Blight Removal Task Force. The group, appointed by the Obama Administration, published a detailed plan in May 2014 to remove all blighted structures and lots in the city of Detroit. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the M-1 RAIL initiative, which began construction in July 2014. The 6.6-mile light rail system is designed to spur economic development and improve downtown and midtown Detroit’s transportation infrastructure. In 2007, Dan founded Bizdom, a nonprofit entrepreneurial accelerator that trains, mentors and finances business builders in their startup enterprises in Detroit and Cleveland.
Dan serves on the boards of the Cleveland Clinic, the Washington D.C.-based Children’s National Medical Center and the Children’s Tumor Foundation, which is focused on finding a cure for the genetic disorder neurofibromatosis.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his law degree from Wayne State University.
Ranked #23 out of 100 top tech investors on Forbes’s Midas List 2015, Rebecca Lynn is a co-founder and general partner at Canvas. She focuses on early-stage venture investments in financial services, digital health, SaaS, and mobile. Rebecca led Canvas’s investments in FutureAdvisor, CrowdFlower, HealthLoop, and Viewics, and currently sits on the boards of each.
In 2007, Rebecca joined Morgenthaler Ventures and continues to serve on the boards of that firm’s portfolio companies. She led an early-stage investment in Lending Club (NYSE: LC), which was the largest US technology IPO of 2014 and the fourth largest US Internet IPO since 2001 behind Facebook, Twitter, and Google. She also led investments in Check (acquired by Intuit), RelateIQ (acquired by Salesforce), Doximity, Practice Fusion, and Convo. Rebecca is a board member of Lending Club, Doximity, Convo, and a board observer of Adara Media and Socrata.
Rebecca is a native of the Midwest, born and raised in Missouri and worked in Ohio for her first job out of college. She began her career at Procter and Gamble’s corporate headquarters in Cincinnati where she launched new products internationally.
She then joined NextCard in the San Francisco Bay Area as employee number 30, and rose up the ranks to become VP of Marketing and head of customer acquisition. During her four years at NextCard, Rebecca led product development efforts and managed one of the top-five largest online marketing efforts of that time. NextCard was the first online credit card company, and it went public in 2000 with a $1.3B market cap. After NextCard, she ran her own consulting business focused on online marketing for financial services and affiliate marketing.
Rebecca is a member of the California Bar Association and a member of the US Patent Bar, with a focus on intellectual property litigation and corporate law. She was published in the Berkeley Law and Technology Journal. Rebecca is also an inventor on several issued patents. She has a chemical engineering degree from the University of Missouri and a JD/MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.
Joseph Sanberg is a private and public-sector entrepreneur and investor based in Los Angeles, California. Co-founder of two innovative financial services companies, Aspiration.com and Pt Capital, he is also actively involved in a range of other enterprises, including Bright Funds and Blue Apron.
He is Founder and Chair of CalEITC4Me, a statewide program that connects working California families with the state’s earned income tax credit. Mr. Sanberg also serves on the boards of the Sierra Club Foundation and the UC Riverside School of Public Policy.
Mr. Sanberg graduated from Harvard, Magna Cum Laude. He grew up in a single parent family in Orange County, California. He graduated from Servite High School, where he has created an International Leadership Program that supports students learning Mandarin and visiting China.
Dana Settle is a Founding Partner with Greycroft, and she heads the firm’s west coast office out of Los Angeles.
Prior to Greycroft, Dana spent several years as a venture capitalist and advisor to startup companies in the Bay Area, including six years at Mayfield, where she focused on early stage companies in the mobile communications and consumer Internet markets.
Dana currently serves or observes on the boards of Greycroft’s investments in AppAnnie, FanTV, GameSalad, Joyent, SaatchiArt, Steelhouse, TrunkClub, TheRealReal, TheRealRealJapan, uSamp, WhoWhatWear, and WideOrbit. She also managed the firm’s investments in Maker Studios (sold to Disney), Viddy (sold to FullScreen), AwesomenessTV (sold to Dreamworks), Digisynd (sold to Disney), ContentNext (sold to Guardian Media), MoVoxx (sold to Motricity), Pulse (sold to LinkedIn), Sometrics (sold to American Express), and Sportgenic (sold to Glam).
Dana’s additional experience includes business development at Truveo (AOL), investment banking at Lehman Brothers and international business development at McCaw Cellular Communications (AT&T).
Dana holds a BA in Finance and International Studies from the University of Washington and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ted Ullyot was General Counsel of Facebook from 2008 until 2013. At earlier points in his career, Ted served as General Counsel of ESL Investments, Inc.; General Counsel of AOL Time Warner Europe; and a litigation partner in the Washington, DC office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Ted also worked in the administration of President George W. Bush, first at the White House and later at the Justice Department as Chief of Staff to Attorney General Gonzales. He was a law clerk for Justice Scalia and for Judge Luttig on the Fourth Circuit.
Ted received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and his undergraduate degree from Harvard.
Executive Team and Staff
EIG is led by a bipartisan team with decades of policy, legislative, and public affairs experience working with leaders in the Executive Branch, Congress, and the private sector.
Founders Circle
EIG’s Founders Circle is an honorary advisory board comprised of leading entrepreneurs and investors.
