Vetted Mentorship Professionals

Bill Cheng

Screened ReferencesStrong rec.

Director-level Engineering Leader specializing in SaaS platforms and AI systems

Remote, USA26y exp

“Entrepreneurial candidate building an LLC focused on applying AI to improve call center customer service, with an early go-to-market focus on local government call centers. They are already in discussions with a government prospect and have a clear thesis around solving high turnover and low knowledge retention through AI-assisted training and support systems.”

“Longform video editor/content creator who supported Principal Financial Group (Fortune 200) for 13 years, handling end-to-end production across video, photography, audio, and music. Emphasizes narrative storytelling for engagement, disciplined media organization for reliable handoffs, and has experience mentoring other editors using brand-standard playbooks and stakeholder review processes.”

Jacob Allyn

Screened

Senior Physics & Gameplay Engineer specializing in Unity vehicle and multiplayer systems

9y exp

“Unity/C# engineer who led and shipped a backend-driven mobile AR platform (4D VIEWR) using Vuforia, enabling dynamic content delivery without app updates and focusing heavily on stability under real-world tracking/connectivity constraints. Also shipped authoritative-server multiplayer matchmaking/gameplay flow for NBA 2K vehicle modes, including server-side anti-cheat validation and live issue instrumentation. Recently built a self-hosted multi-agent LLM pipeline to accelerate game-dev workflows with strong reliability and cost/latency controls.”

“Implementation/project leader with experience spanning Confluent, Cerner/VA, and Elovate/Madani Traffic Management, managing complex cross-functional portfolios and building governance in ambiguous environments. Stands out for aligning resources across technical and operational teams, creating executive-ready reporting in Power BI, and delivering measurable savings, including reducing losses by $50K per month.”

Joshua Newell

Screened

Senior Software Engineer specializing in embedded systems and secure communications

Remote, USA14y exp

“Engineer with experience in defense and aerospace-adjacent software, including serving as lead engineer on an SBIR contract for a Space Force warfighter communication system. Has hands-on full-stack experience improving a flight test sensor management application with React, Perl, and Oracle SQL, plus recent systems work in Rust observability and Go-based secure communications integration.”

“Hands-on paid media practitioner with experience across Meta, Google, and Amazon, including direct ownership of strategy and execution. Managed roughly $250K/month in spend, cites a 30% ROAS improvement without added budget, and uses A/B testing, creative optimization, and audience shifts to drive performance across multiple brands and industries.”

“Hands-on architect/executive who built a virtual sales platform from scratch with real-time video delivery and autoscaling global video nodes, while also operating at the stakeholder/roadmap level. Previously scaled IT as Arbonne grew from ~$11M to $1B in annual sales and led large digital transformation efforts including a 70-person team for princesshouse.com; also advises startups (e.g., SocialBud) on product expansion and roadmaps.”

“People/HR leader with experience supporting globally distributed teams (US, Canada, UK) and partnering with senior leaders on org design and scalable people processes. Implemented a formal performance review program, including manager training and 1:1 coaching, to improve consistency, transparency, and performance conversations as the company grew.”

“Engineering/technology leader (CTO-style) with experience scaling orgs and running distributed teams across four continents for over a decade. Led a high-stakes modernization of a securities trading platform at Wedbush—migrating from monolith to microservices on AWS with zero-downtime constraints—driving 45% execution performance improvement and enabling 25% market share growth. Emphasizes business-aligned roadmaps, build-vs-buy rigor, and scalable engineering practices/culture.”

Cia Hang

Screened

Executive IT and Operations leader specializing in digital transformation and security

Chicago, IL13y exp

“Candidate is very familiar with the venture capital and broader investment landscape, but is not interested in founding a company. They have worked with several TPG-backed or TPG-owned organizations, helping drive business scaling, cost reduction, and execution against investor governance requirements.”

“QA engineer with 11+ years (nearly 12) in IT across financial, healthcare, and telecommunications domains, experienced partnering closely with developers throughout Agile delivery. Strong in building/maintaining living test plans, running smoke/regression on new builds, and driving triage with impact-based prioritization using Jira/TestRail/Confluence; targets $100k+ base with standard benefits.”

“Customer Success professional with enterprise experience across Handshake and Xactly, specializing in rescuing at-risk implementations, driving adoption through employer branding/analytics, and coordinating complex stakeholder maps across technical teams and business owners. Has influenced product changes by aggregating high-ARR customer feedback and has supported time-sensitive sales compensation plan rollouts while integrations were in progress, reducing long-term reliance on professional services.”

Akam Pachachi

Screened

Executive Sales & Partnerships Leader specializing in Enterprise SaaS, Travel Tech, and Market Expansion

Oshawa, Canada14y exp

“Partnerships and growth leader (Traveronto) specializing in partner-led GTM through enterprise/API integrations and white-label distribution. Uses rigorous analytics (audience overlap, engagement quality, cohort retention/LTV) to source and scale creator/platform partnerships, and runs funnel-driven A/B tests on onboarding and pricing to improve activation, GMV, and recurring revenue while keeping CAC low.”

“Sales professional with experience building outbound motions in both life sciences and field-services environments. Stands out for turning lab-level wins at Fred Hutch into an institutional sale through multi-threading and champion-led expansion, and for helping Roadside Response grow from no revenue to $5M+ in under 3 years by refining ICP and compliance-driven messaging.”

JOSHUA DAVIS

Screened

Director-level Digital Marketing leader specializing in SEO, PPC, and growth strategy

Kansas City, MO13y exp

“Digital marketer with 12+ years of hands-on SEO and PPC experience managing accounts across many industries rather than a single niche. He has owned sizable multi-platform budgets across Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok, and stands out for a disciplined testing methodology tied to CPA/ROAS improvement, including a cited e-commerce win reducing CPA from 65 to 40 and recovering stalled performance within two weeks.”

John Chance

Screened

Senior Machine Learning Engineer specializing in conversational AI and healthcare ML

Greenwood, LA9y exp

“ML/AI engineer with hands-on ownership of both classical recommender systems and safety-sensitive LLM agent platforms. They combine production MLOps depth with behavioral health domain experience, including clinical safety validation, explainability, and multi-agent orchestration, and cite measurable impact in both business metrics and latency reduction.”

“Video editor/motion graphics creator with ~20 years of Premiere Pro + After Effects experience, focused on emotion-driven storytelling and retention in longform YouTube content. Has edited for Newsflare (4M subscribers) and built their own channel, Paisetta Media, to ~100K subscribers; also mentors other editors with a quality-first, example-based feedback style.”

“Serial founder with experience across both bootstrapped and venture-backed startups, including scaling Aloa past $1M in first-year revenue and raising $1.3M for Bracketology, a fantasy gaming platform for reality TV now in sale process. Combines sales, marketing, product, automation, and AI implementation experience, with exposure to WeFunder, Newchip, and 1871 as both participant and mentor.”

“Senior edtech product and UX executive with 20+ years of experience leading both product and engineering/design organizations, including building a Science of Reading product from 0 to 1 that earned All-Green EdReports ratings and two CODiE awards. Particularly compelling for AI-in-education roles because they pair hands-on AI product experience with a clear human-in-the-loop philosophy grounded in equity, teacher trust, and real classroom research.”

“Currently serving as VP of Technology since January 2025, this candidate was brought in to build a fintech lending platform from the ground up, including hiring a global team and delivering a unified AI-enabled platform. They combine executive-level ownership with hands-on architecture work, including a customer-facing document agent and Plaid integration, and emphasize pragmatic AI adoption tied to measurable engineering productivity.”

“Product leader with experience reshaping complex onboarding experiences at Progressive Leasing, where they expanded a tablet privacy problem into a broader universal application flow that improved trust, reduced hardware costs, and increased approvals and revenue. They also contributed to an AI conversational analytics product at SeekInsights, combining roadmap thinking, UX research, and cross-functional leadership.”

“Senior designer with experience delivering premium, performance-oriented marketing creative for brands including BFGoodrich, Modelo, Corona, Coway, and HydraFacial. Builds scalable Figma design systems and modular template frameworks for high-volume multi-channel output (web, email, paid, decks, events), and also produces short-form CapCut videos optimized for major social platforms. Has worked fully remote since 2017 and has executed full Spanish-language adaptations of campaigns to expand audience reach.”