Shaping the future together

Hisham Elhaddad is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at HOF Capital, where he focuses on consumer tech and AI-enabled enterprise software.

At HOF, he led investments in many of today’s category leaders, including Uber (NYSE:UBER), and Alibaba (NYSE:BABA).

Previously, Hisham co-founded Energal, a renewable energy company tackling transmission and distribution inefficiencies in emerging markets, before joining ERA, an early stage fund and technology accelerator based in New York.

Earlier, he was a data scientist at Switch SuperNap (NYSE:SWCH), which builds and operates the highest-rated colocation data centers in the U.S.

Hisham holds a BS in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Boston University.

Onsi Sawiris is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at HOF Capital, where he focuses on cloud-based technologies, fintech and enterprise SaaS.

Onsi currently sits on the boards of: ItaliaOnline (BIT:IOL) (Italy), Voltaire Capital (UK), intY (UK), Riverbank (EU), Mach Music (US), Energal (Egypt), and is a Board Observer at Orascom TMT Investments (Luxembourg, Egypt, UK). His focus is on supporting these corporates with digital transformation strategies that involve several HOF portfolio companies.

Prior to HOF Capital, Onsi worked in TMT-focused M&A at Arma Partners, a specialist technology investment bank. Onsi also co-founded Energal, a hyperlocal sustainable energy company tackling distribution inefficiencies in emerging markets.

Onsi holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is fluent in English, German and Arabic with a working proficiency in French.

Fady focuses on technology-driven companies across sectors including energy, education, healthcare, and blockchain.

At HOF, he led investments in Headspin, Alibaba & Terra.

Prior to HOF Capital, Fady worked at Digital World Capital, a technology- focused hedge fund, helping the firm expand its investment portfolio in Asia by overseeing the firm’s investment in Baidu and Qihoo 360.

Prior to that, he was a Data Analyst at Switch (NYSE:SWCH), which builds and operates the highest-rated colocation data centers in the world. After DWC, Fady syndicated an SPV that invested into the Alibaba IPO (NYSE:BABA).

Fady earned both a BS and BA in Business Administration & Psychology from the University of Southern California.

Victor Wang is a Principal at HOF Capital, where he helps lead investment strategies and processes across all sectors.

Prior to joining HOF Capital, Victor served as a technology investment banker and startup advisor in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, and London, helping VC-backed technology startups raise funding and achieve successful exits.

In his most recent role with Magister Advisors (a specialist technology-focused investment bank), Victor advised artificial intelligence, blockchain, and financial technology startups; and co-authored one of the most widely read reports on the blockchain industry, which was called “the most comprehensive report to date on what is happening in the world of bitcoin and blockchain startups" by Business Insider.

Before becoming a technology investment banker, Victor worked in business management and operations, leading a team of 150+ employees generating $30M+ of annual revenue.

Earlier in his career, Victor conducted genetic technology research at Stanford University, and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular & Cell Biology with a Minor in Nutritional Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.

Paul Quigley is an Associate at HOF Capital. In addition to his primary responsibilities in investment due diligence and sourcing, Paul enjoys automating processes and building internal tools so that HOF functions like a world-class tech company.

Paul previously held software engineering roles at Addepar, a financial technology company trusted by leading banks and family offices, and Palantir Technologies, a data analytics firm whose customers include Fortune 500 companies and large governments. He also spent time at Lightspeed Venture Partners as a Summer Fellow.

Paul has a deep interest in businesses enabled by artificial intelligence. He received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Anne-Sophie (“Annie”) Schmidt heads Investor Relations at HOF Capital, leading non-investment activities including management of the firm’s limited partner relationships.

Prior to HOF, Annie worked at OSI, a boutique executive search firm specializing in C-Suite and Partner level placements for Fortune 500 companies.

Annie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Financial Economics with a minor in Business Management from Columbia University. She is a native of Germany, and grew up in Monaco. Anne-Sophie is fluent in English, German, and French, with a working proficiency in Spanish.

Karim Fattal is Chief Operating Officer at HOF Capital, leading all non-investment activities which include overseeing the firm’s day-to-day processes and managing its legal and finance teams. He also works with the investment team, supporting portfolio companies and evaluating new investment opportunities.

Prior to joining HOF Capital, Karim advised at Flats Boston. He started his career working for the Volkswagen Group, with a specific focus on the Egyptian market.

Karim holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance with a Minor in Computer Information Systems from Bentley University.

Prior to joining HOF Capital, Penny was the Operations Manager at ERA (Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator) where she worked closely with the Programs Director running their accelerator program, helped managed a portfolio of 165 companies, while juggling on other responsibilities like event planning, budgeting, logistics and production. Prior to that, she worked in retail management for 4 years at Zara and Reiss.

Penny was born and raised in Queens. When she’s not working, she enjoys cooking at home and traveling outside the city. She’s an amateur photographer who takes B&W photos with her vintage Pentax camera and develops her own film.

David Teten is a Venture Partner with HOF Capital. Earlier, he was a Partner for six years with ff Venture Capital, one of the best-performing seed-and early-stage venture capital firms in the US. David has also advised clients such as Goldman Sachs Special Situations Group, Icahn Enterprises, LLR Partners, and Birch Hill Equity Partners. David is Founder of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York, the largest angel group on the East Coast. He was previously CEO of Circle of Experts, an investment research firm acquired by Evalueserve. He worked with Bear Stearns’ Investment Banking division in their technology/defense mergers and acquisitions team.

David holds a Harvard MBA and a Yale BA. David is co-founder of PEVCTech, an online community focused on optimizing the process of investing in private companies. He writes periodically at teten.com.

Philipp Petrescu is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of MVP Factory, a development studio that combines world class talent with artificial intelligence and proprietary tools to create mission critical software for some of Germany’s largest businesses.

He founded his first company at the age of 16, and after stints at McKinsey and J.P. Morgan, started his career in tech entrepreneurship as VP of Corporate Finance at Rocket Internet. Thereafter, he co-founded Lendico, the world's first cross-border P2P lending platform, which was acquired by ING Group in 2018.

Philipp is a recipient of the Forbes 30 Under 30 award, studied Business Administration at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany, and is a Fellow of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Dr. Kid Parchariyanon is the Founder and CEO of MCFIVA, a digital advertising agency which manages multi-million dollar advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 companies in Thailand and Southeast Asia. He is also Founder of RISE, one of the largest accelerators in SEA, working with large conglomerates and governments in SEA to innovate faster through its unique accelerator and entrepreneur programs, with 600+ startups having graduated from the program and a combined valuation of over $300M.

Kid is a serial entrepreneur who at the age of 19 developed and sold the first mobile stock trading application for the Stock Exchange of Thailand (now #1 stock trading app in the country). In 2007, he also started ITEUS, one of the first Healthcare IT consulting companies in Thailand.

Kid holds an M.S. in Biomedical Informatics from Oregon Health and Science University and a Doctor of Medicine degree from Mahidol University. He is also the former President of the Digital Advertising Association Thailand and Co-Lead Singularity University Bangkok Chapter.

Wael Fakharany is the Managing Director & Senior Vice President of Government Relations in Egypt at Careem (the Uber of the Middle East), and the Regional Manager of Egypt & North Africa at Google.

Previously, he was the Regional Business Lead at Google X in the Middle East and Africa, where he focused on building businesses and partnership models to enable Google X’s innovation in those regions. Before joining Google X, Wael was Google’s Head of Agencies for the Middle East and North Africa as well as the Regional Manager of Google Egypt and North Africa. Wael’s career spans 25+ years in the technology industry, and includes previous roles at 3Com, Oracle, and IBM.

Wael holds a B.Sc. in Computer & Communications Engineering with Distinction from Ain Shams University in Egypt.

Naguib is the Executive Chairman of Orascom TMT Investments.

Previously, he founded Orascom Telecom Holdings and led it to become the leading regional telecom player until it merged with VimpelCom, creating the world’s 5th largest mobile telecom provider in April 2011.
 As part of the merger deal, Naguib spun off Orascom Telecom’s non-GSM operations and Egyptian-based telecom assets into Orascom TMT.

Naguib serves on a number of Boards, Committees, and Councils, including the Advisory Committee to the NYSE Board of Directors, the International Advisory Board to the National Bank of Kuwait, the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, and the Arab Thought Foundation.

Naguib is also the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, industry awards, and civic honors, including the “Legion d’honneur,” the highest award given by the French Republic for outstanding services rendered to France. In July 2011, he was awarded the Honor of Commander of the Order of the “Stella della Solidarietà Italiana” (Star of Italian Solidarity). In 2006, the prestigious “Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam” award was conferred upon him by General Pervez Musharref for services rendered to the people of Pakistan in the field of telecom, investments, and social sector work.

Naguib holds a diploma in Mechanical Engineering with a Masters in Technical Administration from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich).

Daniel Shin is a renowned entrepreneur and investor, with extensive expertise and deep relationships in e-commerce. Most recently, Daniel co-founded HOF’s fintech portfolio company Terraform Labs (creators of the Terra stablecoin).

Previously, Daniel founded and was CEO of TicketMonster, Korea's leading e-commerce platform with $3.5Bin GMV. He is also a Co-Founder and board member of Fast Track Asia, a company-builder that established and sold multiple businesses including Fast Five (office sharing platform) and FoodFly (food delivery, acquired by Yogiyo).

Daniel holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is the Founder and former CEO of HOF portfolio company Flutterwave, a business building payments technology and infrastructure to connect Africa to the global economy. Under his leadership, the company has become one of the fastest growing payments technology businesses of all-time, processing over $2B across over 50M transactions, and attracted significant investment from experienced players in the space, including Y Combinator (investors in Stripe), Greycroft (investors in Braintree), Greenvisor Capital (led by the Former CEO of Visa), and Mastercard.

Previously, Iyinoluwa Co-Founded Andela, Africa's largest engineering organization with over 1000 software engineers that has received investment from Mark Zuckerberg and Google Ventures.

Iyinoluwa holds a B.A. in Legal Studies from the University of Waterloo, and sits on the board of several institutions including Paris’ Share Africa Project, Rainbow Educational Services Limited, and Filmo Realty. He served as the Deputy Director General for Madam Oby Ezekwesili’s 2019 Presidential Campaign, is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, and a member of Nigeria's Industrial Policy and Competitiveness Advisory Council.

Umaimah Mendhro is the Founder and CEO of HOF's portfolio company VIDA, a global platform that connects creatives and producers from around the world to produce and sell original, quality products at scale.

Prior to founding VIDA, Umaimah was a Director at West, where she led product strategy for promising pre-IPO tech startups.

Previously, Umaimah was Director of Product in Microsoft’s Startup Business Group where she led the division’s efforts around incubation on Xbox Kinect. She has launched new consumer businesses and led growth from zero to millions of users. She holds 13 Patent Awards in media and entertainment.Umaimah is also the Founder of thedreamfly.org, a global initiative connecting communities in conflict around common causes with presence across four countries touching over 5,000 lives.

Umaimah has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar, and a B.Sc. from Cornell University in Human Development with coursework in Computer Science.

Varun Kapur serves as a Principal at Global Ventures, where he focuses on investments in early and growth-stage technology startups with the potential to scale globally.

Previously, Varun managed technology investments for a single family office, founded his own business holding company, managed corporate development at Auctus Fora (a $5B+ AUM multi-family office), and advised companies on capital raises at Faber Capital (a specialist investment bank). He also founded UrbanKinetics (a clean technology advisory group), where he worked closely with technology companies, investors, funds, and government agencies to enable the development of smart cities.

Earlier in his career, Varun led sports marketing campaigns for brands such as Nike and Adidas while at Starcom (a subsidiary of Publicis Groupe), and advised governments on economic policies while at PwC.

Varun holds a B.A. in Finance & Economics from the University of Western Ontario.

Neil Devani leads US early-stage investments for Singularity Holdings VC, where he focuses primarily on investments in mission-driven healthcare technology, financial technology, food technology, and frontier technology startups.

Neil also serves as a Board Director of Vicarious Surgical (a surgical robots startup whose backers include Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, and Marc Benioff) and an Advisor to Tissue Analytics and Copia (a food technology startup backed by 8VC and Y Combinator).

Previously, Neil was an Investment Team Manager at Rothenberg Ventures, and an Associate at Fenwick & West (the legal counsel to Apple, Google, Facebook, and Uber).

Neil holds a J.D. in Law from Stanford University and a Bachelor's degree in Pre-Medicine from Penn State University.

Tom Wang currently serves as an Advisor to National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan, where he reviews NCKU’s high-tech incubator projects.

Previously, Tom was a Venture Partner with PTI Ventures (a US-Asian VC firm) for more than 7 years, and was responsible for the firm’s investments in the US, including its investment in Rackable Systems, a rack-mounted server provider that went public and earned the firm a 36x return. Moreover, he served as a Board Director for a number of technology start-ups, contributing significantly to their Asian sales and business development.

Prior to PTI Ventures, Tom served as the President of Pulse Metric (a VC-backed medical device startup in San Diego), the President of Genoa Systems (a VC-backed graphics card startup in Silicon Valley), the President & Founder of Neo Group (the first Chinese-founded technology-focused market research and consulting firm in Silicon Valley), a Senior Vice President at Nortel Networks (a publicly-listed telecom equipment manufacturer that was valued at almost $400B at its peak), a Senior Vice President at SiPix Imaging (a Silicon Valley-based, VC-backed e-paper display manufacturer that was acquired for ~$50M), and a Vice President at Neo Solar Power (a publicly-listed Taiwanese solar cell manufacturer that was valued at $2.5B+ at its peak).

Tom holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, and an MBA degree from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Desmond Lim is CEO and Co-Founder of Workstream, a hiring automation platform for companies employing hourly workers.

Previously, Desmond was a Product Manager with WeChat, and an Investor with Dorm Room Fund, a venture capital fund focused on investing into student-run startups, backed by First Round Capital. Before that, he worked in Investment Banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Desmond started his first business at age 17 to pay for college. In addition, he founded a Thai food restaurant his freshman year in college which he ended up selling before graduation. Thereafter, he also founded several technology startups that have been incubated into the Harvard Innovation Lab and featured in TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, and Tech in Asia.

Desmond has written for TechCrunch, Huffington Post and Entrepreneur.com, and is an active angel investor in startups including Atrium, and Jetpack. He represented Singapore in the National Basketball Youth Team in the South East Asian Games, and was an Infantry Officer in the army.

Desmond holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University, conducted research at MIT Media Lab on product design, and was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford Business School’s Venture Studio.

Stephen Kennedy Smith is a principal at the Park Agency - Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises, the Kennedy family office, and an investor and entrepreneur. Stephen is also currently a lecturer at the Sloan School of Management in the Visionary Investing Program, as well as a fellow at the Connection Science Group at MIT. Stephen’s current investment and business focus is scaling innovative healthcare and neuroscience companies. He is involved as a board member, advisory member or partner in a number of healthcare and technology businesses, including Locomobi Transportation, The Marwood Group, Pear Therapeutics, Resolute Bio, and New Frontier Bio.

Stephen is a board member of the John F. Kennedy Library and The Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation. He also served on the advisory board at INCAE Business School. He is Co-Founder and Vice President of the World Leadership Alliance, an organization of business and political leaders that promotes democracy, international understanding, and trade. Stephen was Deputy Campaign Manager for Senator Edward Kennedy during his Presidential and Senatorial campaigns, Youth Coordinator for the campaign of Mario Cuomo, and served on the New England Steering Committee for the Obama presidential campaign.

Stephen holds a B.A. from Harvard University, J.D. from Columbia University, and a Masters in Education from Harvard University School of Education. He has served on the staff of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees. He has taught at the advanced negotiation program at Harvard Law School, is a three-time recipient of the Danforth Award for excellence in teaching at Harvard University, and is a recipient of the Lyndehurst Foundation Prize for social and artistic achievement.

Mark McConnell is Co-Founder of New Harvest Investment Management (NHIM), which aspires to be a significant institutional buyer of Australian agricultural farms and businesses. Mark is also Co-Founder and Director of The Citadel Group Limited (ASX:CGL), which specializes in secure enterprise information management in complex environments primarily in the health, national security, and defence industries. Since its founding in 2000, Citadel has grown to over 250 employees across Australia.

Previously, Mark founded and ran a series of private equity funds which managed >$800M of inbound investment into the Australian mining and property industries between 2007-2013. Mark currently sits on the boards of a number of private and public businesses and is an active member of several charity and sporting organizations.

Mark holds a B.Sc., a Graduate Diploma of Logistics Management, a Graduate Diploma of Employment Relations, an MBA, and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD).