Lisa’s experience and entrepreneurship have contributed to over a billion dollars in exit value from emerging technologies. Lisa is known for pioneering platforms that connect capital to early-stage companies. She created the ValorCIO/CTO Innovation Council that connects emerging startups to potential enterprise customers. Lisa founded the Startup Runway Foundation, the largest pitch event for minority and women founders seeking seed capital. She is a Kauffman Fellow, a member of the global network of top venture capital investors. Before Valor, Lisa founded a digital marketing agency recognized as one of the “Top 10 Agencies for Tech Startups.” She supported hundreds of tech startups through their exits to public markets and acquisitions. Prior, Lisa worked in IT consulting, helping large organizations solve complex problems with code. Lisa serves on the boards of SmartCommerce, Women Who Code, MyAgData, and the Woodruff Arts Center Women’s Giving Circle. She earned her BA/Baylor 1994 and MBA/University of Texas.

Tracie Gunion has over 25 years experience working in investor relations in alternatives and private equity, where she has earned relationships with foundation, endowment and institutional capital. Previously, she led institutional investor relations with Angel Oak, Asiya and Prudence Investment Management.

Alaina Percival is a venture partner at Valor helping focus our pipeline of high-quality female and minority founders. As founder and executive director of Women Who Code (WWCode), an international nonprofit dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers, she is uniquely positioned to canvas a broad pipeline. WWCode is building a world where women are represented as technical leaders, executives, founders, VCs, board members and software engineers. Percival's organization has executed more than 8,000 free events around the world, garnered a membership exceeding 167,000, and has a presence in 20 countries. Learn more at womenwhocode.com.

One of the most visionary serial entrepreneurs and investors on the East Coast and an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner, David Cummings bootstrapped Pardot into one of the largest SaaS acquisitions ever. David subsequently founded the Atlanta Tech Village, the largest technology entrepreneur center in the Southeast. ATV is hailed as a model for building an urban startup ecosystem. David is a strong early-stage SaaS investor with a significant portfolio and founder of Atlanta Ventures. As a partner at Valor, David generously shares his substantial experience helping founders scale.

COO at Purchasing Power, Elizabeth is a tech startup scale veteran. She brings tons of real-world experiencing scaling a software/fintech company outside of the Valley to her role as Venture Partner, where she often helps evaluate or source ValorVC pipeline opportunities and helps counsel portfolio firms through sales friction. Joining Purchasing Power in sales in 2006, Elizabeth led double-digit growth at one of the nation's most successful fintech firms, with oversight of sales, account management, client services, marketing and public relations. Halkos received the 2017 “Female Executive of the Year” Silver Award and is named among the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Top 40 Business Stars Under 40” and The Committee of 200 members, created to advance women’s leadership in business.

Sarah O'Brien runs partnership development and strategic alliances at ValorVC. Sarah learned corporate acquisition at GE, where she excelled in leadership roles for over a decade in M&A, specializing in acquiring firms under $500 million. Sarah leverages deep financial experience and a global network to support Valor across financial operations, financial diligence, and compliance oversight. Before joining Valor, she served as CFO of a $500 million-dollar division of $2.5 billion Carestream Health, a division of Kodak. O’Brien is the founder of The Executive Women of Goizueta and served on the Goizueta Alumni Board for 9 years. She is a graduate of the Leadership Atlanta Class of 2009. Sarah earned her BSBA at the University of Florida in finance and went on to earn an MBA at Emory University Goizueta School of Business.

Zhaohan Li is a financial analyst at Valor. She studies math and economics at Emory University and studied at the London School of Economics (econometrics and macro-economics). In addition to her financial analysis skills, Amanda is also a founder. With the mission of creating more inclusive work environments for employees with all abilities, she created Ability Enabled -- a discovery, request, and processing tool for disability accommodations that solves two significant problems: lack of real-time information on what accommodations are available; and miscommunication around who and when to request for the accommodation, and what accommodations People with Disabilities (PWD) need. Amanda speaks Chinese, English and Spanish.

As a ``Top 100 CIO`` award recipient and former CIO of BellSouth, Fran is uniquely capable of support ValorVC portfolio companies with governance, technical excellence, and deep expert networks in next-generation technology. Before joining Valor's Advisor Board, he had personally invested in over 30 tech startups. Fran has served as head of technology at 5 Fortune 500 companies and on the board of 8 midsize and emerging market companies, including RealOps Inc., US Oncology, Damballa, Nanolumens, and Catavolt. He led technology transformation efforts at Citibank, Coopers & Lybrand, NASDAQ and Bankers Trust and is an ideal environment to connectiong leading tech innovators to Valor founders.

Kathryn Petralia is co-founder and COO at Kabbage, the global fintech legend headquartered in Atlanta. She is a Board member at Valor portfolio firm Rented.com and at nonprofit Care.

Tiffany McKenzie is a Board of Directors member at Valor's Startup Runway Foundation, a Partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, and a serial entrepreneur. Tiffany is co-founder of The Vibe Ride cycling franchise and recently launched Perspire Sauna Studio.

Former Chief Enterprise Innovation Officer at Samsung, Chief Information Officer / Chief Technology Officer / Chief Information Security Officer for BlackBerry, and Chief Compliance Officer at AT&T, Robin brings 20 years of direct technical due diligence to her role as Founding Partner at Valor. She leads Valor’s technical diligence process, chairs our Innovation Council, and coordinates portfolio alliances with major enterprise technology firms. She has 15 patents, many in use today. Robin has presented at the CIO Forum, Gartner and Forrester, and is sought for comment by Forbes, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. She is the founder and owner of Atlanta Tech Park, one of the largest innovation centers on the East Coast. Robin serves on the boards of Mitsubishi Financial (MUFG) and Great West Life Co. She holds a masters degree in the management of information technology from Georgia Tech.

Michael brings a unique perspective to Valor with previous roles spanning start-ups to large enterprises. Michael currently serves as Principal Lead for Innovation & New Ventures at Chick-fil-A, Inc. In this role, he is responsible for exploring future trends, identifying new consumer needs and building solutions to serve the customer of the future. Michael is the former founder of Thanks Geoffrey, a technology enabled service company. In his prior roles, Michael was Vice President of Marketing for Carroll Organization, a real estate private equity firm with $5.0 billion in assets under management. He was responsible for all facets of raising capital: pipeline development, fund marketing and investor relations. Additionally, Michael worked for Goldman Sachs, Investment Management Division. His advisory team managed over $700 million of client assets and focused on institutions, endowments, family offices, and high net worth pools of capital.

Education & Service

Michael received his MBA from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a concentration in finance and earned a BBA in marketing from The University of Georgia (UGA), where he also played basketball for the Bulldogs. Michael is a graduate and former trustee of Leadership Georgia. He actively serves on the board of directors for the REACH Foundation and the Advisory Board for UGA’s Innovation District, an integrated set of facilities for university startups and research commercialization.

Jean-Luc is a serial entrepreneur. After scaling to several locations including an offshore presence in China, he sold his first company, software development firm Finalist, to investors in 2010. His experiences as an entrepreneur in a scaling tech company helps him source interesting solutions and advise founders. He is currently president at Write2Market, a tech public relations firm, and leads the tech practice. He has software development clients from San Francisco to New York. Jean-Luc's hobbies include Python and marathons.

Former Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Southern Company, Blalock spent nearly a decade directing IT strategy and operations for the 3rd largest utility company in the world. As an active investor and board member, Becky brings unusual capacity to helping scaling software companies with quality governance as well as a worldclass technical network. Under her leadership, Southern Company was recognized as one of the 100 Most Innovative Companies by CIO Magazine and one of the 100 Best Places to Work in IT. Blalock has testified before the DOE and FCC on behalf of the utility industry regarding matters related to cyber security. She serves on the board of the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, is a Trustee of the Woodruff Arts Foundation and the Carter Center. She is also an advisor to the Mercer Business School.

Michael F. Mansfield, Sr. is Chairman/CEO of Mansfield Energy Corp. As a second generation owner, Michael has grown Mansfield from a regional 25 employee company into an $8B provider of diversified energy products and services. Today Mansfield employs 550 team members and ranks 46th on Forbes’ list of America's largest privately owned companies. Michael is the 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Southeast Manufacturing/Consumer Products Award winner. He remains active in the EY program and serves as a National judge. Michael mentors Valor through the Kauffman Fellows program and is a source of inspiration and practical advice to Valor entrepreneurs.

As co-host of Startup Runway, Ryan is in a unique position to connect minority- and women-led startups to Valor for funding. Celebrated by Ebony, Inc., and Forbes, as CEO and co-founder of The Gathering Spot, a membership club with dining, events and co-working, Ryan has a unique lens on the frontier of culture, creativity and community.

Michael joins Valor as a senior at Vanderbilt University. His passions include math and psychology, and he looks to combine them in the practice of venture capital and working with founders. Before joining Valor, he was an analyst for CBRE's Occupiers Group, working alongside Tenant Rep brokers by participating in client meetings, completing data analytics and research, and creating option presentations for clients.

Diana Cantor brings unmatched experience in finance and investing to her work on Valor's Advisor Board. Formerly with Goldman Sachs, she is currently Vice Chair and Trustee of the Virginia Retirement System. She is the Founding Executive Director of the Virginia 529 College Savings Plan. Diana creates custom investment vehicles as Partner, Alternative Investment Management (AIM). Her roles as a public company director include Domino’s Pizza, Universal Corporation, and VICI Properties. She is Treasurer of the finance leadership group, 100 Women in Finance.

Lynne Laube is the chief operating officer and co-founder of Cardlytics (NASDAQ:CDLX), a business recognized as one of the country’s fastest growing technology companies by Deloitte Fast 500 and Inc. 5000. Cardlytics was recently named the 5th Best Entrepreneurial Company by Entrepreneur Magazine.

In February 2018, Lynne took Cardlytics public on the Nasdaq, making Cardlytics the first tech IPO of the year. From 2008 through 2017, Lynne secured more than $200 million in capital from leading investors and scaled the company to become the dominant global leader in purchase history-based analytics. In 2016, Lynne was named one of the top 10 venture-backed female founders by Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur 360. In 2012 and 2013 Lynne was a finalist for E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Lynne has a tremendous passion around helping women excel in the workplace and is a key advisor to Valor's leadership team as well as a Startup Runway mentor.

As an expert in digital innovations and strategic business IT applications, Dr. Alavi, Dean of the Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech, is a key advisor to ValorVC on issues regarding digital transformation and talent.

She has advised and taught executives on topics of digital strategies and transformations in organizations including KIA Motors, Lockheed Martin, Marriott, Sodexo, Southern Company, the American College of Physicians, and the World Bank.

In recognition of her professional achievements, Dr. Alavi received the prestigious Association of Information Systems Fellows Award, an award given by peers in recognition of the recipient as a role model and inspiration to colleagues and students within the discipline. She was also awarded the distinguished Marvin Bower Faculty Fellowship at Harvard Business School and recently received a Citation of Excellence Award from Emerald Publishing for her highly-cited paper based on novelty, interdisciplinary interest, and relevancy in today’s world. Dr. Alavi was selected as the 2017 Woman of the Year for mid-size organizations and educational institutions by the Women in Technology (WIT) in Georgia. This award celebrates women in their visionary efforts to transform the world of business and technology and recognizes Dr. Alavi’s accomplishments as mentor, role model, and facilitator of women and men pursuing careers in STEM fields.

Dr. Alavi served on the advisory board of the Center for Knowledge-based Enterprise at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, and was twice appointed by the Governor of the State of Georgia to the Georgia Technology Authority Board. She is a member of the Atlanta Rotary and serves on the Board of Trustees of Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta, the Board of Advisors of Valor Ventures, and the International Advisory Board of the Politecnico di Milano School of Management in Italy.

Dr. Alavi holds a B.A. in mathematics and computer science from State University of New York at Buffalo, and both an M.S. in computer and information sciences and a Ph.D. in management information systems from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.