GENERAL PARTNER & FOUNDER

Marie Rocha has over 20+ years of experience in business and technology as a software engineer and serial entrepreneur. Marie's first startup was a candidates matching platform for staffing agencies, which she built and sold at the age of 19. She later co-founded a sustainable e-commerce store in 2010, followed by IMAK software, a startup building software and platforms for small businesses and nonprofits. As a champion for women, she is one of HAYVN Hatch's founders, a quarterly women-centric pitch event to support women founders seeking funding, exposure, marketing, and growth. Marie recently co-founded, The 99 Problems Super PAC, in 2020 to engage GenZ and millennials to register to vote in elections. In addition, she serves on several boards including Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich, Greenwich Academy, Shipsi, HAYVN, VestHer, UpliftNJ, Stamford Next, James Vick Foundation. She advises and mentors underrepresented founders on their startups in her spare time.

PRINCIPAL

Joana Gutierrez has over 15+ years of experience in finance and technology. She is a creative, entrepreneurial business partner, specializing in extracting and hedging investment returns, innovative technology, strategic operations & business development solutions. Joana has experience implementing enterprise-wide initiatives for financial and technological institutions as a former Partner at Twin Lakes Global Advisors, an emerging markets multi – strategy hedge fund, product manager at Mastercard, management consultant at Absolute Strategy Research, senior analyst at Vertical Commodities, a commodities trade desk, wealth manager at Wells Fargo Financial Advisors and Google front-end engineer/product management scholar. Joana was featured as a Female Disruptor in AI and Blockchain, according to Thrive Global. She is also an advisor for women.nyc and the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center.