Anderson Thees

MD and Co-Founder of Redpoint e.ventures

Anderson Thees is a Managing Director and co-founder of Redpoint e.ventures, the first Brazilian Venture Capital fund sponsored by Silicon Valley firms. Redpoint e.ventures was created to bring to Brazil the best practices of venture investing developed over decades in the Valley, to help foster the nascent tech entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country and region. Previously, Anderson was the CEO of Apontador, the leading local search and geolocation company in Brazil. Prior to Apontador, Anderson was an Investment Principal at Naspers/MIH, in charge of starting their Internet presence in Latin America. At Nasper Anderson invested and acted as executive in leading companies like BuscaPe and Movile. Before that he was an investment officer at Eccelera, a local venture capital fund. Earlier in his career, he worked as a tech entrepreneur and software developer both in Brazil and Switzerland. Anderson is also a volunteer Venture Corp mentor at Endeavor since 2003. Anderson received a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Unicamp, a M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management, and a SEP from Stanford University.

Eduardo Lins Henrique

Co-Founder Movile and Head of Global Expansion PlayKids

Eduardo Lins Henrique is the Co-Founder and Head of US market for Movile Internet Movel S.A., a Naspers/MIH Group company, the leading mobile platform for content and commerce in Latin America. He graduated in Computer Science (UNICAMP) and Marketing (ESPM-SP), with a post-graduation in Digital Marketing (FECAP-SP). Movile sells mobile entertainment to end users via Apple Store, Google Play and is in partnership with more than 40 carriers. The company is specifically focused on the smartphone market.  When he founded Movile in 2006, Eduardo was searching for mobile marketing technologies around the world to introduce to the Brazilian market. In November 2008, ComperanTime acquired Movile and he began managing its mobile marketing business. After this, he managed the enterprise area within the company supporting business with big companies in Brazil including airlines, banks, energy and government. In 2010, he assumed the mobile payment area and developed a platform called Mozca (mozcapag.com) for carrier billing. By May of 2011 he became the Innovation Manager, working on projects for smartphones and tablets using HTML5, Android and iOS platforms. They grew from zero to 9 million users in one year. In 2012, Eduardo moved to US to start operations in Silicon Valley, focusing on revenues and acquiring users for the smartphone and internet business area. He is currently working on the global expansion of PlayKids which is currently the top grossing app for kids globally: playkidsapp.com. 

Felipe Matos

COO Start-Up Brasil

Felipe Matos is COO at Start-Up Brasil program, an initiative of the Brazilian Government to foster the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Brazil. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, technology and education. Serial entrepreneur, he has played several roles in the entrepreneurial ecosystem: founder, angel investor, venture capitalist, educator, accelerator and policy maker. He founded Startup Farm, one of the leading startup accelerators in Latin America, that have supported hundreds of startups and thousands of entrepreneurs all over Brazil. Matos works with startups since 1995. He founded the first Latin American mobile application, Girando, in 2000. In 2002, he co-founded Instituto Inovação: one of the first tech accelerators of the country, that also has business units for innovation consulting, technology transfer, corporate education, and venture capital investments. Dealing with both management and technical skills, he has managed hundreds of projects related to technological innovation for startups, governments and large corporations. Felipe has international experiences, such as leading expansions for Instituto Inovação in Bogota, Colombia and organizing and hosting several mission trips for groups of entrepreneurs to the Silicon Valley area, in California, USA.

Gustavo Vale

International Manager, Softex

Electrical engineer graduated from UnB - Universidade de Brasília, with over seven years of experience in planning and managing business promotion projects developed by Apex-Brasil, in partnership with national industry Associations (IBGM - Brazilian Institute of Precious Metals and Gemstones; ABIHPEC - Brazilian Association of the Personal Hygiene, Perfume, and Cosmetics Industry; ABIMAIS - Brazilian Association of the Ice Cream Manufacturing Equipment, Supplies and Machinery Industry). Worked as financial and operations & logistics manager for both domestic and foreign markets in companies operating in the cosmetics segment, with extensive experience in organizing events and other business promotion initiatives in Brazil and several different countries, in addition to being involved in planning and directing financial, administrative, legal, and tax management procedures in startup companies. Certified by ESPM São Paulo in Branding Management for Industry Sector Projects focused on foreign markets. Currently holds the position of international manager at Softex – Association for the Excellence of the Brazilian Software.

The Honorable Eduardo Prisco Paraiso Ramos 

Consul General of Brazil in San Francisco

Consul General Eduardo Prisco Paraiso Ramos was born on February 9th in the city of Rio de Janeiro. He was appointed Consul General of Brazil in San Francisco in June 2011. He holds a degree in journalism from Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (1970-1974). Prior to his appointment as Consul General of Brazil in San Francisco he was Ambassador of Brazil in Panama, 2008-2011, and Ambassador to El Salvador, 2004-2008. As a career Diplomat he has held posts in Paris (1979-1982), Panama (1982-1985), and London (1989-1993). During his career in the Brazilian Foreign Service he has worked in the fields of technical and educational cooperation and administrative planning. He held positions at the Ministry of Foreign Relations as a General Manager of Administrative Planning (1993-1998), and Director-General of the Foreign Service Department (1998-2004).

Humberto Matsuda

Partner at Performa Investimentos 

Humberto Matsuda is a partner at Performa Investimentos, where he is responsible for the management of Early Stage Funds. Humberto holds a B.A degree in Law from the Law School from University of São Paulo (Largo do São Francisco) and MBA degree in Finance, Marketing and Investor Relations from Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Contábeis, Atuariais e Financeiras (FIPECAFI). Humberto began his career in major law firms and founded his office in 2002 when he was responsible for corporate law. He is also member of the Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Seed Capital Committee (CEICS) at the Brazilian Venture Capital Association (ABVCAP) and is a mentor in several acceleration programs, in Brazil and internationally. Humberto has more than 13 years of industry practice and since 2007 has been focused on managing Venture Capital Funds, primarily early stage investments.

Maria Luisa Cravo Wittenberg 

Executive Manager for Investment Attraction, Apex-Brasil

Maria Luisa Cravo Wittenberg is the executive manager for investment attraction at the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, Apex-Brasil, where she has been working since 2007. She has previously worked on attracting productive investments to various sectors of the Brazilian economy and has wide expertise in the areas of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Venture Capital and Private Equity. Maria Luisa is 36 years old, graduated in Economics and Politics from the University of Bristol, England, and in International Relations, from Centro Universitário de Brasília (UniCeub). Post graduated in Foreign Trade and Marketing. Currently enrolled in International Management Master’s Degree at University of London – Royal Holloway College.

Pedro Sorrentino 

VP ABStartups / SendGrid Community Development Manager 

Pedro Sorrentino is a Brazilian entrepreneur that currently lives in San Francisco. He joined SendGrid as an early stage employee and is currently SendGrid's Community Development Manager. He is responsible for helping startups grow their business via SendGrid Accelerate, a corporate program that blends mentorship, free SendGrid services and strategic introductions for the best early-stage founders and startups. He also developed the strategy for and implemented SendGrid’s expansion to Latin America. Before moving the United States 2010 he worked in marketing for companies like Aunica.com, Nimbuzz.com and Mediamind.com. In 2010 he co-founded his first company in Brazil while based in the US, called Recomind.net focused in the mobile-local services space. In 2011 the company was acquired by Buscapé Company, the largest e-commerce conglomerate in Latin America. Pedro is also the Vice-President of the Brazilian Startup Association, a non-profit entity that works to represent the best interest of all startup founders in Brazil as well as add value for the VC and Angel community in Brazil with BASE, the most reliable open-database of startups in Latam.

Virgilio A. F. Almeida

Secretary for Information Technology Policy of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil

Virgilio A. F. Almeida is also the chair of the Brazilian Internet Governance Committee (CGI) and chair of the board of CEITEC, a government-funded Brazilian semiconductor company. He is also a professor of the Computer Science Department at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. His areas of research interest include large scale distributed system, Internet, social computing, autonomic computing and performance modeling and analysis. He received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University, an MS in Computer Science, from the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro and a BS Electrical Engineering from UFMG, Brazil. He was a visiting professor at Boston University (1996), Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in Barcelona (2003), Polytechnic Institute of NYU (2007) and held visiting appointments at Santa Fe Institute (2008), Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratory (2001) and 2004) and Xerox Research Center (PARC 1997). He published over 150 technical papers and co-authored five books on performance modeling, including "Performance By Design" (2004) "Capacity Planning for Web Services" (2002), and "Scaling for E-business" (2000) published by Prentice Hall. He has also been a member of the program committees of more than 20 national and international conferences as well as member of the editorial board of some important journals in his area of research. He has supervised more 50 PhD theses and MSc dissertations. Prof. Almeida has received, among others, the National Award in Informatics (1991) and the Great Cross of the National Order of the Scientific Merit in 2009. Prof. Almeida is a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and TWAS, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World.