Future of Air & Space

John Freer

Energy Innovation Capital

Kyle Mounts

AeroX Ventures

Paul Healy

Commonwealth Ventures

Jennifer Tegan

Managing Director, NY Ventures

Jennifer Tegan has been the Managing Director of Empire State Development’s New York Ventures since April 2020. In that role, Tegan oversees and leads the activities of the NYS Innovation Venture Capital Fund (New York’s $100M venture investment fund) as well as the Technology Commercialization Fund, Innovate NY Fund and Minority-and Women-Owned Business Investment Fund, fund of funds programs. She also lead the recent efforts to create a pre-seed and seed fund as well as a fund to support emerging and regional managers across the state. New York Ventures invests in diverse entrepreneurs and high growth companies with a goal of building and maintaining a robust startup ecosystem across New York State.

Prior to joining Empire State Development, Tegan spent 18 years as a partner with Cayuga Venture Fund (CVF), a venture capital fund based in Ithaca, NY that invested over $70 million in technology startups. As an innovation ecosystem champion, Tegan served on the board of the National Venture Capital Association from 2017-2022 and has regularly met with leaders on Capitol Hill to advocate for greater access to capital across all regions of the US. She also serves on the boards of Tompkins Financial Corporation (NYSE: TMP) and its affiliated bank, Tompkins Trust Company, as well as the Upstate Capital Association of New York, a membership-based association focused on increasing access to capital in the Upstate NY region.

Tegan received her BA from Smith College, MS in Geology from University of Cincinnati, and her MBA from Cornell University and currently resides in Ithaca, NY.

Savneet Singh

Angel Investor, CEO & Board Member of PAR Technology

Savneet Singh is an award-winning software / SaaS CEO with deep expertise across the retail, fintech and payments industries.

Savneet is currently CEO of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR), a provider of point of sale software to the retail industry. Under his tenure, the Company has transformed from a distressed provider of hardware to a fast-growing SaaS business. This work has included two significant capital raises, two large acquisitions and a dramatic change in workplace culture.

Prior to PAR, Savneet has extensive experience as both an investor and Board Member, having served on a number of both public and private Boards, including a listed SPAC.

Matt Byington

General Catalyst

Matt is an investor on the Global Resilience team working closely with Paul Kwan. Since joining in late ’23, Matt has expanded the depth and breadth of our work in defense and intelligence. Matt’s operational insights and understanding of the DoD have differentiated our investing effort and he will continue to work on defense and intelligence as well as industrial tech.

Prior to General Catalyst, Matt was part of the Naval Special Warfare Tactical Development Squadron, where he was a Lt. Commander leading a multi-disciplinary 20-person team evaluating and adopting emerging technology for special operations. He also served as the second-in-command at the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Tactical Dev. Squadron. He earned his bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the United States Naval Academy and an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

Kara Jones

Director of GENIUS NY

Savneet Singh

CEO & Board Member of PAR Technology

Savneet Singh is an award-winning software / SaaS CEO with deep expertise across the retail, fintech and payments industries.

Savneet is currently CEO of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR), a provider of point of sale software to the retail industry. Under his tenure, the Company has transformed from a distressed provider of hardware to a fast-growing SaaS business. This work has included two significant capital raises, two large acquisitions and a dramatic change in workplace culture.

Prior to PAR, Savneet has extensive experience as both an investor and Board Member, having served on a number of both public and private Boards, including a listed SPAC.

Ed Koch

FarmX

Ed Koch is a successful serial entrepreneur having founded numerous companies over the last 34 years. Ed Koch has extensive experience leading teams in the engineering of systems for a wide variety of applications specializing in IoT, device communications, distributed control and autonomous systems. Ed Koch specializes in device communications and protocols and has led standardization efforts in both the Energy and Medical domains. Ed Koch’s thesis was on the navigation of mobile autonomous systems and he was the co-founder of Automodality doing research in autonomous mobile systems and telerobotics. Automodality was acquired by Farm(X) in 2022. Ed Koch was previously co-founder and CTO for Akuacom, Inc., a leader in Automated Demand Response (ADR) software, acquired by Honeywell International in 2010 where he served as Senior Fellow for four years. While at Akuacom/Honeywell Ed Koch also served as the Chair for the Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) Standards Working Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). He helped drive the development of the OpenADR protocol and the founding of the OpenADR Alliance where he served on the board of directors. Ed Koch continues to be actively involved in various standards efforts with various government and nongovernment bodies.

Prior to founding Akuacom, Ed Koch was co-founder and CTO of Coactive Networks which developed gateways for facilitating communications between a wide range of control networks with IP based enterprise applications. Previously, Ed Koch managed the Automotive Systems Department of Navteq, where he led development of the first automotive Route Guidance Systems, which are widely deployed today. He holds over 30 patents, has authored numerous journal articles and led standardization efforts for the Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems, Consumer Electronics Associations and IEEE. Ed Koch holds a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida.

John Stack

Senior Managing Director at B. Riley Securities

John Stack is Senior Managing Director at B. Riley Securities responsible for Aerospace & Defense (A&D) investment banking. He has 30+ years’ global experience working with publicly-traded and privately-held companies. During his career, Mr. Stack has worked across the A&D value chain, helping clients with equity capital markets (ATM, follow on, IPO), mergers & acquisitions and private capital raises. He has been active in defense technology, autonomy / unmanned systems and space. Given his strong industry knowledge, strategic and operational perspectives, vast global network of executives, business owners and investors, and extensive transaction experience, he is a respected and trusted advisor.

Mr. Stack graduated from Bryant University with BS in Finance and Accounting and received an MBA from Fordham University. He is a commercial pilot with instrument and multi-engine ratings. John also holds a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) Remote Pilot part 107 license.

B. Riley Securities is a leading middle market investment bank that provides a full suite of corporate finance, advisory, sales and trading and equity research. Investment banking services include initial, secondary and follow-on offerings, institutional private placements, merger and acquisition (M&A) advisory, SPACs, corporate restructuring and recapitalization. B. Riley is nationally recognized and highly ranked for its proprietary equity research.

Craig Marcinkowski

Director, Strategy, Saab Inc.

Cully Patch

Senior Program Manager for Cybersecurity and Intelligence at Quanterion Solutions Incorporated

Cully Patch is a Senior Program Manager for Cybersecurity and Intelligence at Quanterion Solutions Incorporated and currently provides technical planning, resource management/coordination, customer outreach, and advisory assistance to cybersecurity-oriented customers.

Cully’s expertise has been incorporated in the development of an end-to-end IoT testing environment to allow for open, cloud-based hosting and testing of IoT devices and systems to fulfill development, testing, and potential STEM and technical competition requirements.

Cully is a prior-enlisted, retired U.S. Air Force officer with experience in aircraft maintenance, intelligence, space and cyber operations, and professional education.

Brian Gunderson

SVP, Booz Allen

Brian M. Gunderson leads Booz Allen’s Rome, New York, office, where he brings his expertise to the firm’s IT and cyber weapon systems work with the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate. He is skilled in program management, business development, proposal development, cost strategy and management, and software engineering project leadership.

Brian has been with Booz Allen for nearly 20 years. Prior to his current position, he was part of the aerospace account in the firm’s Beavercreek, Ohio, office, where he focused on mission solutions for U.S. Air Force organizations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Eglin Air Force Base. He managed several large programs in arenas that included intelligence system prototyping, and test and evaluation engineering, leveraging his core technical background in systems development for web-based systems, geospatial data, algorithms, and large data analytics.

Before joining Booz Allen in 1999, Brian worked for Intermap Technologies, an airborne interferometric synthetic aperture imaging company, where he processed raw radar data into high-elevation terrain models around the world to support flood plain mapping and natural disasters.

Prior to Intermap Technologies, he served 4 years in the U.S. Army as a topographic engineer with an emphasis on remote sensing.

Brian holds an M.S. in information systems from Strayer University and a B.S. in information technology from Colorado Technical University.

John Liddy

Chief Operating Officer, Griffiss Institute

John Liddy (CenterState CEO | Griffiss Institute) helps people start and grow businesses, primarily by contracting with organizations whose role it is to support entrepreneurs. Clients include economic development organizations, educational institutions, government/military agencies, accelerators, incubators and individual entities. His consulting work has included content creation, course delivery, mentorship, workshops, immersion programs, strategic planning, accelerator formation, entrepreneur in residence and one on one coaching. Liddy has started several (6) businesses of his own and has assisted over 2000 companies in over a dozen countries since creating Liddy Enterprises in 2013. Serving veteran founders is a passion and John has facilitated more than 50 Boots to Business classes and served as an entrepreneur in residence for several EBV programs for Syracuse University, Bunker Labs and Wounded Warriors.