The Emerging Tech Exchange

Ellen is Managing Director of Silicon Valley Connect, working with organizations and entrepreneurs on opportunities for technology-driven innovation, while also managing a portfolio of 60+ startups as an angel investor/advisor. She is a member of the Board of Directors at commercial real estate finance company Walker & Dunlop (WD), social network for military and veterans company Rallypoint, private capital markets data & analytics platform Aumni, and fintech platform for alternative assets company CAIS. She is a Senior Advisor to the President at Arizona State University, named the “most innovative” university by US News & World report eight years and counting. 

Ellen spent nearly a decade working with LinkedIn, including heading up Corporate Development & Strategy and member of the Executive Team following her original role as Advisory Board member at the company’s founding. Over her career, Ellen has held formal roles in venture capital (Softbank; NeoCarta; DFJ), startups (WhoWhere, bought by Lycos; Softbook Press, bought by Gemstar TVGuide; LinkedIn, IPO and then bought by Microsoft), technology think tanks (Interval Research), large corporations (Apple; PriceWaterhouse Coopers), and universities (Harvard; Stanford; ASU). 

Described as the “Most Connected Woman in Silicon Valley", and named one of the “Top 25 Female Early Stage Investors”, Ellen now spends much of her time focused on dynamic, rapidly-growing startups, on issues related to the “Future of Work” (automation, AI, skills training, and education) and businesses helping society respond to the post-pandemic world. 

She has a BS from the University of Michigan, and MA/PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Stanford University

Dr. Michalakis is a mathematical physicist and manager of outreach at Caltech's Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. His current research focuses on the mathematical foundations of quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity, with an emphasis on the mechanisms underlying the emergence of space, time and the laws of physics. He is known for solving the first of 13 “millennium” problems in mathematical physics, the mystery behind the Quantum Hall Effect, a deep and technical problem connected to a number of Nobel Prizes in Physics. 

Dr. Michalakis has served as science consultant on “Now You See Me 2” (Fox), “Ant-Man” (Marvel/Disney), “Spider-Man Homecoming” (Marvel/Disney), “AntMan & The Wasp” (Marvel/Disney), and "Bill and Ted: Face The Music” (Orion Pictures). He is responsible for introducing the "Quantum Realm" into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, igniting a global fascination with such esoteric concepts as quantum superposition and quantum entanglement. He has appeared in a number of documentaries, including Netflix’s “Behind the Curve”, “Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain”, and “Free Color”.

Among other projects, Dr. Michalakis has production and writing credits on “Anyone Can Quantum," a short film pitting Paul Rudd against Stephen Hawking in a game of Quantum Chess. The YouTube short, directed by Alex Winter and narrated by Keanu Reeves, has nearly 9 million views and led to a sequel starring Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, and John Cho. Dr. Michalakis is currently working with Google Quantum AI to fully run Quantum Chess on Google's state-of-the-art quantum computer. 

Outside of academia, Dr. Michalakis heads the creative consulting firm, Not Simple, whose clients include early stage startups working on deep tech such as quantum computing and fault-tolerant machine learning, to more established companies working on autonomous driving and intelligent personal assistants. Dr. Michalakis is Professor-in-Residence at Relay Ventures, and a member of the Advisory Board at Nano-Lit Technologies and Ostendo. He lives in Los Angeles.

Caroline leads Firmwide Marketing for PwC -- a team of 75 super-talented professionals who run our marketing programs around Purpose & Inclusion, Nonprofit relationships, the Trust Leadership Institute, Employer Brand, Alumni, and our national events and hospitality, including the firm’s Exchange program.  

Caroline is a reformed consultant, having spent 10 years consulting on business strategy prior to joining PwC, primarily for clients in the transportation sector. Most of her consulting work involved strategic planning and growth, particularly the development and launch of new services. 

She has also led various research initiatives, including PwC’s Consumer Intelligence Survey series, "Digital IQ" survey and on a study of consumers’ attitudes toward health, wealth, and retirement, highlights of which was published in the Harvard Business Review. 

She holds a bachelor's degree in English from Cornell University, an MBA from Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, and a maitrise en administration et en gestion with honors from Belgium's Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve. 

Caroline runs, cycles, kayaks and hikes all she can in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and her super-sized standard poodle, Zeno. 

Scott leads PwC’s Emerging Tech practice in the United States. With more than 25 years of emerging technology experience, he has helped clients transform their customer experience and enhance their digital operations. 

Scott has worked across industries with some of the biggest multinational companies to transform their business by applying a local lens to global digital and emerging tech trends. He has expertise using emerging technology and advanced analytics in many areas including e-commerce, digital architecture, mobile technologies and social customer engagement. Scott is a regular speaker at global conferences on emerging technologies, including:

• Blockchain
  
• Artificial Intelligence
  
• IoT
  
• Robotics
  
• Automation
  

James Shira serves as Chief Information Officer, continuing to enhance and simplify our technology infrastructure, data capabilities, tech governance and security, and more—so we can innovate to serve our clients in new ways, work smarter and faster to deliver quality, and responsibly embed tech into everything we do.  

Known as a change and action-oriented leader, James joined PwC in 2015 as Chief Information Security Officer, building and leading the US and global information security function. With over 20 years of experience leading multiple security and technology transformation and modernization programs for large organizations, he thrives on tackling large-scale challenges, integrating emerging technologies to enable business strategies and leading and inspiring teams.  

An inaugural student of Columbia University's Executive Technology Management program, James also holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Baylor University with a concentration in management information systems. He lives in California with his wife and two children. In James’ free time, he is into vintage cars—he enjoys working on them, restoring them and driving them.