Israel Pons is the CEO and Partner of Angels Nest LATAM, Angels Nest is an Angel Investment Network operating in Mexico and LATAM. It has been named “One of the most active Angel networks in Latin America” by XCALA.
Israel, a co-founder of Pitch at the Beach, a global startup and investor event across stunning beaches in over 38 countries. He serves as the President of the WBAF Angel Investment Fund, uniting 50+ angel investors from 32 countries. He’s a Partner at BillioNeurons, a US-based AI-focused venture with a $1 billion valuation. Additionally, Israel presides over the board of investors at “E-Uno,” a VC fund in Agro-tech. He also advises Brickhouse Ventures Ltd in Canada and a Luxembourg-based Blue Forward Bio-marine VC fund in the blue sea economy. With 24 years in the UK, including 5 as Operations Director for Europe’s largest leisure company, he founded four UK companies. Israel’s expertise extends to delivering training in mentorship, social impact investing, and investor management in various institutions.
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Dwayne Samuels is a venture-backed founder focused on creating AI-powered, action-based in-product survey platforms. Skilled in user research, product development, and growth, Dwayne loves building innovative products that solve real problems. At Samelogic, he’s focused on agility, adaptability, and a customer-first mentality. They use advanced AI algorithms to shift how businesses understand and respond to user behavior – pure impact, zero frills. Dwayne has raised institutional VC funding from top-tier VCs for Samelogic. With over 10 years of experience founding startups like Grikly and AI Video Surveys, Dwayne has extensive knowledge in his field. Dwayne was awarded Most Influential Person of African Descent by the United Nations for his impact on entrepreneurship and mentorship in the Caribbean. He shares his passion for helping founders succeed through his involvement with $100+ million early-stage VC firm Grishin Robotics and as a mentor to startup founders and entrepreneurs. Dwayne believes the key to success is staying agile, leveraging data, and keeping the customer at the center. As a technical founder himself, Dwayne loves supporting other founders with technical backgrounds who want to make an impact through technology and raise institutional VC funding.
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Valerie Fox is best known for the co-founding and execution of The DMZ, launched in 2010, which by 2015 was named the number one University Business Incubator in North America and number 3 in the world. She left soon after to found The Pivotal Point where she helps grow community-based incubators worldwide through coaching, mentoring, and co-creation. Val’s passion is enabling thriving entrepreneurial communities of communities locally, nationally, and internationally based on new economy practices of partnership and intentional diversity. Val has over 30 years in the digital world, where she started a graphic design business and then had the fortune of being sought by IBM, to be part of their senior innovation network, where she led design teams for enterprise software design, was creative director for large online experiences such as the Sydney Olympics, and was awarded 5 patents, including the Universal Shopping Cart for the Web. Other awards include the Sara Kirke Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the 2016 CNE Woman of Distinction award, and the honor of being part of the 2016 Canada Innovation Leaders team.
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Tanya has spent the last 28 years in the financial services field with the last 19 years in various senior and leadership roles within the Banking industry.
She started her journey with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she worked extensively in the areas of corporate finance, insolvency, business turnarounds, and the design, planning and implementation of strategy, subsequently transitioning into the area of venture capital and private equity where she held a senior management role for a multi-jurisdictional equity fund. Tanya entered the Banking field in 2004, where she held senior and leadership roles in the areas of corporate, commercial & retail lending, and credit risk, and led on the development and implementation of a range of business strategies and policy and process changes to drive business growth, profitability, efficiencies and improvements in service delivery. She joined NCB in 2020 to lead and transform the SME Business segment, with a mandate to conceptualize, develop, and drive implementation of a comprehensive set of strategies and solutions to effectively and seamlessly deliver value to SMEs and support their business aspirations for growth. She holds a BSc in Management Studies from the University of the West Indies, an MBA (Finance) from the City University Business School (London) and was successful in completing the CPA.
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