G. Bradford Solso earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration from San Francisco State University and is a certified public accountant, licensed in California. Brad began his career at KPMG, LLP where his clients included financial services companies and investment funds. Following KPMG, Brad was the Senior Vice President, Treasury at Visa International where he was responsible for all capital markets activities, including managing Visa’s first-time rating by Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s rating services, and the issuance of medium-term notes and commercial paper. Additionally, Brad led the project to convert Visa’s clearing system from a single currency, U.S. dollar-based system to a multicurrency system providing clearing and settlement in over 100 currencies and created a foreign exchange trading operation responsible for annual currencies trades in excess of $40 billion. After Visa, Brad has managed transactions, valued at over $2 billion, including venture financings, the initial public offering of Preview Systems and sell-side mergers, advised venture funds on investment transactions in the technology and financial services industries, and assisted Boards of Directors and management of numerous private and public companies with business strategy, financing strategy, exit strategy and stock option pricing.

In addition to his business activities, Brad has served on the Board of Directors of Community Gatepath, a 501(c) (3) corporation that provides services to children and adults with disabilities where he was Chairman of the Board for four (4) years, and the Olympic Club Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) corporation that support athletic programs for disadvantaged youth where he served as President for two (2) years. Lastly, Brad served on the Northern California Chapter of the U.S. Olympic Committee and was the Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the 42nd International Children’s Games, an event affiliated with the International Olympic Committee.

As Broker and owner of CENTURY 21 First Southern Trust in Southwest FL, Steve manages one of the largest and most successful vacation rental and management company on Marco Island. Steve has been involved in his family business before attending the University of Florida and graduated with degrees in Finance and Real Estate. Steve is actively involved in all aspects of having an enjoyable island lifestyle not only selling over 1500+ properties but also as a licensed Captain and Yacht salesman. Steve speaks to groups of Realtors and Broker Nationally and Internationally, as a property manager he has a strong focus on advancing the rental business into the future, met with Flipkey, HomeAway, Airbnb and other key players that transformed the industry as well as the consumer’s demands. Steve serves as a Board Member for Naples Take a Soldier Fishing and the Marco Island Lion’s Club. Steve loves the water sports and is a world traveler along with his wife, Jalila. Favorite places included Indonesia, Algeria, Japan, and Nicaragua.

Steve Nelson was Co-Founder and CEO, Carbon, Inc., responsible for raising its original Series A financing, and became the initial Chairman of Carbon, the Silicon Valley-based additive manufacturing company, founded in 2013 and now a recognized market leader.

Steve began his career at IBM and left as a Vice President and GM in the Sales and Marketing organization. Steve subsequently held senior leadership positions with Informix, Quokka Sports, and as a General Partner with the Wakefield Group in North Carolina. Steve serves on the boards of IPG, North Carolina BC/BS, SiftMedia, Inc, and Havencrest Healthcare Partners.

Steve is a graduate of Wake Forest University where he played Varsity Golf and is an avid sports fan and frequent traveler across the globe.

Noël  is a passionate adventurer and advocate who uses her years of executive experience in both non-profit and for-profit sectors to bolster and build innovative programs and businesses. Her insatiable curiosity  and excitement for creative collaboration has led her to develop and facilitate innovative initiatives, catalyzing  constituents and inspiring clients.  As a first-generation American,  Noël  was raised in a multi-generational family context where her love for the outdoors, the value of community, and commitment to compassion was formed. Whether for work, or leisure, you can often find  Noël, her husband, and their two dogs, traveling around the West in their self-converted van.

Mark Hennessy enjoyed a 34-year career at IBM where he served in a number of executive management and leadership positions. During his tenure at IBM, he served as General Manager for several IBM businesses, including the Asia Pacific Systems business based in Tokyo, the European business based in Zurich, and the Global Distribution Sector based at IBM corporate headquarters and focused on IBM’s largest Clients in the Retail, Travel and Hospitality industries. Mr. Hennessy also held several IBM executive staff assignments, including Global Chief Information Officer, General Manager of Global Business Partners and General Manager of Strategy and Sales Transformation.

Mr. Hennessy holds a B.A. in Economics from Boston College and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Mark and his wife Tracey reside in Siesta Key Florida and Breckenridge Colorado. They enjoy visiting their adult children in Chicago and spend their free time golfing, skiing, traveling with friends and rooting for the Chicago Cubs.

Ian Patterson is responsible for leading this private equity funded property management company on an aggressive growth strategy. In his role, Ian is responsible for property management companies in Colorado and North Carolina and is focused on identifying additional partnerships to help grow the organization as a market leader on a national basis. Retreatia Holdings is a member of the 2018 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America.

Ian enjoys living in Colorado where in addition to his passion for the hospitality industry he enjoys playing hockey and rugby, supporting a new Emergency Care Clinic and sponsoring local events and charities.

Keith brings over thirty years of experience as a senior financial executive and consultant to start-up companies. His track record includes several that became successful public companies including Intuit, SuperMac, RSA Security, and COR Therapeutics. Keith is a former CPA and auditor with Ernst & Young, with an MBA degree from Saint Mary’s College. A saxophone player and active jazz musician, Keith is also a car hobbyist and has restored several classic American muscle cars from the 60s and early 70s.

Erica brings over 15 years of experience as a marketing and branding executive. She has risen through the marketing ranks by launching new products and devising effective Marketing campaigns in the technology sector. She has extensive experience in Event Planning, Social Media, Public Relations, Internet Marketing, and Industry Analysis. Erica began her career at Sapient Corporation in Cambridge MA and has held leadership positions at Aequicap, Disitron Industries, and Serious Energy. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston University. Erica currently lives in Danville, California where she loves to travel, hike, enjoy new restaurants and spend time with her family.

After graduation from the University of Michigan, Alex was a working actor in New York for 12 years, doing Broadway, Off-Broadway and Regional productions. He started working at Yelp in 2010 and within 7 years, worked his way up from Account Executive to National Franchise Senior Sales Manager. He also helped start the Yelp Reservation team. Post Yelp, Alex helped numerous start-ups as a sales consultant, building sales teams from the ground up.

Peter Thayer has a 25-year career innovating in a variety of companies which include startups like MobileAria and Xata and large companies including Intel, Microsoft, 3M, and GM. Peter loves learning new technologies and, while very familiar with the AWS stack, is busy learning Azure. When he had hair, he started pounding code at GM bringing to life mundane projects like infant car seat detection, steer-by-wire, and adaptive cruise control. Peter has over 15 patents and multiple papers on sensor fusion and machine learning. For the last decade, he has been involved in network and application security at McAfee and Microsoft. Startups remain his passion. With Whimstay, Peter has found the market in vacation rentals offering vast opportunities for innovations benefitting both host and traveler. Peter lives in Woodinville, WA with his wife, and the true master of his household, the dog.

David (“DJ”) has been scaling consumer businesses, creating global brands and rapidly growing revenues for over 25 years. He blends a decade of problem-solving in management consulting with 15+ years of a valuable combination of e-commerce, marketplace, viral/social media, and mobile experience – within consumer and Internet industries at leading global technology companies (eBay) and new online, successful mobile startups (Shazam). But, most importantly, he loves growing businesses and revenues through marketing, partnerships, and product.

As the EVP of Marketing and commerce for Shazam Entertainment for 4 years (2010-2013), he grew the user base 8x to 86 million monthly actives, increased the sales of digital goods by 10X to $325 million/year, and built a global consumer brand. Before that, as the VP of Global Marketing at Friendster from 2006-2009, David co-led the turnaround of Friendster from near-death to the 7th largest website in the world, the #1 social network in Asia-Pacific at the time and grew monthly unique users from 5 million to over 70 million, all in 2 years (2008). From 2002 to 2006, David held several marketing and general management positions at eBay, including almost 2 years as the director and general manager of eBay’s U.S. Entertainment $1 billion+ business, where he tripled its growth rate. Most recently, he served as Chief Business Officer at ApniCure, building and scaling the company’s new direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model for selling an FDA-cleared consumer medical device for obstructive sleep apnea.

David holds a B.A. in Quantitative Economics with Honors and Distinction from Stanford University. He loves traveling (who doesn’t?), golf, wine, food, and live music.

Ben Jamshahi is a proven entrepreneur in information technology and consumer-focused businesses. Ben has built successful ventures in the merchant banking software, retail, and restaurant franchise industries. He has also owned and operated a variety of vacation rental properties over the past 20 years and is intrigued with the opportunity to transform the Host and Traveler experience through the sharing economy. He attended Stanford University and loves to surf, travel and spend time with his children.

Jim Rossiter has had a 35-year career in technology and information systems that have included leadership positions with Fortune 50 corporations, Silicon Valley start-ups, and healthcare firms. Jim began his career with IBM where he held positions of increasing responsibility in the Sales and Marketing and IBM Global Services organizations. He left IBM as Director of Clinical Solutions for the Global Healthcare Industry group in 1997. Jim moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue his entrepreneurial career where he has led a variety of innovative businesses in the Information Technology industry with companies such as HealthLanguage, Velos Informatics, Siemens Corp, Baylor Health System, NextGen, Carego International, and his own consulting firm. Jim serves on the boards of Whimstay, Velos and Covenant House of California and is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. Jim and his wife Laura live in Danville, CA and enjoy golf, travel, yoga and spending time with their adult children.