Anna Khan, Founder and CEO

Anna Khan is a General Partner at Charles River Ventures (CRV), and had led investments in companies like Zip, Encord, Workstream, Northspyre, Siro, and Aer Compliance. Prior to CRV, Anna spent five years at Bessemer Venture Partners in both the New York and San Francisco offices, investing across the SaaS ecosystem. She sourced and co-led investments in Intercom, NewVoiceMedia (acquired by Vonage in 2018), and Zylo - and was involved with Adaptive Insights (acquired by Workday in 2018), Intacct (acquired by SAGE in 2017), and SendGrid (acquired by Twilio in 2018). Anna was named a Forbes 30 under 30 Venture Capital Winner in 2017. She was also the author of several industry-leading papers on the cloud ecosystem - namely the State of the Cloud which reaches over 100k people. Anna started her career as a former operator, serving as the Chief of Staff at 4INFO (Acq. by Cadent) - where she helped build mobile ad products for the then-growing smartphone ecosystem in 2010. Prior to 4INFO, Anna worked as an investment manager at both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in the midst of the financial crisis in the summers of 2008 and 2009.

Anna graduated with Honors from Stanford University and received her MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School where she was an Arthur Rock Fellow and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. At Stanford University, Anna was elected to the Cap & Gown Academic Honor Society and was President of the largest undergraduate women's organization on campus - Stanford Women in Business.

Ansaf Kareem, Founder and Board Member

Ansaf is the Founder and Managing Partner of Latitude Capital, and early stage venture capital firm. Formerly, he was a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm focused on both enterprise and consumer sectors, where he worked with incredible founders of companies like Glean, Kikoff, Plushcare, Clever, Summer, Rain, Thunkable, and others.

Prior to Lightspeed, Ansaf worked on the product team at RelateIQ, an enterprise SaaS company based in Palo Alto acquired by Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) in August 2014 for ~$400M. Ansaf also worked on product strategy for Grab in Vietnam, a smartphone booking and dispatch platform for the taxi industry in South East Asia. Previously, Ansaf worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in New York. He led teams and advised clients globally in the financial services, technology, and public sectors in a host of functions from strategy to operations. Ansaf also served as Policy Fellow for former Newark Mayor, Cory Booker, during his successful campaign for United States Senate in 2013.

Ansaf was selected as one of the first ten World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Shapers and has been invited to attend the WEF's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. He currently serves on the Board of SF Marin Food Bank, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research (SIEPR). Ansaf is also a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ansaf Kareem graduated with honors from Stanford University and served as the President of his class. Ansaf also received a Master in Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, where he was a George Leadership Fellow, and a Master in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a David M. Rubenstein Fellow. 

Steve Blank, Advisor 

Steve Blank is a serial entrepreneur, father of the Lean Startup movement, and a professor at Stanford and Berkeley, Blank has started and funded some of the best startups in the world.  

After 21 years in 8 high technology companies, Steve retired in 1999. He co-founded E.piphany in his living room in 1996. His other startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers, a workstation company Convergent Technologies, a consulting stint for a graphics hardware/software spinout Pixar, a supercomputer firm, Ardent, a computer peripheral supplier, SuperMac, a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL and a video game company, Rocket Science Games.

After Steve retired, he took some time to reflect on his experience and wrote a book about building early stage companies called Four Steps to the Epiphany. It’s been called the book that launched the Lean Startup movement. His latest book, co-authored with Bob Dorf, The Startup Owners Manual  integrates 10 years of new knowledge.

He moved from being an entrepreneur to teaching entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University, Columbia University, NYU and UCSF. In 2009, he was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in the department of Management Science and Engineering. The same year, the San Jose Mercury News listed him as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley.

In 2011 at the request of the National Science Foundation he modified his Lean Launchpad class and it became the curriculum for the NSF I-Corps. Science wrote an article about the I-Corps and so did Nature, the Economist, and Forbes. In 2013 Steve partnered with UCSF  and the National Science Foundation to offer the Lean LaunchPad class for Life Science and Healthcare (therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health.) 

Lorraine Fox, Advisor 

Lorraine joined Aspiriant in 2014 after spending 17 years in various aspects of financial services. She has been a general partner in a venture capital firm, an equity research analyst, and a wealth manager. In addition to serving high net worth families and individuals, Lorraine serves on Aspiriant's Marketing Committee, Sales Team, and Private Equity Committee. In 2013, the Silicon Valley Business Journal named Lorraine "One of 100 Women of Influence in Silicon Valley." Lorraine earned her BA in Philosophy at Stanford University and her MBA at the Booth Graduate School of business at the University of Chicago. An active and enthusiastic Stanford alumna, Lorraine was named a Stanford Associate, awarded to the top 1% of alumni based on years of volunteer service to the University. She also serves as a Director of Stanford Professional Women, and an Associate Member of the Stanford Institute of Economic and Policy Research (SIEPR).