Cully Davis| Expert

Cully is a veteran equity capital markets banker with more than three decades of experience taking technology companies public. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of Equity Capital Markets at Citi where his team has been behind some of the market's largest recent technology offerings, including the IPOs of SpaceX and Cerebras.

Previously, as Vice Chairman of Equity Capital Markets and Head of West Coast TMT Investment Banking at Jefferies, he executed 350 offerings that raised more than $150 billion for technology, media, and telecom companies and built the franchise to a top-five national ranking.

Across a career spanning Citi, Jefferies, and Credit Suisse, where he rose to Co-Head of Americas Equity Capital Markets, Cully has advised on the IPOs and equity offerings of many of the era's defining technology companies, including ARM, Palantir, Lyft, Cloudflare, Alibaba, Google, Splunk, and Procore. He began his career as an investment banking analyst at Nuveen, following two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand.

Cully holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and a BA in English from Illinois Wesleyan University.

Alan Fisher | Expert

Alan is a serial entrepreneur and technology investor with over 200 investments across AI, e-commerce, and fintech. He is a longtime member and Angel Investor at Sand Hill Angels, one of Silicon Valley's largest single-chapter angel groups, where he also chairs an investment committee.

Alan was co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Iron Speed, Inc., a developer of enterprise-class application development tools. Earlier, he was a Partner at Outlook Ventures and co-founder and General Partner of Wingspring, Inc., a venture firm focused on e-commerce. He got his start as co-founder, CTO, and Director of Onsale, Inc., the internet's leading value retailer in computers and electronics that is credited with inventing the online auction.

His career began at AT&T Bell Laboratories working on commercial videotext systems, followed by roles at Teknowledge, an AI software firm, and co-founding Software Partners and Ambia Corporation. Alan has served on the boards of several public companies, including Egghead.com, Onsale, and Fatbrain.com.

He holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri, holds 16 patents, and authored CASE: Computer Aided Software Engineering.

Rick Landuyt | Expert

Rick is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor with more than 30 years of experience bootstrapping high-technology start-ups into profitable, sustaining companies. He founded and served as President and CEO of RF IDeas, a designer and manufacturer of card-reader authentication technology used in more than 70% of U.S. hospitals, which he built over 23 years and sold to Roper Technologies (NYSE: ROP). Earlier, he founded and led Glenco Engineering, a software and hardware security company acquired by Aladdin (NASDAQ: ALDN), and Glenco Development Systems, a software publishing and manufacturing firm acquired by Standard Manifold.

Rick is a Founding Board Member of Illinois Ventures Angels and serves on the Executive Committee and as Screening Chairman of the Tamiami Angel Funds, one of the largest angel investment networks in the southeastern United States.

Across four decades he has served as a director, advisor, and mentor to companies and entrepreneurs across many industries.

Rick holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois Chicago.

Nancy Sullivan| Expert

Nancy is the CEO and Managing Director of Illinois Ventures, one of the nation's longest-standing university-affiliated venture capital funds, where she has led multiple fundraises and serves as Managing Principal of the firm's private venture portfolio. A deep tech and life sciences investor, she has helped launch and scale dozens of science-based startups translating university research into market impact — including Revolution Medicines (NASDAQ: RVMD), Actuate Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ACTU), Samara Aerospace, and Excelsior Sciences.

Nancy teaches graduate-level entrepreneurship at the Gies College of Business and serves on the boards of iBIO, MATTER, mHUB, and Cures Within Reach. Earlier, she directed the Office of Technology Management at the University of Illinois Chicago, guiding the commercialization of university research, and led the Women's Entrepreneurial Life Science Initiative at Northwestern University.

Nancy holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and an MS from Northwestern University, along with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Loyola University Chicago.

Jackie DiMonte | Expert

Jackie is Co-Founder and General Partner of Grid Capital, a pre-seed and seed venture fund investing in industrial technology companies across North America. She is also an Angel Investor with Illinois Ventures Angels.
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​Prior to founding Grid, she spent a decade investing in vertical software for supply chain, logistics, manufacturing, and construction, first as a Partner at Chicago Ventures, and earlier at Hyde Park Venture Partners.

Jackie began her career as a consultant at Accenture, then moved into product and development at Silver Spring Networks, an IoT company for critical infrastructure, before transitioning into venture. She serves on the board of directors for Chicago:Blend, Starting Block Madison, and Venture Atlanta, and is a coach at the University of Chicago's Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

She holds a BS with honors in General Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Anna Palmer | Expert

Anna is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of XFactor Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that has invested in more than 100 companies across the United States, Latin America, and Europe. She is also Venture Partner at Flybridge, where she invests in technology companies across sports, media, entertainment, and consumer markets. In addition, Anna is Co-Founder and Owner of Boston Legacy FC, a professional women's soccer club.

Prior to her current roles, Anna co-founded and served as CEO of Fashion Project, a venture-backed social enterprise that processed more than 350,000 donated designer clothing items, raised $13 million in venture capital, grew to more than 60 employees, and supported over 2,000 nonprofit organizations before its acquisition in 2016. She later served as Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Marketing at Union & Fifth before co-founding Dough, an e-commerce marketplace for products created by women entrepreneurs, where she served as CEO and later Executive Chairman until the company's acquisition in 2023.

Anna earned a B.A. in Communications, Political Science, and History from Eureka College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Jeff Heitzman | Expert

Jeff is a Founder and Managing Partner of Multimodal Ventures, a Naperville, Illinois-based seed-stage venture fund focused on Y Combinator-backed startups. The firm closed its first institutional fund at $15 million in early 2026, using a proprietary AI platform, Midas, to surface investment opportunities by blending quantitative analysis with hands-on venture judgment.

Jeff has been an active angel investor since 2014, with over 500 startup investments, including more than 150 Y Combinator companies and 20+ unicorns. He previously served as an AngelList Syndicate Lead at New Stack Ventures and as Managing Partner at CTC Ventures, an early-stage fund focused on fintech, blockchain, insurtech, proptech, and AI/ML.

Before venture investing, Jeff spent over a decade at Chicago Trading Company, holding roles including Partner and Executive Director of Risk Analytics, and started his career as an options trader in the S&P 500 pit at the CBOE.

He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is an Angel investor with Illinois Ventures Angels.

Bruce Sommer | Lead Instructor

Bruce is a pioneering figure in the angel investing world, having built his expertise at the very source of the field. Early in his career, Bruce worked as a venture researcher under Bill Wetzel, the economist widely credited with coining the term "angel investor" and founding the discipline itself. That formative experience led Bruce to become a founding member of the Angel Capital Association (ACA), the leading professional society for angel investors in North America.

Bruce is a founding member of the eCoast Angels, one of the oldest and most active angel groups in the country (ranked number 11 nationally by the ACA).
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Bruce has an undergraduate degree in Accounting from Illinois Wesleyan University and an MBA from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul School of Business and Economics.

Bruce is the Co-Founder and lead-Instructor of Illinois Angel Flight School.

Paul Magelli | Co-Instructor

Paul is an accomplished technology executive and investor with over 35 years of experience in software, analytics, and healthcare technology. He co-founded and served as CEO of Apervita, a healthcare analytics platform that grew to serve 60% of U.S. hospitals, and earlier founded Apertio, a network applications software company acquired by Nokia Siemens Networks for $240 million. He also chaired the Cybersecurity & Data Protection Committee at BroadSoft, later acquired by Cisco for $1.9 billion.

Paul currently serves as Director of Illinois Ventures Angels and Chair of the Board at the Nutrient Institute, advancing nutrition science through data. He holds board seats at Vasona Networks, Zettics, and Velocent Systems. His career began at AT&T Network Systems, where he worked on early CAD/CAM systems and chaired the Architecture Committee for the CAD Framework Initiative.

Paul holds a BS in Mathematics and MS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School, and executive education in healthcare IT leadership from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He has been named a Gartner Cool Vendor and received the Frost & Sullivan Award for New Product Innovation in Health Data Analytics.

Paul is the Co-Founder and Co-Instructor of Illinois Angel Flight School.

Ben Hage | Co-Instructor

Ben is the Director of the Petrick Idea Center at Illinois Wesleyan University, where he leads a 15,000-square-foot hub for interdisciplinary innovation, and entrepreneurship serving students campus-wide. He previously served as Director of Innovate Springfield, the University of Illinois Springfield's business incubator, where he lead the launch of the Illinois Angel Flight School early-stage investing training program.

Before Innovate Springfield, Ben lead the Sangamon CEO program, an accredited high-school entrepreneurship and leadership program in Sangamon County. Earlier in his career, he worked as a CX business analyst at Horace Mann and founded or co-founded multiple startup ventures spanning retail, robotics, education, and marketing.

Ben is completing a Ph.D in Higher Education Administration at Illinois State University, with a dissertation on the impact of university-affiliated angel networks on startup performance.

Ben is the Co-Founder and Co-Instructor of Illinois Angel Flight School.

Gerald Wilson | Co-Founder

Gerald is a technology entrepreneur and executive with more than 20 years of experience in materials science, product development, and technology commercialization. He served as President and CEO of Autonomic Materials, Inc., a self-healing coatings company he helped build and where he led the company through its Series A round and delivered the coatings industry's first line of additives engineered to impart self-healing functionality into industrial coatings.

Gerald currently serves as Director of Entrepreneurship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he leads cross-campus entrepreneurship strategy and directs the EnterpriseWorks incubator at the University of Illinois Research Park. He is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Innovation Leadership and Engineering Entrepreneurship at Illinois, and previously served as Entrepreneur in Residence at the Research Park and as a Senior Manager at Illinois Business Consulting. His career began as a biomaterials engineer at Beckman Coulter.

Gerald holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an MBA from the Gies College of Business, and a BA in Chemistry from Macalester College.

He has been named an R&D 100 Finalist and holds a portfolio of 30 issued and pending patents in self-healing materials.