Ayesha Khanna, President, Civic Incubator
Ayesha is the president of the Civic Incubator, which incubates and nurtures emerging civic ventures. Prior to her role with the Civic Incubator, she served as the finance director for Borders For Atlanta and helped raise more than $1.3 million dollars to run a competitive mayoral campaign. She also worked as an independent consultant for a variety of private and public initiatives.
Jay Cranman, Vice President, Venture Development
Jay, as the vice president of Venture Development, works specifically with the teams in the Civic Incubator.
Jay is a recovering consultant, having spent his first 15 years with Accenture and Spherion, working with Fortune 500s,VC-held start-ups and nonprofit organizations.
ADVISORS
Adam Brotman, Chief Digital Officer for Starbucks
Adam Brotman is chief digital officer for Starbucks Coffee Company, leading the company’s core digital business, emerging in-store digital and entertainment teams and serving as a key member of Starbucks senior leadership team.
James Collins, Managing and Founding Partner of Eastwood Capital Partners
James Collins is currently the Managing and Founding Partner of Eastwood Capital Partners. James also held roles at other private equity and financial services firms after starting his career as an associate consultant at Bain & Company, and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA from Howard University. He has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards of directors, including generationOn, Points of Light’s youth activation enterprise.
Tom Craren, PwC Charitable Foundation Trustee and US Leader for PwC’s Thought Leadership and Brand Strategy Group
Tom Craren is a PwC Charitable Foundation trustee and the U.S. leader for PwC’s Thought Leadership and Brand Strategy Group. Tom has held various internal leadership roles, including serving as the managing partner for Government Affairs, chief of staff to the CEO, and the managing partner for Global and Brand Communications. Tom was a member of the PwC Merger Team, dealing with public policy issues, and lead the first-ever audit of the U.S. House of Representatives. Some of Tom’s major projects and clients include the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Fannie Mae and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Merrick Furst, Founder and Director of Flashpoint
Distinguished Professor, Georgia Tech
Merrick is the founder of Flashpoint and Georgia Tech’s first distinguished professor of computing. Merrick is a co-founder of the Internet security firm Damballa and an early-stage fund investor.
Rob Shelton, Global Innovation Practice lead for PwC
Rob Shelton is based in PwC’s Silicon Valley office and has more than 30 years of consulting experience. He is the leader of the firm’s Innovation Practice and specializes in integrating innovation – new business models and new technologies – into an organization’s strategy and operations to create growth. Rob is the co-founder and a board member of a leading incubator in Silicon Valley, and has co-authored books including Making Innovation Work and The Creative Enterprise. Rob has assisted leading global companies across a range of industries, including education, electronics, software, consumer goods and services, health care and clean tech.